School District Budgets Rejected

The voting public shut down budgets in three South Jersey school districts last month--all three of which did not exceed the state's 2 percent cap on tax-levy increases. It was my job to summarize the results of the election (which included the budgets on the ballot) in my story. It was a daunting task, filled with scary tax jargon. Yet, with the help of my editors and repeated clarification from my sources, I think it turned out OK.

This story reminded me that education reporting--an area I've become increasingly drawn to this year--is not just uplifting features and teacher's strikes. It involves A LOT of heavy lifting: sorting through legal texts and  deciphering budgets are only the beginning. However scary, the story taught me to get over my inferiority complex when it comes to fancy legal jargon. I've learned that it pays to look stupid initially in interviews. Asking a bureaucrat, or for that matter a doctor or professor, to put something in regular person terms is an essential part of familiarizing yourself with a topic. If you don't speak the language, don't even try to "fake it until you make it."

Tiny Fishermen

I always love a cutesy kid story.  And the cute factor is compounded with the addition of animals and jolly older folks.

In one of my last assignments for the Inquirer, I was asked to cover "Mr. Gary's Fishing Derby," a spring break tradition in the Mount Laurel school district. Mr. Gary is a beloved school bus driver for the Mount Laurel School's kindergartners and organizes a fishing contest each year at local park's pond. A fishing enthusiast, Mr. Gary decorates his school bus with aquatic paraphernalia and preaches the benefits of fishing to his young passengers throughout the school year.

I got to go to the "contest," talk to Mr. Gary, children, parents and officials from the school district. At risk of sounding old, it was nice to see a big group of very young children enjoying the great outdoors. I'm comforted to know people still do that.

Sometimes I get to go to the park!

Halfway through my internship, I was assigned to preview a public hearing on a $23 million  revitalization project for the Cooper River Park. The park is home to a significant rowing community, whose regattas are an "economic boon" for local business. Proponents of the project allege the spending project will attract more prestigious races to the park, i.e., rich people that will spend money at local restaurants and hotels.

My editor asked for a brief preview, which I could have easily accomplished without picking up the phone or moving from my desk. But that's boring. It was a nice day, so I took a drive over to the park and interviewed a few picnickers who frequent the park. Not surprisingly, most people I talked to thought the project was not a great way to spend taxpayer money in such a tight budget climate. I ended up getting some really colorful quotes from one guy, who equated the project to spending money on a new flower bed when you can't pay the mortgage. That was a nice gift :)

On its face, the story was pretty lame, but it reinforced to me that it ALWAYS pays to go to the scene and get mixed up in the story.

Uncle's War Letters Reach Across Generation

Perhaps my favorite story this semester was a feature on a Rutgers student who is co-authoring a book with his history professor. The book, tentatively titled "Everyman in Vietnam," chronicles the story of Jimmy Gilch--the student's uncle who was killed in the war--and the concurrent cultural and political history. For author Joe Gilch, the book is a summation of a lifelong obsession with his uncle, a man he knew only through pictures, family stories and  the 80 letters he wrote home to New Jersey while in Vietnam.

I began my reporting by traveling to the student's house in Glendora, just 20 minutes from the Cherry Hill newsroom. When I arrived at Gilch's home, a modest but dignified single story house, he and his mother greeted me at the door.  I sat right down in their cheerfully decorated kitchen, which had been tidied for company, and began the interview. It was very fluid and conversational; it didn't hurt that Gilch and I have similar interests and are at the same place in life.

I couldn't make it up to New Brunswick to speak with Michael Adas, the professor who is writing the historical context of the book, so I interviewed him over the phone. The interview went well, and provided another layer to the story: the transformation of Gilch,  the student, throughout the writing process.

All in all, I really enjoyed this story. I had to do some heavy lifting to weave in multiple components (the historical context, the writing process, the student's personal story), but it turned out to be a nice news feature.