Writing Buddy Meeting #3

I had my third meeting with my writing buddy, Faris, last Thursday. After a long discussion trying to figure out when to meet, we realized that I would be reading his story anyway for The New Hampshire, and that he usually came in so that his editors could go over the story with him. We figured that this would be the perfect opportunity to meet up and discuss his story. For the paper, he wrote about a UNH professor who had recently received a grant that would allow him to travel to Alaska with a team to research the effect of global warming on the Arctic rivers and oceans. I thought that the story was very well done. He had a good blend of quotes and news, and did a good job of making a confusing topic understandable. Faris is a fantastic writer and has a very good voice that comes through with his stories. It is very authoritative, and he sounds like an expert with most topics he covers. His lead was particularly strong. It conveyed the hard news side of the story, yet in a creative way that attracted readers. If I recall correctly, he wrote "This summer, somewhere in the northern reaches of Alaska, UNH scientist Will Wollheim will wade through rivers, thanks to funding from politicians in Washington D.C."

I did have some advice to give to Faris regarding his story. He had some very confusing phrases and statistics that did not make sense or fit into the context. He got some of these facts and figures from wikipedia, which I initially told him wasn't a reliable source, but he confirmed them on other, more reputable sites. He had three sources in total, however, only one was a quotable source that he had talked to. Although technically, his websites counted as sources, I told him that he should get more people to quote since the quotes were only from one person and made the story appear to be one sided. I asked him who he would have liked to talk to to bolster his story, and he mentioned that he might want to find an expert on global warming or fish. He didn't know about the UNH Experts list, so I pulled it up on the computer and showed him some people he could talk to in the future when he was looking for local experts.

I think that this experience has been beneficial for both Faris and me. It helps him put together better stories, and it has given me good experience with the other side of editing: talking to the reporter. I think it is easy to assume that editing will just be going through a story with a red pen and marking off all the stuff that you deem wrong, but it's easy to forget that the other half of the job is defending your choices, explaining your choices, and working with the reporter to come to a compromise between the two opinions.