Start from the top- my first topic on my beat

For my first article in my Advanced News and Feature Writing class, I wrote about the East African Muslim community in Greeley.

The most difficult part about writing this story was completing the interviews. First off, I never really had to interview someone for a full story, so I was definitely intimidated by that aspect. Also, when I did go to get my interviews, it was really hard to get the timing right to meet with the subjects, as they were largely unavailable when I was available. It got to the point where I went to the mosque, or Muslim place of worship, five times in one day just to speak to the religious leader.

The easy part of this, if there was one, was that I had background knowledge of Islam going into this assignment. Of course it wasn’t nearly as extensive as that of Muslims but it did help, especially in going to the mosque (I already knew that I had to have my head covered before entering and that there were separate prayer sections for men and women).

I learned quite a bit from the research that I did. One thing I learned was that the Muslim community in Greeley isn’t as ostracized as I had previously thought. They’re actually pretty well integrated at this point. Another thing that I learned was that Fridays are the main days of worship for Muslims, similar to Sundays for Christians. I also learned that there is an East African market on Eighth Avenue. I paid a visit and while it’s small it’s very interesting to see.

From the writing process I learned that even though you may have really great information and lots of compelling quotes, you’ve got to prioritize it all. When I first completed the paper, it was around 1700 words; the maximum word count for the assignment was 800. It was heart wrenching to cut my piece down as much as I did, but that’s the way it goes in the world of print journalism. Plus, it’s not as easy as just deleting paragraphs; you have to still maintain your meaning. The rewriting taught me a lesson that I’ve been ‘learning’ for years: I have to work on my AP style. This is a style of writing specifically for journalism and plays an integral part in the grade that we receive on assignments in class. As a former English major, this has always been my Achilles heel.

One thing that I did well in this story was telling the story without a lot of ‘fluff’ or unnecessary wordage. One thing that I can work on in the future is allowing ample time to work on a piece. It’s not the writing itself that’s the problem, but for this it was the getting out and talking to people that I took my sweet time with. Unfortunately, all that dragging of the feet put me into a frenzy the days before the assignment was due. The ordeal also gave me a catchphrase that I’ll (hopefully) use in the future: Persistence pays, but preparation pays more!