My coverage ranged from announcing breakthrough-pop-jam-band O.A.R.'s concert to U.U.'s financial battle with our student government to revamp their funding.
I left for summer with more clips than I had ever accummulated in one semester, a few more professional relationships and a feeling that I definitely wanted to be a beat writer again -- just not for U.U.
Two different letters came to mind: S.A.
Also known as, Student Association, SU's student government.
I had interviewed the president and comptroller for my U.U. budget story, so I had already broken the ice with two sources I'd probably quote a lot. The interviews were really professional, which made my job easy. There was no confusion to what was on and off the record. Answers were well-said and clear.
So I was assigned -- fall SA beat writer. I go to their weekly assembly meetings Monday night and then head over to the DO office to type up my story. Sometimes I follow-up on issues mentioned in the meetings. I even write feature-esque pieces to offer more broad coverage of the organization.
U.U. was fun -- revealing new information about upcoming shows and dealing with entertainment -- but SA satisfies my other half.
Being a newspaper/political science dual major, I don't always get the opportunity to morph my interests into one activity. I'm either writing for an event or trend, or debating or reading about social policy. I kill two birds with one stone with SA.
And it's not only a personal win for me. I really feel like this beat impacts the community. People tell me they saw my article and they learned something or I'll overhear students talking about the things I wrote about in my article; I never got that with my U.U. beat.
So as much as I'm happy that I get to cover the internal workings of the student government, I think I'm most happy that my words actually hold some kind of weight.
Additional SA stories from this semester thus far:
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