[VLOG] Behind the scenes – The journalists’ experience

What is it like working at a local newspaper? Well, never a dull moment is probably the description I’ve heard the most. It’s tough sometimes, and some days the world blows by in a flurry as everything apparently happens all at once. Hard news can be tough to do, and can weigh on a journalist’s spirit. The best way to clear out your mind again is to wash it out with something fun. A golf day in the sun and nature is one great way to find the fun in news reporting again.

Watch the behind scenes footage of journalists out in the field here:

Newspaper layout artist CJ Heyman and I (News journalist Jaco Human) chronicle another one of our outings as we cover a high school’s open golf day right as Spring rolled round after an icy winter. This is a look at how we experienced the event, and what the interactions with the people participating in the day are like.

Going out to an event like this, there isn’t much opportunity for getting the story right then and there. But, that’s nothing to worry about, because the first thing to do at an event is to talk to the organisers, tell them you’re there, and arrange a way to talk to them later. A journalist’s number one priority here is getting a few great photos.

There are rules, though … You have to get the person’s face in the shot, an action photo is a must at a sports day and you need the names of everyone in the photo with their consent; it sounds simple, but does take a good while to do correctly. Then, it’s all about walking a couple of kilometres and looking out for the perfect photo opportunity. We often return to the office with between 150 and 300 photos to choose maybe the Top 10 from.

Camera settings are something you have to keep in mind too. It doesn’t help spending hours at an event and getting to the office, only to realise that not one photo is usable. Our go-to settings on a warm day, on a Canon DSLR camera are: Manual shooting, 100 ISO with an average of a 640 or higher shutter speed and a 5.6 F-stop. A 75-300mm lens works much better than the stock short lens, so you can get some distance between you and the person swinging the golf club with full force.

In the end, local journalism is a balance between hard and sometimes terrible news, and going out to fun events and telling your community’s stories.

Watch the previous behind the scenes journalism vlog here:

and look out for the next vlogs.