Out of the Classroom, into the Frying Pan: Monday, May 27, 2024

By Elizabeth Moeller from the College of the Ozarks

After a week of all 32 students sitting in lessons and working on assignments together,

our little family fractured. We split ways and formed new groups with the other students

in our respective tracks: digital news, broadcast, or features. The work this week would

be heavy with a side of lessons.

I went to the digital news track with a handful of other students and three WORLD

editors to guide us. As the editors outlined the week’s assignments, I saw my future

sleep and sanity dwindle.

While students in the broadcast and feature tracks had one assignment each for the

week, we digital news students had five each. We picked our stories from the list of

ideas the editors gave us and got to work.

I selected a story about a proposed bill in Ohio. If passed, the bill would make equal

parenting time and responsibilities the default when parents split in the state.

It was difficult to get a head start on the story because many people were out of their

offices for Memorial Day, and I could not interview them. But I could not give up.

After a couple hours of working on our assignments, all 32 students gathered in the

classroom for a lesson from Director Pitts. He handed us an old article on Chicago

crime to read and critique. We read the article, and Pitts had us list the article’s

strengths and weaknesses.

The article contradicted itself, had too many numbers, and heavily relied on one source.

To say we found flaws would be an understatement. By the end of our critiques, the list

of the article’s weaknesses was nearly too big for the whiteboard, and the list of the

article’s strengths only had two listings.

It was then Pitts revealed this was his first published article.

We laughed. Pitts told us about the reporting he did for the article. It was while he was a

student. After days of rejection from sources at the police station, he finally got an

interview with a higher-up.

Pitts told us that, though his article was flawed, it would not exist without perseverance.

Nor would the exemplary articles he grew to write. Perseverance was the first of the

five “Pitts’ Ps” he had to teach us. I would need that to get through all my assignments

this week and in the future.