Out-of-Class #1: Questions And Answers

Recently, I received this email from one of youze:

Would all the killings in Chicago be a possibility for my out-of-class, or is that too large of scale for what you are looking for? I am from Illinois so getting interviews would not be a difficult task, and it's reasonably local, I am about 20 minutes from Chicago.

This is what I wrote back:

How many first-hand interviews could you get from a wide range of sources? The ambition of the topic is far less important to me than the depth and breadth of first-hand reporting. I want to see if you can do a story by getting everything yourself, by talking to all sources directly. If you think you can get everything first-hand -- including background -- without utilizing other media sources or the Web, then go for it. If not, you may want to wait to do it later, if at all. Thoughts?

This is what you sent back to me:

So more of what you are looking for is for us to develop our own story as opposed to investigating an already prominent one? A few examples would help me understand this a little bit more!

Here's my return volley:

Sure. First, here are some example topics from the assignment email:
 
Pros and cons of living on-campus versus off-campus at MSU
 "Culture of rape" on college campuses, including MSU
Summer vacation employment plans among college students at MSU
Prevalence of fake ID use among college students at MSU Finals week stress among students at MSU
How foreign students acclimate to being on an American campus, like MSU
Seniors at MSU facing the "real world" after graduation Recycling at MSU
 
Plus, here's the approved topics for the second out-of-class stories from a past 200 class of mine:
 
Teen pregnancies
Sex assault awareness
Students and buses
Campus construction inconvenience
Social media making people less social
Freshman adjustment to campus life
Police brutality
Cell phone usage
Stadium student section struggles
Preparing for winter
Covering a school board meeting (public affairs! And the only type of event I will allow you to cover, instead of a trend or issue)
Campus employment
Social media effects
  
But for you, instead of MSU you could also consider such trends and issues emanating from your community. For example, instead of doing a story on Chicago, maybe you look at the local community and talk to your police department about whether they see an upsurge in killings like Chicago and its relations with different demographic groups, or get your community's take on how its police department interacts with locals and how it treats different demographics and deals with crime there.
  
Here are links to some examples of past out-of-class stories that offer a sense not just of self-developed topic, but an almost-absolute reliance on first-hand interviews for everything: quotes, anecdotes, background, etc.
 
jrn200isfunblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/out-of-class-2-rewrite-great-example.html

jrn200isfunblog.blogspot.com/2014/10/out-of-class-1-pretty-typical-but.html

Does that help at all? Please feel free to write back if I could further clarify things.

I'm sharing it with you all because if one of you has a question like this, my guess is a bunch of you do. That's why we're doing this class blog; many of the issues you face are shared by others, so it's a change to address those issues broadly.

And that's why I'm sharing this exchange with you now. Hopefully, it helps you figure out what this first story is supposed to look like -- and the first is the hardest one, since you don't have a template for this -- or it'll affirm that you're going in the right direction.

And, as always, please contact me at your earliest convenience if you need further refinement. I expect you to do much, but I don't expect you to figure it out by yourself. I'm here to help.