Overall I feel as though I have learned a great deal from Reporting II. One of the first lessons I took away from the class is the difference between telling a story and regurgitating information. Personally, I feel as though I’m accustomed to writing research essays that require me to just restate facts. I think I took that concept and tried to apply it to journalism. What this class has taught me is that that isn’t true journalism. Journalism is about telling a story that is interesting for the reader. There has to be a beginning, middle and end. These type of stories also need some sort of tension. Just like in any story the main character has to have something that is stopping them from achieving their goal. That source of tension is generally where a story can be found. In the future I plan to dig deeper into people’s stories in order to find out what type of story I can tell that will interest the reader. Another concept I will take away from this class is how to be a professional in the field. This idea really left an impression when Professor Tizon showed us the emails from the man who was making a documentary. To me, he had the perfect balance of being persistent to get the story he wanted, yet also holding himself as a true professional. In this industry it seems as though it’s focused on people letting you into their world, so coming across as well informed and well educated is essential. People who read your articles (or other pieces of work) will also take you more seriously if you appear to be professional. Along those lines, journalists have to be equally persistent. In class we were told if a source doesn’t call or email back you have to physically go over to their establishment and arrange some sort of face to face interaction. That type of persistence has a profound impact on your work. The third idea I will take away from this class is how to conduct better interviews that reveal more about a person. My instinct is to not be too pushy because I don’t want to irritate the person I’m interviewing, but in this industry you have to be a little pushy. You also have to ask question that will give you answers that your interviewee won’t want to give. Those type of answers really add substance to a story because it gives insight that not everyone can get. Also, I learned that it is essential to get both sides to a story. I knew it was important already, but this class taught me that it is essential. If journalists were to get only one side of a story their article would be very biased and read similar to a PR piece. Getting two sides of a story also allows the reader to draw their own conclusions. Overall I feel as though there are many lessons that I learned in this class that I can incorporate into whatever field I decide to go into.