Class Prep 2-14

1. If I were offered the opportunity to leave the obit desk and move up to the police beat I would not accept the job. When covering crimes, fires and accidents, a reporter must always be prepared to drop whatever they may be doing and rush to the scene. They may only have a few minutes to collect as much information as possible, and I would not like to work on such unpredictable deadlines. I also do not like the idea of having to "corner" witnesses to find out information at the scene of an accident or fire. Being more of a timid person myself, I believe this would be very difficult for me. I also have a terrible fear of blood (hemaphobia) that may present a barrier in the way that I report on certain accidents.


2. If I were forced to make the transition from the obit desk to the police beat, I believe the most difficult challenge would be having to rely almost entirely on quotations from others to develop my story. Eyewitness descriptions and personal accounts from victims are what make crime stories interesting. Details such as these are essential to stories about crime, accidents or fires, and they can not be found at the morgue or anywhere else. A reporter on the police beat must go out and convince others to give them this information or they will be left with an incomplete and unexciting story.