AIMlessly chatting...

O..M..G...I was reporter this week and for the first time all semester I came into class without a story. It's not that I had a lack of story ideas, but it seemed as if every story I turned in was already taken or on campus! WTF! In the end Professor Nicholson picked out a story off the wire about teens instant messaging to avoid face to face confrontations, and I was off to Goldstein to interview people.
The article said that according to an AOL poll, 43% of teens use the internet to talk to peers because they're uncomfortable speaking to them in person. I interviewed about 13 students and 5 adults and rushed back to class to do my story. For my natural sound I wanted to get the AIM sound that indicates you received a message and unfortunately I spent the first hour back trying to find it online.
While interviewing students I noticed that many of them started smiling or outright laughing when I asked them if they used the internet to avoid uncomfortable situations. Many pointed out that in the past they'd used AIM for such purposes, but most laughed it off perhaps trying to hide certain memories about being dumped online back in middle school. LOL :-( Most of the students said that AIM was their favorite way to communicate with friends because it allowed them to multi-task (listen to music, surf the web, watch TV, do homework, etc.) while chatting. I wish I would have gotten interviews from more adults, but the few I got on record said they used AIM to keep in touch with their children. They preferred e-mail, phones, or physical meetings over chatting online. The general consensus was that chatting on AIM left out the emotion that you'd get from hearing somebody's voice or seeing someones facial expressions.
The story ended up coming out OK but I kind of rushed myself in the end trying to find the perfect sound bites. I've never had so much sound to pick from for a 50 second piece and I felt a bit overwhelmed trying to pick just two bites. One thing I wish I could do over was that I ended off my piece with a sound bite. I've done it before and I tried to avoid it but my story was far too long for anything other then "Mura Gichane, N-C-C News".
Overall I think Team C did a great job working together and getting good stories. Tyler kept in touch with everyone all week and his rundown had several stories that flowed right into each other. Andrew did a fine job anchoring, and Annie survived a stalker and being denied access of St. Joseph's employees to get her smoking story.
Well ttyl cause I g2g! Happy turkey day to everyone.

(picture from http://screenshots.xnavigation.net/viewimg/36/aol/instant/messenger/aim.jpg)