Always worth the effort

You'd think that someone of my age and my dwindling amount of natural sun protection would know better.

I slapped a bit of sun protection on before I went for a ride on Saturday afternoon, but not enough. My complexion was quite red by the time I arrived home more than two hours later and it wasn't just from the effort.

I did one of my favourite rides, out passed the rowing clubs, through Grovetown and along Rapaura Rd to Renwick and back through the Omaka Valley and Fairhall. I've done it a few times and really enjoyed it.

The weather on Saturday was too much for me, though, and I struggled. I'd gone out too early in the afternoon – it was hot and windy.

I had planned to go to the movies later to see the new Harry Potter film. I've seen them all with the kids and now want to see how it all ends. But I was asleep by 8.30pm so Hogwarts will have to wait for another day.

Yesterday was pretty much a writeoff, too. Shows the fitness isn't anywhere near what it should be. One or two rides a week just isn't enough.

It's the same with being a journalist – you can never stop trying.

Reporters strive to get all the facts into a story, with the most important details at the top. Every story must have a short introduction that contains the details of most interest to most people.

This subject came up last week when we reported on the launch of the Marlborough College Charitable Foundation. We had been briefed by the trustees and expected to do a positive story about a group of ex-pupils and parents setting out to help college principal Wayne Hegarty turn around the run of sorry finances and poor results.

But Wayne talked at the launch about cutting $175,000 from the 2011 budget and making some of the staff redundant or reducing their hours. This was new information for the paper.

Reporter Simon Wong handled the story quite well. He could have taken the negative line (staff and budget cuts) or could have ignored all the bad news, but some parents and students affected might not have got all the details relevant to them.

So Simon broke a couple of writing rules (one idea per sentence, particularly in the introduction) and went for a compromise by putting both aspects at the top of the story.

The sub-editor who handled the story during page production followed the same line and got some balance in the headline. Rather than something like "Group launches foundation", or "College dumps staff" the compromise heading worked quite well I thought: "Staffing cut as group launches fund for college".

The first feedback was "Why so negative"?

We had tried, but we had obviously failed.

That's what makes journalism such an interesting job.

One of our guiding principles is balance, which means not only making sure all sides of a story are told – that everyone involved gets a chance to put their point – but also that the approach to the story is balanced.

For example, writing a story about a 75th wedding anniversary or a school jubilee in a negative way would not be balanced. Likewise, it would look insincere to write about crime or tragedy in a positive or light-hearted way.

In a story with two aspects, like the foundation launch, the challenge is to give proper coverage to both.

It will always be a challenge and, as with anything worthwhile, it is important not to give up trying.

The Marlborough Express

Last updated 10:55 20/12/2010