I plan to report on the “5/20/19 Are You Ready” signs that are all over campus. From students that I have spoken with already, many people felt the signs were put up in poor taste and stressed out graduating seniors. Upon inspection of the link that is posted on the sign, one learns that it is actually advertising for a masters program at Wake. I would like to find out how this idea came to pass, and if it has been in any way successful so far.

The person I would like to interview for my Story 4 profile is Carter Cook. Cook along with being a lawyer on campus,  is a grad student here at Wake Forest who received his undergraduate degree from Wake more than 20 years ago. I think it would be very interesting to put together a story on what it has been like for him to attend classes with with students who are 20 years younger than him and what has changed in the last two decades here in Winston-Salem.

I am still brainstorming other sources for me to talk with, but I think that interviewing one of Cook’s professors as well as one of his co-workers in the law school would be a very good start.

I am definitely interested in writing a story on some connection between sustainability and the Pit.

I would like to look into how the pit has changed it’s practices over the past few years that has improved our sustainability. I also want to find out how the pit is organized in different ways that may promote sustainability without us actually realizing it. I also think digging deep into the actual numbers of what has changed could be a really good news hook for  the story and make people interested.

Jonathan Martin has been the so called “beat reporter” for the New York Times when it comes to the coverage of turmoil in the democratic party in Virginia. Five of the eight stories he either wrote or co-wrote in the last two weeks has been on that subject matter.

I do not like to say that Martin does not have a distinguishable “writing voice”, but that is the impression I get. He is extremely matter of fact, and does not waste any space in getting to his point. However, saying that, I believe this is a good thing because of the subject matter that he covers.Martin does a very good job setting up the quotes he has with a small background on who is giving the quote before it is written. Once again, this is important for Martin’s readers who may have not been tracking this story since the beginning.

Even though Martin is matter of fact and does not use much style. He is still effective at grabbing the reader’s attention in his leads. For example, a story published on February 11th leads with “The crisis gripping Virginia’s government spilled into the legislative branch Monday when a rift emerged between African-American lawmakers and a white state legislator attempting to begin impeachment proceedings against Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax”. I think that for someone who is not an intense follower of politics, this type of lead would still grab the reader’s attention.

Just because Martin has been following a consistent story the last several weeks, his nut graf’s have been interesting to follow because they build off each other. The nut graf used on February 11th talks about what previously has happened in the crisis in a story about how legislators had discussed impeachment hearings. The nut graf used by Martin on February 22nd combines the scandal with previous talks of impeachment.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/11/us/impeaching-justin-fairfax.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fjonathan-martin&action=click&contentCollection=undefined&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=collection

I am planning to localize how the national spotlight on Greek organizations has impacted Wake Forest’s campus. Over the past several years, there have been several high profile examples of national stories shedding light on the dark side of fraternities and sororities. I want to do a story on how this attention has affected how the relationship between administration and greek student body has changed. There are multiple greek organizations currently in hot water with the school or with their national organizations and I believe I can talk to current and past members about if they think something has changed. I also would like to reach out to Betsy Adams, who is the director of fraternity and sorority life. I understand this may be a delicate subject to cover, but I believe it to be relevant and important.

The reporter I am choosing to follow for this semester is Jonathan Martin.

As a national political correspondent for the Times, he is someone that will always be reporting on the talk of the political landscape as well as being consistently featured.

He also appears consistently on different talk shows which makes it easier for me to learn about him.

Here are a couple articles posted by Martin in the last several weeks.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/26/us/politics/trump-rnc-2020.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fjonathan-martin&action=click&contentCollection=undefined&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=9&pgtype=collection

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/04/us/politics/justin-fairfax-sexual-assault.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fjonathan-martin&action=click&contentCollection=undefined&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection