My deepest, darkest opinions of the state of WKU football
Posted by Emily in Journalism 101, Spilled Thoughts, The Sports World on November 15, 2011
Last weekend, I drove down to Baton Rogue, La., to watch my very own WKU Hilltoppers. I believed the 10 hour drive to be worth it. My football team has not always been the best. The team struggled to win a game at home for three years and often held the title of last in the FBS, but I still had my faith.
As a former College Heights Herald football reporter, I’m not supposed to have an opinion. I’m supposed to report the facts. I will get in trouble, called to the front of the room if I drift in any of my own thoughts or feelings on an issue.
But tonight, that will change. So here’s my brief commentary on the issue of Lance Guidry, WKU’s Defensive Coordinator, because I do have homework waiting and I’m longing for eight hours of sleep for once.
Around 1 a.m. last Saturday morning, Guidry was pulled over by police in his vehicle, after swerving, for driving while intoxicated. This was his third offense and more importantly was right before WKU played the number one team in the nation, LSU. Yet, when his bail came and Guidry told his superiors about the incident, he was allowed to coach hours later.
In fact, he will be allowed to coach the remainder of the season. The matter will be handled “internally” by the WKU athletic department.
This issue arises within the midst of a child molestation scandal with Penn State, when the incident was handled internally and the information did not reach the people it needed to. Now, a legend, a school, a football program have fallen, like the tragic heroes I read about in my English classes.
Why take the gamble? I know WKU is not Penn State and Penn State is not WKU, but what happens if the Baton Rogue newspaper never reported it? What if the College Heights Herald never picked the story up? What if the matter was dealt with internally and then six months later, Guidry was out driving drunk and tragically hit another vehicle? Then all of a sudden, we have a “Why didn’t we do something about this?” case on our hands and lives harmed. Fortunately, this did not happen and I hope it won’t.
Side note: I know Guidry feels awful, but what was he thinking going out the night before a Sun Belt school plays the No. 1 team in the nation? Where are his priorities? Why set the example that if you drive while under the influence, there will be no punishment?
I’m a firm believer that college coaches should not be simply concentrated on winning football games. It should go deeper than that. It should be about making these players, these athletes, these kids better people. Teach them football and teach them about being a good person. WKU, in case you forgot, the two can go hand in hand. REALITY CHECK: Coaches are role models to players, kids, fans, the sons and daughters of WKU alumnus, etc.
‘Tis funny, the same weekend all of this went down, the WKU volleyball team under Head Coach Travis Hudson won the regular season Sun Belt title against rival MTSU. The volleyball team is nationally ranked and in a position of continued success I bet the football team longs for. The humorous part comes in the irony that Hudson said this quote to me last season:
“They obviously have to run, jump, do all the things athletes do,” Hudson said. “But there is more to it than that. It takes a unique type of kid to play in our program here. Character is such a premium.”
It isn’t about winning for Hudson. It never has been. Senior volleyball player, Lindsey Williams, best described it here:
“He always pushes us to be the best people we can be in every situation we’re in and reminds us how much of a gift we have that we have the ability to influence others too,” Williams said. “I will definitely keep in touch with him throughout my life.”
Maybe the athletic department should take some notes from some of their very own. It may not be the sport that brings in the big bucks or the seven television channels of national coverage, but they seem to be on the right track.
For the Herald’s coverage of Guidry, click here.
Take it with you when you go
Posted by Emily in Journal, Journalism 101 on September 30, 2011
I write a lot of stories. I read a lot more. Generally, I have the mindset, “Let’s get this done,” or “Let’s get this edited and to copy desk.”
I can’t give this story the proper introduction it deserves, but I will say, this story was quite different than others I’ve worked on. My photographer and I spent many hours working on how to tell this story the right way. I hope we did it justice.
Family, friends of WKU graduate build foundation after son’s suicide
Six years after her son’s death, Sandy Drake said what may hurt the most is that her son’s suicide was “absolutely preventable.”
“All of the pain Eric was feeling, he isn’t feeling it now, but we are,” Sandy said. “We don’t have Christmas anymore. We used to have big Thanksgivings. Now, I don’t want any birthday presents. I’m fine if no one wishes me a happy birthday.
“I don’t even want to hear it, because it isn’t happy anymore.”
Drake received a call from her son, Lee Eric Drake, around 1 p.m. on Feb. 3, 2005.
The 24-year-old called to tell both his mother and father he loved them just before he took a gun to his head and pulled the trigger in the kitchen of his parents’ home.
Eric Drake’s gravestone in Franklin has many aspects of his personality and life incorporated into the text and design. The height corresponds with his actual height, the piano keys represent his natural ability at playing the piano, and the cardinal direction on the top ties back to people special to Eric when he was a student at WKU. JERRY ENGLEHART JR./Herald
Eric was a 2004 WKU graduate, former Big Red, Pike fraternity member and talented musician before he took his own life after suffering from severe depression less than a year after graduating.
Six years later, his suicide still haunts the Drake family every day.
“This is the kind of thing that shakes every bit of your foundation – every bit of who you are,” Sandy said. “This never ends. Your body goes through so many emotions you didn’t even know you had. It starts in your head and goes through the bottom of your feet. It is the depth of the low. The very depth of low.”
His funeral, which was held on Super Bowl Sunday in 2005, was attended by hundreds of people Eric had known during his life. Friends, former teachers, even employees of stores where Eric had shopped wrote letters to Sandy, her husband, Don, and their oldest son, Ben, telling the family what an impact he had made in their lives.
On the night of his funeral, seven of Eric’s friends created a foundation in his name to spread information to others that they lacked until they sought answers after his suicide.
Eric was known as outgoing, fun and a witness of religion to his fraternity brothers, but that all began to change after he graduated in May 2004 with a major in geography and emphasis in meteorology.
A few months after graduating, Eric struggled to find a job. That summer he began working at the airport in Bowling Green, but something about him had changed.
“Eric had a lot of pain in his life,” Sandy said. “It is nothing he wanted. He woke up with it, like a person who wakes up with cancer one day. We try to minimize how hard people’s days really are. We tell them they are going to be fine and don’t really listen.”
“Eric tried to tell me something wasn’t right, and I told him it was just a phase he was going through.”
His condition steadily grew worse when Sandy said she noticed her son starting to lose weight, stop eating and become paranoid. His hair wasn’t kept, and he gave up on shaving. The once outgoing, loving son and friend continued to spiral downward when he stopped visiting and talking to people altogether by November.
Eric’s changes were so drastic that Sandy said people didn’t recognize her son in stores when they passed by.
In December, Eric saw a psychiatrist but refused to say a word to the doctor. By January, he had admitted himself into Parthenon Pavilion, a mental health facility in Nashville. Three weeks later, Eric’s insurance was depleted, and he was sent home and “supposedly cured,” Sandy said.
Sandy said the family received no instruction and no mandatory follow-up appointment, but were simply told to treat their son as if he had just had major surgery.
However, Sandy said they weren’t told that Eric had been on suicide watch, which means he was checked on every 15 minutes since he had arrived at the psychiatric hospital – knowledge that wasn’t obtained until after Eric’s death.
“I thought I knew how to take care of someone who has had surgery before,” Sandy said. “That’s one thing, but if someone says, ‘Your son or your boyfriend is suicidal,’ that changes everything.”
They didn’t know that research shows a majority of people between the ages of 18 and 24 experience chemical imbalances in the brain, which can lead to suicidal thoughts and actions like their son was experiencing. They didn’t know they were entitled to their son’s medical records and that he had signed to share the information with his family.
With the lack of knowledge and information provided by the facility to the family, the Drakes sued and settled outside of court.
Dan Padgett, one of Eric’s best friends from Hopkinsville and board member of the Lee Eric Drake Foundation, said because mental illness isn’t talked about openly, many people don’t understand.
“Suicide is such a taboo subject. We don’t talk about it,” said Padgett, who was Eric’s fraternity brother and lived with him in college for five years.
“Eric was the most non -prototypical person to become a statistic for suicide, but here we are six years later and I’m still battling with the question, ‘What if?’ I didn’t know what warning signs to look for. I was the only friend who knew he was in the hospital, but in my mind, I just kept thinking, ‘He is going to be better when he gets out.’ Eric’s situation was real, and we didn’t realize it.”
Padgett said he doesn’t want other friends or families to have to struggle with the loss of their loved one through suicide, which is the LED Foundation’s goal.
The foundation’s goal is to lend aid to those who possess or are susceptible to psychological illness through direct help and awareness, especially in September, which is recognized as National Suicide Prevention month.
One way to accomplish those goals are through the LED Foundation’s scholarship fund, where $1,000 is awarded to a selected graduate student in the mental health field of study.
Students can apply online at leeericdrake.com by completing an application, as well as a 500-word essay, like one of the award’s most recent recipients, Janay Smith Atkinson.
Atkinson is a 2009 WKU graduate who is currently working on a psychiatric nurse practitioner degree at WKU in conjunction with the University of Louisville.
“Awareness is key in these particular scenarios,” she said. “Not one more life should be taken by suicide. These individuals should not have to suffer any longer or doubt their future. We can make a difference.”
A difference is exactly what Eric’s older brother, Ben Drake, hopes to accomplish through students like Atkinson, who plans to become a nurse specializing in mental health.
“When he had his illness, we didn’t talk about it,” said Ben, who now lives in Florida with his family. “Part of our mission statement now is to honor his memory by promoting awareness and contributing to the study of mental illness.”
Ben serves on the foundation’s board and helps determine whom the board should award the scholarship to each year. He said they hope to increase the amount with more donations.
“If we can help one person,” Padgett said, “It will be worth it.”
Say Yes to the Sun
Posted by Emily in Journalism 101 on September 23, 2011
I caught up with a friend I graduated high school with at the WKU vs Navy football game. (I was told to show off my Baltimore Sun credentials.)
Here’s another journalism lesson: Don’t say no to opportunities. Especially if the Baltimore Sun rings you up.
Swamped with my daily two jobs, school, life combo, I wasn’t expecting to add anything else to my plate when my editor in chief asked if I could write a game story for the Baltimore Sun.
Scared and unsure, I said yes.
The historic and classy paper needed a stringer for the WKU vs Navy football game on Sept. 10. It had been a while since I had covered football, but you can’t say no to an opportunity like that. It was one amazing weekend and a lot of fun. The brief experience I had working with the paper was one I will always remember. The people in Baltimore were also kind enough to send me a couple hard copies of their Sunday paper, which I may or may not hug at night.
Here is one of my stories:
Navy wins big over Western Kentucky but loses Santiago
Midshipmen roll to 40-14 victory, but senior slotback ‘going to be out for a while’
September 10, 2011|By Emily Patton, Special to The Baltimore Sun
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Coach Ken Niumatalolo was not all smiles after Navy’s 40-14 win over Western Kentucky at Houchens-Smith Stadium on Saturday night.
In fact, he was in tears.
Late in the second quarter, his senior slotback Aaron Santiago went down with an arm injury on his last carry and would not return to the game.
“He is going to be out for a while,” Niumatalolo said. “A great, great kid. I’m going to be honest with you, I was kind of in a daze in the second half. Our team was playing great, but to lose one of your guys like that, who has just been a phenomenal human being, it is hard to see that.”
Nevertheless, the victory gave Niumatalolo his 29th career win, the most in school history for a coach in his first four years.
In their second meeting with the Hilltoppers, the Midshipmen (2-0) finished with 100 yards passing and 410 on the ground, including two rushing touchdowns by junior John Howell.
In his fifth career start, Navy quarterback Kriss Proctor went 3-for-7 and rushed for 100 yards.
“It is either feast or famine,” Niumatalolo said. “We saw that in their play-action. They were either going to hit us in the backfield or our guys were going to be wide open. We took the approach, if you are going to come up that close, we’re going to throw it over your heads.”
WKU (0-2), which was trying for its first home win in three years, finished with 277 total yards.
Hilltoppers junior quarterback Kawaun Jakes finished with only 51 yards passing and went 7-for-12 before being benched in the third quarter. His backup, redshirt freshman Brandon Doughty, had 102 yards on 12-for-21 passing.
Navy scored on its first possession on a 50-yard run by Howell. A bad snap led to a failed two-point-conversion attempt.
“We made a lot of good plays,” Howell said. “But there are definitely a lot of things we need to clean up on the offensive side. We definitely put too many balls on the ground.”
Held to 43 yards of total offense in the first quarter, WKU missed a 32-yard field-goal try with 1:34 remaining.
The Midshipmen ended the period with a 44-yard touchdown pass from Proctor to Matt Aiken as time expired.
In the second quarter, Proctor completed a 27-yard touchdown pass to Brandon Turner with 11:17 remaining, increasing the Mids’ lead to 20-0.
Senior running back Bobby Rainey put WKU’s first points on the board with a 13-yard touchdown run with 7:13 on the clock before Navy answered with another score.
Santiago ran 4 yards for the Mids, making the score 27-7 with 4:46 left to play.
In the third quarter, Howell scored his second touchdown with a 57-yard rush with 9:10 remaining. Navy missed the point-after attempt and led 33-7.
After Jakes was benched, Doughty went 5-for-9 on a 70-yard drive, capped by Rainey scoring his second touchdown on a 1-yard rush. The quarter ended with the Mids holding a 33-14 lead.
WKU’s quarterback woes continued in the fourth quarter, when Doughty was intercepted by junior Tra’ves Bush, who returned it for a 49-yard touchdown.
It was Bush’s first career interception and first touchdown.
“Early in the third quarter, the [defense] kept telling me, ‘You’re going to pick it off, you’re going to pick it off.’ When it finally happened, I was like, ‘You all called it,’” Bush said.
The interception sealed Navy’s win in front of an announced 19,409.
2011 Intern Experience
Posted by Emily in Journal, Journalism 101 on September 23, 2011
Western Ken
tucky University
The Gleaner
When I interviewed for this internship, my future editor said, “If I hire you, this will be the hardest job you ever have.”
It’s true what people say, us journalists like our quotes. In fact, quotes are such an addicting piece of the equation in a story that in our heads while we’re talking to sources, parents, boyfriends and future bosses, we begin mentally separating the information we need to really hear from the stuff that isn’t going to matter.
So as the words left Mr. David Dixon’s mouth and swirled into my ears, a siren with a blaring, red light sounded in my head. I knew that information would be one I would need to remember.
As I enter my sixth week as an intern at the Gleaner in Henderson, Ky., I can confidently say my editor was correct.
From day one, the Gleaner staff had higher expectations for me than I’ve ever had for myself. To them, I’m not the 22 year old that will return to Western Kentucky University in the fall. To them, I’m no different than someone who has been here 30 years.
I took over a fellow employee’s police beat she had worked for 13 years, after only three days of training, which came with a laundry list of daily procedures I had never in my life done before — writing accident stories, calling hospitals to check conditions of patients, questioning about a murder case, making late calls, visiting circuit court, collecting public records from land transfers to marriages and divorces, etc.
The responsibility the Gleaner has entrusted in me is astonishing, frightening and motivating. When I expressed my concerns at the very beginning, I learned quickly that the only person who didn’t have faith in me was, well, me. I’m extremely appreciative for this trust and freedom I’ve been given, because I am continuously adding to my resume of what I will be able to bring to my next job in journalism. What I’ve learned here is priceless.
I’ve worked with obituaries, covered many fairs and festivals in Henderson County, rewrote countless press releases and produced my own features and news stories out of Ellis Park, a local horse racetrack, which has easily been the highlight of my time here. Horse racing has been a passion of mine, since I was a little girl following as a fan and a sport I hope to follow as a career.
The Gleaner has provided me with an amazing summer of experience and a step in the right direction toward this goal of mine. I have received the privilege of interviewing Calvin Borel, three-time Kentucky Derby winning jockey, along with countless staff members of Ellis, including owners, trainers, jockeys and grooms.
I am thankful for my time here at the Gleaner. It is making me a better worker, journalist and person.
Hello Henderson, Ky….
Posted by Emily in Journal, Journalism 101 on July 14, 2011
Well, howdy.
Excuse my southern twang, I may have been in Henderson, Ky., a bit too long. It is week No. 5 for me at the Gleaner, which means I’m halfway through my KPA internship. Here’s what I’ve walked away with so far:
Last summer, if you recall, I interned at the Advocate, a weekly newspaper in Union County. I’ll be the first to tell you that weeklies and dailies, like the Gleaner, are quite different.
For starters, the staff at a daily paper is triple in size. Each person has their own beat and responsibility. Oh, but except me. Yep. I’m the intern, so I do a bit of everything. Yeah, during the blazing hot 4-H fairs, I’m interviewing a little boy about his prized chicken — I’m the one collecting any and all public records, including land transfers, marriages and divorces.
Side note: This week there was only one marriage and eight divorces. A reflection on our society today? You tell me.
I’ve also had to rewrite countless press releases. They don’t tell you about those in your journalism classes.
Here’s some newspaper jargon for you: advance, brief, budget, legwork, side bar, wire. If you don’t know those, ask someone before you go into a daily newspaper. Your editor, copy editor, designer, sports guy who sits next to me, will all throw those out with a random name or idea, and then will walk away suddenly without any other instruction. You, then, are left there sitting or….. in some unfortunate instances…… standing, mouth gaping open, waiting for your brain, ears, chin to all connect. When they finally do register, your editor, copy editor, designer, sports guy who sits next to me, are long gone on their next great mission of journalism perfection. You have to get it together and produce the thing they want.
And that is not always easy. A lot of times, my editor will demand a story on an accident that just happened, while no press release has been issued, no officer will answer questions, no hospital knows anything about the patients, etc. You just can’t lose your cool. Tip: read the archives, read the archives, read the archives.
Also at the Gleaner, deadline is 8 p.m. I work afternoon and night shifts. We all know business hours are usually 9 to 5. So this is where having a source’s cell phone number is amazing. Keep a reporter’s rolodex. Ask others if they have the contact info. Most of my co-workers have been at this game for 15+ years. Chances are they know a little something about what you’re dealing with and what you’re next move should be.
Another bit of advice is don’t hesitate to tell people what you want and why you are in this as a career, especially if you’re young and just getting your hands in it. In my job interview for this position, I told my editor about how I aspired to write for a horse-racing publication and cover racing. During the course of my summer here, he is letting me create my own feature stories out of Ellis Park, the local race course in Henderson. Last week, I interviewed Calvin Borel — a name some of you may not know — an idol of mine. With a call into his agent after discovering his name/telephone number in a program, (tip alert: use your resources), I asked for an interview and I got one.
Obviously, there are many things you can do right and even more things you can do wrong in journalism. But I’ll leave you with the big three: 1. Check your spelling. 2. If a source doesn’t answer, call, re-call and call again. 3. NEVER be afraid to ask. You might get to interview a three-time Derby winner jockey, or insert famous athlete of your choice.
Majors, minors, Oh My
Posted by Emily in Journal, Journalism 101 on March 25, 2011
At WKU as a journalism major, you have to have a minor outside of the J-school.
Ughhhhh. (I think I made some sort of noise that resembled this when I found out this fact.)
After struggling long and hard with my minor choice, taking a miserable course called Recreation Administration and realizing if I didn’t decide soon I wouldn’t be graduating on time, I finally came to the decision that Creative Writing suited me best.
With that decision came two courses, Intro to Creative Writing and African American Literature Studies. Both classes are embedded with English majors that name drop Faulkner and Dickens, like I would Manning and Borel. I feel their glares as I step into class with my hoodie and pony-tail, which apparently isn’t up to scale to the artsy cardigans and bangs that swoop across the forehead. But more than all of that, they discuss rhyme schemes, analyze each word and search for the deeper meanings that tempt the thought of a bloody desk execution of myself. Oh some days that thought can sound so appealing.
To make a long blog short about my academic boredom, I stumbled across a column written by Leonard Pitts, Jr. for the Miami Herald. It was an attempt to just find ANYTHING to satisfy a requirement in my English class, but apparently has manifested into what I am writing now.
Pitts, Jr. begins his article with, “This will be a futile column.” That its meaning will be lost in translation like it has in the past. This incident will be no different. It will be ineffective, not worth writing, unsuccessful and just something he needs to get out on his head to keep himself sane. He continues on to write about the stereotypes facing African Americans and how the race is synonymous with the word, “crime.”
His writing is beautiful in its simplicity. And he himself accepts the fact that even on a topic as important as a whole race being objectified and mistreated, his column will be put aside, thrown in a trash can and forgotten. Another column will replace it soon.
I think what has struck me about that is this idea of journalism. Does our work ever make a real impact? Does it ever really change people’s minds? Does it ever hit home? Does it save people’s lives? Do we just keep writing and nothing ever changes?
An old journalism professor of mine, James Highland, said that he had been a reporter for years and wrote countless stories that didn’t mean ANYTHING to ANYONE. But then after the hundreds of city hall meetings and briefs came one story that made an impact. Highland told me that you have to be willing to wade through the swamp of the meaningless to get to the meaningful. Funny enough about Highland is that the man was full of tall tales about his crime reporter and college frat days in about 97% of our class meetings, but he did tell me some meaningful advice once 3% of those days too.
Highland is long retired now, but his advice has stuck with me.
I want to get into a business, a career, a life, what have you, to help people. I mean, isn’t that goal? To make this place a little better if you can?
Sometimes I wonder how much of what I write is actually read. In my brief journalism career working at the College Heights Herald and working at a few real world newspapers here and there, I’m not sure I’ve had that story that has stopped someone in their tracks and sent them in a different or right direction that those reading Pitts, Jr. ‘s column above could venture toward.
But when I think twice, I remember that I’ve had the “thank you” cards, the proud parents, the volleyball player’s Christmas gift of an apron with “They Call Her the Cook” –a headline of a story I wrote– embroidered on the front, and the cancer patient that received support from the community because of my story.
Those things don’t happen all the time and really, like anything else, I don’t think it’d mean as much to me if it was something that I simply became use to. Like really good days or finding that relationship that just feels right. If you didn’t go through the crap, it wouldn’t mean anything to you when it finally works out.
So as I’m trying to make it through the stress of having multiple jobs, the school work of an upper level journalism student, the decisions about what to do next semester and the struggle to be a successful whatever for whoever, I will remember that advice. And maybe that swamp of meaningless is actually the meaningful itself. Maybe all of that will mean something more to me when that big story comes along.
For now, I’ll keep on reporting.
Predict the future.
Posted by Emily in Journalism 101, The Sports World on November 4, 2010
Whether you call it a sixth sense or a super human ability, I’ve been known to predict the future.
Courtesy of J S Robinson
A few weeks ago, I received a text message from my sports editor at the College Heights Herald, the student newspaper at Western Kentucky University. While reading the short, almost harsh sentence, every ounce of my insides knew something was about to happen.
“Have you heard about the volleyball team?”
Every scenario streamed through my head like a silent movie, from a star player tearing her ACL or a player forgetting her uniform. As I replied back, adrenaline poured through my veins. My instincts shouted that the next message would reveal that I had work to do.
And so as I predicted, what had happened to the team was much bigger than the sport of volleyball. The driver of the team’s sleeper bus had fallen unconscious behind the wheel on the way to their weekend matches in Alabama. When the bus crossed the center grass median into the north bound lanes of traffic, the head coach sprung into action by climbing over the driver to ease the bus to a stop. Later, the driver, who had a severe heart attack, would be pronounced dead.
The coach and his athletes were all alive, but not well.
The emotional scarring left them uneasy, shaken and at a loss for words. It was an incident that was rocking the media world. Every newspaper in Kentucky and Alabama and even CNN lunged at the WKU volleyball team. On a normal day, I would have been the only journalist calling Head Coach Travis Hudson’s phone to speak to the team. But this was no normal day. When I made my phone call to Hudson, I expected an ignored call, a voicemail that would never be returned and story that would have no sources.
When the coach answered after a few brief rings, he could tell I was surprised to have him on the line. He simply explained to me that after the incident, all the team wanted was to get back to normalcy. Regardless of the topic, Hudson said that talking to me during the week was that kind of normal.
After all, I always called before and after matches, during the week and even times in between. I wasn’t some annoying reporter chasing after a story nor a member of the feeding frenzy. I wasn’t calling to pry or ask inappropriate questions. Instead, I was calling to have a conversation with a sports team that I had built a firm and fair relationship with over the season. The fine line that so often separates reporter from crash victim evaporated.
Hudson talked to me the same way he does after every home match in E. A. Diddle Arena. He didn’t contemplate about what words he was saying. He didn’t hesitate to respond. His answers were not rehearsed. They came from his heart.
When our conversation ended, I dove into writing. Less than hour later, the story was published and began being shared all across the web. Days later, other news organizations caught up and would post their stories. But it was clear the reporter was just a reporter and the volleyball team was just a source.
Since the bus incident, I have learned a valuable lesson. If I hadn’t covered the volleyball team in such a dedicated way earlier in the season, the line that separated me from other journalists wouldn’t have existed. I would have been like everyone else on Hudson’s caller ID that day. But instead, I was an answered call. I was the journalist that produced a quality story with the true emotions behind the WKU volleyball team’s bus accident.
Whether you call it a sixth sense or a super human ability, I’ve been known to predict the future.
Click here to read my story on the Lady Toppers’ bus incident.
Welcome to the Blur.
Posted by Emily in Journalism 101, Spilled Thoughts on October 26, 2010
Sometimes my life becomes this blur.
Pictures, images, moments are tossed together in this blender that makes that awful churning sound where children immediately clasp their hands over small ears making a shrieking horrified face. Then, let the blender lid fly off and liquid chunks come spilling out.
Now, that is what I’m talking about.
Often I don’t know how to balance it all. Working an on campus-job in an office and also at the college newspaper, while being a full-time student with somewhat of a social life. What needs priority and what doesn’t. Perhaps that is what I’m writing about tonight. When is classwork the less important subject and a concern for my quality at my newspaper job more?
I mean I’m at this thing called school, to go to school, not to work, or at least that’s what I thought… Am I wrong?
My junior year has effectively turned into an eat breathe and worship productivity kind of year. With the constant flow of homework, papers, exams, it is actually my work at the College Heights Herald that feels like the vacation. It could be because I enjoy it or maybe because it is my classroom.
What I learn there surpasses that monotone lecture that I fell asleep hearing something about Facebook and woke up hearing something using drugs. Yes, some healthy discussion sure, but it was not on building relationships with sources, editing, meeting deadlines, working with copy editors and managing editors, writing headlines and dealing with difficult athletic media relations practitioners. Afterall, that was the lesson taught by Mr. Herald earlier today. What did you learn in class?
Everyday is the constant dilemma. Do I study for this test longer or do I meet deadline first and foremost? In the grand scheme of things, which is more important? That grade or knowing you did not turn in a half-effort to your editor. My parents are probably cringing in their sweater vests as I type at my very thoughts. But let me give you another thought that might remove me from Patton Household banishment….
In my News Editing class, every ounce of information is something I have been thrown head-first into at the Herald or my experience at the Advocate or Kentucky New Era. Whether it is the way a newsroom functions or that strange thing called subject verb agreement, I am at least familiar with those concepts due to the experiences I have already had and in the middle of having. Therefore, hey, Harry Allen, slap me a big ol’ A, I know this stuff!
Aw, if it were just that simple.
This struggle of what comes first is something I’ll never quite master, I’m sure. But I have this crazy thought that the real world stuff I’m doing right now tops that of those classes that are supposed to be preparing me for the real world. Or maybe, just maybe, because I like to put a lot on my plate and then a little more, that all of it combined is helping me become just the journalist or person I need to be.
I will end with this cute sob story about my mom and me. Every day, I call her walking up the hill to my work. We dish on everything, my dad, my lack of nice guys in my life and most importantly, my stress level. Today I informed her that I’m entering my fourth consecutive week with multiple tests, papers and even a project due while working diligently at my two jobs ANDDD…. entering an exciting time of the season for my sports beat, and she just listened quietly.
When I asked her about her silent role on the other end of the phone, she simply replied, “I just can’t believe you haven’t had a break down yet.”
Harsh response to some. Maybe you’re thinking, man, Emily’s mom doesn’t support her, blah blah blah. But no, it is true. I haven’t had a stress freak out yet. I am still in this. Somehow. I’m still fighting and holding on. I will give that credit to the experiences I have taken with me from my summer internship and my last year at the Herald.
And you know what, I just can’t wait to add more on my plate.
Summer at the Advocate
Posted by Emily in Journalism 101 on August 6, 2010
Emily Patton
Western Kentucky University
Union County Advocate
Whoever first muttered those dreaded words, “Newspapers are dying,” apparently has never been to Union County, Ky. before.
After interning at the Union County Advocate in Morganfield, Ky. for over a month now, it still takes me by surprise when people come up to me with ear to ear smiles and send thank you cards wanting to discuss a story in last week’s paper.
People here actually read the newspaper front to back, because those same people are the newspaper. Let me introduce you to small-town community journalism, or in other words, my newest summer love.
The office’s doorbell is constantly buzzing with a new subscription order or a sold advertisement.
Even though I live just forty minutes away, the concept of a weekly thriving was brand new to me. Scratch that, everything about this county was brand new to me.
It has been an experience that’s been both educational and priceless as a journalism student at Western Kentucky University.
While attending WKU, I have written about various sports for the College Heights Herald and covered high school football for the Kentucky New Era. All excellent forms of experience —- But unlike the experience I’ve received at the Advocate.
In the past five weeks, I’ve been sent to the local high school’s graduation, city council meetings, car shows, Red Hat Society meetings, city parks, child plays, the marathon which people call the Union County Fair, 4-H dog shows, churches, and countless neighbors’ homes.
I had never talked to city officials, local pastors or a mother who lost her 8 year-old-son a year before in a tragic accident. I had never even stepped close to the Little Sturgis Rally or saw a newspaper collection from the 1940s. I had never sat down with those types of people and tried to understand and relate their stories to the world.
For a girl who once thought when you hit your twenties, well, you’re pretty much done growing up, this summer at the Advocate has above all helped me grow up in more ways than one.
When I leave this newsroom to venture back to my old, I’ll take with me the long conversations in living rooms with Union County residents, the meaningful handshakes, a new love for the Feed Mill Restaurant and a subscription to the Advocate in hand.
Months from now, I’ll need to revisit that amazing feel of small-town community journalism that I found in my new favorite weekly newspaper, the Advocate.
Check me out on the KPA’s new website.
The Highs and Lows of a Journalism Intern
Posted by Emily in Journalism 101, Spilled Thoughts on August 6, 2010
They, you know the famous “they” tell you to never assume things. This “assuming” thing makes you look bad and maybe me too. Isn’t that how the saying goes? Well this girl assumed her summer internship would be a breeze.
Maybe they’d let me write a couple stories after a few weeks had passed. Maybe I’d have to take a few pictures. Maybe I’ll be my editor’s sidekick during the experience. All assumptions of course. All wrong. Within the first hour of arriving for my first day of work, I was sent head first into a story by myself. This rapid motion, even for a weekly, never seemed to cease.
And I loved it.
The best part of my internship was the everyday challenge. Each day I’d come into the office and I’d have instructions waiting on my desk. The job never got monotonous or boring. Each day, it was a surprise, who I would be meeting next or who would be my next interviewee victim.
With such excitement everyday, I cannot remember a day I sincerely dreaded a workday. But I did dread the 40-minute commute to work and 40 minute drive home. The drive was easily the worst part of my internship this summer. After wearing out every CD I owe, pumping too much gas and still yet to find a morning radio show I like, I am excited to go back to walking five minutes to class and work every day.
Being from the county just next door, I never realized how much I didn’t know about my neighbor. I learned the vast differences and everything that I had been missing out on from the amazing people to the amazing family owned restaurants. I learned how to talk to all different types of people in all different types of scenarios. I learned how to design pages using InDesign and how a weekly functions. The most important thing I learned is maintaining relationships with your sources. If you say you’ll send them a picture, send them a picture. If you say you’ll follow up, follow up with them. So many times those sources are at other events or helping me find my next story.
Those same sources are the ones sending me thank you cards and e-mails I after stories I’ve written. For years I had been told that journalism is a “thank-less” career, but in Union County, I was spoiled enough to be put on a pedestal for the job that I do. The kindness of the people of the county and the city of Morganfield is something I’ll remember fondly.
I discovered this kindness in a hard way one scorching hot day in June. I was sent to Uniontown’s Magistrate, Jerri Floyd, to do a story on an ordinance the city was considering passing. I talked to Jerri for only a few minutes when he told me he had some residents that would be good for me to talk to. I followed him in my car while he drove to the neighbor’s house. When we arrived to talk to the sources, I left my keys in the ignition and locked my car. I locked my car WITH my keys inside.
The realization hit me right as I was shaking hands with the former mayor and his wife. I finished the interview in one piece, but as soon as I was out the door, I told the man I arrived with, “Yeah… my keys are in there and my doors are locked.” It cost me embarrassment, 40 dollars and a sunburn. But good ol’ Jerri knew exactly who to call and made the key retrieval a painless process. At every city council meeting since Jerri is sure to slip in my stupidity into conversation.
Through all the frustrations and smiles after being thrown head first, sink or swim, into my hopeful future career, I have loved every second. I am extremely thankful for the internship opportunity and looking forward to my next adventure in this strange newspaper world in which we live.
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