Reporting on Religion — London

BY MEGAN NELSON

I added finishing touches to my final project about reporting on religion. I took the advice from my classmates and put in better pictures that went with the script more. I also moved some clips around so they sounded better, and I cut one a little shorter. With my last few edits, this project came out better than I expected.

Reporting Abroad Experience

BY MEGAN NELSON

Before this trip, I had not taken into consideration the difficulties of being a journalist in foreign countries. It was much harder than I would have thought. 

Every culture works so differently that it is hard to adapt so quickly. For example, in Ireland everything moves at a much slower pace, so it was hard to get timely interviews. In London Elle and I encountered the problem that people would not e-mail us back for project ideas we had.  It was a good learning experience running into these problems, for I now appreciate the types of things I can accomplish easily once I am back in Arizona. In the U.S. people are more receptive to talking to American students than they were in Dublin, Paris and London.

Volunteering at a Sikh Gurdwara

BY MEGAN NELSON

Click here to see Elle Walls’ accompanying print story.

Reporting on Religion in London

BY MEGAN NELSON

My final project was on how some of the journalists we met report on religion. Journalists from BBC and the Guardian told us how they report on religion and shared many of the obstacles they have to overcome every day. It was very interesting to hear their input.  I filmed while both speakers talked to us, and I also took pictures at both places to use as b-roll in my story.  

Volunteering in the Sikh Community

BY MEGAN NELSON

My project on volunteering in the Sikh community has been a lot of fun to work on. I had such great b-roll that editing was enjoyable, although it took me more than eight hours to complete.

The only trouble I had during the editing process was that some of the people are hard to understand because they do not speak English well. I had to figure out how to get the text over their sound bites. In some clips the black text was easier to read, but in others white was better. I wanted to stick with the same color throughout the package, so I had to assess which color would work the best for everything. I wish the text could be easier to read throughout the whole package, but I do not think it is possible.

Other than that, I am very happy with how this package came out.  I think it is a lot better than my first package from this trip.

Sikhism — Volunteer Back Story

BY MEGAN NELSON

For one of my stories here in London, I wanted to do something with a youth or community service group. I wanted to shoot some footage, and Elle was going to write a piece. We researched a lot of churches and youth groups in the London area and sent out a number of e-mails asking if we could attend a youth group meeting or possibly a community service event and interview a few people who participated. After waiting three days for a response and not receiving any, we decided we needed to quickly come up with a new plan. Since we were already going to the Sikh community, we thought we should do a piece on the community kitchen there since that was the aspect we were interested in for our next story.

Educate Together

BY MEGAN NELSON
Educate Together News Package on religion in Irish schools.

Click here to see Amanda Soto’s print version of this story.

Paris Reporting Day

BY: MEGAN NELSON

Once we finally got on our way today, it was a very good cultural experience. We went to a part of Paris called Le Marais, where there is a gay community and a Jewish community right next to each other. I was under the impression that the two communities were integrated a lot more.

Educate Together #3

BY MEGAN NELSON

Ireland has been a lot of fun, but working on the Educate Together story was very difficult and stressful. I wish I’d had a lot more b-roll to work with, but filming the children at the school was out of the question. This made the school not a very visually rich target, but I worked with what I had.

Educate Together #2

BY: MEGAN NELSON

Amanda and I have been moving along nicely with our project. Today we had an interview with Jack Horgan, who attended an Educate Together school at the primary level. We met him this morning at 9:30 at the Dublin Center Hotel. There was a library upstairs in the hotel, which worked out perfectly when we shot our footage. Jack was very helpful and provided us with a wonderful interview and a lot of useful information. It was interesting to hear the perspective of someone who had attended an Educate Together school. I have been able to learn a lot about the school system in Ireland, and I am amazed at how different it is from our system.