Jan 3rd, 2008 - Reporting Commence!

After a day of class introduction, our two J-professors handed out subway maps and basically made us swarm in our seats like little kids with excitement, but the second day was down to the actual meat and potatoes, reporting in NYC.

The way it works is that we are split up into groups of 2, and one group of 3 (odd number). Each group will have to report and shoot a broadcast story (with the exception of those students with only a print background). Maureen and Will is assigned with me, and we are appointed to do a story about the soup kitchens and the impact that the extraordinary cold weather will bring to them.

We make our calls, load up, split up, walk up and down the streets, the icy wind cuts into our faces. I should have worn more layers. We ride the subway and try our luck with the first soup kitchen (journalism is also a numbers game, not every source will be cooperative with the press).

We arrived at a soup kitchen setup inside a church near FIT and noticed that we weren't the first from the media to arrive. I believe it was CBS that arrived earlier and shot a story here, the signs they put up stated: "We are filming today, sorry for the inconvenience!".

So we head inside and a man asks us which group we belong with, we introduce ourselves from the SB J-school. The people there didn't seem to like the press too much, and while Will was negotiating permission to come back and film the next morning, I was stopped by a woman when I took my Rebel out to start snapping away. The man said I could only snap certain people and places, these pictures are some of the ones I shot.The officials at the church said they weren't going to be available on the next day to film, but the man did give us a sheet of all the soup kitchens in the city and their contact information. Now it's a matter of calling down the list and seeing which ones will be interested to speak to the press. It was something below zero that day, and so we stopped at a local bagel shop to rest up and work the list.

Then we head back to the class, for a day of lecture and sharing our stories so far. Luckily, we called a possible spot for filming the next day, the Bowery Mission. Not bad for a first day of reporting in the city. I just wish it wasn't so darn cold.