[MUSIC] Sorting information, it's a super important thing to do. Because, you've done the reporting, which is great, you've done the work, but now you've got all that stuff in front of you, and you don't know what to do with it. It looks like a lot of information and it is, and it's up to you to figure out how to assemble it. But how do you do it? There's a lot of ways journalists go about thinking about the information. If you take the information in front of you, the construct has to be within what you said, this is what my news report is going to be about. So you need to go look at your angle. And we're not take talking about the magic angles in things that you saw in geometry class, don't like those. We want to talk about the angle for journalism. An angle is what is your news report going to be about. You said at the start, when we started this journey into specialization, we helped you find what a news report topic should be. Now, you’ve got the topic, you’ve got the information, how do you put them together? So you need to look critically, does your reporting support what you thought your news report was going to be about at the start. If it is, great, you can go ahead. But if you notice what you thought your news report was going to be about and what the evidence you've gathered through your reporting, through the interviews, through the facts do not match, you need to adjust. So when you know what your angle is, of your news report, simply put you will know what you need to do to start your news gathering and reporting, and that's a huge asset. A lot of journalist have their own methods so don't feel bad if your method doesn't necessarily match someone else's. Some journalist like to keep everything electronically. You can have a Microsoft Word file or store things in the Cloud or keep things in little bits on your cell phone. Whatever you want to do. Other people are more fashioned. They like to print everything out and keep them in files. Journalists love paper. I'm kind of in the middle. I like starting a lot of things on my laptop with files, but I also like to keep some things on paper, too. Because laptops crash. When you look at your new gathering, you lay out everything that you have in front of you. What's valuable? What's not? Look at your quotes. Are they boring? Are they weak? Do they address what you need addressed. And by the way, do you know who said those quotes? Do you have the dates and the facts that are correct to go with those quotes? If you cannot answer all those questions before you sit down to write your news report, you gotta find the way to fill the holes and now's the time. So your system is yours, the best way to keep your reporting is what works for you. But a few suggestions that works for all of us, here you go. Always transcribe your interviews, meaning, you listen to them and then you write them out. Either typing them out or write them out by hand, so you have a good record of what was said. And hang on to important documents. You never know when you're going to need them. But, what if you have missing pieces? Or things that don't work? You need to go back and do more reporting, you're not done. Fill in the holes of what you don't know. So that means you'll be going back to a source, going back to do more research, asking questions. A good journalist does not rest on weak facts. Because weak facts will equal a weak news report. [MUSIC]
