Getting information is how I shape my articles. Without gathering information, I don’t know how one could create a good article. On this page, I demonstrate how I conduct different types of interviews and how news gathering contributes to connecting to the community.
Using news gathering to connect to the community
My favorite part about being a journalist is talking about my piece to people around the community. There is absolutely nothing more satisfying then seeing my story make an impact on how people think and feel because I think my number one job as a journalist is to tell the untold. In many ways, news literacy influences how I do my news gathering but also in some ways, news gathering is as powerful as anything. This is absolutely no different for my piece on my school’s newly inaugurated Ethnic Studies class feature during my junior year.
There were many ways I could have gone with this story, I could have done a regular quick hit on the news of the new class. However, I wanted to get in deeper because I felt like this class is something vastly new for our school so I felt driven to cover all the aspects. Identifying the who, what, when, where, why was my first goal in creating this story, and based on the answers I got, I ventured to find more information.
One way connecting to the community is so satisfying because often different kinds of communities end up linking together. In a world that has a lot of barriers, I feel like this is the best part of my work as a student journalist. With this story, I was able to bring awareness about ethnicity at our school by making sure my story was thorough and had the necessary amount of information and interviews. The major point is that our school doesn’t have much diversity at all, which you learn when you read the story below. Making sure I had enough interviews was the hardest part because there were many aspects of the class proposal. For the Affinity Club, it was an ongoing project and I had to interview the original creator of Ethnic Studies over phone because he already graduated. I didn’t usually do that and so during this piece, I learned how to not settle with what I got. I learned what makes a really good story for the community. Hence the Best of SNO
Promoting and proposing ethnic awareness
The school administration accepts an Ethnic Studies class proposal
Within the social studies department, no curriculum has ever primarily focused on ethnic heritage, until now. On Feb. 8, the school administration passed an Ethnic Studies class proposal created by Affinity Club, a club that promotes cultural diversity. The idea of spreading awareness of ethnicity in a classroom environment was developed by Zach Villagomez, former Affinity Club member and school alumni and the club had to achieve a class proposal along with formatting the class. Eventually, Zoe Tupper, junior, Melinda Lin, and Uma Grover, seniors, were able to complete the project.
The school is 79.3% white, which contributes to Affinity Club’s continuous ambition on spreading ethnic and diversity awareness, like they did with the Diwali celebration and Lunar New Year. However, their most ambitious project has been the creation of Ethnic Studies, led by Tupper and Lin, junior officer and vice president respectively.
“I feel like it’s really important for us as a majority white school for students to give perspective,” Tupper said. “Even for just the members of Affinity Club and the rest of the BIPOC community to be heard and feel seen, and just overall, be more respected.”
The project started in March of 2022. Villagomez, one of the leaders of Affinity club last year, wanted more awareness of cultural diversity, which aligned with Affinity Club’s values. Meagyn Karmakar, assistant principal, is the adviser for Affinity Club and oversees their activities. Though she isn’t directly involved with the action being done, she provides a direction for the club.
“My initial reaction was absolute excitement,” Karmakar said. “I completely agreed with Zack and Uma and Melinda and a bunch of the other kids that were calling for more direct conversation and study around ethnicities around the world. So I was 100% supportive from the day it started.”
Villagomez would gather information, create slideshows, and propose ideas about the possible class to his peers, simultaneously gathering club input. This process took multiple hours.
“I think what stood out to me first of all was the lack of information that was out there on the high school level,” Villagomez said. “It’s relatively new and Ethnic Studies itself is still not really prevalent across many schools on that level. I didn’t really know where to approach [it] from. But the fact that there were different teachers and individuals trying to spur movements across the nation was what was really inspiring.”
At the end of the 2021-2022 school year, Villagomez graduated, forcing younger students to take over the Ethnic Studies project. Continuing forth with the project, Grover, Affinity club president, delegated the most responsibility to Tupper and Lin.
“If they need resources, I provide that, I help make sure they figure out a way to get them,” Grover said. “But other than that, they mostly have done it all by themselves.”
At the beginning of the 2022-23 school year, the information-collecting period continued. Tupper and Lin invested a lot of their time into the project, scouring schools across the nation for key information that could be useful for Ethnic Studies.
“It’s taken a while because there’s a lot of details we have to figure out and a lot of that isn’t up to us, but we still have to give [the administration] some basis,” Tupper said. “So we looked into California schools. We did some research about existing courses that are already offered in other parts of our country and [see] how we can implicate that here. It’s been a long process and this year me [and Lin] just made sure that it got to the final stage.”
A lot of details go into a classroom, and being knowledgeable about school administration contributes to setting foundations in a new class. However, students are only enrolled at the school for four years, which is a small period of time compared to teachers and staff. As students lack knowledge and involvement with the school administration, Karmakar was a direct connection that Affinity Club needed.
“Knowing the systems and who to talk to, some advice on how to plead your case, how to make a proposal,” Karmakar said. “I also advise on how we write a course proposal [as] they’ve never written one before and connect them with the right people and make sure that they have the space and the voice to do that.”
Though they had Karmaker as a resource to propose the class, Affinity Club had a voice that was hard to hear. The administration usually has a plethora of tasks, so Ethnic Studies was in the mix, it was just a matter of how it was prioritized.
“It’s always hard to make any sort of systemic change even on a local level, like [with] the school board and with the administration,” Villagomez said. “There was a lack of communication, I feel and sometimes, I feel like it was hard for my points to come across and it was hard to get a hold of administration. It would take a very long time. I do wish that I had a bit longer period to chat and sit with them one on one.”
As many questions arose throughout the proposal process, the classroom logistics is also another topic. Who will teach the class? How will we teach class? What is the most effective way to spread ethnicity awareness? There were many strategies to provide the answer to these questions like how Villagomez shared his information through his presentations while asking for ideas last year, Tupper and Lin followed suit.
“I [think] it’d be more of a discussion based class, rather than just assignment after assignment because the whole point of this class is to create more understanding,” Lin said. “That’s why we wanted it to be more collaborative and discussion based with lots of group projects.”
I feel like it’s really important for us as a majority white school for students to give perspective, even for just the members of Affinity Club and the rest of the BIPOC community to be heard and feel seen, and just overall, be more respected.
-Zoe Tupper
Ethnic Studies will be a semester-long class, providing 0.5 credits in the electives category. Gretchen Bertram, who has experience in working with Ethnic Studies, will be the teacher. Though not yet having a complete scope on translating the idea of Ethnic Studies into a physical classroom environment, having an established teacher will provide consistency in the classroom.
“She has some experience with ethnic studies courses,” Karmakar said. “Her husband teaches a course over at Oregon City so I think there’s a nice connection there. I’m not sure if we even have a textbook at this point. We [will] continue to work and research but I see it [being] more like a mix between a social studies and language arts class where there’s lots of time to have conversations and really dig into particular topics as opposed to kind of having to get through a certain lesson plan.”
As there are still details needing sorting out, Affinity Club is hard at work finding answers. Even then, the class proposal was accepted, so expect the option to take Ethnic Studies next year.
Using GOSSEY
I remember when I was first learning news gathering. I was extremely nervous for my first interview, which was with a basketball player, and we were standing and I read off questions off a piece of paper. This interview really didn’t feel like a conversation, it felt too structured . Now, I aim to have all my interviews feel like conversations and not anything else. An acronym our staff likes to use is GOSSEY, which aims to guide us through how we create our interview questions and choose our angles. To start my senior year, me and fellow editor-in-chief Rachel Han presented a Google Slide to the class so the new student journalists can learn more about news gathering.
Using GOSSEY has helped me think of the right questions for the right questions. When doing planned interviews, I always write about 20-30 questions addressing the who, what, where, why, when while also just having a genuine conversation. The 5 W’s are always the fundamentals but what’s great about GOSSEY is that it’s situational. In order to get the best questions, I use GOSSEY because it helps me formulate specific questions over any given situation and context. Here is what each letter means:
- Goals. What is the interviewee’s goal with the project/event?
- Obstacles. What has the interviewee gone through to get to this point? What possible obstacles will there be to get to your goal?
- Strategies. How will the interviewee overcome obstacles and reach their goals?
- Start. How did the interviewee’s ideas start?
- Evaluation. Finding the Five W’s. Who is this? What is that? When did this happen? Where do you plan to do this?
- Why (Y). Finding out why the interviewee is doing their thing. Why are you doing it? Tell me about it.
My interview etiquette/strategy
I want my interview to be professionally casual. Above all else, I want my interviewee to feel comfortable to say whatever they want to say and make our conversation a safe space. Using interview manners is the number one way to create a safe and casual space. To make the most of the conversation, I also have some extra strategies. Here is a list that I follow every time I interview someone.
- Handshake or some other opening gesture. When I first see my interviewee, I say my name and I shake their hand. However this depends on the person. If it’s someone older than me, I usually shake their hand. However, if it’s someone my age or younger, I give them a fist bump or duplicate whatever they do. First impressions like this can help the interview feel more chill, which can hopefully lead to more authentic answers.
- Ask to record. I always ask if the conversation can be recorded, because as a staff we feel like it’s the interviewees choice. I use Otter.AI to record interviews, which transcribes the interview for me while also giving the audio recording.
- Ask for pronouns. In all cases, I ask for pronouns. It doesn’t matter if it may seem obvious, I never want to assume because I could always be wrong.
- Spell out the full name. I ask the interviewee to spell out their name so I’m not at risk at misspelling their name.
- Grade/role. Doesn’t hurt to ask just in case I am wrong. I always got to make sure I have the facts right.
- Putting the phone down. My phone, also known as my recording device, is put on a table/surface around the conversation if possible. I think holding up the phone to my interviewees could create unneeded pressure depending on the person.
- Easy affirmations. During conversation, head nods, smiles, laughing, saying “yeah” or “that’s cool” helps my interviewee feel less pressure. This is something I’ve always practiced.
- Be casual. My questions aren’t a strict code of conversation. I can come off the play sheet to ask the questions I think that are interesting and fun at the moment.
- No distractions. My sole focus is on the interviewee. I aim to not get distracted with the outside noise. That’s why I prioritize a quiet spot for the interview.
- Closing well. When the interview is done, I do another handshake or a fist bump or something along those lines. I also always say “have a good day” and “thank you so much” before the interviewee is on their way.
Getting quick interviews
Gathering quick interviews are essential for timely articles. I’ve practiced this many times with different sports such as football, basketball, baseball, and softball. Out of all those experiences however, my time at the 2023 6A OSAA Baseball State Championship stood out the most.
Getting information is how I shape my articles. Without gathering information, I don’t know how one could create a good article. On this page, I demonstrate how I conduct different types of interviews and how news gathering contributes to connecting to the community.
I was needing to write a game story, and this wasn’t any game, it was the state championship. It was an even more special championship because the West Linn baseball team was trying to win their second straight. West Linn won, beating the nationally ranked Jesuit Crusaders, who had one of the top pitchers in the country. After taking some postgame pictures, it was my job to interview the players about the game, however these interviews really aren’t like the kind of interviews I did with my Ethnic Studies story. They are impromptu, more like an authentic conversation with a phone in between me and the interviewee. When I was first doing these kinds of interviews, it was hard to think of questions really quickly because I was just inexperienced. My first interviews usually ended very quickly, I really didn’t know how to improvise questions. However, that ended with a lot of practice throughout my sophomore and junior year.
I now know to not jump right in. I’ve learned to think more about what were the key moments of the game, who were the best players, and thinking about all the aspects of GOSSEY. This strategy isn’t as reliable as the pen and paper but it gets me going and prepped for a professional conversation. When practicing these strategies, I got much better, a lot due to my goals of these kinds of interviews haven’t been more clear. At the state championship, my goals were clear as I had more experience on what to look and what not to look for.
The end result was a success. I had the story published the first school day we had since the state championship and this happened mostly because I got the quick information after the game. I asked the right questions to get concise details for my story.
Baseball team goes back-to-back
By beating Jesuit 2—0, the baseball team won their second straight state championship on June 3
The baseball team was going into the last inning up 2—0. Up to that point, Drake Gabel, senior, had allowed zero runs against the number two ranked Jesuit Crusaders. Though West Linn was ranked number one in the state, Jesuit was ranked 22 in the country as of May 31. After two outs and two runners on base, Gabel gave up a pop fly, which was caught by third baseman Jackson Curdy, senior.
A dogpile ensued and the rest was history. It was their second straight state championship.
This matchup was played against Jesuit’s pitcher, Noble Meyer, senior, the 11th ranked professional prospect in the country. Meyer, who’s fastball consisted of at least 90 mile per hour (mph) speeds, allowed two hits and delivered 14 strikeouts.
Both of these hits came in the first inning. With one out, Danny Wideman, sophomore, hit a double into right field.
“[I was] just trying to be on time, I saw a pitch I liked, I tried to put a good swing on it,” Wideman said. “Ended up getting a double down the line. That kind of got us going, got the crowd going. I’m just really happy, really proud of myself.”
Jake Holmes, senior, batted Wideman in one out later with a single. It was his final hit in a Lion uniform.
“Danny came up so clutched in the first inning with that double,” Holmes said. “Having that confidence in your head helps so much, because when you believe you are the best, nobody can take you down. [Meyer is] the best right handed pitcher in the country. Danny’s and mine in the first inning were the only two hits he gave up. He’s resilient. We just got lucky with the first punch.”
Gabel continued to hold Jesuit scoreless throughout the game. Though Jesuit managed to deliver six hits, none of those hits amounted to runs. Gabel was awarded the player of the game at the game’s conclusion
“When they get some hits or get guys on base it changes momentum, but we know we trust in every one of our guys and I know when I’m pitching they’re gonna trust me to dominate the zone,” Gabel said. “It’s just plays like that change [the] momentum and the whole team was just boosted, the whole team had full morale.”
Despite having an equal ratio of hits to runs, the baseball team was able to make due. In the fifth inning, Jesuit gave up three errors, all of which helped the baseball team get a run without getting a hit. On the other hand, West Linn had no errors.
“We just all play so well together,” Holmes said. “We know everyone has each other’s backs. If you do make a mistake, it’s just head up and make the next play because all 20 of the other dudes on the team got your back. So [knowing] that relieves so much pressure off yourself and it’s just so much easier to play baseball.”
This game was the second matchup against Jesuit this year. On March 17, the baseball team lost to Jesuit 6—9, almost three months beforehand.
“[We were] still trying to figure out our identity a little bit,” Gabel said. “After that spring break trip we took, where we lost three times, I think that really flipped the switch for us. We came back and we started playing as a team more and every guy knew what they had to do. We just had so much trust in each other. We’ve played together since [we were nine] and to win it with these guys is so special.”
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