The restaurant wasn't too crowded, but we bared witness to a wonderful event - a dine and dash. Two young guys thoroughly enjoyed their food and while the waiters were busy being preoccupied fixing the order of another customer, those guys waited maybe 2 minutes for their check and when they saw no one paying attention, they walked out. As we saw this easy crime being committed, I thought, how very appropriate for my story!!! My topic is how there's more disrespect among the youth in Bayview.
It took the waiters like 10 minutes to figure out that those guys had dipped out, and all the while I'm thinking, wow. . . this is what happens the first time I actually spend a little bit of leisure time in my hood. But it was almost too perfect that that happened. Not that I wanted the restaurant to get ripped off, but this proves my point a little too well.
Reflecting on my neighborhood I realized that it's pretty rough around the edges. I can honestly say that the number one thing I regret about my neighborhood is the fact that I never enjoyed being there. I would never go at night and I didn't feel super safe walking down the street. I put my "bitch face" on and tried my best to make it appear like I had a purpose for being there. I would go to my hood, get my information and leave. I always felt really guilty every time I left because I had a sense of relief to be going back home to the safe outer Richmond district. I still feel bad for feeling that way, because I wanted a more objective disposition but I couldn't.
In no way am I saying that people shouldn't want this neighborhood for reporting because it's basically a gold mine for stories and experience. I feel like every story I've done had practically fallen into my lap. But I also felt bad because I tried my hardest not to make it seem like I was exploiting the miseries of the people I was reporting on. They made it clear that they're not guinea pigs to be poked and pumped for information, just for the sake of my grade. In some ways it was difficult because there have been so many stories written about that neighborhood that angered the community, and here I come into their town meetings with my little journalist notepad trying to cover the same stories that have already been told.
Despite it all, I really enjoyed the class. I used to get excited when I knew I had a juicy story that Yvonne would like. And it's not like I'm a bad writer or anything, I just don't enjoy it as much as taking pictures. It's a great skill to learn how to do it all, and the one thing that this class has taught me about myself is that I like writing hard news. I have to get into a different mindset whenever I write a feature, but there's somewhat of a formula to writing hard news articles that I'm starting to get the hang of.
All in all, I think we had the right amount of stories throughout the semester and the right teacher. Everyone always complains that reporting is so hard and demanding, and I'm sure it is in other classes with other teachers, but I can honestly say I've told everyone who's asked me to take it with Yvonne. . thanks for making it fun :)
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