“This assignment is not going to be fun. You will have sleepless nights because of it. You will have to interview people that do not want to be interviewed. You will have to ask questions people don’t want to answer. You will have to find a news story.” While I didn’t take the threats of my journalism professor too seriously, every single one of them came true.
When I was pitching the first couple of ideas, it became clear that I had taken this assignment too lightly. I could not just cover a recent event; do a little research on it and bam- write apiece. No, it had to be a story no one else had reported on before. I needed to actually find it myself. How? “Just ask people.”
So, there I was, at the hall office (HO) of my residence trying to find out what was going on at the student residencies by ‘asking’:
Me: “Has anything remarkable happened over the past days”
HO: “Like what?”
Me: “Uhm.. [pause] anything really. Anything out of the ordinary?”
HO: “Like what?”
Me: “Like… unusual things around campus? Around halls?”
HO: “Like what?”
Me: “Like… any rowdiness or bad behavior?” (Great question Emma.)
HO: “No.”
Me: “Alright. Thank you for your time.”
Hella Awkward.
Slightly embarrassed, I decided on a safer approach: e-mail. Contacting big tourist attractions in the neighborhood, I forgot one thing: e-mails are easily ignored. So I was stuck once again.
And so the sleepless nights began: twisting and turning, thinking about possible topics.. I didn’t know how to continue. But the next day I decided to pull my act together and go to the nearest shopping mall. I was going to find my story.
Talking to the Shopping mall’s office, my eye caught a poster for an upcoming event: “Be a fashionista Barbie” for girls aged 6-12. This instantly sparked some feminist feelings and I knew I was on to something. Surely, mothers wouldn’t agree with such a contest? I could smell conflict.
I pitched the idea to the teacher but he thought I was wrong – Singaporean moms would support this. My own shock made me determined to prove him otherwise. The entire Saturday I spent bugging shoppers with questions about the contest. The professor was right; people often did not want to talk to me. Either they were afraid they could not speak English, they simply couldn’t be bothered or maybe they were intimidated by a certain blonde towering over them? But I persisted and managed to collect my data in the end. Guess what? It supported my insights.
With the data to back me up, I continued to interview ‘aware’, a woman’s association in Singapore and, of course, the organizers of the event to ask for their opinion. Pursuing the story against the professors advice but in line with my own gut feeling and being rewarded in the end.. a happy dance was more than appropriate. I got a taste of what it would be like to pursue it as a career. Hmm.. something to think about.
