Contest Winner Tips: Broadcast Beat Reporting
Editor's note: EWA will post tips and advice over the next two weeks from first-prize winners of EWA's National Awards for Education Reporting. Greg Groogan and Mark Muller of KRIV-TV won first prize in broadcast beat reporting. Groogan describes the stories they reported and chose for the contest entry.
Groogan and Muller Cover Schools
In a "beat" competition I've always felt the goal should be to exhibit versatility, range and depth. I started my entry with what I considered my strongest enterprise piece. Suing Chuka revealed how an urban school district had secretly spent more than $200,000 seeking legal fees from the family of a special-needs student. The parents of the autistic boy had vigorously challenged the manner in which their son was being educated by the Alief Independent School District in the Houston area. The lawsuit filed by the AISD -- without the knowledge of the school board or taxpayers -- threatened to bankrupt the family.
In the second element of my entry I wanted to showcase research. I chose a story built around my re-examination of a comprehensive facilities assessment conducted by a consulting firm hired by the Houston Independent School District. The data revealed that literally every campus in the district failed to comply with accessibility standards established by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
In the third element of my entry I wanted to exhibit an ability to respond well to fast-breaking education news. In Hard Day at Holy Trinity we arrived on the campus of a small, private, suburban school just minutes after students learned that a drop in enrollment caused by the economic downturn would force a closure at mid-term. The emotional response of students was dramatic. The powerlessness of parents to stop the shutdown illustrated the severity of the ongoing recession.
For my fourth element I chose my best education related feature, a story I called Being Victor, which profiled a homeless student who managed to graduate as valedictorian with the help of a "human safety net' of school friends and devoted teachers.
To highlight coverage of non-traditional education issues I added a story I called Home School on Steroids, which profiled a group of home-schooling families successfully sharing instructional skills in a sort of educational co-op.
Groogan and Muller Cover Schools
In a "beat" competition I've always felt the goal should be to exhibit versatility, range and depth. I started my entry with what I considered my strongest enterprise piece. Suing Chuka revealed how an urban school district had secretly spent more than $200,000 seeking legal fees from the family of a special-needs student. The parents of the autistic boy had vigorously challenged the manner in which their son was being educated by the Alief Independent School District in the Houston area. The lawsuit filed by the AISD -- without the knowledge of the school board or taxpayers -- threatened to bankrupt the family.
In the second element of my entry I wanted to showcase research. I chose a story built around my re-examination of a comprehensive facilities assessment conducted by a consulting firm hired by the Houston Independent School District. The data revealed that literally every campus in the district failed to comply with accessibility standards established by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
In the third element of my entry I wanted to exhibit an ability to respond well to fast-breaking education news. In Hard Day at Holy Trinity we arrived on the campus of a small, private, suburban school just minutes after students learned that a drop in enrollment caused by the economic downturn would force a closure at mid-term. The emotional response of students was dramatic. The powerlessness of parents to stop the shutdown illustrated the severity of the ongoing recession.
For my fourth element I chose my best education related feature, a story I called Being Victor, which profiled a homeless student who managed to graduate as valedictorian with the help of a "human safety net' of school friends and devoted teachers.
To highlight coverage of non-traditional education issues I added a story I called Home School on Steroids, which profiled a group of home-schooling families successfully sharing instructional skills in a sort of educational co-op.
Labels: access, contest 2010, curriculum, journalism, k12_finance, readiness, special_ed
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