Collins story ideas

Story Idea 1 (Institutional) – Pie Bake

• Report on the recipients of the hundreds of pies baked at UPrep’s annual pre-Thanksgiving pie bake for charities.
• Mission and need: Students spend hours making the pies. It would be nice to help them understand the results.
• Newspeg: Obviously, this is only a timely story around the time of Pie Bake, an annual event every November.
• Essential question: What happens to the pies after they leave UPrep?
• Sources:
  • Anne Bingham, NHS sponsor
  • Staff member from at least one charity (shelter, food bank) assisted
  • Pie recipient (shelter resident or food bank client)
  • Possibly pie bake students
• Potential issues with sources:
  • Finding a charity representative willing to talk on the eve of a holiday
    • Solution: Plan ahead
  • Convincing a homeless person or food bank client to tell their story publicly
    • Solution: Make the story about more than the person receiving charity. Really tell the person’s story.
  • Media to best tell the story
    • Could make for a compelling podcast or video piece—plenty of visuals and sounds. Could also be a good character-centered narrative article.
  • Visuals: students making pies, pies being delivered, eating of pies (maybe?)
  • Angles: tell from the point of view of a pie recipient or a representative of one of the charities—giving context about the organization; or do the story from a traditional approach—talk to students about the experience of making the pies
  • ASF possibilities:
    • By the numbers breakdown (lbs. of ingredients, organizations served, number of years, number of students, number of pies)
    • Pie recipe
    • Map of pie destinations
    • Bio box of charities helped
  • Legal, ethical, social responsibility concerns: Obviously you are dealing with telling a story of a private person, so it will be important to make sure they understand where the story will go and consent to their name and/or picture being used.
  • Other: Doing this story well will require a student to have transportation.

Story Idea 2 (in-depth expanded coverage) – Vaping Ban

• Idea: Examining the potential effects of banning vape product sales in Seattle
• Mission and need: After San Francisco passed a law banning the sale of e-cigaretttes, Seattle’s mayor tweeted that it was “time to have this discussion” in Seattle
• News peg: First issue since the tweet; could also be done when the law takes effect in early 2020
• Essential questions: Will Seattle seriously pursue banning the sale of vape products? (Since the law has not taken affect in SF yet, a solutions piece on this topic would be impossible.)
• Sources:
  • Mayor
  • Students who vape (anonymized)
  • Business owner (who sells vape products)
  • Health dept. representative
  • SF city documents
  • SF city official
  • Potential Seattle city documents
• Potential issues with sources:
  • Seattle mayor and SF city official will obviously be hard to interview
    • Solution: Is there a spokesperson or other public official (with less seniority) who could speak? Could we do an email or phone interview?
  • Students may not want to talk
    • Solution: Conduct interview off campus; reporter is the only person who knows the identity
  • Depending on the documents we seek from the cities, they might not be readily available
    • Solution: Submit records requests
  • Media to best tell the story: Online or print
  • Visuals: Photo, photo illustration, ASFs
  • Angles: Do students and health officials think that a ban in Seattle could make a difference? Why does the mayor think this would be effective? Why did SF make this decision? What has been the fallout since the city approved the law?
  • ASF possibilities: Timeline of SF law, social media collection (tweets by public officials), polls, charts/graphs of vape sale statistics
  • Legal, ethical, social responsibility concerns: Making sure we do not reveal the identity of any vaping students, as it is illegal
  • Other:

Story Idea 3 (social media) – Buff Puff and Power Puff

• Idea: Live coverage of the annual Buff Puff and Power Puff games during homecoming week.
• Mission and need: Event is popular with students (who might appreciate the real-time recap); alumni could also follow online
• News peg: Cover as it happens
• Essential question: Who wins?
• Sources:
  • Team captains
  • Team coaches
  • Competitors
  • Spectators
• Potential issues with sources:
  • Unable to interview players during the games
    • Solution: Conduct post-game interviews
  • May want to interview multiple people in a limited amount of time
    • Solution: Employ mutltiple reporters
  • Media to best tell the story: Live Tweet, Instagram Live, Instagram stories (We don’t have a Facebook page)
  • Visuals: Images and video of the game
  • Angles: Play by play, sideline coverage, fan reaction
  • ASF possibilities: Twitter poll, Instagram story with user-submitted photos
  • Legal, ethical, social responsibility concerns: Concerns about possible inappropriate language by participants during live coverage
  • Other: Unable to use multiple platforms on one device; multiple reporters would be needed, and because of that, we’d need a clear coverage plan with well-defined responsibilities for all reporters