Some weeks all I do is write

12,387 words.

That’s how much content I produced this week for two newspapers. Approximately 5,000 of that was sports related. If we count the additional “Looking Back” information I prepared, that’s another 4,224 words.

That’s a lot.

To compare, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone contains 76,944 words. If I wrote 12,387 words a week, I’d be able to write as many words as are in the Sorcerer’s Stone in a little over six weeks.

What’s the point in sharing this? For anyone who believes being a reporter is easy, just let me say I earned my paychecks this week. Also, each story was a project in itself.

In the grand scheme of things, there’s a lot that goes into any story. The plot, the setting, the five points in the story arc. In fiction, it’s possible to paint things exactly the way you want to. But the life of a newspaper story is somewhat different. You don’t often think about what the climax is, or what you want it to be. You tell the who, what, where, when, why, and how. The story itself has exposition, rising action. climax, falling action, and resolution. Nine times out of ten, we aren’t creating or making stories. We’re telling and sharing them. We also have pictures that help enrich the narrative.

In a way, though, we can make the story say what we want. I asked Eli if I should try asking the JWP boys’ basketball head coach about some controversial calls made in one of the games last week. I felt like, although the calls made by the officials late in the game weren’t the reason why the Bulldogs lost, they may have hindered a potential huge comeback. (I’m biased, of course.)

He encouraged me to ask those questions, since it would have more weight if the coaches’ observations aligned with mine. “That’s just good journalism,” Eli told me. “We have an opinion or we think something is a certain way, so we gather information which supports it.” Or, we might acquire information which led us to broaden our perspective.

Not to get political, but I feel like a lot of media outlets put their own spin on a given situation  instead of telling it like it is. I’m sure that’s not a controversial opinion, but it is indeed one that will get some eyes rolling on both sides. Cue Donald Trump repeatedly saying “fake news” or the mainstream media blaring “misinformation” across the TV screen, am I right?

As someone who is slightly exhausted at 10 p.m. at night writing this before our press day, I just don’t get it. It’s so much easier to try and tell the story as it is. Why twist it for your own agenda?

Maybe it is that much harder to write the true story. You have to dig for the evidence when doing investigative reporting. You have to bug coaches about how the game went for sports write-ups. You have to ask a lot of questions generally in any story. Some of them are tough, and the answer may not be what we want to hear.

There’s a lot one can say in 12,387 words. That’s a lot of stories that can be created. That’s as much as a novella, or the start of a larger one.

I think if there’s one takeaway this week, it’s that I am learning more about how much words matter. There are currently 171,146 listings in the Oxford English dictionary. It is important we use them wisely.

This week in music

I haven’t done this section in two weeks because the columns from the previous two weeks ended up on the longer side.

On January 13, 1978, the trio The Police started to record their debut album Outlandos d’Amour, which contained the singles “Roxanne,” “So Lonely,” and “Can’t Stand Losing You.” The band’s budget was only 1,500 euros, which drummer Steward Copeland received from his brother Miles Copeland III.

The small sum ended up paying off in dividends, as the band went from barely being able to afford renting a studio to selling out arenas around the world in five years.