Thoughts on Vickie Chachere

First, I would like to thank our guest for sharing some of her valuable time and invaluable experience with our class, as I very much appreciated and gained from it.

Our visit by Vickie Chachere, former member of the editorial board for the Tampa Tribune, among other reputable positions she has held during her career thus far, was, in a word, enlightening.

Every class even remotely related to journalism that I have taken in my three years of college thus far has instilled me with the goal of being as neutral and objective as humanly possible in reporting the news.

After the first day of our critical writing class, I found myself on the brink of unfamiliar territory as I would have to find some way to reprogram myself to knowingly insert my opinion into the pieces I will write.

However ominous a task this seemed to be, I feel that Chachere has armed me with helpful hints and tricks of the trade that she has learned about editorial writing throughout her career; insight that has effectively nursed the uncertainty I felt after that first class.

Some of her best advice, which, in retrospect, should have been immediately understood, was to just spend time reading top-quality editorials, such as those that are awarded the Pulitzer Prize. She said that what I will notice is that each piece isn't award-winning due to the nature of its topic, opinion or grace of the sentence, but because each is meticulously reported.

This, Chachere said, is the basis of great journalism--the ability to write and report clearly and accurately. With these basic abilities, I am confident that I can write in any style asked of me.

Since our class is not an actual news organization, we will have the opportunity to find our own stories on which to report with our own opinions, instead of being given assignments, allowing us to choose issues that have the potential to incite a visceral reaction in our audience and even spark real change as a result.

This idea excited me, as I have already come to find that a story is much easier to write when you are interested in the subject you are covering, but adding that such pieces may actually make a difference in our world is immensely empowering.

Yet another tip that Chachere gave to our class was that we should strive to intersperse and drive our argument with fact-based reporting, much as lawyers do within their closing arguments, allowing our strongest facts to build towards our ultimate idea. This comparison was a very helpful way to show us what she meant by that idea and I feel that it will guide me throughout the rest of this course.

Finally, Chachere's visit has taught me to not see each of the pieces I will write as individual works with definite conclusions inherent in them as I type their last word, but to always keep the follow-up editorial in mind and see if the local issue addressed within them could be emblematic of a larger picture.

In short, our discussions with Vickie Chachere have, I feel, better equipped me to perform well in editorial writing.