ABSTRACT
As Anne Hull would say, reporter’s job is to shine a light into the eyes of people who want to look away. Step beyond the conventional notions of reporters beat to determine what’s important. A reporter cannot begin to understand a different culture and its customs unless she spends days, weeks and sometimes months building relationships with people inside that community. As a beginning journalist, reporters may find yourself too often relying on official sources and experts—the government officials, politicians, business and industry executives who exercise prestige and influence in the community. Comprehensiveness certainly includes stories about influential people, but it also means stories about people whose lives diverge from society’s norms. Roanoke held hearings and conducted numerous poverty studies after Madeline Tate’s death. In 1992 a task force issued a report of more than one hundred pages that said improving the educational system was key to fighting poverty.
