Chapters 14, 8, and 9

Chapters 8 and 9 of Covering Crime and Justice talk about covering criminal and civil courts. To be perfectly honest, I have never been able to fully understand the court system, legal jargon, etc. As I've mentioned before, having parents that are both lawyers should have given me some sort of understanding of all of this, but long story short, I just have never been able to understand the complexities of the legal system.

The chapters did help to teach me a lot about the courts that I didn't know though. For example, in Chapter 8, they talked a lot about what goes on before a trial actually takes place. I did not realize that there was so much to pre-trial proceedings. The section that laid out exactly what happens during a trial was particularly interesting to me. I never realized how specific an actual trial is. I feel that this is probably useful information to know were I to be reporting on a court case. That's what I felt was most helpful about these chapters. In order to report effectively, you need to do your background research. Particularly when reporting on something as specific as a court case.

Chapter 14 in the book talked all about beat reporting. I actually found this chapter to be pretty interesting, seeing as I have always sort of thought having a beat to cover would be pretty fun. Reporters need to have a broad understanding of a number of topics, and I feel that covering beats adds to a reporter's well-roundedness. As embarrassing as it is to admit this, Almost Famous is my favorite movie, and may have had something to do with my initial interest in journalism. Ever since then, I have always thought that it would be too much fun to cover a music scene beat of some sort.

Now, while this idea is still incredibly enticing, I have come to believe that covering other beats would be equally interesting. I have always thought that I might be able to excel pretty well with an environmental beat.

The idea of beat reporting just makes a lot of sense to me. Having a "specialty", in a way. Why have a reporter who has no idea about a certain topic write an article on it when you could have someone write it who knows a lot about the subject?