REPORTER GIVES STUDENTS A DOSE OF NEWS REALITY

By working around movers and shakers on deadline, ASNE Reporter staffers know how hectic - and thrilling - newspapers can be

It was the next to last day of the April convention, and the copy deadline for the final ASNE Reporter neared.

Two student reporters - Andrea Walker of the University of Maryland and Brian Le of Loyola University - huddled at a terminal, anxiously thumbing through their notes to see how their reporting would mesh.

We had chatted about the story - centered around the lack of minority keynoters at the convention. And we had consulted Reporter Editor Greg Moore to make sure he knew where we were headed with the story.

I decided to disappear for about twenty minutes - to let the students work without a nervous professional peering over their shoulders. When I checked on their progress, I felt like shouting for joy. They were about thirteen, near-perfect paragraphs into the story, which ended up running on the front page.

Considering that Andrea and Brian had gotten a late start on the assignment, had to interview several individuals at the convention and elsewhere, and gather statistics, theirs was an outstanding effort.

It was accomplished under real-world pressures, in an environment that challenged and stretched them journalistically and emotionally.

The weeklong experience, doubtless, will remain a high point in the students' lives for some time.

The youngsters - budding reporters, photographers, and copy editors - had come from all over the country - African-American, Hispanic, Asian American, white; from predominantly black institutions like Hampton University and journalistic powerhouses like Northwestern University. They endured grueling hours, brutal rewrites, checked and double-checked facts - the words "we need that story" seeming echoing constantly in their ears.

Along the way, the students made some friends - among each other and among the professionals, who pushed them mercilessly one moment and doled out well-deserved praise and encouragement the next.

As a first-time assigning editor, I probably profited as much from the experience as the students.

For one, I met some youngsters I very much would like to hire one day. And I got to talk and work with them under realistic conditions, not across a table at some job fair.

Too, the experience drove home the importance of the need for continued financial support for the ASNE Reporter News Lab.

This support represents an investment that pays huge future dividends. It give the youngsters a boost in the industry via a baptism by fire. And an introduction to professionals who can serve as mentors, advisers - and maybe, one day, employers.

Lake, recruitment director at the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk (Va.), served as an assigning editor of the 1996 ASNE Reporter.