I need to apologize to you. I really do. Because I failed you.
How did I do that? Because four of you fataled the test story.
It's the usual mix of avoidable fatals. Misspellings in quotes that created unintended words and changed the meanings of the quotes; using the incorrect spelling of a name and not clarifying with me which of two spellings were correct; saying the plane stopped 10 miles from the highway when you meant to say 10 feet.
No one who avoided a fatal failed to score worse than a 3.5 on this exercise. If there were no fatals, everybody in this class would have scored at least that high. Some people showed remarkable improvement in this exercise. You all are understanding good story structure.
And that's not surprising. Journalism is weird in that for most people, improvement isn't a steady climb. There are things they learn that they can't fully understand and implement until they learn something else. So quite often with young reporters, there's a frustratingly slow growth curve until you get that one missing puzzle piece, and then you take off.
But that's not where I fail you. Where I am doing an inadequate job is with importing upon you how important it is to avoid fatals, and offering you strategies on how to keep from fataling.
If I were doing a good enough job, then you wouldn't be fataling now, right?
So I ask you: why are these fatals happening? what can I do to help you fatal less? What am I missing here that you need to know?
We need to solve this problem. If I let you advance to JRN 300 without resolving fatals, then all I'm doing is setting you up for failure at a higher level, when the stakes for you will be higher. And I sure as hell don't want that to happen.
I'm not doing my job here, folks. Not well enough, at least. Help me help you.
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