Coping With Stress

One of the things I love about working at a public radio station is working on feature stories. Being given up to four-and-a-half minutes of air time for a story is wonderful. It reminds me a bit of my first job at the City News Service. Since it was a wire service, we basically got to use as much space as we wanted for a story. So long as we hit the most important parts of the story early on, we could go into as much detail as we felt was needed.

When I started at WBBM a couple years ago, it was a big shift trying to sum up important news into 30-second spots for the anchors. Public radio gives me a bit more time to work with on spot news, but even with a minute, I find myself wishing I could go into more detail. So working on pieces like this week's feature is a joy. Working in the perspectives of four different people to tell the story is so fulfilling.

It's not often that a random press release from a politician turns into a fulfilling story like this one. But a release we got about a bill in Congress that would provide grants to colleges and universities for mental health programs turned out to be a better story than you'd think at first glance. But after talking with my bureau chief, Sean Crawford, about the issue a bit, it blossomed into a great story about how counseling programs at universities have changed in the past few years and how students are getting involved in outreach. Even with this piece, I know there are so many other angles I could expand on, but I'm really proud of this one.