As a follow-up to the last post, I just have to say: any law that allows for the restriction of a public record as a result of an ongoing investigation without just cause seems foolhardy at best. Twice now, I’ve encountered this: one was in the death by suicide of Rylie Wagner, where we saw a medical examiner’s office withhold an autopsy report for months because they presumed there was an ongoing investigation (it was a legal misunderstanding, in the end); the second was when two police departments refused to confirm information regarding the arrest of four separate suspects in a double homicide. Why? They didn’t say, and continually provided non-answers. Arguably they could easily block my access on the grounds of there being an active investigation, but why? If I, as a police administrator, found ways to continually lengthen an investigation that is personally inconvenient for me or someone I know, how would the press know?

Plus, an exemption under open records laws regarding disclosure of public records because of issues like public safety or an active investigation does not seem to me to be a blanket reason to prevent the release of said record. It simply provides the option to do so; a criminal justice system acting in good faith with the public would not apply these exemptions across the board wherever they might apply.

These were not the concerns the officers were considering. They were concerned with doing their jobs. But so was I, and they sure made it harder.

Today, I was tasked with covering a double homicide in Moberly, the circumstances of which were odd and somewhat confusing. That work entailed a lot of care in how I addressed family members of the deceased, as well as how I addressed actors in the criminal justice system. Neither police department that I spoke with would provide me with any information on the ongoing hunt for the four suspects, I’m assuming because of the active investigation (though they could have, should they have chosen to).

That ended up being okay, because a student journalist at another outlet shared the information needed with me and because I worked around these restrictions by relying on empathy and experience to garner that information and discover new details as to why the victims were where they were, and it resulted in more human-sounding verbiage on my part and on the part of my sources. I’m happy with how it turned out, though there are still many holes in the public’s understanding of how and why these two men died.

Generally, word count can indicate the depth of reporting you have to do on a given subject, which in turn can indicate how much time you’ll spend on that reporting.

This is not always true.

I already knew this, in a way: when I was freelancing for Maryland Matters, my research for a given article could take a day or a couple of weeks, depending on the subject. But sometimes, even for the least-involved of articles – say, a 2-3 graf brief – the amount of time invested can balloon.

Take this most recent example: I was tasked with writing a brief on Columbia’s weather the next day. The editor who assigned it to me anticipated I’d run into issues, because of the complexity of the National Weather Service’s web site. She was right.

Not counting interruptions from class and meetings, writing this brief on the temperature took me hours. I had to find temperature extreme charts, averages, and trends to make sure that the high temperature of that day was or was not unusual.

Then, I had to tie it to drought figures, and see whether or not the current drought was going to be alleviated this month.

Navigating the U.S. Drought Monitor site and the NWS’s byzantine layout turned what could have been a one hour story at max into a slog. Another learning experience, I guess.

I love being a Missourian reporter. My work means I get to interact with people from all sorts of backgrounds that I wouldn’t meet on the day-to-day.Yet I have been struggling with balancing reporting with my other tasks. The following text explains why, and is meant not as a complaint, but as an exploration of my thoughts as of late.

I have per week, at least four readings per each of my other two classes. Each takes at least 45 minutes to an hour for me to adequately internalize their arguments and be ready to discuss them in a seminar (which I’m graded on). I also have to pen well-thought out responses and talking points. Frequently, it takes much longer than an hour, depending on the reading. For my TA position, I have to take a few hours per week to grade assignments, and do readings for that. I have two hours of office hours.

Yet in this program there are many assignments that aren’t tied to a weekly schedule: prepare a 7450 multimedia presentation, do a deep dive on readings to prepare reading notes for a class, research and write an essay on theory, prepare for the collaborative research paper we’re going to write in one of my classes, research and write an in-class presentation for another class, have meetings with professors to suss out the subject of my project or thesis and plan out my future courseload, do a biweekly GA shift, make consistent progress on stories, and more.

Then there are things outside of class: engage in extracurricular opportunities like student innovation competitions or workshops (they often lead to just as much learning as in-class opportunities), maintain healthy relationships with my parents and girlfriend, keep in touch with friends, eat healthily, budget appropriately, work out at least once or twice a week (at minimum), find time to prepare meals for the week, and somehow find time to unwind.

I have been using the programs I cited a few weeks ago to make all of this easier, but the fact is that none of it has been made easier, just more organized. Frequently, by mid-week, I find myself emotionally drained. I believe this is largely due to the expectations of a graduate program, especially one at a top J-school.

Regardless, it results in a feeling of constantly being underwater, and not necessarily knowing how to get to the surface. I’ve pushed back against my workload, but it sometimes ends up in me being more underwater than I was at the start, having inappropriately used my time when there were more pressing concerns. When I do actually pick the most urgent tasks to tackle, they end up taking up so much time that I find myself falling asleep at my desk with a to-do list that has maybe one thing checked off. It’s really god damn hard, is what I’m saying, and I’m doing my best to stay afloat, but I wish I could find a way to feel more confident about the time I put into all of it.