The average IU football ticket on Stubhub.com is $41, which is down from $45 from the 2013 season. Still, Jeffrey tries his luck at making a profit by buying low and selling at face-value.
By Evan Hoopfer | INDIANA DAILY STUDENT | Dec. 15, 2014
Second, Hearst, Sports Writing
Second, Associated Collegiate Press Story of the Year, Sports Story
How did the concept originate?
For a class called Words and Pictures, we were assigned to teams of three — a writer, a photographer and a multimedia person. I was the writer for the story.
We had two big assignments for this class. The first one was a 24-hour assignment. We had to find, and report a story entirely within a 24-hour period. This was to get our group used to working together. The second assignment was a semester-long mega project.
For the 24-hour assignment, our group was kicking around ideas, and we came up with the idea to follow a ticket scalper at the IU football game. After we did our 24-hour assignment, we got to thinking about ideas for the mega project. We thought of a lot of different ideas and eventually came back to the same scalper. We said, ‘Uh, why don’t we just do a big story on him?” We asked him, and he said yes.
Walk us through the early production — the reporting, the sourcing, the visual planning. Walk us through the writing and self-editing. How many drafts?
I think my professor and I went through 13 drafts.
It was funny, for my birthday I went to my fiance’s place in Cincinnati over the weekend. The publication date was Monday though, so I spent my birthday exchanging drafts with my professor. My fiancée was a little peeved but understood how important this was to me.
We didn’t really know what the story would look like at first. But you can just tell when you have a good idea. You start talking about the idea with other people, and they’re engaged. They’re not breaking eye contact and they’re asking follow-up questions for curiosity’s sake. That’s how I knew we had something.
As for finding the ultimate angle (a veteran scalper trying to adapt to new times because if he doesn’t, he’ll be irrelevant), that came from just spending hours and hours with him and figuring out what he’s trying to overcome in his life. We traveled to his apartment in Indianapolis twice and spent all Saturday mornings/afternoons on the same street corner that he did.
He grew his trust because he could tell we were serious about reporting the story. He told us at one point he allowed us to tag along with him so much because he respected how persistent we were. There was no real secret to it, just observe him, write it down, rinse-lather-repeat. Do that enough times until you have everything you need, then go back and start making a story out of it.
With the other two characters in our story — Dirty and the King — that was the same thing. They saw us every home game, so they got used to us and trusted us. It wasn’t that way at first. The King especially was especially grumpy and flat-out mean. I can’t remember exactly what we said to me during our first conversation, but it was something along the lines of “You’re not very bright are you?” While I was a little upset about being called stupid, I stuck it out. Really all he wanted to do was just talk. So I let him talk and talk and talk. I think nobody really listens to him anymore, so by the end our first hour-long chat, he was actually chummy to me.
Another scalper walked up to talk to the King and basically told me to go away, but the King defended me and told me I could stay. That’s when I knew I had earned his trust.
How did the story evolve? How did IDS editors interact with the production?
Tom French, Kelley French and Mike Majchrowicz edited the story. Tom did the most, the first 12 drafts, then Kelley took a stab at the last draft when I needed to cut like 400 words at the last moment. Mike gave it the last read, pointed out something I hadn’t thought of before, and gave great advice.
The story would have been absolutely nothing without editing. That’s a crucial, crucial step in writing. You have to get eyes on your drafts, and really listen to them and trust them when they disagree with something you wrote. A good writer with no editor is actually just a bad writer.
The biggest edit — the King’s racism. He was this old, white guy surrounded by black men, and he was overtly racist. Jeffrey even commented on his racism one time. I had all that in there originally, because it was compelling stuff. But at the final round of edits (Kelley and Mike) they pointed out that while it was interesting, it didn’t add to the story. My story was about Jeffrey and him adapting to a new world. It wasn’t about the tension on the corner, which would have been a whole separate story.
I think the two best pieces of writing advice I’ve ever gotten are —
(1) after you’re done, go through and look at every verb. And try to make them more active and compelling.
(2) Every single paragraph, sentence and word in your story should word toward telling your thesis/nut graf.
A great detail is only a great detail only if it helps tell the story. The King’s racism was a great example of not obeying No. 2. It was great stuff on its own, but it didn’t help tell my story. Jeffrey’s story. That was probably the hardest thing, because it was compelling stuff. But Kelley and Mike were right — it didn’t fit.
If you’re a reporter, how did you interact with visual journalists on photos, illustrations and design?
I constantly talked with the photographer. I wanted to make sure we were seeing the same stuff and seeing the same story.
I would share drafts of my early work with my team, so they knew what direction we were headed in. Communication was key to help tell a collaborative, compelling story.
Overall, were there different approaches for print and online?
The words were exactly the same. But in print, obviously, you have a finite amount of space. So, online, we were able to put a lot more photos in there and place them strategically throughout the story. It really came together quite well.
What was the toughest challenge? How did you overcome it?
The toughest challenge was gaining the trust of these men who wary of us at first. They saw us as kind of a bother and thought we were out to try and make them look bad.
But we kept coming back, week after week, and showed to them we were serious about painting an accurate portrait of their lives as scalpers. After a while we were just part of the corner. We belonged to be there just as much as the they did. That trust we earned came through working every Saturday possible. There was no shortcut, just being there all the time.
How did you grow as a journalist on this project?
I think as a sports reporter, you get complacent about your stories. And it’s really through no fault of your own. You sit in a chair and watch a performance unfold before you. You write down what happens, you talk to people who scored the most points or got the most tackles, and then you write something that basically 50 other people are writing, too. You can absolutely stand out, but it’s harder because you’re basically writing about the same exact same a room full of other reporters are, too.
With this, I was the only reporter watching something unfold. There wasn’t a PR person to get me in touch with the people I needed to talk to. I just walked up to them and did it myself. It was a lot of pressure, but it was so much fun. It’s almost like you had this little world all to yourself. The quality of your story was 100-percent dependent on your willing to put the work in. I hadn’t experience something so “libertarian” before in reporting. It was the single most important story I’ve written so far as far as growing as a reporter goes.
What’s your quick advice for someone taking on a topic or project like this one?
There are no shortcuts. Always be there, write everything down and become an expert in whatever you’re reporting. If you’re not, it will show in your story.
It’s a good sign if you feel as if you could write another good story with all the material you had to cut from your original story.