Breakfast at Cassidy's

Last Tuesday, I woke up a little earlier than usual to visit Cassidy's Family Restaurant. Councilwoman Sophia Scherman regularly hosts a 7:30 a.m. breakfast there for her constituents. She pays for the coffee and meals that are at a certain price. However, she wasn't there that morning. Instead Cody Tubbs, deputy city manager, presided over the event.

The topics of conversation stemmed from Neighborhood Services, the umbrella that Animal Services, Community Enhancement, Economic Development, Public Information, Solid Waste, and transit services (e-tran) falls under. I sat back to watch and listen to people's behavior and reactions during the meeting. Ten of the people who attended the meeting were there because they were complaining about a neighbor who keeps his RV in his sideyard and has built a fence around it that extends towards the sidewalk. One of the neighbors had already filed a complaint about it. Other people brought up other concerns, such as a business that has moved into a residential neighborhood, street racing, and a piece of land near a man's house that has a lot of trash.

One of the first things I noticed when I walked into the room was the sheer number of people. I think at one point there was around 25 people in that room. Some people got to sit at the long, rectangular table, while others had to simply sit in chairs. Another thing I noticed were the demographics of the attendees: practically everyone seemed to be Caucasian and I seemed to be the only attendee under age 40 or even 45. That was something that really stood out to me on that day.

A Tale of Two Protests

These days, protests are not uncommon across the country. When I hear the word "protest," I admit there are stereotypes that pop into my head of what a protest "should" look like and what the protesters "should" be doing and even what they "should" look like (or, at least, dress like).

During my spring 2007 semester at San Jose State University, for an assignment in my information gathering class, my classmates and I attended an on-campus protest. A group of students protested against the proposed tuition increase for the CSU system. There was already some tension in the air, since CSU faculty members had proposed a rolling strike, demanding raises for themselves. The class assignment was to do some reporting and then come back to the classroom to write about the event "on-deadline," turning in the story by a certain time during class.

Some of the protesters were wearing the color red or had red armbands. Some held signs, and there was even an effigy of CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed. People took turns expressing their opinions by talking into a microphone on stage. Then, the group marched across campus, chanting (they had handouts with chants written on them) and passing out fliers along the way. They stopped for a few minutes outside of Tower Hall, which is where the president's office is located. They stood outside of the building and chanted. Altogether, there were probably around 30 or 40 people who participated in the march.

That protest was the first one I've ever reported on, even though it was just a class assignment that wouldn't get published. My first protest story that would be published, though, was for the EG Citizen. The protest happened before the last Elk Grove City Council meeting. The issue that evening was about the proposed big box store ordinance. Prior to the meeting, there was a group of people from the Elk Grove Coalition Advocating Proper Planning (EGCAPP), people who support the ordinance. They wore stickers and held signs that had the words, "I support a Turlock-style ordinance...and I vote." On the other hand, people from Wal-Mart and its supporters had stickers with the word "BAN" crossed out, like a No Smoking symbol. If neither side had stickers and signs, then I may not have been able to tell right away which side they belonged to (I may have even mistaken some of them for staff members of the city government). Since the protest began at 5:30 p.m., I had the impression that many people had got off from work not too long ago, which may explain their business casual attire.

Altogether, there were more people who attended this protest (and the council meeting), compared with the participants in the march at SJSU. However, I thought there was more activity taking place at the SJSU protest than the protest outside Elk Grove City Hall (I'm not including what happened during the actual meeting). Overall, though, both protests featured people who felt strongly enough about an issue to express themselves publicly. Although I made my own observations of what happened during both protests, talking one-on-one to participants added a human face to the issues.

Two Reporting Assignments/One Day

Tuesday was a long day for me- literally. I woke up at around 6 a.m. to attend a 7:30 a.m. press conference (though it really ended up being a 7:40 a.m. one). The purpose of this press conference was for local city officials to demand Prop. 1B funds from the state government. It was my first press conference, but I was accompanied by a staff writer, Blake Ellington, and we wrote the story together that same day. Basically, the only people at the press conference were government officials/people who organized it and a few members of the press.

The press conference took place at a parking lot at the intersection of East Stockton Blvd. and Sheldon Road, near a Highway 99 interchange. Commuters often park their cars at this lot to ride a bus to Sacramento. I'm quite familiar with this intersection, not to mention the amount of traffic in that area. As a reporter, the hardest thing for me was trying to hear and understand what the people behind the lectern were saying. Besides the cars whizzing through the intersection, there were also the sounds from the nearby highway. It also didn't help that some people didn't speak directly into the microphone.

In the evening, I was in a neighborhood where a shooting had taken place last week. I have a connection to this neighborhood because my old elementary school, Ellen Feickert, is merely a few blocks away from the scene of the crime. In fact, I used to ride the school bus past the street where the shooting had taken place.

For this story, I was supposed to get neighbors' reactions to the incident. The quotes would be added to a story written by staff writer Cameron Macdonald. The prospect of going door-to-door to people's houses didn't appeal to me. What I ended up doing instead was walking around the block: if someone was standing in front of his or her house or was out for a walk, then I would talk to that person. There's also a nearby park (coincidentally just behind my elementary school) where I also found sources. Normally, I feel a little comfortable going up to people and trying to interview them, but compared to knocking on doors, I chose "the lesser of two evils."

One of the things that I realized was that people seemed to relax and feel more comfortable, when they learned I attended Feickert or graduated from Elk Grove High School. This type of personal information isn't related to the story, but just casually chatting with someone can help build trust.