J.R. Ogden, Sports Editor for The Gazette, visits Highland
December 12, 2019
J.R. Ogden, Sports Editor for The Gazette, visits Highland
On Wednesday, December 11, J.R. Ogden, Sports Editor for the Cedar Rapids Gazette, spoke to Ms. Roth’s 8th grade Language Arts classes about how journalism has changed over the 42 years he has been at The Gazette. He emphasized the role of the newspaper as “the watchdog of society,” and the importance of “telling stories about the people that are doing things right.” The changes from printed newspapers to online newspapers were a main feature of Ogden’s presentation. He detailed the role of analytics in determining what online stories to cover, where and when to post the stories, and how analytics show how many readers are on the website, each story, and how many people read to the end of each story.
Ogden has been The Gazette’s Sports Editor for the last 20 years. He discussed the top sports coverage featured in the sports section -- Hawkeye football and high school sports. Having covered wrestling for over 20 years, Ogden was very interested in Highland’s women’s wrestling program, especially since many of these wrestlers were in the audience. As a result, the 8th graders are planning a journalistic article about this program.
At the end of his presentation, Ogden answered questions from the students, who were very interested in his presentation. When Katie Duder asked him, “How much time do you spend working a week?”, Ogden responded that he estimated 40 to 50 hours -- but then added, “I’m always thinking.” He detailed how he’s always thinking about story possibilities, writing the “back-stories” to celebrate the people behind the headlines, how to organize a story, and so on. “There’s a lot of truth to the quote, ‘If you find something you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” Ogden showed that he truly found something he loves to do, and communicated his passion -- and the importance of having passion for a career -- to the 8th graders.
Ogden’s presentation helps kick-off the 8th Grade Journalism Unit, which will involve a close examination of various types of news stories, both written and online/televised. Students will explore various types of news stories, such as local features, sports articles, “back-stories,” opinion/letters to the editor articles, and headline and caption writing. They will also be writing these types of stories, and are investigating possible ways to publish these. The unit is expected to last until mid-February.
