Guest speaker tells it as it is

Marc Spears held a conference call with this year’s SJI class to talk about the Lakers/Celtics game and to also give us insight on what we can expect as we begin our careers in journalism.


One of the key points I felt Spears covered was the importance of building relationships with the people you are covering. He said it is important to build a relationship with your sources, so they know who you are and are willing to answer any questions you have for them. He pointed out that even if you have a good relationship with your sources you can’t back down and you must ask the tough questions.


“You got to ask the tough questions, even if they get mad at you, they will respect you for asking that,” Spears said. “I don’t burn my sources, but they need to understand that I need to cover what is happening whether it is good or bad.”


Another important issue Spears spoke about was the way we, as students, must enter this field with no ego. We are still learning and if we walk in to a newsroom and act like we know everything, we are setting ourselves up to fail. No matter what we are assigned to cover, we must treat each event as if it was the most important event happening.


“No matter what it is, don’t ever have a stupid ego, you have to cover the event and you got to treat it like it’s the super bowl,” Spears said. “Whether it is a small event or the Super Bowl, you need to cover it like if it is the most important event. Every story is important and people are going to read your story, so you need to give them the best story possible.”


The meeting with Spears answered a lot of questions we had as students and also gave us a glimpse of what to expect in our futures.