NOTE: The following was written by a Waverley Memorial School student on Reporter Pat Healey’s visit and teaching them about journalism.
By: Isaac Williams
WAVERLEY: On Friday, June 14, the children in Mrs.Trider’s class at Waverley Memorial Elementary School were delighted to see Pat Healey.
Mr. Healey is the writer from The Laker and The Weekly Press. He came in to teach Mrs. Trider’s class about journalism. “He helped me out because he told me … I was able to take out people’s ums to make it sound like they are speaking fluent English.” Tarin Maclennan said.
Charlie Sherwood learned that Pat “… makes the Laker with his editor and he has to be everywhere.”
“There’s just two of us doing the paper,” Mr. Healey explained. A reporter sometimes has to finish an article in a day! This is very hard work.
Mr. Healey brings a voice recorder and a camera around to events. Some people are afraid of the voice recorder so Mr. Healey asks if it’s okay if he puts it aside and continues to record. Mr Healey uses the voice recorder to make sure the quotes are correct.
Reporters try to go to a lot of events for stories. “I like the good news stories. If I can’t get to the event, people … can send it to me.” Mr. Healey said. Rory Fox learned “it’s fun to be a writer and you get to go to different events.” Geneva, Rory’s classmate, said, “I would actually focus on good stories and bad stories because I find everything is important to know.” Another student, Eugene Legge, has family in New Brunswick that run a paper called The Hampton Today. Hampton today is “… a community paper… to tell people what’s going on.” Eugene said.
“(When writing the story) I try to get an interesting or exciting lead.” Mr. Healey explained. The reason is to intrigue people into reading the article. If there is an interesting or exciting lead the reader is less likely to skip the article.
Here’s how this newspaper was made. Mr. Healey writes the articles, his editor edits all his work, the publisher formats the look of the paper, it gets printed, and delivered to your door.
Pat Healey also delivers the Laker to stores and they usually run out of them quickly.
Mrs. Trider’s class learned a lot from about journalism Pat Healey.
