An email about Krystal Bateson's death this summer made me realize how blogs can take news to another, more personal level.
Bateson, a 12-year-old Lawrence softball player, had unexpectedly died in her sleep while at an out-of-town tournament. I was working for the Lawrence Journal-World's GAME, covering youth baseball and softball with a hyper-local web site and weekly newspaper insert. I had to decide how to handle the news.
Our newsprint insert wouldn't come out the following Wednesday. The Journal-World didn't come out until the next day. However, the JW web site allowed us to post and update a short brief as we gathered the facts surrounding the death.
Yet, as the "little league beat writer," I felt a responsibility to write something more significant. I had parents of teammates calling me, many in tears, telling me about how much Bateson had meant to them and how upset their families were. But, stuck in my traditional journalist mindset, I couldn't find the right way to do it.
The following weekend Bateson's team played their first game without her. The local media tried to talk to Bateson's dad before the game, but I didn't. If I got enough courage, I decided I would talk to the coach and Bateson's teammates after the game.
Even after journalism classes and real world experience, I was definitely not prepared for what happened next.
As soon as I sat down at the scorer's table, Kenneth Bateson, Krystal's father, sat next to me and for the next hour and a half talked about everything I would have ever wanted to ask him. Read my reaction to our conversation.
Suddenly, I was faced with some choices. Do I write a news story? Well, we usually tried to keep the stories in GAME light. How could I use convergence to improve the way I would write about Krystal's death? How could I make what I had to say meaningful?
I decided to blog it. In my blog I was able to capture the emotion that a news story would neglect, while sharing a perspective not seen in the local coverage.
The experience showed me the way the Web can enhance how we report news. We were able to break news sooner than we could with print. The web site allowed us to share articles from the Journal-World and TV packages from Channel 6, and add our own contributions for our audience -€“ including Krystal's family and friends from out of town. GAME allowed us to use convergence to encapsulate the sentiment of Krystal Bateson's death. The blog provided a new news tool.
GAME taught me a great deal about convergence, journalism and people. Most importantly, it taught me that uniting different forms of media can yield the best news product.
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