Anything but Ordinary Makes the Best Story

As a journalist, it's our job to find the interesting among the ordinary. The journalist who did this story has a knack for taking something absolutely bizarre and transforming it into a humorous, compelling story that every viewer wants to watch. 

I first saw this video when I was studying abroad in Brussels last semester. I could have walked along the street where Alfred David lives every day and never known that a human-penguin lives inside the walls of this quiet, ordinary apartment building. This journalist searched below the surface and what he found was gold.  

This story inspires me to look beyond the ordinary, to take the weird and make it wonderful. The authors of Advancing the Story write about how, in order to find a great story, the reporter must step away from the computer. To find that perfectly unordinary story, a reporter has to "keep their eyes and ears open for what's important or unusual in the community." 

Last week, we exercised this concept in Broadcast II. Our professor passed around different kinds of magazines and told us to find a story idea for our local television station. 

I got Glamour. 

How am I supposed to find a story idea in a cover-to-cover guide to fashion? I was not about to pitch the idea about how Covergirl's new line of mascara is making lashes "luscious and lovely." I ended up settling with the idea for a story about new energy-saving initiatives, inspired by some sort of "go green" advertisement. The idea was anything but golden, but the concept was there. As a journalist, we can't constantly read newspapers and watch the nightly newscasts for story ideas. Our job isn't to recycle old ideas and slap a new headline on it. Our job is to dig deeper and tell the stories that all too often go undiscovered. 

Afterall, you never know...your next door neighbor could be the next Penguin Man.