COM 209: Good writing = reporting

Here's another example of writing that puts you at the scene and does it by incorporating a lot of descriptive quotes. It's a profile of George Mason University as the school's basketball team made the Final Four. It's by sports columnist Tim Sullivan of The San Diego Union-Tribune, flagship paper of the Copley group that also owns Springfield's State Journal-Register.

Here's the lede. Notice how it's almost pure description, leading to a quote that's also, well, almost pure description:

FAIRFAX, Va. – The line was two hours long. It started at the entrance to the George Mason University bookstore, snaked around the corner, spilled out of the building and scaled a flight of steps.

A lot of students went to a lot of trouble yesterday in pursuit of a simple commemorative T-shirt. When a school qualifies for its first Final Four, March Madness inevitably manifests itself as local lunacy, yet everyone involved swears he or she is perfectly sane.

“Because this is the best thing that ever happened to Mason,” explained senior theater major Jenny Girardi, an aspiring actress. “This is the only day that I'll personally be able to stand in line. And it's part of the experience. I mean, I'm going out. It's my last year. And this is the first time I've seen this much school spirit on campus.”

What senses are involved as we read this? Well, sight, I guess. We see the line at the bookstore. (If you go to the story on the paper's website, SignOnSanDiego, you'll also see a picture of the T-shirts.) Sound, too. We can hear aspiring actress Jenny Girardi, because Sullivan catches the rhythm of her speech in the quote.

Here's another quote, farther down in the story. Sullivan obviously did some good reporting while he interviewed students in line at the bookstore. Again, you can hear the student he talked with:

“I've been here five years, and it's finally time Mason was recognized for something,” psychology major Jessica Clinger said at the back of the T-shirt line. “It's changed the whole morale of the campus.

“Our English teacher goes on and on about how he thinks we're going to have a riot. Last week, we were writing a memo and he's like, 'I think this is what's going to happen: 27 cars are going to get overturned. I think cars are going to be on fire.' We're like, 'Buddy, calm down. This is not Maryland.' ”

But Sullivan also gets in a good profile of what George Mason is like.

George Mason has a "reputation as an impersonal commuter school with shallow, suburban roots," he tells us. It's in Northern Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. It's never had a sports reputation. But that may be changing. Adds Sullivan:

With an enrollment exceeding 29,000 students and 148 degree programs, George Mason is broadly diversified both academically and culturally. Patriots guard Tony Skinn's French/Arabic literature class is taught by an Iraqi and is comprised primarily of foreign exchange students.

“If you walk into that class and you look at the people in that class, you probably think they have no clue about basketball,” Skinn said yesterday. “Three weeks ago, they had no clue about basketball. They probably didn't know George Mason had a basketball team.”

Yesterday, Skinn's appearance in class prompted applause from his fellow students. His teacher had promised to throw him a party yesterday, but postponed it until after the Final Four.

Sullivan even found a faculty member to talk about how basketball fame helps the school's academic side:

... Camera crews prowled the campus, staging “spontaneous” celebrations, capturing the colorful scene at Mason's statue. All of this because of basketball.

“I think it's going to help us intellectually,” said economics professor Vernon Smith, one of two Nobel laureates on the Mason faculty. “I think it brings a prominence to the university. We're going to get more applications and some of them are going to be real good students.”

Soon, students might have to stand in line to get in.

He even ties it back to his lede at the end. It's a well written story, and every word is based on good reporting.