JACOB DANEK
PHOTOGRAPHY
WRITING
Writing has always been a passion of mine. Being able to express the communities views through news style writing gives me the ability to give back to the community. Through writing I am able to speak to the community, inform the community, and spark change where it is needed. These are a few of my stories that I am most proud of.
A Difficult Topic: In late October, tragedy struck Laingsburg High School and the surrounding community. A high school student was killed in a car accident, leaving the community stunned and sore as they mourned for a fallen friend. My advisor asked our newspaper class how we wanted to handle the situation. Should we write a story memorializing him, or should it simply be news based? I volunteered to write the story, and it was a learning experience that left me with a new respect for others and life in general. One of the difficulties was I had to reach out to his family, closest friends, and teachers to get quotes for the story. Dealing with such a tragic topic was a challenge, but in the end I was proud of the story. The story showed who he was as a person, while also telling a story of how the community joined together during a time of great sadness. Also, I was able to incorporate my photos of the memorial service into the design, which added to the story. This story is being entered in the 2015-2016 MIPA awards for news analysis.
Jack of all Trades: This story was the most in depth piece I have ever written. Steve Butler is Laingsburg school district's technology guru and he also owns a small business. His interesting past, filled with high profile jobs and even a touring band, made for a story that gave people an accurate description of a man who seems to have done it all. What I love about this story is that shows people how you can do what you truly want to do and also be very successful. Butler let life take the reigns, not simply planning out every step, but going with the flow. This story is being entered in the 2015-2016 MIPA awards in the in-depth feature category.
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Staying Active: Finding an interesting angle for a story is sometimes next to impossible. Winter is a time where we go into a half hibernation mode, and all the snow and grayness can make for less ideas and inspiration. For this story, I was given the task to find an angle for an exercise story. So, I used the gray stillness of winter to my advantage. This was one of my favorite stories because I was able to interview a professional nutritionist and do important research to make the story both informative and entertaining. This piece was entered in the 2014-2015 MIPA awards, where it won honorable mention for news writing.
Running into Danger: This piece helped spark change in our school. The wasp problem in the cross country course has always been a problem. So our staff decided to write a story that highlighted this problem. However, whenever you are dealing with a problem, you have to be careful you don't ruffle any feathers or offend any staff. This was the challenge with this story. We did not want to point fingers at any of the maintenance staff, but we also wanted to show the community that there was a potentially dangerous problem that needed to be fixed. This story was entered in the 2014-2015 MIPA awards, where it won 2nd place in the news writing category.