Stress Revealed: An exclusive feature from students just like you

Hold it! Before you completely pull your hair out, you may wanna check out my feature story on Stress Management at TU. In this feature story, you'll meet two students, right here at Towson, who tell their stories of stressful encounters. Featured inside are TU sophomores, Kevin Stewart and Jasmine Pitts as well as Dr. Jaime Fenton, the coordinator of Eating Disorders at Towson's Counseling Center. Kevin and Jasmine provide tips and experience into their lives as students while Dr. Fenton gives perspective from a professional standpoint elaborating on the subject with answers to key concerns from students like you. There are only seven weeks remaining in the semester, but stress has no time limit. So before you stress and complain about homework, papers or finals take a look and discover how your study habits can improve in no time at all.

For your listening ear

Recently, I completed an audio story continuing my beat on stress here at Towson. My story is entitled, "Its not just TU, students are stressed across Maryland campuses." The purpose of my story was to show stress from a new perspective featuring students from other local colleges and universities. In my story, your introduced to my brother Brandon Wright, a freshman at UMBC who can't find time to get all his daily tasks completed in a stress-free manner. Secondly, you'll meet Joy Williams, a junior at McDaniel College who found unique ways to keep her cool while under intense pressure. Joy's methods are so simple, yet students consistently let stress take over without taking time to breathe in between work loads. I want this story to illustrate that students here at Towson are not alone in their personal fight against stressful situations. I encourage you to take a listen at my audio story and let the weight be lifted off your shoulders......at least for 1:13. Enjoy!

My Audio Story-Brainstorming

For my audio story, I haven't quite decided on what I am going to write my story about just yet. My beat blog focuses on student stress here at Towson, but I think that I may want to travel off campus for this story to get a different perspective on what students on other campuses are going through to show variety. I have a few sources in mind that I may want to interview and I will conduct these interviews over spring break. If my story idea is approved, I will be talking to students from McDaniel College, UMBC and College Park. The interview subjects that I have in mind are extremely knowledgeable and could provide excellent soundbites from their rountine ventures. I haven't quite worked out the natural sound that I could grab from the interviews, but I will keep brainstorming and promise to come up with an idea soon. Wish me luck!

Print Leads vs. Broadcast Leads...Can you tell the difference?

Whether in print or broadcast news, the lead is the hard-hitting element of the news story. Highlighting the 5w's and pertinent information to gain reader or viewer interest in the story. The following examples were found either in the Baltimore Sun or the New York Times and were changed from print to broadcast with similarities, but distinct differences.

Example #1
Print: The Baltimore Sun "Girl attacked in Odenton on way home from school"
Police have released the name of a 33-year-old woman who was killed in a fiery crash that injured her young daughter in Glen Burnie this morning, authorities said.

Broadcast Version
Authorities say police have released the name of a 33-year-old woman killed in a fiery car crash that injured her young daughter in Glen Bernie this morning.

Example #2
Print: The Baltimore Sun "Woman Killed, child hospitalized after fiery collision"
An 11-year-old girl on her way home from school was dragged into the woods, thrown to the ground, kicked and robbed in Odenton yesterday, police said.

Broadcast Version
Police say an 11-year-old girl was dragged into the woods, thrown to the ground, kicked and robbed in Odenton yesterday on her way home from school.

Example #3
Print: The New York Times "Woman Found in Smoke-Filled Harlem Fire"
An unconscious woman was dragged from her burning sixth-floor apartment in East Harlem on Tuesday morning by firefighters who had to crawl through dense smoke, using their hands to feel the walls and floors in front of them, fire officials said.

Broadcast Version
Officials say an unconscious woman was dragged by firefighters from her burning sixth-floor apartment in East Harlem on Tuesday.

You're not alone, stress is a nationwide epidemic

According to an article from USAToday, many college students around the country are feeling pressured by overwhelming amounts of stress. The article entitled, Poll shows stress pains many in college by Alan Fram and Trevor Tompson of the Associated Press depicts the hidden reasons why students are being stressed out and the phychological occurances that can prove fatal for some. In the article, students discuss factors that contribute to stress such as classes, relationships, family and finances including some students so stressed that they consider suicide as a possible escape from life's challenges.

In fact, four in 10 say they endure stress often and nearly one in five say they feel it all or some of the time from a poll conducted by MTVU. Chris Curran, a junior at the Albany College of Pharmacy, says his work has piled up. "Everything is being piled on at once, Curran said. "You just get really agitated and anxious, then you start procrasatinating, and it all piles up." Students alike can relate to Chris's testimony and feel his pain as well their own. The article goes on to report that classic symptoms of stress include trouble concentrating, sleeping and finding motivation. Relatively common results of stress include eating disorders, feeling lonely or depression.

A lot of people often do not take stress as a serious issue. Some students think of suicide, drinking or drugs as a way to separate themselves from the anguishes that plague their mind. About one in six say they have friends in the past year considering suicide and about one in 10 say they have seriously thought about it themselves.

However, its not all bleak, six in 10 in the survey said they enjoy life and are hopeful. Emily McMahan, a junior at the University of Cincinnati says she is one of those individuals. "I enjoy college, I'm enjoying my experiences," said McMahan. Its been shown in the survey that women are more stressed out than men. To be more exact, 45% of women were more stressed than 34% of men.

Though the future doesn't look any easier, we can the ways of managing stress will improve. Students are encourged to find methods that will decrease the pressure of stress. MTVU, a television network available on most college campuses is a sponsor to its work on "Half of Us," which is a non-profit group working to decrease the number of suicides in relation to college students.

I enjoyed the reading the story published in USAToday, I felt it highlighted issues that occur with stress as well as provide insight to what we as college students go through on a daily basis. I honestly can't find anything to add considering the detailed length of the article. In the beginning, I was a little unclear as to who conducted the surveys, but learned of their credentials at the end of the article. I also feel a picture or graph would have been more effective to illustrate their findings to create a more powerful impact, but overall, a great research effort.

My feature Story Idea

My beat blog topic is college stress at Towson, so for my feature story, I want to do a "how to" story. My reasons for doing choosing this idea were mainly because I have yet to do this type of story and I feel it will present my story from a different perspective. So far, I've written about articles that I've found relating to stress and found a student here on Towson's campus whose taking us on a journey of her stressful life. Now, I want to retrieve findings from experts here on Towson's campus. I want to consult the Health Center on campus to see if I can find an expert who can shed some light on the subject with statistical findings, experience and advice. Then, I want to seek out yet another TU student who can provide tips for how they remain cool underpressure. I haven't quite worked out everything yet, but I feel that this is the direction I want to go. I believe this can be beneficial to students and maybe an escape from what seems like an impossible feat, known universally as STRESS!!!

The Wall Street Journal Formula

According to All the News by Thom Lieb, the Wall Street Journal formula is proabably the most used feature story structure. The four main sections include:

1. The story typically opens with a specific example (presented in an anecdotal, descriptive or narrative lead.
2. A nut graf relates that example to a more general point and explains what the story is about.
3. The body of the story provides support for the general point (quotes, facts, and development). 4. The story typically ends with another anecdot or description-often featuring the person or people featured in the lead-or speculates on a future development related to the lead.


I found an article on the Baltimore Sun's website entitled, Nightly dialysis keeps teen alive that contains the essential elements to the Wall Street Journal formula. The narrative lead reads, "No matter what Eric Washington is doing - be it catch up work from the classes he has missed a game of pick-up football that his doctors have forbidden- he must be home by 10p.m. No exceptions." This illustrates the narrative lead for the story and sets the scene.

The nut graf of the story reads, "There aren't a lot of children on dialysis - roughly 1,600 in the United States require a machine to perform the normal functions of their kidneys. But there are more than ever, because many children whose kidney disease would have killed them in infancy are surviving to need organ transplants."

The body of the story supports the general point. An example in the story reads, "Eric 17, is but one example of millions of children nationwide with a chronic illness, from with kids with diabetes who are on strict diets and even give themselves insulin shots to those with cystic fibrosis who may need for treatments a day to maintain therir ability to breathe. Many face uncertain futures. All have obstacles the healthy do not." There is also a quote from Eric as to how he feels about having his illness, Eric says, "I'd like to one time go home and just go to sleep," he says, "without having to worry aobut it." Eric's feelings bring the raw emotion into what his life is like on a daily basis.

The final section of the Wall Street Journal formula closes the story by revisting the central person being talked about. In Eric's case, the article reads, "Each day brings a chance that Eric will get a kidney. That ofcourse, would change everything. Dreams about that day bring a smile to his face." The final word comes from Eric in which in says, "I want to go out," he says, "and not come home until the next day."