Print journalism senior Bryan Bumgardner recently traveled to Charleston, W.Va., to cover the Elk River chemical spill that contaminated water supplies to an estimated 300,000 residents in nine West Virginia counties. Bumgardner contributed a story and photos to Scientific American magazine, where he interned last summer, and appeared on HuffPost Live.
Bumgardner said a former SOJ professor contacted him on Friday, January 10 – the day after the story broke – and urged him to offer a freelance piece to the national publication. Scientific American accepted his offer, and Bumgardner was off to Charleston – his car packed with cases of water – the following morning. He was in the Capital City for about 36 hours.
Lindley: What was it like, as a student, to cover this story for a national publication?
Bumgardner: It’s been intense to cover this story from the front lines. I was shoulder-to-shoulder with people from national news outlets like The Washington Post and NBC. It was intimidating. They all have great equipment, nice vehicles and deep pockets, and I’m just a student out there. To make my work stand out, I really put in 110 percent – sometimes getting covered with mud and only getting a few hours of sleep at night.
I prepared for the worst. I took all my outdoors gear, extra clothes, cameras, batteries and a flashlight. I wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip through my fingers because I wasn’t prepared. It was the only way to keep up with the better equipped (and better organized) full-time reporters.
This is the biggest story I’ve ever done. Still, I stuck to what I know, what I’ve learned from my professors and I kept my cool the whole time. As a result I’m proud of the work I was able to produce.
Lindley: What was the focus of your story for Scientific American?
Bumgardner: While all the other reporters ran in a big crowd, I tried to find underrepresented stories around this situation. That brought me to Pratt, a small town outside of Charleston, where I got a lot of my photos. That happened by pure chance. I saw a truck loaded with water on the interstate, and I followed it to the distribution center in Pratt.
My story focused on the timeline of events, the science behind the chemical and the problematic dynamics between politics, industry and the people. I didn’t interview any experts; everybody else did that. Instead, I interviewed the people who suffered from the water ban – regular folks rich and poor, young and old.
Lindley: This is a story with a very quick turn-around and little time for advance preparation. How do you feel that the School of Journalism has prepared you for this type of reporting?
Bumgardner: It’s wildly intimidating to write a story on this level, but the entire time I stuck to what I’ve learned in the SOJ. It’s like my professors were there the whole time. When I was lining up to take a photo, I could hear Professor Raimondo reminding me to perfect the frame. When I was writing my story, I could hear Professor Bass calling me out for using passive voice. I remembered all of Dr. Britten’s tips on social media promotion while I was reaching out for contacts and spreading my work online.
It really paid off to broaden my horizons. I’m a print journalism major, but I take video, photography and design classes. This gives me the ability to tackle any kind of story with any kind of equipment, which is how I ended up providing both photos and a written story. Taking courses like Bass’s Health and Science Journalism gave me the resources I needed to make a national-quality science story.
Lindley: How do you feel that reporting opportunities like this one will help to prepare you for a career?
Bumgardner: At the core, journalists are creatives. We have to sell ourselves the same way musicians or painters do. If you want to get hired, you need to have a nice portfolio that demonstrates you’re prepared for a career. Simply having a degree isn’t enough anymore.
The benefits of this story are two-fold. One, I’m getting to apply the skills I’ve learned in class to build my body of work; and two, I’m getting the on-the-ground experience I need to survive in the real world. You learn the best from your mistakes, and if you never get out and try, you’ll never learn.
Being able to visit press conferences, do face-to-face interviews and cold-call sources in a real-world environment is incredibly illuminating. I did exactly what my professors have taught me, and it worked. That’s all I’ve ever done – the opportunities are right in front of you, you just have to believe in yourself and seize them. Carpe Diem. As a result, I feel much more confident in my ability to be a reporter in the real world.
Follow Bryan on Twitter @BryanBumgardner.
Note: Bumgardner would like to thank the Misaghi family for providing him with room and board during his stay in Charleston.