Generations of Life
By Natalie Ross
When I asked all my interviewees the question, “what keeps you up at night,” I got many shocking looks and answers. Many of them had to sit and think for quite a while to decide what the appropriate and best answer was to a question like this. I was surprised by many of the answers I received throughout the week.
An overall news topic I gathered from all my interviews was how life's events and stress affect all ages. I was able to interview my friend's little brother Ryan Heiderschiet who is under 18, and he told me he stays up and thinks about his golf lifestyle and when he has practice next, and how he can do better next time. On the flip side I was able to interview my 86 year old grandpa, Grandpa Jim, who told me at night he sits and thinks over all he has accomplished and all the things he was able to get through, as well as how he can continue to be happy and successful.
Another notable interview was my chat with my spanish instructor Juan Alcarria, he told me he thinks about his class and ways he wants to make it easier and better for us. We stay awake at night replaying our day, but also how to make the next day better.
From a college dorm to a retirement home we see how much thinking truly goes on at night. Across generations and differing lifestyles, life keeps all of us up at night.
A news value I saw reflected in this process is human interest. All of the responses become deeply personal when we see how much we all share in common during late night hours. Humans are just naturally curious about what others think and feel. This all taps into the shared human experience. We are all on the same earth, but all under different circumstances. It is so interesting to see how we all experience anxiety, gratitude and purpose.
A question I would try to answer writing a news story on what I gathered would be, “how do all generations experience life.” The thing that most interested me in this project was learning that an 18 and 86 year old both have stress, what was different was how they approached it. It would be so cool to deep dive into more ages and stages of life to get an even better picture of the human lifestyle across generations.
The three people I would use for a news story on this would be Ryan Heidershiet, Grandpa Jim and Kelly Finnegan. They all represent very different stages of life and would give the best and most accurate array of lifestyles.
I would choose to deliver this story through video. I believe many of the younger generations gather a lot of their information through video news, such as instagram and tik tok. I feel like it would be easiest to broadcast to all the younger generations to target that age range and show them just how similar far off generations are.