The Telling Detail

I preach, until my students are sick of hearing it, about how important it is to note the telling details when reporting a story. So let me set the scene. It's my intro to reporting lab and I'm giving a 15-minute speech so they can practice their speech writing skills before going out to do live stories. I'm talking about some research I did on presidential elections.

While I'm talking, I'm holding this mug. It's full of presidential election slogans. Only one student noted in her speech story that I was drinking from a presidential slogan mug while talking about presidential politics. Lesson learned -- at least by one student. Sigh.