Heather BrooksNews Story December 9, 2014

I would like to develop a news story for Oregon Public Broadcasting. The topic of the story would be asking the question of how police officers and other emergency workers are trained to interact with people that are on the autism spectrum. I would like to create a long form story, with additions such as audio and video clips of interviews I conduct and links to additional information for our readers who would like to know more about autism or related issues to this story. This news story is appropriate for OPBs audience. This story would conform to the style and topics that OPB covers. It has covered several autism related stories and cases and is also a trusted news source for families and communities in Oregon. In addition to the research I will do on how emergency workers are trained and what existing policies are in place for interacting with individuals with autism, I will also use social media to connect with families and individuals who care for people on the autism spectrum. I will report on their experiences and worries about emergency workers interacting with those individuals on the spectrum. I have already found several existing dialogues on social media about this topic that I may use for my story. I will continue to do research and collect more coverage from social media. I intend to gather comments and stories from Facebook users and I will be cautious not to include any information that may breach privacy laws. I will include research and information I find on this topic, but also plan to generate original content as well. I will contact and possibly conduct an interview with an autism specialist, possibly Melissa Rutledge of Salem. I would ask someone in her position about possible complications that could occur when a person with autism is approached by emergency workers and what she would recommend from her experience working with autistic individuals. I also intend to find a parent of an autistic child to provide a specific example and give a name and face to this story. Making a connection with a parent could possibly add examples of why this is an important issue and what worries parents have if their child is approached by an emergency worker that is unaware of his or her condition. This potential interviewee, which I have already contacted and is willing to give an interview, is not and has not, had any legal issues or incidents happen with emergency workers. This interview would just be showing a specific family that has these concerns. I also intend to reach other possible families that would like to share their stories that involved their child and an emergency worker. I will report fairly on the research I am able to conduct, and would hope to find an example of when an emergency worker was able to provide services to someone with autism successfully as well. I will also attempt to contact Lieutenant Eric Davenport of the Oregon State Police Department to ask questions about policies and how adequate he believes officers are trained for the high number of autistic individuals in Oregon. I will also attempt to interview a medical doctor in Oregon for general facts about autism to include for the audience. I will do my best to report a balanced story, by that I mean that I will also include resources available to families and caregivers of autistic individuals that can help ensure safety for all, such as registering with the Public Safety Answering Points (PSAP). Registering with PSAP gives emergency workers information about any special needs that a person has and their address and description ahead of time to enter into their database. This allows emergency workers to be more prepared and understanding about a situation they may be called to in the future.I intend collect my research and original content into a long story that includes videos, audio clips and links. My news story will be shared on the OPB website on the news section. From the website, there is also an option for the audience to share the story on any of their social media platforms as well. I would also share my news story with my social networks as well. Using social media will be a huge asset to this news story. Being able to put names and stories behind the topic I am covering will help to show the audience that this issue is being talked about and provide some of the examples of concerns that individuals have because they care for someone with autism. Being able to integrate my story onto social media sites where readers can add and share their comments will also be a great addition to my coverage of this story. It also helps to reach my target audience; people who have someone on the autism spectrum that they care for. Using social media will allow them to comment or even just share the story with their network and there is a high probability that that network they have, also cares for that person on the spectrum as well and identifies this issue with people that they know and care for. The audience is better served by using social media in this way, because they are not only able to view and share this story easily, but also because it allows for a sense of community to people that may have felt like they were alone in worrying about their loved ones being misunderstood and even mistreated by emergency workers who may not realize that they have autism or know how to deal with autism. Also, as I conduct research on this topic, I may find that there is more training or awareness among emergency workers about how to interact with someone with autism, and informing the audience of that news would better serve them as well. Using social media to get that information shared would be highly effective.There are challenges to reporting this topic. I want to be able to report some personal experiences that individuals have had while emergency workers interacted with an individual on the autism spectrum, but there needs to be some protection of privacy for these individuals as well. It could be challenging to include their personal story without revealing too much about them. Also, if the story has anything to do with a legal matter, special attention would need to be made not to interfere and possibly deciding not to include that story at all. Another challenge that I would face would be comments and questions from the audience that I might receive about the story. I would do my best to remain completely neutral and understanding of all opinions that I may receive on the story. With that being said, I acknowledge that with any story like this and the culture of internet commentators, I would prepare for the possibility of negative and unacceptable comments. I will have a plan in place on what kind of comments would not be tolerated, such as violent, threatening or abusive language and post those restrictions at the end of the story, claiming the right to delete those kinds of interactions. On the OPB website, it is said, Remember to keep comments civil, on-topic and free of abusive language. I would monitor the comments on Facebook with a similar guideline and just do my best to keep the comments polite. I think that this story and the form would fit in well with OPBs news site. There have been several stories relating to autism that have been reported on OPB, but I havent seen one yet using this angle. I also think the organization fits this story well, because it is an Oregon news site. Some of the articles already published on OPB have noted that autism diagnoses are high and continue to rise in Oregon. I think it would be good to link some of OPBs other stories about autism for those who want to learn more. I was also planning, during the beginning of my story to have a video with brief but informative information for the part of the audience that may not be as well informed on autism.With this story, I intend to gather quite a bit of information about the training that police officers go through to be prepared to work with the public. I also hope that through this story being published and shared on social media, in which the audience, as well as those directly related to the story (police officers themselves and families or caregivers of individuals on the autism spectrum) are given a platform of balanced, factual information where they can openly discuss their concerns and insights to further this conversation. I will evaluate the effectiveness of my story, by how many people it informed and engaged the audience. I will look at how many views, likes and comments the story received to evaluate the story. It would also consider this story highly effective if it initiated any policy changes for emergency workers, if that seems to be needed by the research done in my story.