In the real world, nothing happens at the right place at the right time. It is the job of journalists and historians to correct that.
-Mark Twain


Today was my eighth week at The Bulletin and I felt I was finally feeling comfortable in these hectic surroundings. Fridays are considered as ‘slower’ news days so for me to have my internship day fall on a Friday can be inconvenient. But luckily for me there will always be picyarns that need to be written.

My first job was out with a photographer to interview a local hairdressing salon about some awards they had done. After booking in the photo I did a little background research and then it was out to the salon for an interview and photo. I had already written my questions but I found that it is really important to have the five basic who, what, where, when and how questions before talking to the subject. So then you can ask other questions from their answers. I asked all the questions I wanted to and the hairdresser was very helpful. When I got back to the office I wrote up my story. I thought that this may be my only story on the day- it wasn’t.

The next story I had to chase up was about a school Mother’s Day pampering session they were doing. I didn’t get to go out with the photographer so I rang the contact while the photographer was there. He couldn’t speak to me and said he would call me back later so I asked if I could speak to the mother in the shot. I did and I asked her a question, which she didn’t seem to understand. She came across as a bit rude and I was trying to think of how I could re word the question. So I did and eventually she became more open and I got a few good quotes. The first contact said he would ring within a half hour but didn’t so after an hour and a half I called him back. He was a great source to talk to though he spoke quite fast which only let me think of how easier it would have been with shorthand…

My third story for the day was to re-write a media release. It wasn’t about anything too interesting but it had a lot of information which made it a bit easier. I learnt that this was something that I did not enjoy- rewriting something that had in a sense been already written. So I continued on and wrote it hoping that the one I had written didn’t sound too much like a press release. Overall today was a quiet day and by 3pm I was tired and ready to crawl into bed. Today I learnt I could work on my question writing skills and maybe phone manner having been at the company for awhile I feel I am learning a lot and how it helps to have someone who is willing to help you.