You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.
-Eleanor Roosevelt
This is my last blog for my internship. Over the past few months I had many great experinces and learnt a great deal. While there were difficult times I tried to learn from my mistakes and take on any advice anyone gave me.
I learnt how to write stories both constructing them and how to get ideas for stories. I learnt how to use industry tools such as writing programs. I met new people and built my confidence by being thrown in the deep end from day one. I worked in both features and the news room which was a learning curve. I also went out with photographers most days and gained many great tips from them.
However anyone wishing to have an internship at any print company should just be prepared it is a lot of working generally writing three to four stories a day. By the end I did find the internship to be quite stressful and draining. I loved meeting new people and learning something new all the time. I enjoyed the interaction between sources as well as staff.
I think further improvements to the internship could be made such as clear working times and may be a little more guidance in the way of structuring an article. I did find this was my weakness the structuring of a basic news article. However by the end of my internship I felt confident in writing a news article, speaking to sources and using writing program. The internship also let me produce some great articles for my portfolio. Experiencing a print workplace has let me consider my further job prospects. All in all I thoroughly enjoyed my work experience while learning and experiencing many journalistic skills.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Never work with animals and children- especially at the same time!
The media is too concentrated, too few people own too much. There's really five companies that control 90 percent of what we read, see and hear. It's not healthy.
-Ted Turner
Today was a busy day as I had three stories to cover one after the other. the photographer and I headed to our first story about a dog competition. The contact had a 10-week-old puppy and his two young grandchildren. I was able to get some great quotes but when it came time for the photograph it was very difficult. The poor photographer spent about an hour trying to get one decent shot as the puppy was all over the place and the young girl was finding it hard to take directions. Due to this type of photo shoot we were running late to our next job.
The next job was about a charity fun run. I sat down with the contact and asked a few more questions from information that was not in the press release. The contact didn't really seem like she wanted to talk too much and didn't have much information apart from the information in the press release. So I then acted as assistant to the photographer which was interesting.
Next was to the army base as they were having a little press conference about the upcoming Salvation Army Doorknock Appeal. We had to sign in with I.D. then travel around the base where I did not have much time to talk to anyone about the event as we had limited time that was taken up by the photographs. I did get some quotes from the Salvo people and I had a press release.
I was told I would have a fourth job but the COS never mentioned it so I assumed I would just be focusing on my three stories. I was wrong. Apparently I did have a fourth job that nobody wanted to mention to me. But I had no information apart from a contact number. So I chased up a press release and phoned the contact only to be told she was out of the office and would call me back. After an hour I decided to call back as I couldn't spend anymore time waiting around. The contact was there and able to speak to me and give me some quotes.
I had finished my articles and waiting for them to be checked before I could leave. Eventually I was called back and fourth to fix my mistakes and chase up some details by calling my contacts back. For the fun run story I was told I should have spoken to the women that were competing but I had no contact details for them so I rang the participating gym owner instead. I had learned from my mistakes and realised there was always something to be edited in a story.
-Ted Turner
Today was a busy day as I had three stories to cover one after the other. the photographer and I headed to our first story about a dog competition. The contact had a 10-week-old puppy and his two young grandchildren. I was able to get some great quotes but when it came time for the photograph it was very difficult. The poor photographer spent about an hour trying to get one decent shot as the puppy was all over the place and the young girl was finding it hard to take directions. Due to this type of photo shoot we were running late to our next job.
The next job was about a charity fun run. I sat down with the contact and asked a few more questions from information that was not in the press release. The contact didn't really seem like she wanted to talk too much and didn't have much information apart from the information in the press release. So I then acted as assistant to the photographer which was interesting.
Next was to the army base as they were having a little press conference about the upcoming Salvation Army Doorknock Appeal. We had to sign in with I.D. then travel around the base where I did not have much time to talk to anyone about the event as we had limited time that was taken up by the photographs. I did get some quotes from the Salvo people and I had a press release.
I was told I would have a fourth job but the COS never mentioned it so I assumed I would just be focusing on my three stories. I was wrong. Apparently I did have a fourth job that nobody wanted to mention to me. But I had no information apart from a contact number. So I chased up a press release and phoned the contact only to be told she was out of the office and would call me back. After an hour I decided to call back as I couldn't spend anymore time waiting around. The contact was there and able to speak to me and give me some quotes.
I had finished my articles and waiting for them to be checked before I could leave. Eventually I was called back and fourth to fix my mistakes and chase up some details by calling my contacts back. For the fun run story I was told I should have spoken to the women that were competing but I had no contact details for them so I rang the participating gym owner instead. I had learned from my mistakes and realised there was always something to be edited in a story.
Early bird gets the worm
Television has a real problem. They have no page two. Consequently every big story gets the same play and comes across to the viewer as a really big, scary one.
-Arch Buchwald, 1969
I was lucky to arrive a little earlier than usual as I was sent off to two jobs before 9am. One of the jobs was out to the Cowboys as they had helped fund a trip for a family with sick children. I was told to interview the mother but as obvious as it sounds it was a lot harder to interview the mother as she was chasing after her children. I did get to talk to her for about 10 mins but I found it hard to word my questions as I did not want to offend her.
The next job was at the Palliative care as they were having a morning tea to start the Palliative care awareness week. The photographer and I were running a bit late so I called the contact to inform her and I asked if we could try and arrange the photo before we got there. But she said it would be impossible to get a patient in the photo. After I had finished the call I conversed with the photographer and he told me to call the PR officer to try another route for the photograph. She also said there was not much they could do about it. So we had to change the whole angle of the story as more of a promotional angle instead of a story of a patient.
Once I was back in the office I received two phone calls from the mother from the Cowboys story. I was a bit worried as to why she would be contacting me. But luckily she just thought we should talk a little more as the morning was a tad rushed she also wanted to mention some people that helped her. She asked me to put them in the article and I did but not promising that they would stay in there. As we all know only the chopping block anything can get cut.
-Arch Buchwald, 1969
I was lucky to arrive a little earlier than usual as I was sent off to two jobs before 9am. One of the jobs was out to the Cowboys as they had helped fund a trip for a family with sick children. I was told to interview the mother but as obvious as it sounds it was a lot harder to interview the mother as she was chasing after her children. I did get to talk to her for about 10 mins but I found it hard to word my questions as I did not want to offend her.
The next job was at the Palliative care as they were having a morning tea to start the Palliative care awareness week. The photographer and I were running a bit late so I called the contact to inform her and I asked if we could try and arrange the photo before we got there. But she said it would be impossible to get a patient in the photo. After I had finished the call I conversed with the photographer and he told me to call the PR officer to try another route for the photograph. She also said there was not much they could do about it. So we had to change the whole angle of the story as more of a promotional angle instead of a story of a patient.
Once I was back in the office I received two phone calls from the mother from the Cowboys story. I was a bit worried as to why she would be contacting me. But luckily she just thought we should talk a little more as the morning was a tad rushed she also wanted to mention some people that helped her. She asked me to put them in the article and I did but not promising that they would stay in there. As we all know only the chopping block anything can get cut.
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