Hi, Adolfo… Hey, Jasmine, April and Jamie… Howdy, Lisen ... How’s it going, Andres? Welcome, Derek, Ryan and Juana… good to see you, Christina… Please respond to this welcome post, by using the tools below (reply would be good...).
Tell us something about yourself and your relationship to news, whether writing, editing, shooting photos, or where you would like to be some day, or even 10 weeks from now.
PLEASE REMEMBER TO CLICK ON the function, in OPTIONS below, that notifies you via email when someone posts. Please do this for every thread, so you can keep current with the discussions.
Happy Trails, and as soon as you get a chance, READ AND RESPOND TO NEWS BASICS, and WRITING BASICS.
I am extremely excited about this summer because I really want to nail down what I want to do with my life and this 11-week internship in my major will prove essential in the process. I love to write and I’m good at it. I am not so gung ho about hard breaking news. I feel like alot of journalists I know are but not me. I am really into indepth stories that connect with people on a personal level. I love writing articles most when I can get interesting information and take my time to think a story out and write in a way that envokes some kind of emotion from people.
Working as a full-time reporter this summer will be an interesting experience for me. Prior to this week, my last reporting stint was more than two years ago. I mostly served as a columnist and opinion page editor at my school newspaper. So this summer will test just how rusty my reporting skills are. Three months from now I will be in Ann Arbor pursuing my Ph.D. in history, which will consume the better part of my next decade.
I was lucky enough to have a summer internship that started early, so I’ve been at my paper for four days and am already loving it. The biggest thing I’m hoping to get out of this summer, since I’m graduating in December, is some additional strong clips that will help me get a job in political reporting - at any level - after I’m done with school. My favorite kinds of stories are political analysis pieces or campaign stories that blend strong written narratives with multimedia.
Jaz et al: DEFINITELY something we can address in here… how to do hard news that also connects and affects people! (Also, loved your goal of wanting to work on “creative ledes for routine stories...” That’s a great discussion topic and one we might even start with next week…
Ph.D. in history, which will consume the better part of my next decade.
Linsen—guess what? Good news and feature writing will help you be a clearer-thinking (and writing) student of history… looking forward to seeing your news skills un-rustify…
I’ve been at my internship for four days now and reporting for three and I absolutely love the St. Cloud Times! I finished a 30+ (I think that was the end result) inch story today that’s planned to run as Tuesday’s centerpiece for 1A, which is really exciting! I was able to go really in depth into this issue, which is something I’d love to do in the future. I’d love to end up doing a mix of in-depth, investigative and bureaucratic/municipal reporting while maintaining a focus of serving and relating stories back to the readers.
a 30+ (I think that was the end result) inch story today that’s planned to run as Tuesday’s centerpiece for 1A, which is really exciting!
WOW! an A-1 Centerpiece after one week? Can you post the link? Can you tell us what gave you trouble/ what you loved?
congrats, Jamie! Post post post so we can see!
We are in the people business. Ever since I have gotten my camera, I never think twice about getting up early, venturing out into the world and meeting and talking to new people. My ambition, still. is to work for a newspaper. I love the newsroom atmosphere and believe it or not, working under a deadline. But I also look forward to the changing model that is forseeable yet unclear.
This summer I hope to add to photographs in every category of photojournalism: sports, news, portrait/personality and features. But my eye is also on making a great photo story. I am keeping my eyes and ears open for a compelling story.
But my eye is also on making a great photo story. I am keeping my eyes and ears open for a compelling story.
Derek et al --- in fact, photo stories are a lot like print stories, in more ways than we might think. We might even talk some about that n the first DQ...Please please please under “Cool Stories to Share”—post some great fotos or fots stories for us to see & learn from.... I will too.
Well I’ve been working for two weeks at my internship here at the Orange County Register and I’ve done pretty much a little bit of everything. I’ve only had three medium length pieces and some other short ones but I’ve covered the 6 a.m. traffic beat a few times which was good. I’ve done reporting for reporters who are too busy to get around to it and this whole week all I’ve done is data sorting and entry for the Best of Orange County that will be published soon. All this seems a little bit lame but I’m here to learn and do all I can to move on in this field. One challenge I see coming up in the future for me is coming up with solid enterprise pieces because Orange County is so huge. I don’t have a beat and I’ve mostly been bounced around between several editors and cities so I haven’t really been getting familiar with one particular area. Other than this I feel pretty comfortable where I am, I haven’t written a 30 inch story like Jamie but I’ve written a story that was msot commented on the web and got like 250 comments and 30 plus emails and 20 voicemails I just need to establish myself more than I have in my newsroom as someone who can get things done.
One challenge I see coming up in the future for me is coming up with solid enterprise pieces because Orange County is so huge.
Andres—remember, we, in here, and I, via email, are always around for story-idea brainstorming. Sometimes all it takes is tossing a few things out there and letting people give feedback.... maybe we should start a story-idea thread. One thought—how ‘bout whether—and if so how—the huge Vietnamese community in OC celebrates Fourth of July? (actually that’s kinda cool!)
As most of y’all learned in Nashville, I want to be the best. The best reporter. The best editor. The best videographer. The best everything. So, I’ve spent my time learning to respect all forms of journalism. It’s only entertainment news that baffles me. Unless it has a hard news angle, such as MJ, then I’m really not interested in chasing these folks around. I don’t care who’s dating who or who got divorced or who came up with the Summer fashion.
In 10 weeks, I hope to have a job. In a year, I hope to have worked my way up to a working journalist to watch status. After that, it’s really vague. I want to win a Pulitzer Prize (of course) for investigative journalism. I want to be a foreign correspondent at some point. I figure I’ll just do what I’ve been doing—pushing myself to do my best—and everything I want will come in due time.
I just need to establish myself more than I have in my newsroom as someone who can get things done.