Armed with my Google map print-out, I made my way to Ipswich…or ‘the swich’ as I learnt many of locals call it. Traffic was good and the brilliant Brisbane blue sky went completely foggy on the way. Thankfully the brilliance returned.

So, I waited patiently outside the door for 8.30am and another staff member buzzed me in early and I was taken upstairs to meet Brigid, the chief of staff. She called a news conference as soon as I put my bag down and I went to my first NC. Just like in Desley’s class, each reporter went through the stories they were working on and ideas. I was lucky last and presented two ideas. One had been covered quite well and the other got an okay response. I spent some of the rest of the day drumming up some more ideas.

I was then given a desk which is usually occupied by Zane Jackson, a former Jschooler, who returns to the office on Wednesday. He has a one page column in the Saturday edition which is opinion based. I’m looking forward to meeting him.

The office was only refurbished 18 months ago and it is modern and spacious. Editorial on one side, photographers on the other, sales on the other. CoS and office manager in the middle ground. The air conditioning was not running cold which I was very pleased about.

I was taken out by Claudia, one of the photographers for a vox pop during the morning. We were asking the public about the QT’s front page story on Saturday regarding a change in the parking meters in the CBD. Having previous experience with David Stuart at school was very helpful. Claudia was great too, chatting to the subjects and making them feel at ease.

I then used the CCI DB, which is the software that APN use for managing their stories. I was particularly looking forward to seeing these sort of ‘nuts and bolts’ of a newspaper. The software company is based in Denmark and used globally.

I chatted to Kevin who was doing some design and layouts. He is based at ‘Centro’ which is APN’s central sub-editing department based on the Sunny Coast. It was great to hear the lingo I’ve heard in class eg decks and pars etc.

I worked on a my first story today, looking up the past story and emailing a source. I also read the APN style guide with much interest and really enjoyed it!

It was really enjoyable being amongst ‘the real thing’ today.