This a Saturday morning and I could not explain how excited I was about the night ahead. I was to intern with the powerful journalists’ union – the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance; or in short, the MEAA. Having been already a current student member of the union, I knew this would be an amazing opportunity. The event was to be the annual Queensland Media Awards (hashtag #clarions), showcasing the best of our state’s journalism with it’s equally talented journalists and their respective media organisations. Some of the award nominations I was looking forward to were those for New Journo of the Year, Most Outstanding Journalism student for both regional and metropolitan, Online Journalism (which my university on the Sunshine Coast was sponsoring), Broadcast Interview, Television News Report and Queensland Journalist of the Year. Just after lunch, I got ready to leave home in Mooloolaba and travel down to Brisbane. Upon arrival at Rydges in South Bank at 4pm, entered the elevator to head to the hotel’s Podium Room on Level One, it was there I met my boss for the evening, the delightful Anna Magnus – the National Manager for MEAA’s State Media Awards. The first job task was to set aside on each brightly lit table, a copy of the Walkley magazine. By then, the other young interns rocked up: Taryn, Paige, Nick and Hannah. All journalism students from UQ and QUT, together for one cause – stalk as many journos as we can to talk to us! After we all finished our interim setup duties, we were given a special room around the corner for dinner. Pizzas and chips and glasses of water. We asked for alcohol straight up … but not just yet! It felt like royalty in that room with an unlimited cellar of not-to-be-consumed-as-yet wine, glowing chandeliers and luxury seating furniture. And yes, our dining table was HUGE!! During this time, our discussion was on the big issues of journalism by ridiculing elements of A Current Affair to comparing news bulletins on who lead with the most hard breaking of stories then questioning why commercial news never reports on international news. By this time, we were called out to collect our name cards and start our ‘official’ duties for MEAA. Hannah, Paige and Taryn were responsible for looking after the event sponsors while Nick and I were responsible for tweeting the award winners from the awards’s Twitter account. I must say early on in the introductions, the speech of Peter Greste’s brother was heartfelt, interesting and really enforced why our profession is so important for as journalists, we give voices to the voiceless. Peter deserves to come home and that Egypt must release him. It’s barbaric and unacceptable for a ‘so-called’ democratic country to advocate free speech when they arrest and lock-up the very people who do such work. This was followed by a Year in Review video presentation by Channel Nine – so many memories! By the time the first half of formalities were completed, Nick and I, along with Hannah, Paige and Taryn took to our designated tables to sell raffle tickets with proceeds to the Australian Journalists’ Association in helping the families of journalists with financial support during tough times. My tables had journos from the Gold Coast Bulletin and the ABC, who I had the brief pleasure of meeting 612’s Rebecca Levingston and 7.30 Queensland presenter Matt Wordsworth. When the formalities of the second half of the evening were wrapped up with ABC, Sunshine Coast Daily, Seven News and News Limited the majority of winners, time was right for dessert. Now the dessert I thought was sublime. It was a spiced quartet involving chocolate cake, macaroon, chilli mousse and aniseed truffle. Yes, it was unique, delicious and packed a pounce, one journo on the night tweeted: “Cruel joke at the Clarions. Dessert tastes like chilli. What?” It would have served her well had she read it first on the table menu.. When the awards were formally done, it was certainly time to crack open that wine in our special room. With our phones filming unsuspecting drunk journalists on the dancefloor till the early hours and a continuous flow of alcohol, at some point close to heading home, Anna came up to us one-by-one with a hug and her gratitude for helping her make sure the Queensland Media Awards for 2014 ran smoothly. You could say we’re ‘Anna’s Angels.’