Well bearing in mind I was with the police reporters for the week, I’ll start by quoting the chief police reporter – “This was one of the slowest crime weeks we’ve had in years, sorry mate.” That sums it up pretty well, my last few days have been quiet but I’ve had the chance to go out and do a lot of soft stories. Plus entering all the weather, flight, surf data etc so its been useful. Written a heap of stories and getting good constructive criticism so all is going well.

Went to a cool calendar launch at Movie World today. The calendar consisted of female IT professionals Australia wide posing as famous movie characters to liven up the image of IT and encourage girls to join the IT workforce. Later on went to interview some Tae Kwon Do kids… they weren’t very chatty! Had to really squeeze the quotes out of them. Oh well it was a good learning experience.

Weds and Thurs were totally dead for crime news so I did alot of helping out around the office, like organised interviews, did round checks for everybody (been doing this since tues actually) and all kinds of newsroom activity. Went out with a few photographers for some “cat and dog” stories also. Basically our editor likes picture stories with cute animals or something along those lines. They make the new people cover those stories sadly. Oh how I longed for a triple homicide to occur. I’m really looking forward to reporting on some real crime next week! Please people of the Gold Coast, if you have ever felt a murderous rage, the urge to deal vast amounts of drugs or any other deviant behaviour let it boil over next week.

I know I’ve forgotten heaps of things, this full time working deal has made me tired and forgetful. Oh yeah when that Heathrow/London/terrorism story broke on thurs avo I stayed back a fair few hours helping to do a few pages for the fri issue. Even though I didn’t get a byline, it was really fun to be part of a team of 3 or so people making so many phone calls, web checks, absolutely everything to come up with a few pages (including front page) of informative up-to-date copy.

I promised myself I wouldn’t write another blog entry thatwas essay length but it looks like I have done that anyway. Enjoy the weekend JSchoolers and anyone else out there.

ps I’ve mastered the art of typing, talking and listening to the scanner all in one hit