I was unsure about taking on an extra internship at Bundaberg News Mail, but after my first day I was so happy that I did.

I was worried that I wouldn’t have much to write about  in a rural area, but apparently I came at a good time – it was busy.

The weekend before I started my internship a photographer from News Mail Nigel Brennan had reportedly been kidnapped in Somalia.

I walked in on Monday morning and chief of staff Nikki Sorbello warned me not to answer any phones because media everywhere wanted comments on the matter.

Nikki was happy to give me a lot of interesting stories to work on and she was a little sympathetic when giving me picture stories and vox pops to do.

Unlike my internship at the Sunshine Coast Daily, at News Mail I got to do a lot of interviews in person rather than mainly on the phone. Some of my stories included a preview to the annual Bundaberg Multi Cultural Festival and a preview to the annual Bundaberg to Brisbane bike ride.

I wrote for both News Mail and The Guardian, their free weekly paper.

With only six journalists in the office, they were all very friendly and always involved me in their gossip sessions and gave me plenty of good advice.

I was never bored or short of something to write or do.

All the journos made me feel very welcome, but as usual just as I was really getting to know people, it was time to go home.

Not for long though – the next Monday I started my internship at the Queensland Times.

This was a huge change from little News Mail as there were a lot more people and a much bigger demand for story ideas. It was a little bit intimidating being in the news meetings. I did offer story ideas but they would often be shut down and my occasional suggestion was nothing compared to the four or five story ideas everyone else brought to the meetings every morning.

I was assured that more ideas would take time, but there was definitely a bit more pressure at the QT than my other internships.

Rob was there of course and it was great to see how he’s operating now, (very well, frequently getting page one stories)

As the intern, my daily job was the vox pop.

I was also given odd jobs like writing a weather wrap up, which was a weather report only written in the form of a news story, including quotes, which i found quite strange. I did a lot of work with the Advertiser, writing about local success stories and I did a few for the newspaper as well including a Gold Lotto story which made page two and a political feature story about what female Ipswich councillors thought about Sarah Palin which was very interesting.

Overall, after three weeks of interning I’ve learnt a lot about different news rooms and I now know my style of writing and what kind of articles I like best. I enjoyed both internships and hope my experience will lead onto a decent job somewhere similar in the future.