Blog post day 2

Today was the second day of my internship, And it seems things are well and truly getting into gear.

Right off the bat I joined the paper’s reporters in a media conference, it was exactly how they are portrayed in movies, although a little more laid back. Thankfully I was able to throw in a few story ideas myself.

For the first half of the day I wrote and submitted stories and chased contacts down, and u learned first hand of the abysmal contact wall that government agencies put up around their representative. When I asked when I should expect a response one person said ‘weeks’ and another person ‘never’.

At lunch time I encountered what seemed like an anomaly in google maps/street view, unable to find a bakery on the redcliffe waterside storefront myself, I deferred to google maps only to find that the bakeries it pointed to no longer existed. They didn’t even show up in the street view perspective given on their address pages.

Even though I did get stories done, the ones that I really wanted to focus on we’re stalled because of non-responsiveness from contacts. I still have a lot of work to carry over into the coming days, but overall it was a productive second day.

Blog post day three

Day three, it certainly felt about ten degrees warmer. As soon as I arrived I interviewed Marathon Runner Malcolm John who is competing in the upcoming Gold Coast Airport Marathon, another story filed.

Once again another story was delayed, this time the individual I was going to contact was away for the day, the story itself has been in the works a day before I started the internship. I look forward to completing it.

The interview with the newspaper editor Kylie Knight went very well, so well I would say it is the best in-person interview I had done, something about it felt well done. The Redcliffe community is a unique area to be covering, and indeed the Herald has a unique relationship to its community because of it.

As a side note, the office seems to be constantly filled with the chiming of iPhone email notifications. Occasionally three or more people will get an email at once and the office would be drowned in electric chirps, as if a flock of robotic birds had been released. It shows just how busy these people really are day in day out.
Blog post day four

Blog post day four

Day four started off with a difficult phone interview, my shorthand skills (or lack thereof) failed me here.

I interviewed the animal carer at the Peninsula Animal Aid Shelter, yet another fantastic in-person interview, I really felt for their situation of minimal funds and having to care for many, many animals.

Finished the day being walked through the publishing process by editor Kylie Knight, the program used is a lot more complicated than I anticipated, not to mention the numerous people a story has to go through before it is published. Cannot wait for Monday.