In a little while I’ll be interviewing the editor, Neil Melloy but before that I’ll go to the Cairns hospital with one of the chief reporters Tarina White, so I’ll be looking out/observing her technique/asking for tips for when I interview Neil.

A lot of the reporters are new to The Cairns Post and are quite young so there’s a great dynamic in the newsroom. There’s a chap from Quest who started about a week ago, a cadet who used to work in pr and another reporter who started not so long ago.  Also a j-school graduate Joe Flynn (sport journo), he’s been here for a while, started off in bundaberg, ended up in Cairns. . loves sports reporting.. 

The deputy editor and chief of staff have probably been in the editorial team the longest, along with some of the subs, though I may very well be wrong.

Everyone is extremely friendly and helpful, giving me stories and attention and helping me edit my work.

The photographers are also very good at giving advice.

So far i’ve written about ten-fifteen stories but only about half have been published. 

I’ve been going to the eisteddfod and interviewing contestants, writing profile stories, pic stories and a couple of council ones. Also nagging the court reporter to take me on one of her trips to court but we haven’t done so yet, hopefully tomorrow! Other than that, news conferences every day, when I have nothing to do (which isn’t often), i just tag along with the photographers to see what goes on in town,

i am really, really enjoying myself, and finally not fussed about talking on the phone… already looking forward to getting more work experience in the future.

 also use Decade 97 for submitting stories, intranet for newstext (database of all stories ever written basically) and newsmachine to view photographs and photo diary for booking photographers..