The final weekend of my internship at the ABC went by in a flurry. I started my Saturday morning by checking out all the stories the ABC had been running during the week and in the early hours of the morning. Then I was headed off with Karen Berkman to try and track down former surgeon Jayant Patel, who had just been released after his sentence was quashed. We drove around for nearly an hour in an attempt to find his lawyer’s house (where Patel was apparently hunkered down). We arrived only to be told the lawyer had just left and Patel had moved on during the night. So, a morning nearly gone on a wild goose chase. Such is the nature of journalism…

The next day I was hardly in the newsroom either. I kicked off the morning with a trip to the Acacia Ridge Police Station to hear about Operation Juliet Perspective (a fancy name for police thinking one guy had robbed two ATMs and may have had an accomplice). After much waiting and talking it ended up sounding like there wasn’t really anything new. The cops were mostly hoping we, as media, would help them solicit information from the public that might help break the case. And while understandable, it didn’t make for much of a news story. As we were leaving, a detective came out to say there had been an alleged rape at a 711 store, so we followed up on that one too. Then it was on to the next story: the Together Union announcing a $500,000 advertising campaign against Newman’s 20,000 public service job cuts. Lots of journos showed up to that one and I had to almost talk right over the other reporters to have my questions answered.

Later in the day, I sat down with the editor to hear about how she got into journalism. We also talked about some important things for young journos heading into the industry to keep in mind. She was very approachable and friendly. We had a good chat, which I’ll put together as a profile story.

Before I knew it, the weekend and my internship were over. I said my goodbyes and thank yous, handed in my security card and left with my new-found knowledge about broadcast journalism in Australia.