Friday September 14

And so gentle readers our journey comes to an end

When Frodo reached Mordor and finally got rid of that accursed ring he began that long journey home on a flying bird. (come to think of it why didn’t they just hop on one of those flying birds in the first place and save themselves all the trouble. I suppose it’s the journey that counts)

Like Frodo I am about to hop on my flying bird back to Brisbane.

Today was a steady stream of goodbyes to the team I have come to know and….like. You all thought I was going to say love, didn’t you? I’m not sentimental like that M.Strickland guy I’ve been reading about.

They paid me the ultimate compliment by saying I felt like one of the team and were sad to see me go.

I still have a few stories that have been held over. Sometimes this happened when there was more pressing stories to report. It was nice to have these in the back pocket for slower news days.

I finished up my final original story idea about a push to repeal state bicycle helmet laws across Australia. Interviewed two academics, one for, one against, a young woman who had a bicycle accident a week ago, a local bicycle shop owner, an 82 year old member of Mad Cycologists riding group and a good old vox-pop.

The paper refers to these type of stories as a ‘package’ and will hopefully print it next week.

I have learnt quite a bit in my two weeks at Bundaberg NewsMail.

1/ Having a background in video editing may come in handy in the new multimedia future for newspapers.

2/ Desley and David’s news classes prepared me well for the experience and allowed me to hit the ground running

3/ JSchool students have a good reputation among the editors of the APN network.

4/ Shorthand is essential for note taking

5/ If the person serving you your coffee in the morning is talking about it, than it’s newsworthy.

The other important information I learnt was that community papers are vital. The role of the journalist does not change whether they work for a regional paper or a large city paper. They are still there to keep the powers that be honest and accountable while informing the public. There are some who would look down on those regional papers as a form of lesser journalism. I’m not one of them.