I frolicked in the city (New York, that is) yesterday with my mom. I had to go to the French embassy for my visa appointment – scary, scary – and once everything went well, we relaxed and had fun! Went to the top of the Rock, wandered around Central Park, drank lotsa coffee, shopped a little, went to Times Square for the obligatory tourist pic and visited one of my good friends who is living in the city for the summer. I’ll intersperse some pics from the trip throughout this post, like this:
view from the top o' the rock.
To start the day, I called my main source for that one article I’ve been coming back to for the last time. I actually told Scot as I dialed the number that if she didn’t answer, I was giving up on the story altogether. She didn’t answer, and I sighed in exasperation/exhileration… and then the phone rang, with the source on the line! I interviewed her, and finally wrote my article.
I’d been dreading writing it, since I’ve been sitting on it for so long and was kind of over it, if you know what I mean. But I really like the way it turned out. Scot and I went over it after I’d finished, and he thought it turned out well, too – he didn’t have to change the lead at all! “Can’t you just forget about Paris, and we’ll send you to NYC every once in a while so you get your taste of the big city?” he asked, and I grinned but said no way jose. I think the only corrections he had to make to my story were with commas (those suckers always get me) and one or two other AP style things. Look at how far this wee little intern has come. :)
mom and I being all touristy with the empire state building behind us.
After that, I had no more pieces on my plate (say that 5x fast), so I waited around and snacked on some salted almonds while Scot searched his emails for another lead for me to work on. Me sitting on at my desk with absolutely nothing to do is kinda rare, and soon enough, Rick grabbed me to put on my acting chops for a few minutes. Ricky and yours truly will be the stars of a photo/video demonstration for corporate; apparently, the material will be premiered at some national conference or something? Regardless, I’m not posting the photo (Ricky says he looks fat, ha, but I don’t look much better).
Acting and doing real reporting, who’da guessed? I came back to my desk and waited for more stories from Scot, until I realized I had four blog posts to catch up on. Woops. I got started on that, writing fast and growing more and more hungry until Ricky came over with a piece of yummy cheese pizza from Hometown Pizza in Litchfield. Best. Pizza. Ever. I ate it right up – big thanks to Ricky, yay! Free pizza makes for happy interns – brought back memories of when Kaitie and I sprinted to the pizza.
being a goof in the cool light room in the rockefeller building.
The Canton weekly was low on stories, so Scot gave me two stories to try and reach sources/do interviews/write articles for. I called three different sources for one story, two sources for the other – all voicemail. I’m starting to think people see the Register Citizen number on their caller ID and throw their phone across the room. I called the numbers multiple times, and Scot grew a little more desperate, until Emily had the idea to expand a news release we had from Collinsville. I called two sources for that story, no one responded, and Emily showed me the art of lifting a story off the Internet.
Okay, that sounds bad, but there are so many ways to get information you need by referring to different websites (like the Canton Historical Museum, for one), and just writing “according to the so-and-so website…”. Ten minutes before 3 PM, I got ahold of the curator of the Canton museum, and we chatted for a while – she lives in the same family home she was born in, where her grandparents also lived! – so I got some quality quotes for that writeup. It was nice to see how grateful everyone was once I typed those notes into Prestige.
And before I sign off on my last blog post, a HUGE thanks to everyone I worked with at the Foothills Media Group this summer (specifically Kaitlyn, Kaitie and Scot). I know it was a blessing to be able to work with you all and gain this experience – my 10 a.m – 3 p.m. internship turned into a real reporter’s workday, and I don’t even know how it happened. I must say, the sink-or-swim approach definitely worked! Even though I came in my first day with zero journalistic knowledge, I tried as hard as I could to meet your expectations and write solid, publishable articles. I hope I made you proud! I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to guide me in the right direction, correct my mistakes, and expose me to the field of journalism.
Maybe next summer, you’ll see my name again in the bylines of some of the papers, if I’m able to do some freelance work. Until then, au revoir, everyone :)
Amy
