More Meetings and Preparations

As I entered my third week of my internship at The Sharon Herald, I already had four pieces published in the newspaper and online, which was huge for me. I entered the week feeling great and ready to take on more, but this week was a little more slow news wise, which allowed me to experience some different opportunities.

Monday afternoon I got to work with a few of the page layout editors , learning how to paginate, for both the online version of the newspaper that comes out Tuesdays, the overall layout of the website, and the printed newspaper version that would be printed for Wednesday. After this, I went to another local school board meeting in West Middlesex this time with a well- experienced local school and city meeting reporter, taking my own notes and overall shadowing his process.

On Tuesday, I got caught up with some paperwork for my internship and met with the publisher and my supervisor to check in and evaluate on my work these past few weeks. I also set up an interview for a story I will be covering next week on a local theatre club. Then, I interviewed an organizer for one of the Memorial Day parades for more information and background, as I will be covering it next week. We also had a meeting as most reporters and editors were in the newsrooms, bounced ideas off of one another, and planned for some stories in the future.

For Wednesday, I played a little bit of computer technician, as I had to reconfigured my computer to the WIFI, which took much longer than expected. Then, I typed up a preview for the local Memorial Day parade that is coming back to the area and included the interview from a VFW member and organizer that I spoke with yesterday. I also did some research on the programs happening at a local theater that I will be visiting and previewing next week. On a different not, I got to witness the aftermath of a little situation, as a community member kept calling and harassing two reporters, claiming they did not fix a mistake in an article, when they did. The editor was able to handle the situation, but it was interesting to see.

Thursday was a very interesting day, as I got to observe the two hosts of the paper's podcast set up the equipment and conduct an episode. They interviewed the editor of the paper, mainly focusing on his career, how he got to where he is today, and where he sees the paper going in the future. I was surprised at how short and simple the interview was, as most podcasts I listen to are over an hour long. It was great to discuss the setup and avenue of the podcast, as the hosts usually like to keep the episodes short to keep the viewer's attention and keep the editing to a minimum, as the hosts are also digital and photography editors as well.