One month down, three to go

It is hard to believe it is already week 4 of my internship at PublicSource. This semester has been quite busy, and it has been interesting balancing my job and my school duties. I have never had an internship during the school year, and with working only two days a week, it sometimes feels like I do not even have an internship. Alas, let's get into this week.

On Tuesday, I went to the Allegheny County Courthouse to request documents from a case on a person interested in helping create a first-person story on the mental health system in the Allegheny County Jail. I felt quite comfortable, as I have been to the courthouse before, and I was super excited to feel all official while requesting documents. The papers were not on file, so I had to stop again on Thursday. After this quick trip, I continued working on a story that I refined a pitch on last week. I got in contact with a few potential sources on AI in k-12 schools and how a local school was ahead of its time. I then pitched a story on a trans-inclusive fertility clinic coming to the city and started reaching out to potential sources for the story. I ended the day by meeting with my internship mentor who helped me find some expert sources to contact for my AI story; we also discussed some best media ethics practices regarding when sources request for information to be taken down after a story is published, even ones that were published several years ago.

Thursday was a day back at the office for me. I started my day with running a fact-check on a story. I then also prepared some questions for two interviews on the AI story that I had during the day. I also set up an interview for next week on the trans-inclusive fertility clinic story I am working on. We also had our weekly lunch and learn and intern meetings.

While I typically do not work on Fridays, I did go to the courthouse to pick up the case that I requested on Tuesday. Most of the information was redacted, and I think it was ridiculous that I had to pay four dollars for only eight pages. This experience was eye-opening to procedures in open records.