Journalism holds a powerful dream for idealistic young students. There is a yearning behind most would-be journalists to report the big issues and make a positive difference in our world. Whether your passion be human rights, politics, health, the environment; there is a field of discovery we all want to pursue in order to achieve that influential change (and maybe rack up a Walkley along the way).
When one thinks of regional newspapers, these types of life changing stories are rarely associated and the journalistic dream loses some lustre. The other reality is money talks. Advertising and sales take precedence over news reporting. And so, balancing haphazardly between the newsroom and the advertising section of the Townsville Bulletin is Advertising Features, and me, the idealistic intern.
The Townsville Bulletin is one of North Queensland’s largest daily newspapers, with a readership average of about 100,000. With a focus on community issues and events, the ‘Bully’ aims to inform, entertain and lead public debate through their coverage of local, national and international news. The Advertising Features section of the Bully controls most editorial and advertorial articles, the Career One lift-outs on Wednesday and Saturday, the feature homes in the Real Estate Guide, the monthly senior citizens lift-out ‘Primetime’, the tri-monthly Catholic News lift-out, as well as many other once-off magazine type publications. Often forgotten about by the larger sections of the paper, the Ad-feats team consists of an editor and three journalists and they are the bridge that spans the rocky relationship between advertising and news.
With dreams of an international travel writing career, I foolishly entered the belly of the Bully with a heavy heart rather than an open mind. But the 13 weeks I spent in Ad-feats were surprising, challenging, productive, a huge learning curve and overall incredibly enjoyable. I was initially surprised that I wasn’t treated like a subordinate at all; I was thrown straight into the deep end of researching, interviewing, reporting and writing. On my first day I was sent out with a photographer with little more than a media release for background information and had to interview the Traffic Police Chief Inspector, Main Road Minister, several local council members and MPs and three teenagers. I was nervous beyond belief, but with a deep breath I dove head first into the role of journalist and gathered all the relevant information with ease.
Being a relatively shy person myself, interviewing is something I have always felt I struggled with. When thrown a media release at short notice it is difficult to wrap your head around an idea before asking the right questions and getting the right information from an interviewee. At one stage I was left a memo note with a name and phone number and told to interview the talent about ‘baptism’. Talk about unprepared. However the opposite can be even worse. When given too much time, or when the talent is particularly talkative or interesting, my biggest problem often became having too much information and wasting precious time siphoning through it to find the story.
One of the most rewarding skills I picked up through my time at the Bully was being to pick an angle for a story and getting just the right information needed. I can now pick three or four precise questions that I know will get the quotes I’m after. But I’ve also learnt to be flexible. When the interviewee provides an unexpected answer or some new information the order or angle of a story can change completely. I learnt this through several career profile articles for the Career One lift-out. Most of our information for career profiles is collected via an emailed questionnaire and we often have to ring the talent to clarify details. One line from a phone conversation can lead to a new line of questioning which in turn opens new ideas, perspectives and angles on an article.
My toughest lesson was learnt early on when a story I wrote was printed with an incorrect phone number. The error turned out to be purely a typo, but it made the importance of accuracy hit home hard. Names and phone numbers are the most important information to get correct and I now check and triple check them before sending my work to the sub editors, I even ring the phone number I’ve typed in the story just to be 100 percent sure.
My editor was great at providing feedback to my work. She would often have time of an afternoon to sit with me and read over my stories, communicating why any changes were made, correcting slight style errors or relaying positive comments. My first few stories were often rearranged, with the lead being shortened or taken from a lower par in the article. I wholehearted enjoyed receiving critical feedback. When another journalist was criticised for her ‘lazy’ writing, I overheard her say, ‘That’s what sub editors are for.’ It is easy to see journalists becoming complacent about under par articles when writing them day in day out becomes mechanical and monotonous. Having editors and sub editors is definitely a back up that can breed laziness, so I made sure to not fall into that trap myself. My guiding rule was that I was there to impress and I wanted them to miss me once I was gone, which meant keeping my standard as high as possible.
Before starting my internship it had been over 2 years since I’d written a news article, as I had taken some time off in the middle of my university course and since returning had only undertaken theory subjects. Though I initially struggled with writing the articles to a satisfactory standard, I was well and truly into the swing of creating full, polished stories by my third and fourth week and since then gained mostly positive feedback. My major feature article, on a local quadriplegic running a peer support program for other spinal injury patients (to be printed at a future date, possibly Saturday 7 November), was deemed ‘a wonderful job’ by the Weekend Extra Features editor, when my Ad-feats editor had told me not to have high expectations of my first draft. But by far the most rewarding feedback I received was from my interviewees. One man I wrote a career profile on told me I had ‘made him seem important in the world.’ This, I think, is when I realised regional newspapers, and even Advertising Features, can make a difference to the world, though it may seem to start off small.
The absolute highlight of my internship was my front page story. Working in Ad-feats rather than the newsroom, I had thought it impossible to make the front page. Oh, how wrong I was. Our September edition of Catholic News was set to mark the centenary anniversary of Mary MacKillop’s death and I had been given the contact details of a local Catholic family who were descendants of Mary MacKillop. I found the story incredibly difficult to write as I was given few guidelines as to what it was supposed to be about. After it was written, set for publishing the next week, my editor told the newsroom editor about it and my story was poached from Catholic News and published on the front page of that Saturday’s paper. OK, maybe it was a slow news day... But I still think I have bragging rights.
The most difficult and unsatisfying aspect of journalistic work was wasting copious amounts of time chasing contacts who didn’t return phone calls, chasing dead end leads, having to re-write entire stories that didn’t work out the way you first thought they would and chasing people to book and re-book photos. At first I found booking photos a difficult and time consuming task. It is strange to explain to someone over the phone that a photographer they don’t know will meet them at a certain place to take a picture for an article that they didn’t know was being written until I rang and interviewed them 15 minutes ago. When booking a photo you have to provide the photographer with some concepts or ideas for a creative photo that suits the article you’re yet to write. It becomes even more difficult when you’re given very few time slots over a week to book your photos in. In its infancy an article can seem like such an intangible being. It starts with a tiny idea, you call one contact who tells you to call the next contact and so on, you finally get some quotes and information, your idea starts to form the outline of a story and a photo (usually of someone you’ve never met, in a place you’ve never been to) is taken by someone who has very little idea of what your story is actually about. Yet somehow it all seems to come together. Seeing my completed published articles was such a fulfilling and rewarding achievement when everything seemed to start off so disorganised and elusive. By the end of my internship I could begin to imagine the finished result of an article from its conception, making the road to the final product much smoother.
Over my 13 weeks in Ad-feats I wrote 32 stories, including several for the newsroom, and 21 have been published. Several of the remaining stories will be published this Saturday, including my major feature article that I think I am most proud of. The rest will be published during the next few weeks.
I can understand the dread one feels of becoming just another cog in the inner workings of a giant news machine like the Townsville Bulletin and its father News Limited, but by taking pride in my work I definitely feel the place I held was an important one. Seeing the passionate interest my editor and fellow journalists took in their own work taught me that an intense interest in everything is all it takes to be a successful journalist. I have learnt to become interested in many things I was not previously interested in, which in turn has lifted my interviewing and writing skills far above what they previously were.
In the current economic climate and internet information revolution many large newspapers are dying off or struggling to stay afloat. While my classmates will graduate in a few weeks, I have one more semester of university study to fulfill before launching into the pool of potentially jobless journalism graduates. With fear of sounding overly sentimental, my internship at the Bully has truly changed my whole perception of regional journalism. The understanding of journalism from a university student point of view is nothing like experiencing journalism in the real world. The real world is challenging, but far more rewarding than anything university has taught me. My mindset has changed dramatically and I believe this will continue to develop my professional self in a positive way.
Though it’s undoubtedly important to remember the passion that inspires you to first enter journalism, it is life changing to discover it is often the little things that make the biggest difference. And so, the idealistic young intern emerged wiser and far more passionate from her run in with the real world.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Ten down...
Week 10...
Before it even hit Friday this week I felt like I’d burnt out from too much story hunting. I had interviewed Col for my feature article on Monday arvo (an interview which turned out so much longer than expected...so I’ve been dreading writing up the transcript... and still haven’t.) Then interviewed a guy in his support group, Mick, over the phone on Tuesday and arranged for them to meet for a photo on Friday...
Wednesday Linda emailed me to say that she wants me to write the feature for the cover of next month’s over-60s lift-out... and that I was to come up with an idea that some-how related to something going on around town during November. My deadline is Oct 23rd. Being relatively new to Townsville... I know zero people over the age of sixty...argghh... where do I start!?
On Friday I told Linda the only idea I could come up with was that it was Remembrance Day on the 11th... she loved it and gave me the number of the RSL manager to call and ask for contacts that had been in the war or were heavily involved with Remembrance Day. After much chasing up I got the numbers for several war veterans and also the woman who organises the poppy drive. I tried calling them all but no one was home... as I’ve got a little while to play with this article I put it on the back burner til next week and decided to get stuck into some of the things left over from last week.
I started with the disability employment agency story... when I rang their manager she was very busy and also a little off guard and requested that I give her some time to think about her answers... so I emailed her some questions and told her to get back to me ASAP. She is also going to provide me the contact details of one of their clients who has been happily placed in the workforce so the story will be from their point of view with her comments as a back up as to why employers should give people with a disability a go. One more thing to work on next week.
So I tried my hand at the Santa story... Jim has been the Santa Claus at one of the local shopping centres for 15 years...it was to be a career profile...but it also has a (hopefully) funny and light-hearted side to it. I wrote the story but couldn’t get the lead right... I wanted something jolly and Christmas-y (I even looked online at any Christmas carol lyrics I could use...but none fitted right)... so I left it as it was for Linda to proof and she had the same comment but told me just to think it over for the week and fix the lead next week. Another issue I’d had with this story was that I didn’t have an photograph ideas... as the shopping centre he works in (he is their maintenance assistant for the other 11 months of the year) doesn’t yet have any Christmas decorations up... so after much organising we arranged for him to take a Santa hat to work with him for the photo shoot next week.
Because it will be in a shopping centre I also had to ring their centre management to make sure it was ok for us to photograph in there... in a funny twist of events their only concern was that children might read the article and find out that Santa isn’t real. I assured them I had written the article in such a way that children would assume that Jim was more of a Santa’s helper than the real Santa...and I had even mentioned that while Jim was cleaning for the rest of the year, the real Santa was back at the North Pole. (I’m wondering what kids who still believe in Santa are doing reading the careers section of the paper!!)
I then started work on a new story that Linda had emailed me throughout the week... a local woman who started an online business that acts as a resource pool for the building industry has recently opened her website to the public. This means people who want to develop or build their property have a central location to find builders, contractors and suppliers (who have all had certification checks)... and they can even add their job to a jobs board where builders can look at plans etc and see if their interested in doing the job.... I rang the woman to interview her, wrote the story and booked in a photo time for next week. When Linda edited the story she decided that she was going to put it into the Real Estate section rather than careers... so it’ll be exciting to see my stories spread into a different area of the paper.
Linda sent me another story to do next week on Safe Work Week (designed to create awareness for safe work practices...and where workplaces across Australia aim to have one day where no one gets injured at work).... So I had to book in a photo for next week and I will go with the photographer then to interview our talent.
It was one of the ad-feats girl’s birthday today so the four of us went out for a long lunch at the pub which took a big chunk out of my day... (as did the birthday cake in the afternoon) and I really only got the two stories done but I chased up a hell of a lot of other leads, booked a thousand photos, answered a thousand emails and felt like I was continually struggling to stay on top of my ever increasing pile of work.
The bad thing is that these next three weeks are going to be absolutely hectic with uni assignments and so I’m really not going to have time to do any of the newspapers stuff at home... and it’s difficult when people continue to not get back to you with information, which seems especially prevalent when working on a Friday.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with her answers in the first place and anything even remotely inappropriate would have been edited out by me anyway... and instead they spent a whole week of to-ing and fro-ing and absolute bull###ting around to achieve something that didn’t even need to be done. It made me pretty furious. The whole point of a job story is not to insult or speak badly about an industry or institution, but instead to encourage people to think about different employment opportunities from the point of view of someone who works within the industry and enjoys what they do (and both myself and my talent had explained this to them). I understand why government agencies need to have media departments... but honestly it’s just made me so mad that now I feel like writing a really awful piece about them and how useless they are. And to think that taxpayers money was spent over the week paying these people to edit my questionnaire to the point of banal nothingness that I really have very little interesting information to work with now. Anyway... rant over. (Sorry Hume! This is exactly why I don’t have anything to do with politics... it makes me way too angry.)
I also wanted to include an excerpt from one of the emails Linda sent me during the week:
“P.S The photos for marine services chickie from the port turned out really good so I will put her on the cover on Oct 24, plus I think her story is interesting. This week is your graphic designer, the following week your Lamberts guy and then your port story. What am I am going to do when you go!!!!!!!!!!!!”
So, not only do I have the next three Careers covers but Linda is going to miss me when I go... yay! Mission completed. Ohhh, one more thing; Linda said that over the Christmas break, while all the ad-feats staff are away... I can be EDITOR! She mentioned this a few times... so I’m pretty sure she’s not joking. However she didn’t offer to pay me... we shall see what happens I guess. Fingers crossed.
Before it even hit Friday this week I felt like I’d burnt out from too much story hunting. I had interviewed Col for my feature article on Monday arvo (an interview which turned out so much longer than expected...so I’ve been dreading writing up the transcript... and still haven’t.) Then interviewed a guy in his support group, Mick, over the phone on Tuesday and arranged for them to meet for a photo on Friday...
Wednesday Linda emailed me to say that she wants me to write the feature for the cover of next month’s over-60s lift-out... and that I was to come up with an idea that some-how related to something going on around town during November. My deadline is Oct 23rd. Being relatively new to Townsville... I know zero people over the age of sixty...argghh... where do I start!?
On Friday I told Linda the only idea I could come up with was that it was Remembrance Day on the 11th... she loved it and gave me the number of the RSL manager to call and ask for contacts that had been in the war or were heavily involved with Remembrance Day. After much chasing up I got the numbers for several war veterans and also the woman who organises the poppy drive. I tried calling them all but no one was home... as I’ve got a little while to play with this article I put it on the back burner til next week and decided to get stuck into some of the things left over from last week.
I started with the disability employment agency story... when I rang their manager she was very busy and also a little off guard and requested that I give her some time to think about her answers... so I emailed her some questions and told her to get back to me ASAP. She is also going to provide me the contact details of one of their clients who has been happily placed in the workforce so the story will be from their point of view with her comments as a back up as to why employers should give people with a disability a go. One more thing to work on next week.
So I tried my hand at the Santa story... Jim has been the Santa Claus at one of the local shopping centres for 15 years...it was to be a career profile...but it also has a (hopefully) funny and light-hearted side to it. I wrote the story but couldn’t get the lead right... I wanted something jolly and Christmas-y (I even looked online at any Christmas carol lyrics I could use...but none fitted right)... so I left it as it was for Linda to proof and she had the same comment but told me just to think it over for the week and fix the lead next week. Another issue I’d had with this story was that I didn’t have an photograph ideas... as the shopping centre he works in (he is their maintenance assistant for the other 11 months of the year) doesn’t yet have any Christmas decorations up... so after much organising we arranged for him to take a Santa hat to work with him for the photo shoot next week.
Because it will be in a shopping centre I also had to ring their centre management to make sure it was ok for us to photograph in there... in a funny twist of events their only concern was that children might read the article and find out that Santa isn’t real. I assured them I had written the article in such a way that children would assume that Jim was more of a Santa’s helper than the real Santa...and I had even mentioned that while Jim was cleaning for the rest of the year, the real Santa was back at the North Pole. (I’m wondering what kids who still believe in Santa are doing reading the careers section of the paper!!)
I then started work on a new story that Linda had emailed me throughout the week... a local woman who started an online business that acts as a resource pool for the building industry has recently opened her website to the public. This means people who want to develop or build their property have a central location to find builders, contractors and suppliers (who have all had certification checks)... and they can even add their job to a jobs board where builders can look at plans etc and see if their interested in doing the job.... I rang the woman to interview her, wrote the story and booked in a photo time for next week. When Linda edited the story she decided that she was going to put it into the Real Estate section rather than careers... so it’ll be exciting to see my stories spread into a different area of the paper.
Linda sent me another story to do next week on Safe Work Week (designed to create awareness for safe work practices...and where workplaces across Australia aim to have one day where no one gets injured at work).... So I had to book in a photo for next week and I will go with the photographer then to interview our talent.
It was one of the ad-feats girl’s birthday today so the four of us went out for a long lunch at the pub which took a big chunk out of my day... (as did the birthday cake in the afternoon) and I really only got the two stories done but I chased up a hell of a lot of other leads, booked a thousand photos, answered a thousand emails and felt like I was continually struggling to stay on top of my ever increasing pile of work.
The bad thing is that these next three weeks are going to be absolutely hectic with uni assignments and so I’m really not going to have time to do any of the newspapers stuff at home... and it’s difficult when people continue to not get back to you with information, which seems especially prevalent when working on a Friday.
----------------------------------------
Lesson for this week: When searching for job stories, stay away from Government agencies. I got a call during the week from my housemate saying there had been a problem when the photographer turned up to take her photo on Wednesday morning... after getting security to let him in, my housemate thought that she should probably check with her supervisor as to the appropriateness of her answers to my career profile questionnaire. He said it was fine, but said she should check with the media department, the Brisbane media boss initially said it was fine, but then passed it on to someone else, who in turn passed it on to someone else... and the whole thing turned into a bit of a mess. They ended up butchering her answers to an almost unrecognisable pulp... leaving me with very sterile media department spun quotes to work with. No wonder the government never gets anything done.
Lesson for this week: When searching for job stories, stay away from Government agencies. I got a call during the week from my housemate saying there had been a problem when the photographer turned up to take her photo on Wednesday morning... after getting security to let him in, my housemate thought that she should probably check with her supervisor as to the appropriateness of her answers to my career profile questionnaire. He said it was fine, but said she should check with the media department, the Brisbane media boss initially said it was fine, but then passed it on to someone else, who in turn passed it on to someone else... and the whole thing turned into a bit of a mess. They ended up butchering her answers to an almost unrecognisable pulp... leaving me with very sterile media department spun quotes to work with. No wonder the government never gets anything done.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with her answers in the first place and anything even remotely inappropriate would have been edited out by me anyway... and instead they spent a whole week of to-ing and fro-ing and absolute bull###ting around to achieve something that didn’t even need to be done. It made me pretty furious. The whole point of a job story is not to insult or speak badly about an industry or institution, but instead to encourage people to think about different employment opportunities from the point of view of someone who works within the industry and enjoys what they do (and both myself and my talent had explained this to them). I understand why government agencies need to have media departments... but honestly it’s just made me so mad that now I feel like writing a really awful piece about them and how useless they are. And to think that taxpayers money was spent over the week paying these people to edit my questionnaire to the point of banal nothingness that I really have very little interesting information to work with now. Anyway... rant over. (Sorry Hume! This is exactly why I don’t have anything to do with politics... it makes me way too angry.)
---------------------------------
I also wanted to include an excerpt from one of the emails Linda sent me during the week:
“P.S The photos for marine services chickie from the port turned out really good so I will put her on the cover on Oct 24, plus I think her story is interesting. This week is your graphic designer, the following week your Lamberts guy and then your port story. What am I am going to do when you go!!!!!!!!!!!!”
So, not only do I have the next three Careers covers but Linda is going to miss me when I go... yay! Mission completed. Ohhh, one more thing; Linda said that over the Christmas break, while all the ad-feats staff are away... I can be EDITOR! She mentioned this a few times... so I’m pretty sure she’s not joking. However she didn’t offer to pay me... we shall see what happens I guess. Fingers crossed.
Saturday, October 03, 2009
On cloud nine...
Week Nine...
By far the busiest day yet... before I even got to the office I had a list of seven or eight things to get working on...
1) Last week Linda had sent me an email she’d received on a local employment agency who works with disabled people to find jobs for them in the community... Possible careers profile.
2) Two career profiles from the Port of Townsville she had sent me...
3) During the week she had sent me the name of a man who worked as Santa at Casteltown shopping centre at Christmas time and during the week I had tracked him down and arranged to do a phone interview on Friday...
4) I had arranged a career profile on an animal behaviour and welfare lecturer at JCU
5) And another career profile on my housemate who works for the State Valuation Office, valuing land.
6) Last week Linda had told me she wants me to a major feature before I leave...about 800words.. on “an ordinary person doing extraordinary things” and I wanted to discuss my idea with her so I could start interviewing for that...
7) And by the time I got into the office she had emailed me another career profile on a graphic designer....
Busy, busy, busy!
I started with the graphic designer because Linda said she had her teed up be on next week’s cover... there were some quotes in her answers that jumped out to make the lead so the story came together pretty easily. It was then decided that she was going to be moved back a week and instead next week’s cover would be the story I did on my boyfriend’s boss...which is brilliant because whenever their sales go up my boyfriend gets a pay bonus...which means I get to buy more beautiful furniture for our house.... :)
I then went on with the Manager of Marine Services at the Port of Townsville... it came together really easily as well...
Then the newsroom called me in to do the Vox Pop for the youth lift-out because Tara was away...
It was 11.30 and I already had two stories down, so I headed out with the photographer (Suzanne again! Yay!)... this vox was to be done in Flinders Mall, and we had the “official junior photographer” with us (12 year old Lewis who began his photography career with the Bully with some flood photos at the beginning of the year and now hangs out with the photographers during school holidays to help out and learn more about photography...his camera is even bigger than mine! Jealous!)... so it took us 20 minutes (and one almost-sighting and paparazzi hunt of Emmanuel Cassimatis of Storm Financial fame) and I was back in the office to get the JCU Animal Behaviourists ‘ story done before my late lunch... I was on fire!
Linda read all the stories and was happy with them all. Yay! :)
After lunch I wrote the second Port of Townsville Story... about their hydrographical surveyor...I had put his story off because he had hardly provided any information in his questionnaire so I knew I was going to have to ring him... Ringing him turned out to be a brilliant option because he came up with some really interesting information and explained everything much better while talking than he had with writing the answers in the questionnaire... just like the Life Model story two weeks again I ended up getting his lead from our quick phone conversation and it really made the story.
Last week Linda had spoken to me about finding an idea to do my major feature on... during the week I had visited the Spinal Injury Association to see if they could suggest any of their workers or clients who might be interested in having me do a story on them... I met with a guy called Col who runs a peer support program for people with spinal injuries in north Qld. He has been a paraplegic for 31 years. He gives support and inspiration to people with spinal injuries (and their families... from Cooktown to Mackay to Mt Isa, though he's based in Townsville) while they transition from rehabilitation in Brisbane (which has the only spinal unit in Qld) back to home life in north Qld.
I thought I could do a story that covers his background, how he became a paraplegic, and how he got to where he is, how spinal injury can affect people’s families and friends etc and the challenges people face when coming home to NQ and how and why he helps with all this... Linda pitched the idea to the head editor in features and she said, “Sounds Fantastic”...so I rang Col to arrange a time to meet with him on Monday for an interview.
Last week’s bankruptcy accountant had contacted Linda through the week to see if he could view a copy of his story before it went to print. He had then emailed it back to her with changes... she showed me the changes and I thought they were pretty funny....as he had basically just changed a couple of things back into perplexing lawyer speak...and had also changed his job title back to capital letters instead of the lower case I was told to put it in (as no one but the Prime Minister has capitals.).....Oh well, whatever makes him happy.
Also, the artist from last week had cancelled her photo so I had to reschedule that.
Linda had to leave early and I still had plenty of ends to tie up on my stories as well as ring the Santa to do his interview... It was 6pm by the time I walked out the door, still with plenty on my plate for next week.
Oh one other thing I wanted to add... after my Indigenous Lecturer’s story was published last week I got this reply:
Bessie, You were very naughty, you made me sound like I matter. I want to thank you for the opportunity to take part in the process of being a Journalist. Thank you so much for making sense of my answers. I appreciate what you did. When I came to work today, my fellow lecturers all had seen the article and were very impressed. You are lovely, John
Definitely made me feel great about what I’m doing! I never want to leave ad-feats... In reality I have only worked there for nine days, but I feel like a permanent fixture (or maybe it feels like a permanent fixture to my life?) ..... and I only have 4 weeks to go :(
By far the busiest day yet... before I even got to the office I had a list of seven or eight things to get working on...
1) Last week Linda had sent me an email she’d received on a local employment agency who works with disabled people to find jobs for them in the community... Possible careers profile.
2) Two career profiles from the Port of Townsville she had sent me...
3) During the week she had sent me the name of a man who worked as Santa at Casteltown shopping centre at Christmas time and during the week I had tracked him down and arranged to do a phone interview on Friday...
4) I had arranged a career profile on an animal behaviour and welfare lecturer at JCU
5) And another career profile on my housemate who works for the State Valuation Office, valuing land.
6) Last week Linda had told me she wants me to a major feature before I leave...about 800words.. on “an ordinary person doing extraordinary things” and I wanted to discuss my idea with her so I could start interviewing for that...
7) And by the time I got into the office she had emailed me another career profile on a graphic designer....
Busy, busy, busy!
I started with the graphic designer because Linda said she had her teed up be on next week’s cover... there were some quotes in her answers that jumped out to make the lead so the story came together pretty easily. It was then decided that she was going to be moved back a week and instead next week’s cover would be the story I did on my boyfriend’s boss...which is brilliant because whenever their sales go up my boyfriend gets a pay bonus...which means I get to buy more beautiful furniture for our house.... :)
I then went on with the Manager of Marine Services at the Port of Townsville... it came together really easily as well...
Then the newsroom called me in to do the Vox Pop for the youth lift-out because Tara was away...
It was 11.30 and I already had two stories down, so I headed out with the photographer (Suzanne again! Yay!)... this vox was to be done in Flinders Mall, and we had the “official junior photographer” with us (12 year old Lewis who began his photography career with the Bully with some flood photos at the beginning of the year and now hangs out with the photographers during school holidays to help out and learn more about photography...his camera is even bigger than mine! Jealous!)... so it took us 20 minutes (and one almost-sighting and paparazzi hunt of Emmanuel Cassimatis of Storm Financial fame) and I was back in the office to get the JCU Animal Behaviourists ‘ story done before my late lunch... I was on fire!
Linda read all the stories and was happy with them all. Yay! :)
After lunch I wrote the second Port of Townsville Story... about their hydrographical surveyor...I had put his story off because he had hardly provided any information in his questionnaire so I knew I was going to have to ring him... Ringing him turned out to be a brilliant option because he came up with some really interesting information and explained everything much better while talking than he had with writing the answers in the questionnaire... just like the Life Model story two weeks again I ended up getting his lead from our quick phone conversation and it really made the story.
Last week Linda had spoken to me about finding an idea to do my major feature on... during the week I had visited the Spinal Injury Association to see if they could suggest any of their workers or clients who might be interested in having me do a story on them... I met with a guy called Col who runs a peer support program for people with spinal injuries in north Qld. He has been a paraplegic for 31 years. He gives support and inspiration to people with spinal injuries (and their families... from Cooktown to Mackay to Mt Isa, though he's based in Townsville) while they transition from rehabilitation in Brisbane (which has the only spinal unit in Qld) back to home life in north Qld.
I thought I could do a story that covers his background, how he became a paraplegic, and how he got to where he is, how spinal injury can affect people’s families and friends etc and the challenges people face when coming home to NQ and how and why he helps with all this... Linda pitched the idea to the head editor in features and she said, “Sounds Fantastic”...so I rang Col to arrange a time to meet with him on Monday for an interview.
Last week’s bankruptcy accountant had contacted Linda through the week to see if he could view a copy of his story before it went to print. He had then emailed it back to her with changes... she showed me the changes and I thought they were pretty funny....as he had basically just changed a couple of things back into perplexing lawyer speak...and had also changed his job title back to capital letters instead of the lower case I was told to put it in (as no one but the Prime Minister has capitals.).....Oh well, whatever makes him happy.
Also, the artist from last week had cancelled her photo so I had to reschedule that.
Linda had to leave early and I still had plenty of ends to tie up on my stories as well as ring the Santa to do his interview... It was 6pm by the time I walked out the door, still with plenty on my plate for next week.
Oh one other thing I wanted to add... after my Indigenous Lecturer’s story was published last week I got this reply:
Bessie, You were very naughty, you made me sound like I matter. I want to thank you for the opportunity to take part in the process of being a Journalist. Thank you so much for making sense of my answers. I appreciate what you did. When I came to work today, my fellow lecturers all had seen the article and were very impressed. You are lovely, John
Definitely made me feel great about what I’m doing! I never want to leave ad-feats... In reality I have only worked there for nine days, but I feel like a permanent fixture (or maybe it feels like a permanent fixture to my life?) ..... and I only have 4 weeks to go :(
An eight hour office day...
Week Eight...
I have become accustomed to making sure I bring in at least two of my own career profiles to do each Friday. I know this helps the girls out a lot as they have been running low on them over the past months...but I’m also hoping Linda thinks I have initiative and direction... fingers crossed.
So my stories this week were three careers stories... One on my boyfriend’s boss. He is the owner of a fresh produce store and very successful. The most difficult part of his story was that I know him quite well so I found myself putting information in that I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t know him personally... this helped to fill in facts in gaps he had left in some answers, but I guess it would have been interesting to see how someone else would have written the story, had they not known him.
The next story was much more difficult...it was on an insolvency accountant who was a partner of a local firm... his answers were written exactly as a lawyer/accountant would write things and it was difficult to translate them into normal vernacular so the everyday person could understand. I did my best and I thought it turned out ok, though I wasn’t thrilled by my lead...or any of the story really.
The final story was an interesting one... a woman had contacted Linda earlier in the week asking if we could write a story on her... she was a nurse for about 10 years and had just started studying medicine when she gave up both to start a family. She then went to visit her aunty in Sydney for a week (whom she had..in a strange/long story... studied nursing with) and was encouraged to start painting. She took this up in her spare time and began selling paintings, starting a small business from home while she looked after her young children.
All three stories took a while to come together and the worst part was that Linda was so busy the whole day she didn’t have a chance to check anything.... but I guess I’ll find out how things went next week!
I have become accustomed to making sure I bring in at least two of my own career profiles to do each Friday. I know this helps the girls out a lot as they have been running low on them over the past months...but I’m also hoping Linda thinks I have initiative and direction... fingers crossed.
So my stories this week were three careers stories... One on my boyfriend’s boss. He is the owner of a fresh produce store and very successful. The most difficult part of his story was that I know him quite well so I found myself putting information in that I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t know him personally... this helped to fill in facts in gaps he had left in some answers, but I guess it would have been interesting to see how someone else would have written the story, had they not known him.
The next story was much more difficult...it was on an insolvency accountant who was a partner of a local firm... his answers were written exactly as a lawyer/accountant would write things and it was difficult to translate them into normal vernacular so the everyday person could understand. I did my best and I thought it turned out ok, though I wasn’t thrilled by my lead...or any of the story really.
The final story was an interesting one... a woman had contacted Linda earlier in the week asking if we could write a story on her... she was a nurse for about 10 years and had just started studying medicine when she gave up both to start a family. She then went to visit her aunty in Sydney for a week (whom she had..in a strange/long story... studied nursing with) and was encouraged to start painting. She took this up in her spare time and began selling paintings, starting a small business from home while she looked after her young children.
All three stories took a while to come together and the worst part was that Linda was so busy the whole day she didn’t have a chance to check anything.... but I guess I’ll find out how things went next week!
My seventh heaven...
Week Seven...
Still running off the adrenaline of last week’s windfalls I was pumped and ready to go this week.
My ‘teaser’ on the front page of Saturday’s paper turned out to be HALF the front page, it was phenomenal.. and they also ran a shorter version of my story on page four, with a note directing people to purchase Thursday's paper to read the full story in Catholic News... it was amazing.
When I got to the office in the morning (with Catholic News only being published yesterday) there was a buzz of happiness and success among the girls...
I was really keen to speak to my Catholic News buddy about how much I enjoyed reading through it and how worthwhile it all seemed once it was printed... She was stoked when I thanked her for putting me onto the Mary MacKillop story and the subsequent front page story it turned into... she was pretty excited herself, “I know! It’s the biggest thing to ever happen to Catholic News!”
“Are you kidding! It’s the biggest thing to ever happen to ME!” I laughed.
It was a great start to another very productive and enjoyable day.
Throughout the day I worked on a story for Linda about a Townsville company who won an award for getting injured workers back to work. The photos had been taken for it the week before, which meant I had a visual reference for what I was writing which doesn’t happen that often.
My next piece was a “pic-yarn” for the newsroom on 3 young siblings who had won a swag of awards at the Townsville Eisteddfod. Few changes were made to either story by Linda. (Note: I noticed when the Eisteddfod story was printed that the last three pars had been condensed and/or deleted.)
I then did a career profile that I had teed up myself, on a woman who does life modelling for arts students at JCU... it was a really interesting story and Linda thought it was great. One thing that really stood out for me with this story how the quality of information you get from your talent can change via email or phone. The Life Model had initially filled out the standard form that we email to people for career profile, but when I rang her to check a few points and arrange a photo I asked a few extra questions and the best quotes just started flowing out... I ended up grabbing my lead and some other major sections of the story from the quick phone interview instead of the questionnaire answers.
I had a look at the photos that had been taken during the week for Hume and John’s career profiles and was so excited by how great they both looked. Linda told me she had decided that Hume’s was going on the cover of next week’s guide because it was so beautiful...but I was sworn to secrecy! (Sorry Hume!)
By time it was mid afternoon (and we all usually leave around 4.30 anyway if we have all our work done)... So I filled in my afternoon with some more party book stories... two little pieces on Christmas in July and How to Make a Pinata! Party Party Party!
Still running off the adrenaline of last week’s windfalls I was pumped and ready to go this week.
My ‘teaser’ on the front page of Saturday’s paper turned out to be HALF the front page, it was phenomenal.. and they also ran a shorter version of my story on page four, with a note directing people to purchase Thursday's paper to read the full story in Catholic News... it was amazing.
When I got to the office in the morning (with Catholic News only being published yesterday) there was a buzz of happiness and success among the girls...
I was really keen to speak to my Catholic News buddy about how much I enjoyed reading through it and how worthwhile it all seemed once it was printed... She was stoked when I thanked her for putting me onto the Mary MacKillop story and the subsequent front page story it turned into... she was pretty excited herself, “I know! It’s the biggest thing to ever happen to Catholic News!”
“Are you kidding! It’s the biggest thing to ever happen to ME!” I laughed.
It was a great start to another very productive and enjoyable day.
Throughout the day I worked on a story for Linda about a Townsville company who won an award for getting injured workers back to work. The photos had been taken for it the week before, which meant I had a visual reference for what I was writing which doesn’t happen that often.
My next piece was a “pic-yarn” for the newsroom on 3 young siblings who had won a swag of awards at the Townsville Eisteddfod. Few changes were made to either story by Linda. (Note: I noticed when the Eisteddfod story was printed that the last three pars had been condensed and/or deleted.)
I then did a career profile that I had teed up myself, on a woman who does life modelling for arts students at JCU... it was a really interesting story and Linda thought it was great. One thing that really stood out for me with this story how the quality of information you get from your talent can change via email or phone. The Life Model had initially filled out the standard form that we email to people for career profile, but when I rang her to check a few points and arrange a photo I asked a few extra questions and the best quotes just started flowing out... I ended up grabbing my lead and some other major sections of the story from the quick phone interview instead of the questionnaire answers.
I had a look at the photos that had been taken during the week for Hume and John’s career profiles and was so excited by how great they both looked. Linda told me she had decided that Hume’s was going on the cover of next week’s guide because it was so beautiful...but I was sworn to secrecy! (Sorry Hume!)
By time it was mid afternoon (and we all usually leave around 4.30 anyway if we have all our work done)... So I filled in my afternoon with some more party book stories... two little pieces on Christmas in July and How to Make a Pinata! Party Party Party!
Friday, October 02, 2009
Six(ty million bazillion trillion) things I love about working in ad-feats...
Week Six...
One of the best things about working on a Friday in the advertising features section at the Bully is that we print the careers guide on Thursday night... this means as soon as I arrive on a Friday morning I can log on and see which stories were printed and where... and I already know what tomorrow’s section is going to look like...
Working at the end of the week also means that one of my priorities on arrival is to check all the photos that our photographer has taken for my stories earlier in the week... A lot of the time when writing my stories I do the interviews via phone or email, so I often have no idea what the talent looks like, so I love logging on to see what ideas Darren has come up with for the pics that match my stories...
This morning was particularly exciting... I have, once or twice, consoled myself with the fact that working in advertising features means I won’t really be getting a front page story (not that I’m saying I would even if I was in news, just that it’s one more obstacle in the way).. .so you can imagine my delight when I looked at last night’s printing to see that one of my career pieces had made the front of the career guide... pretty exciting!
But the day got better and better...
I spent the day writing two more career features... one on my Internship lecturer Hume and the other on my Indigenous studies lecturer John... they were both so interesting it was difficult to narrow them down to just 500 words. Linda loved them both and made only one change to the lead in Hume’s story and none in John’s.
The most difficult thing there was tracking them both down to pin down a photo appointment for the next week. But all worked out fine in the end.
With Catholic News out of the way (It has been printed and is just waiting for publication on Thursday next week) the ad-feats girls are working on their next project, the ‘party book’.... the party book is a shiny new quarter fold to be published at the end of October, which is basically full of advertorial for different party hire/catering/function/venue/planning/costume etc businesses around Townsville...with the in between bits filled in with little general party idea stories written by us.. With the other ladies cover the advertorials, Linda gave me free rein to write some short filler pieces about party games, party theme idea etc..
Mid-afternoon Linda walked back into the office laughing cheerfully...
“Guess what! I’ve just been in the news room bragging about our Mary MacKillop relative’s story... I built it up, I dragged it out, I said to (the editor)...’Mary MacKillop has no decendents, she had eight brothers and sisters, and none of them had any children... but WE found a releative...and not just anywhere, not just any relative...but guess where we found one, right here in Townsville! With kids going to Saint Josephs!”
(Ok maybe this isn’t all a direct quote...but it was something like this and it was something like this and she assumed different voices for each person speaking and it was incredibly dramatic and completely hilarious!)
There were also lots of bits with the other girls cutting in a laughing and whispering to me about how Linda loves to go into the newsroom and stir them up...
Anyway... with Linda assuming the voice of the (male) editor the next bit was something like, “’Linda this is HUGE! We’re running the story tomorrow with a teaser on the front page!’”
I was stunned...not only had I already secured what I thought was going to be the grand achievement while working in ad-feats (front of the career guide)...but BAM... My Mary MacKillop story was getting a teaser on the front page of Saturday’s paper!
(For once I was actually excited to be working a 5.30 open at the shop the next morning so I’d be first to see the paper.)
It was truly a great day at the office!
One of the best things about working on a Friday in the advertising features section at the Bully is that we print the careers guide on Thursday night... this means as soon as I arrive on a Friday morning I can log on and see which stories were printed and where... and I already know what tomorrow’s section is going to look like...
Working at the end of the week also means that one of my priorities on arrival is to check all the photos that our photographer has taken for my stories earlier in the week... A lot of the time when writing my stories I do the interviews via phone or email, so I often have no idea what the talent looks like, so I love logging on to see what ideas Darren has come up with for the pics that match my stories...
This morning was particularly exciting... I have, once or twice, consoled myself with the fact that working in advertising features means I won’t really be getting a front page story (not that I’m saying I would even if I was in news, just that it’s one more obstacle in the way).. .so you can imagine my delight when I looked at last night’s printing to see that one of my career pieces had made the front of the career guide... pretty exciting!
But the day got better and better...
I spent the day writing two more career features... one on my Internship lecturer Hume and the other on my Indigenous studies lecturer John... they were both so interesting it was difficult to narrow them down to just 500 words. Linda loved them both and made only one change to the lead in Hume’s story and none in John’s.
The most difficult thing there was tracking them both down to pin down a photo appointment for the next week. But all worked out fine in the end.
With Catholic News out of the way (It has been printed and is just waiting for publication on Thursday next week) the ad-feats girls are working on their next project, the ‘party book’.... the party book is a shiny new quarter fold to be published at the end of October, which is basically full of advertorial for different party hire/catering/function/venue/planning/costume etc businesses around Townsville...with the in between bits filled in with little general party idea stories written by us.. With the other ladies cover the advertorials, Linda gave me free rein to write some short filler pieces about party games, party theme idea etc..
Mid-afternoon Linda walked back into the office laughing cheerfully...
“Guess what! I’ve just been in the news room bragging about our Mary MacKillop relative’s story... I built it up, I dragged it out, I said to (the editor)...’Mary MacKillop has no decendents, she had eight brothers and sisters, and none of them had any children... but WE found a releative...and not just anywhere, not just any relative...but guess where we found one, right here in Townsville! With kids going to Saint Josephs!”
(Ok maybe this isn’t all a direct quote...but it was something like this and it was something like this and she assumed different voices for each person speaking and it was incredibly dramatic and completely hilarious!)
There were also lots of bits with the other girls cutting in a laughing and whispering to me about how Linda loves to go into the newsroom and stir them up...
Anyway... with Linda assuming the voice of the (male) editor the next bit was something like, “’Linda this is HUGE! We’re running the story tomorrow with a teaser on the front page!’”
I was stunned...not only had I already secured what I thought was going to be the grand achievement while working in ad-feats (front of the career guide)...but BAM... My Mary MacKillop story was getting a teaser on the front page of Saturday’s paper!
(For once I was actually excited to be working a 5.30 open at the shop the next morning so I’d be first to see the paper.)
It was truly a great day at the office!
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
A not so high (week) five...
Week Five...
As I walked in the door at 8.30am I was handed the keys to a work car and told I was to head to the Motor Boat Club to do a quick interview with a woman who was turning 90 for our (monthly? I think.) aged persons lift-out.
The story was to be short and fluffy so I was more worried about crashing the work car or getting lost than the interview and story. All ran smoothly and I was back in the office by 9.20. I wrote the story but it wasn’t a very inspiring piece... when Linda edited it she changed the order of the pars I had written and it flowed much better.
I was then given a piece on two Townsville companies who had just won Queensland Heritage Awards. I did phone interviews with the co-ordinator of Life Long learning at CityLibraries who won an award for a ten-month lecture series they did, and also a woman who has volunteered more than 30 years of her life to the Townsville Heritage Centre, who won an award for their volunteers and care of historical artefacts.
It was a difficult story because Linda had outlined that she wanted it to begin as a news piece and expand into a feature... she had outlined what information she wanted to be stated in the first four or five pars, but when I wrote it as she had asked it didn’t flow the way it should have...so I was torn.
I made a few changes from what she had asked and it worked a bit better but it still wasn’t great. When she came to edit it she had the same thoughts and made even more changes to the areas that I had clearly seen needed changing... I felt good about it because even though I had felt ‘stuck’ with where to take the story, Linda ended up making the changes that I had thought about making anyway....So next time I’m going to trust my instinct.
After that I was given more Catholic news stories from the infamous list. As this year is the centenary of Mary MacKillop’s death the next Catholic News lift-out will feature many stories on her. The first story I was given a little piece on a sister who is coming up from Brisbane in October to give some lectures on Mary MacKillop, the Sisters of Saint Joseph and their history within Townsville.
I found it a challenging piece because I couldn’t figure out what was really newsworthy about it... the Catholic News lift-out is met with a little bit of distain within the office I think, because it really is trying to make news out of not much at all.
(I think I forgot to mention that last week I also wrote another story on Baptism preparation workshops in Townsville... another story where I was trying to make something interesting out of very little.)
I was to write another story on a family who live in Townsville who are descendents of Mary MacKillop. Even though that in itself is interesting...I found this story difficult because it was to just be about the family...who really are just an average Australian family... AND because when I rang the father of the family around lunch time he said he wouldn’t be able to talk until 4.30. So I was twiddling my thumbs for a while until it ticked 4.31. I did a quick phone interview and then had to rush home to open my house for my new housemate to move in. Which meant I had to write the story from home over the weekend... I think it turned out ok. I really like my lead... but I still feel like the story lacks a point. It will be interesting on Friday to see what my Catholic News colleague has to say.
Hopefully next week will be a little more exciting... and newsworthy!
As I walked in the door at 8.30am I was handed the keys to a work car and told I was to head to the Motor Boat Club to do a quick interview with a woman who was turning 90 for our (monthly? I think.) aged persons lift-out.
The story was to be short and fluffy so I was more worried about crashing the work car or getting lost than the interview and story. All ran smoothly and I was back in the office by 9.20. I wrote the story but it wasn’t a very inspiring piece... when Linda edited it she changed the order of the pars I had written and it flowed much better.
I was then given a piece on two Townsville companies who had just won Queensland Heritage Awards. I did phone interviews with the co-ordinator of Life Long learning at CityLibraries who won an award for a ten-month lecture series they did, and also a woman who has volunteered more than 30 years of her life to the Townsville Heritage Centre, who won an award for their volunteers and care of historical artefacts.
It was a difficult story because Linda had outlined that she wanted it to begin as a news piece and expand into a feature... she had outlined what information she wanted to be stated in the first four or five pars, but when I wrote it as she had asked it didn’t flow the way it should have...so I was torn.
I made a few changes from what she had asked and it worked a bit better but it still wasn’t great. When she came to edit it she had the same thoughts and made even more changes to the areas that I had clearly seen needed changing... I felt good about it because even though I had felt ‘stuck’ with where to take the story, Linda ended up making the changes that I had thought about making anyway....So next time I’m going to trust my instinct.
After that I was given more Catholic news stories from the infamous list. As this year is the centenary of Mary MacKillop’s death the next Catholic News lift-out will feature many stories on her. The first story I was given a little piece on a sister who is coming up from Brisbane in October to give some lectures on Mary MacKillop, the Sisters of Saint Joseph and their history within Townsville.
I found it a challenging piece because I couldn’t figure out what was really newsworthy about it... the Catholic News lift-out is met with a little bit of distain within the office I think, because it really is trying to make news out of not much at all.
(I think I forgot to mention that last week I also wrote another story on Baptism preparation workshops in Townsville... another story where I was trying to make something interesting out of very little.)
I was to write another story on a family who live in Townsville who are descendents of Mary MacKillop. Even though that in itself is interesting...I found this story difficult because it was to just be about the family...who really are just an average Australian family... AND because when I rang the father of the family around lunch time he said he wouldn’t be able to talk until 4.30. So I was twiddling my thumbs for a while until it ticked 4.31. I did a quick phone interview and then had to rush home to open my house for my new housemate to move in. Which meant I had to write the story from home over the weekend... I think it turned out ok. I really like my lead... but I still feel like the story lacks a point. It will be interesting on Friday to see what my Catholic News colleague has to say.
Hopefully next week will be a little more exciting... and newsworthy!
Four-ging ahead...
Week Four... was a bit of a flop really.
Linda had emailed me earlier in the week to say she wouldn’t be in the office but that my other two colleagues would have work for me...
Taking a leaf out of last week’s book (where I was shoved a 9am job as soon as I entered the office at 8.45) I decided I’d rock up at 8.30 this time... only to discover that no one else was there. Luckily I had brought my own work... an interview from one of the business managers I met at last week’s dinner meeting for my partner’s work. The talent was an accounts manager at a Queensland wide radio station (based in Townsville) who started her career with heavy involvement in volunteer work... It would make a very interesting story. All I had to do was turn my little question and answer form into a 400 word career profile...easy as pie! Turns out neither of my colleagues arrived in the office until almost 10am...So I was extra glad I’d brought something to occupy my time.
However even once the other two ladies arrived they seemed a little lost for ideas of what I should do... It’s a bit difficult working on Fridays because the whole office is in end-of-the-week mode, while I am in Monday-mode...wanting to achieve as much as possible and working on high speed. The two women I work with are head of the social club and their Fridays are often taken up with barbeques and raffles... as they were this particular day, leaving me a little lonely and lost.
We had the Catholic News lift-out that is printed every three/four months to fill in (next edition is to be printed in a few weeks) so one colleague gave me a list of phone numbers with three or four word descriptions next to them...a faint clue of what the story might be about when you ring the phone contact... unfortunately as this is the list provided to her by the Catholic Diocese she couldn’t really help with any more information than the very little that was on the list... it was a case of the blind leading the blind really.
My two office companions also had places to be in the afternoon and left the office about 2pm...leaving me alone with the “list from hell.” (Her words, not mine!)
I tentatively rang the first number...a Father in Mt Isa answered and told him I wanted to talk about the Pilgrimage... he rattled off very few details at lightning speed and I felt my stomach turn... politely asked him to repeat himself...tried the re-word the question a dozen times... and finally got down something remotely story-esque.. .
I rang the next number... the contact wasn’t home but the person who answered the phone would get them to call back on Monday.
I rang the next number... similar story.
I rang the next number... no answer.
It was 4.30pm. I left the office. Hopefully next week would look up.
On Monday I got an email from Linda regards the career profile story I had filed;
“Hi Bessie, I feel so bad. I should of told you we don't do career
profiles of radio. They are our opposition. Last time I did it I was
called into the General Managers Officer. It is bit different in the
general news pages of the paper but because our publication out here are
linked to advertising I think that is the reason. Sorry again. Linda”
As you can imagine... I was ecstatic. Though really I was incredibly gratefully that she let me know later rather than too late... it would have been beyond awful for it to have been printed and then for me to have been called into the general manager’s office... but still I felt like my day there had been a great waste. And I was worried about telling my talent that I couldn’t run the story.
Another stroke of luck was that the talent took the bad news incredibly well and even gave me a long list of her friends with interesting jobs who didn’t work in the media sphere for me to me to do profile on... So at least this week kind of finished on a high. :)
Linda had emailed me earlier in the week to say she wouldn’t be in the office but that my other two colleagues would have work for me...
Taking a leaf out of last week’s book (where I was shoved a 9am job as soon as I entered the office at 8.45) I decided I’d rock up at 8.30 this time... only to discover that no one else was there. Luckily I had brought my own work... an interview from one of the business managers I met at last week’s dinner meeting for my partner’s work. The talent was an accounts manager at a Queensland wide radio station (based in Townsville) who started her career with heavy involvement in volunteer work... It would make a very interesting story. All I had to do was turn my little question and answer form into a 400 word career profile...easy as pie! Turns out neither of my colleagues arrived in the office until almost 10am...So I was extra glad I’d brought something to occupy my time.
However even once the other two ladies arrived they seemed a little lost for ideas of what I should do... It’s a bit difficult working on Fridays because the whole office is in end-of-the-week mode, while I am in Monday-mode...wanting to achieve as much as possible and working on high speed. The two women I work with are head of the social club and their Fridays are often taken up with barbeques and raffles... as they were this particular day, leaving me a little lonely and lost.
We had the Catholic News lift-out that is printed every three/four months to fill in (next edition is to be printed in a few weeks) so one colleague gave me a list of phone numbers with three or four word descriptions next to them...a faint clue of what the story might be about when you ring the phone contact... unfortunately as this is the list provided to her by the Catholic Diocese she couldn’t really help with any more information than the very little that was on the list... it was a case of the blind leading the blind really.
My two office companions also had places to be in the afternoon and left the office about 2pm...leaving me alone with the “list from hell.” (Her words, not mine!)
I tentatively rang the first number...a Father in Mt Isa answered and told him I wanted to talk about the Pilgrimage... he rattled off very few details at lightning speed and I felt my stomach turn... politely asked him to repeat himself...tried the re-word the question a dozen times... and finally got down something remotely story-esque.. .
I rang the next number... the contact wasn’t home but the person who answered the phone would get them to call back on Monday.
I rang the next number... similar story.
I rang the next number... no answer.
It was 4.30pm. I left the office. Hopefully next week would look up.
On Monday I got an email from Linda regards the career profile story I had filed;
“Hi Bessie, I feel so bad. I should of told you we don't do career
profiles of radio. They are our opposition. Last time I did it I was
called into the General Managers Officer. It is bit different in the
general news pages of the paper but because our publication out here are
linked to advertising I think that is the reason. Sorry again. Linda”
As you can imagine... I was ecstatic. Though really I was incredibly gratefully that she let me know later rather than too late... it would have been beyond awful for it to have been printed and then for me to have been called into the general manager’s office... but still I felt like my day there had been a great waste. And I was worried about telling my talent that I couldn’t run the story.
Another stroke of luck was that the talent took the bad news incredibly well and even gave me a long list of her friends with interesting jobs who didn’t work in the media sphere for me to me to do profile on... So at least this week kind of finished on a high. :)
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Learners out to save lives
Published August 8, 2009
AN initiative to help save young lives on the roads was launched in Townsville yesterday.
Leighton Contractors' Youth Drive Safe program offers Townsville secondary students the chance to win one of 125 packages, each consisting of five hours of free driving tuition, saving around $300.
The initiative aims to create safer roads and communities by offering young learner drivers the essential practical skills and knowledge before gaining their driver's licence.
The first three Townsville students to win packages were Townsville State High School students Jamie-Lee Sard, Thomas Reaston and Kyle Pace.
Northern Regional Traffic Co-ordinator Inspector Brian Cannon said road deaths were tragic and three of the 10 fatal crashes in the region this year had involved young drivers. He said he supported the initiative and it was vital for young drivers to use all their practice hours in their log books.
``Realise at the end of the day it's you who will be responsible for your driving behaviour, you need to know your limitations and the limitations of the vehicle you are in," Inspector Cannon said.
The students said the free lessons would help to teach them to be aware and in control of their actions while driving.
``I think it's a really good idea and opportunity for young drivers to get lessons and to learn how to drive safely," Jamie-Lee said.
``It'll be easier to get my Ps when I'm finished getting all my hours up," Kyle said.
``I don't know anyone who has had an accident, but I know they do happen, you see them on the news every night. It is something I'm afraid of," Thomas said.
Inspector Cannon said young Queensland drivers were twice as likely to be involved in crashes as other drivers on the road.
He said inexperience, speed and alcohol were the main causes of crashes involving drivers under the age of 24.
Main Roads Minister Craig Wallace officially launched the program.
Mr Wallace said he knew firsthand the pain road crashes caused after his best mate was killed in an accident when he was only 22.
He said he was proud Townsville was the first regional area in Queensland to have the Youth Drive Safe initiative.
By Bessie Blore.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Third time's a charm...
After only three days of work at the Bully I already think this is the most rewarding, challenging and worthwhile subject I’ve taken at university...
My third day ran incredibly smoothly and I feel that I used the trials of last week to launch the day off to a good start. I went in with the mindset that I was going to work harder than ever to complete each story to a high standard and as quickly as possible...and I had decided that in order to make sure every word I wrote was read and critiqued as fairly as possible, I was going to have to ensure my stories were complete before Linda wanted to check them... this meant coming up with full and fabulous lead... something I had struggled with over the last two days of work.
The day began with a 9am appointment with the photographer and a trip to Castleton to cover a story on IGA raising money for Camp Quality via an auction of footy jerseys. This photographer this time was Scott, a man I had briefly met a few months before hand via a photojournalism subject at uni. For the story I interviewed the NQ area manager of Camp Quality, IGA’s promotions manager and a family who had a daughter with leukaemia. I was set guidelines for the stories length and angle by the chief of staff in the newsroom, a woman I had not worked with before but who was very direct in how she wanted the story and I found her directions helpful.
The most challenging part of this story was interviewing the mother of the child with leukaemia as she seemed quite distressed to be talking to the media about something so personal, few of her answers made sense and I had to continually prompt her and re-ask questions in a different way to try and get anything worth quoting... I found this to be a big learning curve, as most other people I had interviewed were fairly media savvy and knew their answers before the questions were asked.
While writing the story I struggled with the lead again, but I made sure I completed it before I showed Linda and the only change that was made before printing was the addition of a full stop in the middle of a sentence and the removal of one quote... success at last!
The next two stories I wrote for the day were career profiles for the Career One section of Saturday’s paper... they are written from questionnaires that we send out to different companies/businesses...or just everyday people who know who have interesting jobs or stories to tell. The stories are more like advertorials as they are basically a way for companies to get their name out there for free... but I really enjoyed writing them as it was a chance to be much more creative than with the regular news stories I’d done in my time so far.
Again I found the lead the most challenging part of writing... but I persisted on finishing every detail before Linda checked the stories and she made little change to anything I had written.... And she said I’d done a great job with both of them... I was quite pleased!
Linda told me I was to find some people of my own to write career profiles on, but it is hard because I’m not from Townsville and I don’t have many contacts here... but on Monday night I went to a business meeting for my partner’s work and met a lot of local business owners and have since recruited many of them as talent for me to write stories on... again I feel like I’ve accomplished something that is usually very much outside my comfort zone.
One big lesson that arose from my third day was to check every detail of my work scrupulously. Today I received an email from Linda saying that my leukaemia story was printed with the incorrect phone number in it and that the paper would have to print a correction... I checked my notes and it turns out that the phone number error was just a typo... but it is a big lesson to learn. Linda said, “A good lesson learnt early on means you won’t make the same mistake again. It is all a learning process”.... and I think so far Linda’s wise words are the best thing I’ve learned since being there.
(NB: I will try to post the stories I have had published here over the weekend... I just don’t yet have electronic copies to put up.)
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Going back for seconds....
My impression of the second day of my internship at the Bully...
* It was not as fun as the first.... The second day was much more what I imagined the first day to be like, with me being overwhelmed and rushed and feeling completely useless...
I felt that Linda expected me to know so much more, but at the same time I don't think that is at all what was bothering me...
*I actually struggled with writing the stories I was set to write a lot more this time... At first I was set a story on a triathlon that is going on in Townsville next month, I rang the people and did the interviews over the phone. I knew the article was the go in the careers section of the paper, but I still imagined I was doing a news style article... I wrote around 400 words but couldn't write a good lead so I left it open for Linda to throw some ideas at me to see how she wanted the lead... when she came over to look at what I had done, she didn't read the article I had written and instead changed the entire idea of the lead, which changed the whole angle of the story and meant everything had to be re-written, which I struggled with because it made me feel that I didn't even know which quotes she thought were important as opposed to which quotes I had thought important to guide the flow of the story... and this meant that I came off looking like someone who couldn't do what they are supposed to be doing for a living...
*As well as writing that story, I was to arrange a time for the photographer to go and grab a photo of the people in the story for a day early the next week...it proved very difficult as the people who were to be in the photo were hard to organise, the photo was to be of office people at the beach and they required transport, the photographer was not there for me to speak to about possible good photo ideas, after I made the first book and arranged everything Linda said she'd rather the photo be taken somewhere else which meant the people in the photo had to be contacted again and re-organised and then transporting the people possibly clashed with the insurance policies of the newspaper....and I felt like screaming! Because again I came off as looking like the person who didn't know what was going on....when I was doing the best I could in a situation where I was the middle-middle-middle man (answering to the people in the story, the photographer and my boss)...and a situation I had never been in before...
*In the afternoon I had to go to Stocklands with the photographer and do the Vox Pop and "5 Minutes With" and "A Guys View" for the youth liftout section as they had someone sick and needed a fill in.... I'm not the worlds biggest fan of the youth liftout section... so I wasn't entirely proud of my work...but it was a hell of a lot easier than the triathlon article and more than anything it was good to get out of the office and get into more off the cuff interviewing.... I was working with Suz again, the same photographer I worked with last week, and we had an absolute ball together. We seem to get our jobs done really quickly when we work together and have fun doing it at the same time as we both know exactly what it is we need and exactly what it is the other needs...and things just seem to flow well when I'm doing a story with Suz... I hope I get to work with her again next Friday!
*Writing the articles for the youth liftout was a lot easier (and I think they turned out a lot better than my other work) for a few reasons... 1) My brain loved having a break from the Triathlon article 2) I wasn't putting as much pressure on myself because I don't have a very high opinion of the writing style of the youth liftout, even though that sounds awful (I'm sorry!) 3) Because I didn't have to answer to Linda, who I feel is a very talent journalist and I hate seeming like I'm letting her down....
*I also wanted to reflect on why I was anticipating that Linda would be difficult to deal with.... it was because over the phone she seemed like someone who had very little expectations of me...for example telling me things like needing to have a medical certificate if I have a day off and not just skipping the internship for an extra shift at work etc... When I felt like I didn't need to be told those things because I am an adult who has worked in the "real" corporate world before...another reason was that I found out she is the person who fired their intern after 3 weeks... an infamous story among JCU Journalism students.... however when dealing with her at work I think she is a very professional person. She is excellent at saying what she wants and expects out of a story, she's great at constructive criticism and hasn't ever purposely made me feel like I wasn't able to do something... she's an excellent writer and it a very scrupulous editor... and I admire her very much... I don't want to let her down! And that stresses me out!
*I’m finding the internship very challenging because working at a newspaper was never really what I wanted to do and has never really been of high interest to me, so I am trying to view the experience a great learning curve... but it is a struggle... sometime I feel like it’s really not the place for me, so much so that I am resentful that I was placed at the Bulletin when I specifically asked Lindsay Simpson (when I thought she was taking this subject) if I could be at City Life or Duo.... but if I go down that line of thinking then I will ruin the rest of my experience there by being negative...and it’s only week two...so I will return this Friday, and every Friday for the next 11 weeks, with a smile and an open mind.... and try to learn as much as possible while I’m there!
Monday, August 10, 2009
Creating my personal brand...
Creative writing, photography, arguing a point, sticking to a project I love, reading, exploring, creating, doing things my own way, being punctual... I am brave... I am relentlessly enthusiastic and passionate when I love something..
What am I not good at?
Retaining information on topics I'm not interested in, sticking to projects I'm not interesting in, spelling, sticking to deadlines, having to do things for someone else that I don't agree with... I am cynical when I don't love something... I will procrastinate (terribly!) when set a task I'm not interested in...
What do I want to be known for –
...professionally?
Being reliable, the best (or up with the best) at the what I do, willing to give anything a try (I would like to be known as someone who can be called on at late notice and always pull through, someone who can do what is asked of them, someone who will try their best each and every time...) Be eminent for: writing, art & photography. Charismatic, accessible, skilled and efficient... being individual and offering something that is uniquely me. Enthusiastic.
...and personally?
Being reliable, loyal, loving. Be eminent for: writing, art & photography.
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