My Experience at The Marietta Daily Journal

    I had a great experience interning with my home town newspaper, Marietta Daily Journal. I went from having stories written about me to having my own byline on stories I wrote myself. I started the internship late May and on the first day we got to work immediately. This was my first internship where I got to work in an office. I was the only girl out of the 7 interns, but I got used to the office environment pretty quick. I got to pick my own desk where I could focus and listen to music. My boss was a character. He had that personality where he would make fun of you. He was also very opinionated, but he takes pride in what he has created and is very down to business. It was a work environment where you could have fun. The boys always had me laughing and having a good time, but everyone also knew what they were there to do, and that was to create stories and share the news with our community. 

    We worked on the sports side of the paper where we covered 31 schools; 29 high schools, Kennesaw State University, and Reinhardt University. The main project of the summer is always the Football Preview, but because I was a first timer, I did the behind the scenes busy work to help make things easier for the writers. Some examples would be collecting rosters, finding contact information, or documenting their schedules both past and upcoming. I would work on those assignments throughout the summer, but also got to write stories on several different sports, like track, motorsport, football, baseball, basketball, even SlamBall, and so much more. Whenever he had a story for me he'd call out "Amaraaaa," so I knew it was time to get to work. I found out that they get a hundred emails a day, but not everyone receives attention. They are very specific about what they write about. He'd tell me the story and who it was about and I'd go back to my desk. I love that he just gave us freedom and threw us right into it, which is the only way to get real life experience and learn from mistakes. So after I told him I'd finished, he'd call me over to his desk where he'd be munching on his oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and drinking a diet coke and coffee. We would go over the story together and he'd bold everything that needed to be corrected. I enjoyed this part because he would ask, "so why is this bolded," and I would have to explain to him if I knew or tell him to explain it to me if I didn't. This was helpful because I am a visual learner and seeing things bolded helped me remember the correct way to do things. 

    In the beginning, the biggest thing I struggled with was the leads. He said my leads sounded more like a headline than a lead, so I had to do some exercises to get out of that habit. Another thing I took away was how important it was to write in the correct format because every paper is different; for example we would finish a quote with "Last name said." I also found that it important that we always be mindful of picking and choosing when to summarize someone else's quote in our own words vs when to quote them. He told me there are some things we want to keep in their words. We are to be as neutral as possible when writing the news. We do not want to show any signs of bias. 

    I ended up writing around 20 stories. My favorite story was the story I wrote about the Atlanta Track Club because I had the best and most memorable interviews with those athletes and coaches. They all had great personalities, personal stories, and really loved what they were doing. It was hard though because the interviews were so good that I had so much information to work with, but because it is his paper and he has the final say, he took some out of it during the editing process. I understand it is a business, but I would say that was one thing I noticed about the real world and starting from the bottom and working your way up. 

    As I mentioned before, I did not do much on the football preview, but I did get to go on the field trip to a KSU football practice where I interviewed the kicker for my only in-person interview of the term. When your in-person, it is important to have your questions written down in advance, to write down their answers, but also to have your phone or recorded to record the conversation incase you miss something. On the interviews over the phone, my phone was in use, so I just wrote down everything I could and asked them to repeat something if I had missed something. He did not teach me how to interview maybe because I had some past experience in high school. But, I like that he had faith in me and obviously was there if I had any questions. 

    I was with MDJ from the end of May to the beginning of August. I learned about office life, how it can be hectic, but also how it can be fun. I got to experience a conference meeting and what those look like. I had to get out of my comfort zone by dressing up everyday and waking up early. You have to stay positive and dedicated, but the environment there made it easy. Sometimes on special occasions they would feed us and there were always donuts. We all became a family. My bosses personality helped make me feel comfortable, so that I did not dread going there. I had such a good experience working with MDJ. I met many people and made many connections with the people I interviewed and my peers. I learned that the real world is not that far away, and that I can do anything I put my mind to with hard work. I had so much fun covering the stories of people new and familiar to me. It is a great feeling of accomplishment and connectivity.