A Slow But Eventful Week

This week I got sent out with a photographer on assignment to write a story. What a rush! Basically that morning I came in and about 40 minutes later JP came to my desk and told me the photographer was waiting in the car. I had to quickly read what the article was about and then come up with questions to ask. All of this done on the way there. I started to panic as I had no idea what to ask or even what this was about. Particularly since I had not done any research myself. I had to rely on the little research they had given me. The photographer helped me by telling me where and what the school was actually raising money for. When I got there we were met up with some people from the school board. We went inside and I interviewed a couple of the kids along with the teachers and principal involved. It was all a very eye opening experience. The rest of the week was very slow. With Christmas on the Wednesday there was nothing really going on in Canberra. So we were basically given a new assignment to do where we had to write about everything that was going on in Canberra. This was a pretty mundane assignment but it wasn't too bad. At least we were given something to do. It also gave me the opportunity to work on my writing skill. On Thursday I spend some of my day chatting and shadowing one of the newer journalists there. She was really nice and it was interesting hearing her experience as a journalist at The Canberra Times as well as what she had done earlier on in her life that lead her to that career. On our last day JP took us aside and had a coffee and a chat with us. He talked about how he thought we went and what he thought we could improve on. He also asked us about our experiences there and all of our thoughts. It was good being able to ask him some advice and also how he got to be where he was. It was a quiet week but still just as eventful as the first week. I have to say, I felt a lot more relaxed this week then I did in the first week. I will admit I was extremely stressed on the first few days there. It felt a lot better and more at ease this last week.

My First Week of Realisation and Much Needed Lessons

I have learnt a lot in the first week of being here at the Canberra Times. One thing that really came to light was the amount of work needed on my writing skills. It was definitely a lot different at the Canberra Times then it was at university. JP (the chief of staff) gave me a lot of great productive feedback. I have to say that despite how busy he was, he gave me some of the best feedback I received in the last two years. He didn't just tell me what was bad but also how to fix it and what to avoid. It also highlighted just how concerned they are with bias at the Canberra Times. He went through with me how to word certain words so that it doesn't seem bias in any way. This week we joined a couple of morning meetings as well as an afternoon one. It was really interesting and enlightening how everything worked. As it was near Christmas there wasn't a lot going on. But they brought together what they had. Even stories that had been written a few months back. It was interesting to see what ideas they had and how everyone collaborated together in coming up with how to best tackle the story. What angle to take and who they could contact. It was also really interesting to see how each of the people that came together was an editor themselves of sorts. How they had other journalists working with them and were out doing the job they had been assigned. In the afternoon it was really great seeing all the editors and final decision makers of the paper come together and discuss what stories they think should go on which page in the newspaper. I was a little disappointed that some of the stories I helped write didn't give me any credit but upon reading it it had been changed considerably. In saying that, I really wasn't expecting to even be writing anything. I really did just go there for the experience of it all. To see how everything works. I have to say this first week was not at all what I was expecting to experience, perhaps because it was Christmas. As crazy and possibly naïve as this will sound, my tutor always made it seem like the news room was this crazy place with people running around like headless chickens. Instead I was greeted to a calm and organised room with people chatting on their phones with sources. Many journalists ween't even there. Instead they were out in the field bringing stories together at the end or start of the day.