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.