Learning fast in a newsroom
I remember my first day at the Journal-Tribune last summer pretty vividly. I was in the office about 20 minutes before everyone else, and boy were they surprised to see me when they came into work. They knew they were getting an intern, they just didn’t know when.
Despite their shock, I was given work to do and a desk to do it at. I was pretty excited about the desk. If I remember correctly, I took a picture of it and sent it to my parents. Who would’ve thought a person would be so excited to have their own desk?
When I’m not interning at the Journal-Tribune in the summer — and on winter break — I’m in Athens at Ohio University learning skills that will help me become a journalist. Before I graduate in 2019, I have to accumulate 200 hours worth of internship experience.
Instead of promoting internships at national publications, my professors and advisors saw the value in working at a local newspaper. After two summers of working at the Journal-Tribune, I also see the advantages.
I learned a lot in my first summer. Writing for a local audience was the primary skill I acquired. I realized there could be a few different ways to write an article, but the best way would be to look at it from the eyes of a person who lives in Marysville and write specifically for them. That skill has possibly been the hardest to master, but I’ve come a long way in developing it.
I also got my first taste of working in a newsroom — and with six men. The guys seemed amazed at how quickly I caught on to their banter. I didn’t expect them to change their ways just because a woman was in the newsroom, so I went along with it. I laughed at their jokes, even when they weren’t that funny, and I poked fun at them because they didn’t hold back with me.
The workplace conversations weren’t all fun and games, though. I was able to engage in conversations about the latest events, and watched as we rushed to move content and get breaking news on the front page. Just by observing my coworkers, I picked up on skills that I can use wherever my experience takes me.
When I go back to school in the fall, I can tell my friends about the stories I wrote and the pictures I took. I can show them pictures of my black hands after a day of stuffing papers, a stamp of hard work to my friends at school.
Though some of my friends took internships in bigger cities, I do not envy their experience because mine was of the same caliber. I learned and I got to do something I love — writing. And if I would’ve gone to any other publication, I’m certain I wouldn’t have had the worthwhile experience I had at the Journal-Tribune.
-Georgia Davis is an intern for the Journal-Tribune.