my first story idea realized

I received a news tip from a friend about his sister returning from Iraq last week and sent the idea into my editor who let me follow through with the story.

I just finished reporting, writing, and submitting the story into my editor about 15 minutes ago, and I think that it will appear on tomorrow's front page.

This makes me feel like a more accomplished reporter. A huge part of the game is being able to find stories, understand what is in the public's interest and make that into news. Especially since my interest is in editing, I feel like this was an important step to take.

I have a bunch more story ideas that I will suggest next week. I'm excited about all of them.

Tomorrow I will post the link to this particular story and I hope you follow it.


Some stuggles I have faced as an intern are simple but bothersome. I still sometimes don't understand the timescale this newsroom runs by. Part of this is because two out of the three days I work I am alone in the newsroom with one editor, and on the third day I work in a full newsroom. The change in atmosphere throws me a little bit off.

Another struggle I have, is apart from the stories I am working on, I don't know what to do. I have a lot of down-time. I don't understand how to read the wires completely or how far my lines of authority reach. For instance, we all get similar emails that contain press releases, or news updates and I don't know if I can write stories on those or not.

A final struggle is sometimes I don't have the courage to network. It's so comfortable to stay quiet in my cubicle. I do make a conscious choice to make deeper conversation with my co-workers, but sometimes I get too intimidated and remain tap tapping away in my little spot.


Oky doky. Ciao.
Jean