Intern Diaries: The Grand Rapids Press
January 2008-April 2008
I had been livin’ life large, writing for my school paper with my own column when a new opportunity came knocking. One of my professors, who was a full time employee at the local newspaper, wanted to know if I wanted in on a blogging endeavor. Oh please, like this girl wouldn’t want in on a blogging endeavor.
Covering campus life for the local newspaper was a pretty cool gig. I felt like the ambassador between classless-Fridays, 10-am-is-too-early college students and the 9-5 adult readers. I wanted Grand Rapids Press readers to feel like they too were ‘in’ on some of the idiosyncrasies of Grand Valley State University life. I wanted them to feel as welcome as I did on campus, though most readers of the paper live 20 minutes east of GVSU’s cornfield surrounded main campus.
With that in mind, some stories I wrote almost wrote themselves—like the post about the overly optimistic bus driver, who always left students with words of wisdom or motivational quotes while shuttling them from off-campus apartment living to class. He was famous amongst students, but not in a call-your-mom-to-tell-her-about-him kind of way. I wrote about construction projects on campus, staff frustration with the internal class registration system and put together an investigation piece about perfectly good treasures found while dumpster diving during move-out week.
Searching through the weeds for these stories was fun, but so was the process of the internship. I practiced the kind of journalism that’s now sought after—the one-man-band approach. I brainstormed, reported, wrote and photographed every post I wrote. I was a team of one, with two awesome supervisors who were just far enough away to help and critique, but not close enough to do any of the work for me.
Links to my favorite On Campus: GVSU content:
2/13/08 | Bus service with a smile | GR Press Link
4/22/08 | Construction projects nearly complete at GVSU | GR Press Link
4/29/08 | One college student's trash is another's treasure | GR Press Link
I had been livin’ life large, writing for my school paper with my own column when a new opportunity came knocking. One of my professors, who was a full time employee at the local newspaper, wanted to know if I wanted in on a blogging endeavor. Oh please, like this girl wouldn’t want in on a blogging endeavor.
With that in mind, some stories I wrote almost wrote themselves—like the post about the overly optimistic bus driver, who always left students with words of wisdom or motivational quotes while shuttling them from off-campus apartment living to class. He was famous amongst students, but not in a call-your-mom-to-tell-her-about-him kind of way. I wrote about construction projects on campus, staff frustration with the internal class registration system and put together an investigation piece about perfectly good treasures found while dumpster diving during move-out week.
Searching through the weeds for these stories was fun, but so was the process of the internship. I practiced the kind of journalism that’s now sought after—the one-man-band approach. I brainstormed, reported, wrote and photographed every post I wrote. I was a team of one, with two awesome supervisors who were just far enough away to help and critique, but not close enough to do any of the work for me.
Links to my favorite On Campus: GVSU content:
2/13/08 | Bus service with a smile | GR Press Link
4/22/08 | Construction projects nearly complete at GVSU | GR Press Link
4/29/08 | One college student's trash is another's treasure | GR Press Link