Intern Diaries: Strut Magazine

May 2008-June 2008

I had two viable options for internships the summer after my junior year of college—one 20 minutes from my house and the other all the dang way downtown in Detroit. The drive was not my favorite, but the internship at Detroit Media Partnership—owner of The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News—was well worth it. I worked on Strut Magazine, a monthly circular aimed at metro-Detroit women; it was a great fit after a year’s worth of blogging at A Sizable Apple for a similar audience.

The team pulled me in to almost every meeting and I got a great feel for what’s involved in putting a monthly magazine together, but the majority of my work was handling simple web maintenance and clean up tasks. I created and populated an online calendar for readers to view local events and I launched the first blog—hey, it was 2008—for the mag, often populating it with blurbs about local shops and recipes.


While with Strut, I had four pieces published in the mag. I wrote a two piece health story with a core-strengthening belly dancing exercise and interviewed a local dermatologist on safe sun exposure. I had a heck of a time mimicking the “figure 8” belly dancing moves in my chair to find the right phrasing for each movement and decoding some of the technical verbiage on the elements in sunscreen. It was my kind of journalism—health and wellness service-type pieces aimed at women.

I didn’t write as much at Strut as I did at other internships, but I learned more about the magazine industry in whole. Sitting in on meetings, helping brainstorm ideas, aiding at photo shoots, working with different staff members on various tasks and taking a field trip to our printing plant painted a better picture of the publishing world than I had ever seen.

Links to my favorite Strut content:
8/08 | For the health of it
8/08 | In step with: Michelle Rastelli, vegetarian cuisine entrepreneur
7/08 | Tips to planning the best staycation

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