27 July 2007

NEWSDAY INTERNSHIP

Since June 11, I have been a "Support Staff" intern for Long Island's Newsday. Rather than going out on assignment and filing stories as a "staff writer" intern, I have been relegated to answering phones and making photocopies in the Melville newsroom.

This, however, has not stopped me from contributing to the paper in any capacity possible.

Nightly, I "proof" the pages before they go to press. I have caught some major mistakes that were overlooked by the copy editors, including a review that was laid out as a news story, a very major mistake.

I have also contributed to the main political blog, Spincycle, and offered my services to the editors every chance I get. Track my posts to the blog here.

I enterprised a story that occurred in my own hamlet of Centereach, which was on the front-page for Monday, July 23. The story was about a woman arrested for allegedly running over and dragging her fiance to his death; he was trying to prevent her from driving home while intoxicated after leaving a block party.

Will update this post as the summer continues, if any new developments at this internship come to pass. Hopefully, I will return for the fall, however this time, it will be for academic credit, and I would definitely be writing.

UPDATE: 8/4: I went into Newsday expecting another day of phones and photocopies Monday 7/30, and it turned out I was there on the wrong day, so I volunteered to chase a story. It was a fatal accident involving an 88-year-old man leaving his church. I filed and it was on the Long Island spread of the next day's paper.

UPDATE: 8/19: It's over and I got one more story in, though just for the web. Alligators were removed from a home in Centerport. Back to school in a few weeks, time for editing the Chronicle and maybe another internship.