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Nerves!

Today I handed in my first article.  It was a different experience than handing it into a professor or peer to edit, grade, and return.

I sat at my editor’s desk as he read out-loud my article.  I couldn’t help but already nit-pick things that I could of changed, and small mistakes that I had made out of being nervous.

Despite my heart lodging itself in my throat the whole time, it wasn’t that bad of an experience.  My professors always spoke of this experience.  That there own articles would be pulled apart and marked up unbelievably.  I had a couple of word-agreement mistakes, and needed to shift some information around but other than that the editor said my article was good.

What a relief!

So I survived my first newspaper editing experience.  I have had plenty of articles edited, all of them have been, and a every article should, but this one was new.

I’m glad I didn’t cry!

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=D

Going into my internship today!

My first newspaper internship! I think I’m just working on my schedule with them today, but  I’m prepared for anything.

So anxious and nervous!

This is it. This could be it.

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Out of the Darkness!

The fantastic group of individuals I had the opportunity to work with today (including myself). There's only 5 of us in the club but we were so grateful for other people to put on a volunteer shirt and help out!

Today was the Bring Suicide Out of the Darkness Campus Walk!  This is a picture of all the volunteers. Five of us are in the club.  I’m crouching on the bottom right 🙂

 

A picture of the wonderful group of walkers. We raised $2500 today alone!Group shot!  All the walkers and volunteers who helped raise $2500 today alone!  So humbled by everyone!

Walkers embraced each other as a speaker opened up about her brother's suicide.

 

 

Our campus' walk coordinator, Charlene Martoni!

 

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Fred Seibert Livestream!

Skip to just before 11 minutes for the speech to start.  My club, the Communication and Media Society just wrapped up our annual week dedicated to communication and media.  Tonight was our keynote speaker night, and we were able to have such an amazing, incredible speaker!  You wouldn’t know culture as it is today without this man.  He was the first director of MTV, and is the television producer behind many of my favorite childhood TV shows: Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, Fairly Odd Parents, Adventure Time, etc.

His speech was fantastic and incredibly insightful.  I would say more but I’m very tired.  Enjoy!  It starts around the 10:55 mark and yes I do speak too!

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Covering Police Activity

So tonight something interesting happened in this little college town.  I was scrolling through my Facebook news feed and what do you know pops up?

Someone posted about heavy police activity in town.

Their post read as:

“On my way to the deli in town, I saw 4 police cars, 2 fire trucks, and the trailways on Main street. I think someone got hit!! :O:”

This was posted just around midnight.  And I had seen it about 25 minutes after it was posted.  So I decided to check Twitter and there were two tweets about it.

The most interesting Tweet was:

“What is happening in New Paltz? Helicopters, 7 police cars, and ambulance and a women screaming outside the middle school. WHAT’S GOING ON?”

So I decided to go into town to investigate.  While I was putting on clothes (I was in pajamas at this time) I could hear a helicopter outside, to me that was a confirmation.

It took me about 15 minutes to walk into town.  When I got to the area by the aforementioned Middle School and the Deli (Convenient Deli) it was bone quiet.  Nothing was stirring.  No police activity.  Convenient is 24 hours, so I went inside and asked the cashier if he had seen or heard anything.  He said someone either got hit by a bus or had a heart attack on it.  Either way they were airlifted to a hospital.  He also gave me the interesting fact that a drug sniffing dog was brought in.

Luckily, I had bumped into my roommate in the deli, who dropped me off back to the dorm.  I proceeded to call the bus company but they shut they closed at midnight.  I then called the town police.  I explained what I heard about the activity and the officer on the end of the line, clearly annoyed and angered said, “We don’t give out that kind of information on the phone.”  I didn’t want to deal with an irate officer so I hung up without pressing any further.  You can bend my back but not break it.

So now what do I do?  I’ve written down my timeline of events and what I know.  I have to go to the bus station tomorrow anyway to take a bus home for the weekend and I plan on doing some more snooping.

What more could I have done?

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CoveritLive!

Doing my first CoveritLive! event.

Now let’s see if I can get this to work properly.

 
Click Here to tune in!

Tune in to see my tweets on “The Art of Investigative Reporting” Lecture with Andy Lehren, from the New York Times.

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Lions, and Bears, and …Internships? Oh my!

So I am at the threshold!  I am more than halfway through my last semester at SUNY New Paltz taking classes.  My next semester, Fall 2012, will be comping my internship for credit.  I need 15 credits to graduate!  And that’s where the internship comes in.

So the past week I’ve been applying to places, and the outlook is great so far!  I feel like all my hard work is paying off.  The amount of stress I’ve been through will be well worth it in the end.

So excited to be moving forward in the next chapter of my life.

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Court Cases

Currently writing a paper on the court case Branzburg v. Hayes. I never knew how much reading there was to do in a court case. Sunday bummer!

The case is very interesting though. If you’re not familiar with it, it is the Supreme Court case that allows courts to subpoena journalists to reveal their sources. I think the 35 year gap is also astounding. Thirty-five years ago courts were always subpoenaing journalists to reveal their sources, and it died down after that until present day where it has started back up again. I think it shows how the 70s and present day have linear circumstances.

Subpoena is also a really cool word.

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Reminder

I was reminded today that the work I produce is copyrighted.  If anyone is going to use examples of my work, please attribute properly and contacting me would be nice.  It is my job to write stories about people and the things affecting lives, and I work very hard at it.  It pains me to see content I’ve produced not receiving the proper respect it deserves.  Even though this is the internet, the same rules apply.

The internet is not a playground for the real world, it is now where the real world is taking place.  As a blanket note, please respect all authors integrity and do the right thing.  It means the world for someone like me to be recognized and appreciated for the work I do.

Thank you!