When I began an internship at a newspaper while I was in my last year of school, I told myself that I would never do work as a reporter.
I had higher desires at 18 plus figured that I’d be in a constant position of compromising myself artistically for the whims of a single editor or the next as a reporter.
It was a major learning experience more than anything—a slow but gradual process of reaching maturity. I was working as a freelance writer for the Community page of the newspaper by the next year. Even as I started undergraduate school, I assumed that this writing track would remain as a side gig for the rest of my years! But by the time I graduated it had moved itself into a dominant place in my destiny. Within weeks I was accepting a position as a full time staff writer at the very same newspaper where I actually finished my school internship. It was a different plus challenging journey, but I met all kinds of wonderful people along the way. I was regularly amazed by the television broadcast crew plus their massive collection of stage, sound, plus video equipment. They were stationed in the far back corner of the newsroom where the sound was fairly isolated. They had their own television news network with numerous anchors plus a weatherman. The equipment impressed me more than anything. There were sizable lights they had to move around plus set up in various angles, as well as a huge array of cables to deliver live audio to the crew members plus anchors. Finally, they had a separate video production team who worked on editing the footage for broadcast. It was a great setup for a small newspaper, to say the least.