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Wednesday 13 November 2013

Printed!

At last!
On Thursday, I opened the Liffey Champion to the last page to find that my story was printed! It's the first story I've gotten printed and it's a sports article. I was so thrilled!
Katie has had lots printed, but I haven't because I'm not in the newsroom that much, so I get less stories that her. But I was still so excited to see my name and story printed in ink.
I already knew from Wednesday that I was going to be printed, but I didn't know where so it was a real rush of pride, I suppose you could say, when I saw my article.

I've been doing the same sort of work...
Answering phones, writing a few pieces, and after lunch going into the newsroom. Nothing else has really been worth blogging about, cause I'd just be repeating myself. But this news was very exciting to say the least!

Who knows, maybe I'll get something else printed soon. :)

Thursday 17 October 2013

I'm in charge! Wait - I'm in charge?!

...of the phones and of my little office for the day. My main supervisor was out, and my heart stopped beating for a second or two when I found this out. My only thought: the phones.
Now, even though I can make phone calls no problem, I still quiver at the sound of the phone ringing. I find it extremely difficult to answer the phones, because people start asking me questions about the newspaper that I can't answer!
I end up stuttering and asking them to repeat what they said. It's so embarrassing.

I am however, writing articles! Some of them are press releases, others are articles that I have to form with from various phone calls and other research. That's right, the dreaded -ph word. But it's alright when I have to make them...because I write a little speech to say so I don't get stuck. How awkward!

Anyway, for the first half of my day it was answering phones and piecing together articles. I was actually getting better at answering the phones, because almost every phone call consisted of the same speech:
"Good morning, Liffey Champion, Jessica speaking.... oh, right, well, Marcella is the person you were talking to about that, and she actually isn't here at the moment, she'll be back on Friday morning. If you give me your name and phone number I can get her to phone you back. Ok, yeah. go ahead. *phone number* Yeah. Ok, brilliant. I'll get her to phone you back on Friday morning. Ok. Bye, bye. bye bye bye."
Every. single. time.
For the second half of the day, I was answering less phone calls and then I moved into the Newsroom to do some more focused writing. All of the journalists had gone home at about 3pm, and my media supervisor was going home at 4:30pm. I told my boss this and he said that I could go home at the same time as her.

My third day was alright.

Wednesday 9 October 2013

Friends with the Phones

"I can use the phone, I swear." I told myself, driving into the car park.

I arrived at 9am, as usual, and began by finishing up some of my stories from last week. The phone didn't ring at all in the morning, so I think somebody out there granted a wish for me!
My supervisor came in at 10am, and I was occupied with my new stories to work on.
After I finished that, she gave me a few tasks to do. I sorted forms and organised receipts.
My boss then gave me another story to edit and write up, and this took some time because I had to do some research in order to edit it fully.
After that, my boss selected two of my stories and said that he might print them in next week's paper. I am very excited!
Katie and I went for lunch at 1pm, and we went back to work at 2pm.
I did some more office jobs for my supervisor, like sticking addresses onto envelopes and sticking stamps on them.
My boss then gave me a story to do. I had no hard copy to go with - just a picture, and a name. I had to use the phones. On my own. For an article. I was shaking the whole way up the corridor.I had to ring the Leixlip GAA club's receptionist and obtain information from her and get a number for somebody else involved in the club.

I rang the receptionist, and...it was ok! She gave me the phone number for somebody else in the club and I rang them and asked them some questions, then I rang someone else...and someone else... It was all a big, friendly, easy-going chain reaction. My boss knows very well that I hate the phone, so I think he gave it to me as a challenge.
Well challenge accepted and completed, sir!

I wrote up the story before 5pm, and printed it for proof reading by my media supervisor.

I was so tired that I wanted to just get home and sleep! It's such a long day being a journalist!

See you next week!

I'm a Liffey Champion Champ

Wednesday, 2nd October.
So for my first Work Experience placement I went to the Liffey Champion Newspaper Offices in Leixlip. I arrived at 9am and the first task I was given was to answer the phones and take messages for my supervisor. I didn't enjoy this, as people were asking me questions that I had no ideas how to answer, because I knew nothing about the company yet. When my supervisor arrived at 10am, she gave me some office tasks to carry out. At 12pm, Katie and I went for our lunch break down the town and we found a newsagents. We bought a few sweets and walked back up to the office to eat them, along with my packed lunch.
At 1pm, I did more office tasks, and then my Boss had given both Katie and I stories to write. I wrote an article about Toastmasters in Maynooth and another one about a Racing event.
I was doing jobs for people in the office like sending around messages, and organizing files.
Wednesday is printing day for the newspaper, so everyone is under pressure to meet the 2pm deadline that is set.
Luckily, I wasn't in the newsroom for most of the time, I was in the office. So I wasn't in the war-zone of smashing keyboards and printing stories.
I ended up getting my supervisor to answer as many calls as possible, because I just hate answering the phones!
I left at 5pm, and I was so tired!
Next week, I hope to get more writing tasks.

Bye for now.