Sunday, June 27, 2010

Palin


So, Saturday night was spent covering Sarah Palin in Tyler, Texas.

It was a 2 hour drive from Dallas which wasn't too bad on the way up, but on the way back after being the last person in the venue waiting to make sure everything was okay with my story to get on the wire, it was a bit brutal.

It was definitely different.

When you are covering an event or a speaker that is repeatedly making comments about "mainstream media" embedding themselves at the event while you are trying to set up shop (i.e. finding a place to plug in a laptop wherever you can so you can write your story), let's just say it is a bit humorous _ not that AP is mainstream media. It was just funny that me and another print reporter were in a dark corner.

All I know is that I was there to do a job and I did.

I'm including a close shot of Gov. Rick Perry _ he answered some questions before introducing Palin at the Oil Palace in Tyler.

No comment on a Perry/Palin team.


Thursday, June 24, 2010

Progress--Week three almost down!

Well despite my little moment earlier this week, I'm feeling pretty good about my progress thus far.

I have made progress on my first enterprise story and am starting another one. I want to keep the wheels moving on them. I can't discuss what they are about, but I think if all goes well, they WILL be picked up.

Yesterday, I was able to help with the ongoing coverage of the Dallas police chief's son. I went with my trainer to pick up the 911 calls and transcribed them.

The story made the national AP wire and was picked up by several publications all over the country including The Washington Post. This will be my second story to make it there.

It actually continues to travel around the Web even today.

It's possible that I will be making a short road trip for a story on Saturday, but I won't know until tomorrow. We'll see how it goes. If all goes well, it too, will make the national wire.

Fingers crossed!

Monday, June 21, 2010

Pshh.

So just as I am psyched up for the week I have a moment of frustration.

I walk into the office and there is actually some spot news breaking in the Dallas area. This would be a great thing had I been able to cover it. Unfortunately, this coverage started a couple of hours before I was set to be in the office and another reporter was already at the press conference by the time I got there :(

So there I was missing the action. To make things worse, during our daily staff meeting via conference call, the Houston editor has a tendency to forget I'm in the Dallas bureau.

At this point, I feel it's pretty bad that I haven't made an impression. We haven't met and I'm sure she has her hands full, so I don't blame her or anything--she also has an intern in Houston she sees and works with on a daily basis so I don't think it's intentional, but it just troubled me a little bit.

After missing out on the breaking news and being forgotten on the conference call, I knew I needed to take some action. With my trainer out of the office and our bureau functioning on a skeleton crew, I took the suggestion of my editor and started scouring the Texas newspaper websites for a pick up just in case we had missed anything with everyone focused on the morning story.

I sure enough found a story about how Dallas isn't prepared to deal with a major disaster and pitched it the editor that always forgets me. She said it was good and to run with it. So that kept me busy, plus I kept working on my enterprise and nailed down an interview I had been waiting for and wrote another story in between.

Let's just say things turned around from the morning situation.

This is all a learning experience and I learned today that it's time to cut the cord and get in there. It's time to really be aggressive. One thing is for sure, I have always left a good impression through my work ethic at my previous internships and it really didn't sit well that I was so forgettable.

I know what has to be done and I'm ready to do it.

As my editor said Friday, there needs to be more everything and I totally agree.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Downtown Dallas Farmer's Market–Cooking demo




Time is of the essence!

Well, 12 weeks may seem like plenty of time.
It's really not.

After working last week (week two), and getting my weekly evaluation, I'm feeling a sense of urgency to get my enterprise stories written.

I have been working on one in particular that I want to wrap up. It's been challenging getting a few details squared away, but if all goes well, I should be able to have it done next week. I'm also going to start on a second enterprise story next week as well.

I have two solid weeks in Dallas left before I start traveling for the AP. The first week of July I'll be in Houston, the next week in Austin, then New York. Two weeks is not a long time. It will be over before I know it. So I really have to push to get these stories done.

Next week, I have at least one spot news story to cover (things have been a little slow in Dallas as far as spot news is concerned), but I expect to be writing much more than the first two weeks. The more I can write, the better off I'll be.

Meanwhile, I continue to plug away at trying to refine my writing and reporting. It helps to get the weekly feedback. Sometimes you don't realize the mistakes you're making until they are pointed out. My editor has a funny way of pointing out some of the things I need to change. It's good to be able to laugh a little at yourself.

But in all seriousness, I take the advice to heart and try to implement the information into my work.

It's tricky to switch from writing for broadcast to writing for print. It's a skill that is constantly being used for the AP and one that I need to further refine.

That being said, it was a good week, but next week I'm gonna have to take it up a notch!




Wednesday, June 16, 2010

City Hall




So I went to Dallas City Hall today for a press conference. In all the years I lived in Dallas before I never had any business there.
I was able to practice an AP skill of dictating a story from the field.
I'm sure other news mediums do this as well, but it was cool to do it for the AP. I had never tried it before.
I was a little unsure of how to do it at first. I wondered if I was supposed to just spew the facts, or talk in sentences I would want written....
After talking to my trainer, he told me to collect my thoughts then call him back with the story. He would take care of the rest.
So I hung up the phone, quickly wrote the short 130 word story (what AP calls a News Now) and called him back.
I read the story and he typed it up and edited it to send to the wire. It was a great experience!
Can't wait to try it again!

Monday, June 14, 2010

Friday, June 11, 2010

Red ink

Week one of 12 down!

Well, it's one when your job is to take a red pen to the copy. It's another thing when the red pen is taken to your own copy. Before I graduated, I was copy editing for The Prospector so the red pen was in my hand.

It's inevitable with being a reporter that editors go over your stories with the red pen. We all know what this means–corrections, suggestions and trimming.

Some stories get more than others.

With this internship, I print out a copy of all my unedited stories and save them for the end of the week when I get an evaluation.

So today, I got my first evaluation.

Despite the bleeding pages, I was really thankful to get the feedback and suggestions on how to improve my writing for the AP. It wasn't all bad, don't get me wrong.

It was really useful to see those comments and be able to discuss them with my editor and trainer. Every summer internship has been a little different for me, and this summer, I rather enjoy the fact that I will be getting this feedback on a regular basis.

This internship has a pretty solid training program.

Now that week one is under my belt I can go in next week a little better prepared.

As they say, you can't be in this business if you have a thin skin. This is especially true when it comes to having your work edited.

Overall, I had a very productive week. I wrote every day, got my first byline picked up by several news outlets and am working on an enterprise story.

And I'm getting the hang of our operating system.

Looking forward for week two!

Thursday, June 10, 2010

First Byline

Today was exciting.

I have been writing all week long, but today I got my first byline for a story I wrote about a police chief that got arrested.

The story was put on the Texas wire around noonish and was being picked up shortly thereafter. It made it to around five websites including the Austin American-Statesman and the Houston Chronicle.

A while back in my news editing class, Lourdes Cueva-Chacón gave us a little workshop on how to use the tools from google accounts along with other useful tools for research and social media. During that workshop I made a google alert for any time my name Elida S. Perez pops up on the Web.

Let's just say it was super handy today in keeping track of where that story published. Every time a news outlet picked it up, I got an update. Without it, let's just say it would have been very challenging to find out where it landed or if it landed anywhere.

So, yey!

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Variety

What I love about being a reporter is the unpredictability.
You can learn a new system, learn new writing techniques, but you can never really predict how your day will go.

Variety is good.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Day one with the AP

Well, I survived the first day.

It started out routinely enough, I left way too early in the morning to make sure I wouldn't arrive late. Driving on 635 in Dallas can be slow at best during rush hour so now I know how long it takes to get to work about 15 minutes early and not almost an hour early (unlike today).
I met mostly everyone in the bureau and was happy to find that my colleagues have good senses of humor.

--Newsrooms can be intense and it's great when people can find a little humor in the small stuff.

Just as I was getting the ball rolling on some routine posts to the wire, breaking news hits.
It's a strange process when you are on your first day and you realize you are in the midst of a big news event. Luckily for me, the professionals are at hand to make sense of it all. Since it was my first day, I did my best to help out the seasoned reporters by gathering contacts and listening for any changes while they wrote several updates. It can sometimes feel as though you're a little turned around in situations like that.

I also can't help but feel a little rusty after editing all year for The Prospector and Borderzine.com when it comes to writing fast and getting back into the reporter swing of things. But I can see that that rustiness will quickly disappear as the days go by.

There is really no choice in the matter.

I'm happy to be with the AP for the summer and I intend to make the most of it. There are great reporters to learn from and many stories to be written.