Being the Intern at Jacobs Media

A regular day at the office: On a regular day, I come into the office and walk back to the Newsroom where I sit at my own little desktop next to Alyson Shields, my mentor, Derek Booth, a news anchor and reporter, and Mark Eggers, another news anchor and reporter. Alyson was my main mentor, but it was almost like I had three. And that is just on a regular day! I got to work with so many people, including BJ Williams (Editor), Brian Stewart (News Anchor/Reporter), Rebecca Cameron (Advertising/Marketing), and Mitch Clarke (Webmaster/ A thousand other things- seriously, this man is busy). I sit down and first read up on what is going on that day, whether it is a slow day or a not-so-slow day, like my first day (there was a plane crash at Lee Gilmer on my very first day).Then, I usually update the Associated Press tab by looking at the wire and judging which stories should make the website. Then I update them and put them where they should go. The biggest thing I did all year was to write stories for the website, and HRs, RWs, HTs, and RVs for WDUN (I will explain what those are later). Sometimes the radio stories would be aired, other times they were just for the learning experience. So, I go in, and Alyson will give me a press release or story from GNN and tell me to write radio stories and ANGA pieces on them. Alyson taught me so much about how to construct good radio pieces and website pieces. So what is an HR, HT, RV, and RW? An HR is a headliner, a short little teaser/story summary for the radio, that catches quick and important points. An HT is a headliner with tape, essentially the same thing as an HR but with a soundbite, an interview clip. An RV is a longer radio piece, that covers more details, and includes a voicer, where another radio anchor will voice part of it, ("Here is WDUN's Alyson Shields with more on the story"). An RW is the same thing as an RV, but now you have a reporter voicer AND a piece of tape from an interview. All of these act as sort-of scripted stories that get voiced and aired on the radio. Another thing I did in the office was work with the webmaster to checkout all the VERY exciting and new projects Access/WDUN is working on, and sometimes I would answer the call from Edward Jones to get the daily stocks, record them, and put them on the radio. Jacobs Media let me try a bit of everything and it was such a great opportunity.