Today is my last day as an intern at JLBC.
I was asked to write something about my time here at the Jewish Link as an intern, something of an insider article that might give you a peek behind the curtains of the newspaper to see something that you may not have been able to before. It’s certainly been an interesting experience.
First and foremost, the reason I looked for an internship at the beginning of the summer was as a way to get experience. Well, actually, that’s not true. The real reason was that my parents didn’t want me sitting around the house all day, but that’s beside the point.
Going back to getting experience, will my future college/employers be more impressed that I lounged around for a summer, watching sports or that I went to work at a newspaper and gained valuable work experience?
It’s no contest.
Speaking of work experience, learning what it’s like to wake up early-ish to go work daily has taught me a really important lesson: I’m going to miss childhood. Yup, I’ve definitely had to push my limits. The way I’m used to writing is in a more free-flowing way, more stream-of-consciousness over an actual news article (you can read some of those types of articles at my blog at sushionsports.wordpress.com). Writing for a newspaper has forced me to expand my comfort zone and step outside of what I usually do.
Additionally, writing for a newspaper means basing everything you write on facts [or should be]. When I write about sports for my blog, much of what I say is opinion. You just can’t do that in news reporting. For many news articles, you have to interview people (so much for this being an insider article and giving you information you didn’t already have). That may seem easy (and occasionally you might get free stuff if you write something nice about them), but it’s really not. Finding a time that works for both of you, figuring out what to ask, and then being capable of multi-tasking, being able to nod politely as the interviewee talks as you frantically try and type everything they’re saying–all I’m saying is that it’s a lot harder than it looks.
Most important of all, I’d sincerely like to thank Moshe Kinderlehrer for giving me this opportunity and Elizabeth Kratz for acting as my editor and teaching me what it means to be a writer for a newspaper.
By Sushi Kaplan
