Brisbane Times

For the last two months I have been interning with the Brisbane Times. It really was a fantastic experience and I learnt so much about the industry I want to be in. So, of course I wanted to write all about it.

On day one I arrived an hour early, had my ultimate girl boss outfit on and co-ordinated my Urban Decay lipstick. It was January 2nd and due to the public holiday, the city was dead. I'm talking I thought I was in some sort of alternate reality and a zombie apocalypse had taken out the entire population of the Brisbane CBD.

As a result of my earliness I then consequentially sat across the street by myself for about three quarters of an hour and brushed up on the news, before attempting to make the small journey up to level seven. Problem with that though, the whole building was locked.

Here I was nervous as all hell about to meet editor-in-chief Simon Holt (hello, role model) and I couldn't even get into the building! I tried to stay calm and called the Brisbane Times office. The pre-recorded voice message redirected me to their Sydney counterpart which I knew wouldn't be of any help. After a few deep breathes I realised I had Simon's number at the bottom of his email. Thank god, I dodged that bullet.

After a few introductions and being shown to my desk I think the penny dropped that I was actually pretending to be a full blown real life journalist. I managed four quick stories that day and starting pitching ideas to my editor.

Purely by chance Amy Remekis, former State Political Editor and now Federal Political Reporter, was in the office on my very first day (she is based in Canberra). I did mention how much I loved her to Simon and he introduced us. I am in awe of everything that Amy is about in terms of her confidence and strength. She is she a hard working, independent woman and someone I really admire. She is so down-to-earth and was really supportive of me trying to make it in the industry. She actually passed on her details and told me that if I ever needed anything I should contact her. WINNING!!

All in all I survived my first day but felt a little disheartened when I couldn't find a single Ipswich Game of Thrones fan (I found one in the following week!).

Essentially my time at Brisbane Times involved working for their four community pages, Ipswich, Toowoomba, Gold Coast and Airport. These four sites work on community content and are focused on user-generated stories. My job was to source local businesses and important members of those communities and write about them. As an intern I reported directly to Ron Goodman, who works externally. Originally he gave me a list of things he wanted done but by the end of my eight weeks I was pretty much sending through all of my own ideas.

As I undertook this internship as part of my journalism degree, there was a strict criteria in which I needed to meet. I was asked to make a list of aims and objectives and stick to them throughout my eight weeks. My aims were as follows:

1. Improve and increase my networking skills and contacts

2. Learn how to deliver Brisbane Times content to mobile devices

3. Get involved in the community of My BT

In my second week I had a chat to Felicity Caldwell, the current State Political Editor, about how she makes contacts and keeps them. She told me face-to-face interaction was really important and that having a chat over a coffee generally makes people warm up to you. It's all about being personal.

I also had the opportunity to speak with Brian Brownstein, the National Digital Editor of FairFax, about how content is delivered on mobiles. This was certainly a highlight for me as innovation in the digital realm is something I really enjoying learning about. Brian was absolutely fantastic and answered all of my questions. I even got the chance to do a little hypothetical digital story and he edited the whole thing for me.

In terms of the My BT community I certainly got involved with the four seperate areas. I spoke to councillors, past sporting heroes, domestic violence activists, businessmen, museums, universities, citizen's of the year, mayors, members of parliament, high schools, police officers and beer brewing companies.

Having spoken to such a diverse range of people has really restored my faith in humanity. Every single person I spoke to was more than happy to help me out and always so grateful to be recognised in the local media.

Throughout my 100 hours I successfully filed 44 stories, not a bad effort really. There were moments when I didn't think I could reach certain people but I proved myself wrong and realised I am capable to make it in this industry.

There was also an opportunity to sit down with my editor about half way through my internship and talk about my strengths and weaknesses. I am someone that loves constructive criticism so this was probably one of my favourite moments.

Ron said my work ethic was by far my greatest strength. He was impressed with how I go about getting contacts and my determination to get the story up. He said I was one of the best interns he has seen throughout his time at BT and recommended I get in contact with Australian Regional Media as I hope to go regional after uni. He said he was more than happy to be a referee which I was super impressed with.

We had already spoken about things I could improve on which included my final editing process and pitching ideas. He also gave me some great advice about keeping contacts. Ron said to write down little details for each contact (i.e their wife's name or whether they had kids). He said this can become really crucial when working in regional communities. He also said I should brush up on my general knowledge and know about Brisbane's history and our previous PM's.

In terms of how I am feeling about the whole experience now that it's over, I can say I was in my absolute element. I loved meeting journalists in the newsroom and also making contact with plenty of important people within the different sectors of My BT. It's amazing how happy I was just to be in such a buzzing media environment. This internship has once again confirmed by love and passion for the industry and cemented that this is exactly what I want to be doing in the future.

The following video was a requirement for the WIL (Work Integrated Learning) subject, which I thought might be a nice element to finish this post.

You can check out all the stories I wrote for the Brisbane Times on my "Portfolio" link on my website.

#ashleighdwan #beyondthestory #journalism #brisbanetimes #internship #WIL #workintegratedlearning