I came into work around 10a this day also. When I got into the office, Derek briefly stopped me as I passed by his desk. He said that he wasn’t going to send me to Luling for the watermelon story after all. The gay marriage ruling had happened, so they were going to be running other stories and have other things for me to do. He said that he would be by in a little bit to get with me on a story to cover.

I have to admit, I was a bit relieved. The watermelon story sounded very interesting, but I had a very difficult time sleeping the night before and was completely exhausted. I was at the beginning of a raging sinus infection that had kept me awake the night before, so I wasn’t feeling too up to walking around with the public. Also, my AC is still broken, and that meant a 15 minute drive in the heat with the windows down aggravating my sinuses.

Jessica was sitting at my desk talking on the phone. I didn’t want to disturb her, so I went to the break room. Usually I’d buy a soda and some cookies from the gas station that’s next to the Taco Cabana in Seguin, but I didn’t have time to this morning. There’s some kind of charity thing going on in the break room though. The room is filled with various types of soda in cans and a bunch of delicious snacks. You can take a can/treat and put money in this little piggy bank on one of the tables near the door.

I wanted a Dr. Pepper, but there weren’t any cold ones in the fridge so I settled on a Coca-Cola. I also grabbed some M&Ms. As I was putting money in the piggy bank, Derek came up to me. I told him, “I needed some caffeine.” And he laughed and said that he was wired up on coffee from the morning. He told me about my next assignment: someone had emailed him about a short film they were making and to call them back and do a short story on it. He also asked me to try to get a hold of the New Life people. I told him about how I thought they may not hold service until Saturday, so they might call back then, so he said that if they did do that then he would take over the story. I didn’t word it like I was trying to pass off the story, just gave Derek a heads up in case I couldn’t get a hold of them still.

When I went back to my desk, Jessica was still on my phone. I put my bag on my desk and then sat down at Felicia’s and observed the things that she had on hers. I didn’t touch anything, just looked at what she had sitting out in the open. It was really just cords and some old various issues of the Gazette.

After Jessica finished her phone call, she apologized for being at my desk. I told her it wasn’t at problem at all, it really wasn’t! I didn’t mind, I knew that the day would likely be very slow so I wasn’t in any kind of hurry.

After I settled in, I looked over an email that Derek had sent me about the short film. It didn’t list a lot of information, so I decided to do some research. I like to know as much about a story as I can before I go in, even if I have the source explain to me about it anyway. Going in knowing a bit about the subject at hand means you have a better shot at asking the questions that need to  be asked.

In particular I was looking for a Go Fund Me page about the movie. It was tough to find though. Google wasn’t being very successful, nor was the GoFunMe’s internal search. So I started getting creative. I figured out the production company that was handling it and started searching for them. I finally found them through their Facebook page, where they shared a link to the project.

It was a short film about a guy who enjoyed a spring break with friends at his parent’s house, but something went wrong and all of this friends were killed. Then, he had to figure out what happened that night, and was the prime suspect. It sounds pretty interesting!

So once I had a better grasp of the story, I gave the source who had contacted us about it a call. I got her voicemail though, so I left a message. After, I tried contacting the New Life lady again, but just got her voicemail as well.

It was mostly a waiting game, but the newsroom was a bit entertaining. Derek and Jeff were talking about how to handle the gay marriage news. Derek wanted to write an opinion column about supporting it. Jeff was very hesitant to let him do that. He said that in a town like Seguin (with a lot of older, religious folks), doing that could alienate almost half their readers. Jeff decided that the newspaper should remain neutral and not take a stand on right or wrong. Instead, Derek’s column would focus on how right or wrong, it is now the law and must be followed, which is more of a neutral take.

I guess in a lot of ways I agree with Jeff’s decision. Personally, I am extremely happy that gay marriage is now legal. I feel like it is a fundamental human rights issue, and gay people should have the right to marry. However, I’ve always respected the view that newspapers and journalists remain neutral in coverage and not take a side. Journalists should report the news, not comment about it. This is why I’m very private about my personal views on social media. You will never find me ever mentioning religion or my support or being against this issue or that. If you were to ask me in person though, I would gladly talk about the issue or my personal views on things, as I do have my own beliefs and thoughts. So, I really respected Jeff’s decision.

Around 1p-ish, it had been a couple of hours, so I tried calling the short film source again. The interview went okay, but I had to dig at the source to get them to talk a bit. It was a bit odd to me. They were the writer/director of the film, but they didn’t reallly give much info on the plot or about making the film without me poking. I was able to get the info though, so after the interview I set out and wrote up the story.

The lead on this story was tough. I decided to make the logline of the movie the lead. When I emailed the story to Derek I explained that I thought it made the story more engaging, but that if it was too casual that I could rewrite it to be more newsy. He emailed back though “Good stuff,” so I think he liked it.

After this I decided to give the New Life source another call. I finally got a hold of the person! But, they told me their husband had a heart attack and was recovering. They wanted to do the story, but it wasn’t a good time. They asked if they could call back Monday, so I told them that would be okay. I figured that Derek wanted this story asap, if he was willing to do the interview on Saturday himself. I told the lady that I wished her husband well and then let her go.

I told Derek about the New Life lady. He passed the story onto Ron. I wrote up some notes about the story and the lady from my research, in case it would help him. Then, I proofed some pages.

After proofing the pages, I waited around for about 30 minutes. I was honestly done for the day, and I didn’t really want to wait around like I did yesterday. So, I went up do Derek and asked if he had anything else he would like me to do. He said that if I was done for the day that I could go home. It was early, not quite 3p, but man was I happy. I felt very crummy because of the sinus infection and looked forward to getting home early.

I got at 10am, since Derek asked me to come in earlier the week before. I wondered what the day would hold. With Felicia on vacation, would I be running more stories? Yes and no, I suppose. It was a rather slow news day.

Derek came by and asked me to do a story on Discover What’s Swimming. It’s an event for pre-kinder to 4th graders and their families. The Gazette accidentally got the date wrong with publishing an upcoming events sidebar and listed their date as being July 27 instead of June 27. A lady connected to the event apparently called Derek and chewed him out. It’s understandable though, it’s a pretty big error. Derek wanted to do an advance story on their event in the paper to give them coverage about the correct date, to try to make it right. So he asked me to do the story.

I set out on making guideline questions and researched a little about the event so that I was knowledgable about it when I talked to someone. After, I called the number for the event that was listed in the paper. The guy that answered though said that he wasn’t as involved in it, only took the RSVPs, but he gave me the contact information for someone who was running it. I called that number but got a voicemail and left a message.

I then tried calling secret source again because Derek asked me to. I really don’t think they’re calling back. This person is either on vacation or something, or they’re just ignoring my calls…

At this point it was a waiting game. I didn’t have anything else to do, so I looked through my emails in BobcatMail. Then Derek came out and asked me if I could work until 5:30p on Saturday and could cover a watermelon event in Luling. I said I had to work at 4p unfortunately. But then Derek realized it was on Friday, not Saturday, which is a day that is completely free for the internship, so I said that I could cover it. The event is a watermelon spitting contest for families and children, so it sounds like it will be fun to cover.

While I was waiting for the Swimming source to contact me back, I researched more about the watermelon event and wrote up sample questions to ask parents, children (with the parent’s permission, of course) and event organizers. It seems like a pretty popular and interesting event, I’m excited to cover it.

After coming up with my questions, I tried calling the Swimming source again. I got them! But they said they were going to lunch and would call me back after, so I had to wait to interview them. I looked up the email for the secret source and was able to find it, and I sent them an email. But that was a waiting game as well.

About this time, Ron also got a call from someone about a church that experienced extensive flood damage and wasn’t given FEMA assistance. They were looking for help. Derek asked me if I could do a story on them. I called one of the pastors and left a voicemail. Then I researched them and found an email, so I sent them an email as well. But it was also a waiting game to see if they would contact me back.

I waited for a good couple of hours with not a lot to do, just waiting on three sources to call me from three different stories. In the meantime, I worked on my blog for the internship, it gave me something to do instead of sitting around while I waited.

Around 2p-ish, I still hadn’t gotten a call from the water source, so I tried calling them again. This time I got the source’s wife. She said that he was in rehersal for the event and wouldn’t be in until about 3:30p or 4p, but she did give me his cell phone to try to reach him sooner. I called him on his cell and got him as well. However, it wasn’t a good time to talk, so he asked if he could call me when he got home, which would be between 3:30p and 4p. I wanted to have the story done asap so it could be laid into the paper, and it was for an event that was happening the next day after it was printing, so it couldn’t be delayed, but Derek said that it would be okay.

I had a little bit of time to kill, so Derek asked me to go down to the New Life Church to see if I could get anyone there. I didn’t say anything, but I didn’t really expect anyone to be there. I admittedly haven’t been to church since…early high school? That was like 9-10 years ago? I used to go to this non-denominational one occasionally with my older sister who was a devout Christian. Anyway, from what I remember about it, the building was only really used on times when service was held. I looked up New Life’s service schedule and they wouldn’t have another meet until Saturday, which was a couple of days away, so I didn’t really think there would be anyone there. But it was worth a shot, and I didn’t have anything else to do but wait. Who knows, maybe I would get lucky?

The trip to the church took embarrassingly longer than I had planned thanks to my stupid GPS. For starters, I sat in the car in the Gazette’s parking lot for awhile trying to get the unit to recognize New Life’s address. I checked my phone GPS and there was a discrepancy: Unit GPS said it was 10 miles away, but Phone GPS said it was 8 miles away. Someone was two miles off. The place was off of South Highway 123 though, so I decided to just head out in that direction and pay attention when I got close. I made the mistake though of following the Unit GPS over the Phone GPS and watched as I passed the place up. That part of Hwy 123 is kind of scary to turn around on, there weren’t very many side streets, mostly just gated driveways. I had to drive about five minutes past to get to a business with a decent lot that I felt safe turning around on. So I turned around and made my way back to New Life, this time following the instructions of my phone’s GPS to know when I was close by.

When I got to New Life’s driveway…it was gated and locked. I pulled into it, but just looking out it was evident there wasn’t anyone there. It sat by itself with a large gravel parking lot in front of it, but there weren’t any cars there except for an empty bus parked to the side of the building. So I headed back to the office, embarrassed at taking so long to get out there and back. I’m still learning Seguin though, so it’s a bit understandable I suppose.

When I got back to the office, Derek told me that swimming source had called. So I gave swimming source a call back. I decided to make the call from the Gazette’s phone. I also realized an important tool that I have to interview with: my laptop. My laptop has a far better keyboard than the intern desktop that the Gazette supplies. That’s not meant as a diss…I bought my new laptop recently with the idea that I’ll have it for the next few years and could be working as a journalist, so I needed something powerful and comfortable to use. (And plus I wanted something to game with for my long night shifts at Texas State, some of those shifts I’ll get one call the whole night). My laptop is a great tool when I can’t record because I type faster than I can write on pen and paper. Pen and paper I struggle to get quotes, keyboards just make everything easier.

So I interviewed swimming source and took notes on my laptop. The interview went really well and I got a lot of great information about it. It ended up being an interesting little story. On Saturday, one of the new journalists at the Gazette (she is replacing Ron), named Jessica, she will cover the story, so I guess Derek thought it was a very interesting event to have us cover.

After I turned in my story to Derek, it was a waiting game still on the other sources to call me back. About thirty minutes later, I heard Derek ask Ron about a place I mentioned in my story. I referred to it as Walnut Creek because that is what the source called it, and I didn’t verify that was the correct name. It turns out it is actually called Walnut Ranch, even though it is a creek. I had this happen with another location and story before, I referred to Seguin Guadalupe-Coliseum as just Seguin Coliseum. After the Walnut Creek mixup though, it was definitely a learning experience. I need to check location names every time. I’m not from Seguin and so I when people refer to a certain place I don’t know if that’s the correct term or not.

After the story was turned in, I attempted to call the New Life source again, but just got voicemail. I proofed a few pages to mostly end out the day. After the pages were proofed, I really didn’t have anything to do. I waited around for about an hour or so, but around 5:30p I asked Derek if there were any other pages to proof. This has become my signal for “can I go home?”. He told me that there weren’t any, but if I wanted to head out it would be okay. So off I went.