Niagara Frontier Publications

Spring 2017

My internship experience with Niagara Frontier Publications was an absolute success and I enjoyed every moment of it. Coming into the internship, I wasn’t completely sure if journalism would be my future, and because of this, I know that it is. I covered sports for NFP and what I did for that was choose a certain game(s) to attend and the goal was to write a recap about that game. I also wrote feature articles on certain players, coaches and teams. For my normal duties, I’d gain as much background knowledge on the teams as I could. Anything from records, stats, important players, past history of the team, anything I could jot down that would be vital to my story. Research was key to how productive my articles would be. Second, I would travel to the site of the game and actively watch, sometimes taking pictures and videos and most importantly, taking notes. Usually my notes consisted of stats, and huge moments of a game that really factored in the outcome. The last part might’ve been the most difficult, but with experience it gets easier and I will say it’s a skill I vastly improved at during the internship. When the game ends, it’s your job to interview an important coach or player, for me that was usually the coach or player pertaining to my audience which was mostly Niagara County. I had to come up with strong questions that would be vital to the information I put into my article. For example, if a player for a basketball team makes the game winning shot, I’m going to ask the coach what he thought of the shot, how it was designed in the huddle, and try and get a reaction from the player who made the shot. Information like that is vital, because, it gives the audience access to information that they would’ve never known by just watching the game. For the interview process, I used the recorder on my iPhone, and every time I sat down to write my article, it was the first thing I listened to.

I will say, this internship taught me a lot better writing skills, interviewing and social skills, as well as timeliness skills. Writing, because my knowledge of AP style dramatically increased over time. Interviewing and social, because I got to learn how to talk to people better, as well as learning how to ask tougher questions every game. Then timeliness, because I was under strict time deadlines for the most part. If a game happened Monday and I turned in a recap Wednesday, it’s no longer newsworthy. This internship also helped me master Microsoft Word, because I wrote every single one of my articles on it. I also got work in with iMovie, for all the videos I took. I also began to master Twitter, because I live tweeted every single game I went to, and with that I learned how to properly construct tweets, getting out as much info as I could in 140 characters.

There were a lot of benefits and very few drawbacks for this internship. Obviously, you get professional experience, heading out into the real world and reporting news. The best part about that benefit, is you see your work grow over time, and after a while it just gets better and better. Another thing I felt was a benefit, was I experienced new adventures. For example, I got to stand on the sidelines for football games, seen championship games in big stadiums like New Era Field, I got to sit at the scorers table for the High School Sectional basketball playoffs, and I got to sit in press boxes as well. One of my favorite accomplishments of all of that was I was honored with a Section VI media pass which gave me the chance to attend all of those events. I saw things from a new perspective that I had never seen before and it was the most fun I’ve had at any sporting events. Lastly, and this was huge for me, I met new people. I got to meet players, coaches and most importantly other reporters and journalists. I got to meet great people such as Josh Maloni of NFP, Derek Wangler of the Niagara Gazette, Chad Andrews of The View from Centercourt, Miguel Rodriguez from the Buffalo News and many others that were so welcoming and helpful. I made a lot of friends with this internship, and its connections like that to put your foot in the door for certain places. The only drawbacks I could think of that might be concerning to people is the driving and sometimes for outdoor events, the weather. In October, I sat through a rainstorm during a football in North Tonawanda. At first I thought it was treacherous, but after a while, I realized it’s part of the job and I’m experiencing it first hand and that’s why I learned to live with it and keep getting more experience. The driving part never actually bothered me all that much to be honest, I was excited anytime I got to cover a game.

Obviously, as you can see, I loved my internship. Its set me up with future job offers after school and given me the proper experience to continue my journalism career. I definitely can see myself 10 even 20 or 30 years down the line still being a journalist because of my passion for the subject. There’s honestly nothing else I’d rather do.

For future students looking to go into the internship with NFP for journalism. Two words: Do it. You will get first-hand professional experience that will pay off in the long run. Josh Maloni edited mostly all of my stories and was always quick and responsive with editing. He’s the coolest supervisor you will ever have and is willing to work with you and give you all the help you need. I will also say, I was only asked for about 1 article a week. By the end of the internship I was producing about 2-3 and even sometimes 4-5 articles a week. Some of you might think I’m crazy, but, you never know if you love something until you really go and do it. I took every chance I could. I didn’t settle for just 1 article a week, I wanted to better myself, so I decided to go out and do as much as physically could. I once covered two basketball games in one day, in different locations. Once I really got into covering local sports, I didn’t turn back. I wanted to witness as much as I possibly could and be a part of everything. So, yes, I’d say do it, but don’t just do the minimum, go out and do as much as you can. Get out there and put your name out there and get people asking about you, because as soon as others are asking about you, that’s when you know you’re climbing the ranks, and you’re doing things right.