De Leon: Internship Goals

Mid-April sets the next step of my journalistic venture. And my mission for this summer internship is listed by numbers one and two. First is to be an effective PEACE journalist and second is to LEARN… more.

For around a month or so, all classroom knowledge on basic and advanced journalism will finally be applied on the field. To write effectively in both straight news and feature is no more than a general objective. As an intern of Peace Advocates Zamboanga, it entails not only the capabilities to write effectively following basic journalistic rules but we must also abide with the culture of peace. To write stories that focus on the angle of peace and instilling it among its readers out of any news worthy story is a challenge. And basically, this is what my entire internship is all about. I want to learn how to do it effectively, and finish the summer as a trained peace journalist.

In general, LEARNING is still the main goal of this internship. OJT1 is a summer class and learned classroom knowledge is best tested in practical settings. As listed in my roles and responsibilities, we have to submit straight news that will be published on the web and/or press releases, news feature story for PEACEWORKS, a magazine, and accompany the stories with photographs if possible.

These actually serve as the topics of the course outline of my practical summer class. I have already experienced writing in both straight and feature, for print and web. First, taking the story on a specific angle requires me to refresh my skills on the basic and most crucial part of news writing, the information selection. If I am to write a story that has a theme focused on culture of peace, I would also have to select proper information and conduct interviews, research and gather data from as many sources as possible. This may sound too basic, but for me, this is the most crucial part. Second is doing press releases. This is something that I have not yet experienced. And I want to experience doing it during this internship. I always hear this term and I know that some of my classmates are tasked to write some press release articles for the department. But it is still a different thing to be doing it myself. And third is about the photos. I wonder if there are specific guidelines to follow in taking and choosing the photos that would immediately reflect the inter-religious theme or peace angle of the story. This is another thing that I would like to discover myself, because this was not taught during the photography class.

This internship also opens a bonus experience for us for we will be given the chance to do a news feature report for radio and work as a personal assistant in radio productions. Although we are not yet taught how to do this, I consider the task as an advanced training for our next Communications classes that are focused on radio production. I would like to learn the difference between writing a story for print, online and for radio broadcast. But application of what we have learned inside the class and learning out of experience is not the only REAL thing. We will be working with real people in the industry and a teacher will no longer be the one to tell us what to do, but a real BOSS.

Also, another thing that we must aim to do as early as now is to establish a network of connections of people in the field. It is a need for mass communication practitioners to build good relations and create links to as many people and establishments as they can. And since I will be dealing with the people in the real world, this internship is a good chance for me to begin establishing links in the mass communication field.

“To finish my internship with a remarkable record,” exactly these words were written on my piece of paper during the OJT orientation seminar. To be remarkable does not suggest that I have to beat other interns. Instead, I aim to make the best that I can out of my classroom knowledge and past experiences. What is mentioned above is the end goal of the entire summer internship. And achieving this goal will give me a great chance to have a sure job landing after graduation. Showing a distinct performance as an intern is my first step in making a name in this industry. And companies would surely run after employees who have shown great potentials as interns, right after graduation. And naturally, that is one thing that I wanted to achieve over the summer.