Covering the Niagara Frontier League Girls Swimming Championship held at Niagara-Wheatfield High School in mid-October
Overall, I really enjoyed my internship with the Tonawanda Sun this semester. I can’t believe that it is over! I am thankful for the opportunity to cover my hometown again and implement a lot of what I’ve learned in classes and the seminar into real-life experiences.
Interning with the Tonawanda Sun was the perfect situation as it was the best learning environment of how to be a beat reporter in sports media. The way that I communicated with my editors was what I liked the most. It was simple yet effective – pitching an idea, getting its approval and then running with it. Most of the profile pieces that I wrote this semester (a couple of them are below) were ones that I had on my “list of stories” to write since senior year so it was just perfect timing. Another bonus was that I was able to report on my alma mater, North Tonawanda. This helped made the experience easier as most of the coaches were either teaching or coaching in the district while I was in high school. The athletes, coaches and administration were very accommodating in covering their teams as well as opposing coaches when the situations arose.
In terms of goals overall, I accomplished most of them, especially writing tighter. In the past, I would just continue to write until every detail was typed. Through this internship, I learned essentially how to get to the point sooner, which made it easier for the readers to read and quicker to write. Another goal that I almost reached this semester was writing 30 stories, which was an average of two stories per week, although there were a couple occasions where I wrote three stories a week. From mid-August when I started with fall season workouts to Dec. 7, I wrote 29 stories.
For the rest of my college career and beyond, I believe this internship helped me gain experience of being able to write on deadline and continue to make connections in this profession. It also gave me the benefit of knowing how a newspaper operates, especially at the local level. Additionally, I will be continuing to contribute to the newspaper as a freelancer and covering the NT Sports Beat along with any other requests. I am thankful that this internship was one of the first stepping stones of hopefully a successful career.
Here were some of my favorite stories that I did for the Sun this semester:
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