My year in review: It’s been a wild one!

It has been a crazy 2010.

It started with this blog, which began as a class assignment for my online journalism class. I had held a blog previously, but I saw this site as a great way to help grow as a journalist after graduation. And I’m proud of myself for continuing it (not to mention the “A” I received for this site).

I’ve grown a lot since I began the year covering the first Mount Pleasant City Commission meeting for Central Michigan Life. I served as online editor of my alma mater’s newspaper this spring, doing all things Web-first and managing the paper’s website and social media pages. The experience allowed me to take a bit of break from the grind of running editorial content as a news and managing editor. But it gave me the opportunity to pursue one of the best decisions I felt I made this year: take over the Mount Pleasant city beat.

As someone who didn’t have an internship until after graduation, this decision was one that prepared me for the “real world.” Covering university-related issues is great, but community news orgs want you to cover local government. I was able to cover more than a dozen meetings, dealing with complex issues such as budget slashing, infrastructure and business. The city of Mount Pleasant is a great place to get experience with covering, and I highly recommend Central Michigan University j-students to give it a shot.

The highlight of the year reporting-wise, though, came this summer working on the politics desk as an

The press pass I was issued when I arrived at the airport to cover President Barack Obama's landing. I had two by the end of the summer, the other coming when he spoke at the groundbreaking for the LG Chem lithium ion battery plant in Holland.

intern with the Grand Rapids Press. The first assignment was to cover a town hall with soon-to-become Gov.-elect Rick Snyder, and it only got better from there. Overall, I met three candidates for governor, Spoke with several state legislatures, the mayor of Grand Rapids, and added two White House press passes to my collection of White House press passes (which brought my total to two).

The opportunity to cover politics during one of the most heated political primary years in Michigan was nothing short of spectacular. There was always something to write about in politics, and it never got old. Writing on several general assignment pieces allowed me to meet and see the best charitable organizations Grand Rapids had to offer, including the Ronald McDonald House, Gilda’s Club and the Blandford Nature Center.

My reporting was capped with a giant profile piece on Michigan State Sen. Jim Barcia, a politician who is retiring after 34 years as a legislator at the state and federal level. I drove down to Lansing to spend time with the Senator in the Capitol (which I can’t help but marvel at every time I go there), and met with him in his office. After meeting with him and his wife at their home for a behind-the-scenes look, I crafted a piece looking back at his career. It is the biggest piece I’ve written to date, and I haven’t spent so much  on a piece before. It turned out well, and was posted on two entries on The Bay City Times’ page.

Which brings me to perhaps what I learned the most this year: Web posting. I got a big dose of online reality when I began at the Times in August. Like I’ve said previously, the cuts in print have forced the Booth Mid-Michigan newspapers adapt their news model, and I was thrown right into the mix. Stories were still important, especially for print, but most of our day is consumed by Web posts on MLive.

This has showed me the power of the Web at it’s finest. Especially Election Day, when I was responsible for 10 of the Times’ posts, I’ve learned that getting things online as fast as possible is the way we are headed.

So, what does all this leave for goals in 2011?

• For one, just because I’ve graduated and am out of school doesn’t mean I want to stop learning. There’s still a lot I need to master personally. I never got around to teaching myself more HTML and CSS coding, and I want to begin doing more of that.
• I want to be a more regular Web presence, blogging more often and using social media more to make communicating with others more effective.
• I have little to no experience with anything mobile, mostly because the phone I have is a Samsung Alias 2, aka a “dumbphone.” I’d like to invest in some sort of smart phone this year to help understand the world of mobile news.

With beginning at Heritage Newspapers shortly after the first of the year, I have a feeling my learning curve will change. I’m hoping 2011 has more great news to come.

Election night 2010 from Bay City

I haven’t written an update here in longer than I’d like. I’m hoping to buck that trend here soon, and I’m hoping this post does so.

The Bay City Times building in downtown Bay City on Adams Street. Yes, they already have their Christmas decorations up.

I’ve been here in Bay City since the end of August, and have gotten a big dose of Internet reality. Because The Bay City Times does not print every day anymore, the Web is the most important factor when publishing news. It’s been a newsroom dynamic I’ve been more than happy to participate in, as I’ve enjoyed seeing a digital focus.

That focus was extremely prevalent election night. Because The Times doesn’t print a Wednesday edition, we were able to focus exclusively on delivering online content throughout the night.

My responsibilities were vastly different than my primary night coverage in Grand Rapids. Here, I was assigned several races to cover and monitor, an actual first for me (my time at Central Michigan Life during elections was spent as an editor, directing reporters and looking over content). During the night, I met and spoke with Bay County Library System users about a millage renewal on the ballot, attended their viewing party and watched as they celebrated its passage.

My top priority that evening were two major political races: the 1st Congressional District, which spans Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and dips down into northern and western Bay County, and the Michigan 31st Senate District, which covers Arenac and Bay counties, as well as Michigan’s Thumb. Because of our local mentality, the Senate race, between a Bay City state representative and a former representative from the Thumb, was one of the most watched and was a heated race all the way through election night.

Every time something would happen though, it was online. Our site was filled with election posts from all over the county, including about 10 from myself. Once it was seen that the Republican would win the Senate race, I shot him a call, talked to him about his victory, and posted it. Afterwards, I called the local state rep. that was defeated and wrote up a separate post with his comments on the race, while linking back to the original post with the winner. Through a thread of posts, I was able to link the reader back to the original post, providing the news.

Once 10 posts and a print story for Thursday was complete, I departed the newsroom at 3

My desk circa 2:30 a.m. Wednesday morning of election night. I think I'm still recovering, and it's Sunday.

a.m. Election night has always been one of my favorite nights (I still remember watching Tim Russert during presidential election season with his whiteboard on NBC when I was younger), and I was happy to partake.

The model though, was significantly different than any I’ve worked in before, and was, in my young opinion, an improvement. The constant posting online allows readers to absorb shorter bits of info, which can be easier to digest when they are searching in real-time for results on a night like election night. Of course, not being constrained to print deadlines make it all the better as well.

One month-plus post-graduation: Update in the “real world” of Grand Rapids

Just more than one month ago, I sat in Kelly/Shorts Stadium wearing my black cap and gown and graduated from Central Michigan University.

It doesn’t feel like it. It actually feels longer than that.

In the time since I left Mount Pleasant, I’ve gone back to move out, officiated some soccer and began working full-time at The Grand Rapids Press. The last point, obviously, is where most of my time has been spent. I started three weeks ago, and the Press is my first full-time internship. It has taken some getting used to, having a set schedule, but I’m adjusting as well as possible.

I began working on the politics desk, and for the most part, have stuff with items in that area. My first assignment was a coverage of Michigan gubernatorial candidate Rick Snyder’s town hall meeting at Rosa Parks Circle. Quite the first assignment, and daunting to someone who hasn’t worked for a publication with more than a 13,000 circulation (the Press is more than 100,000 circulation). But I used it as a launching pad and have written some interesting pieces.

One thing I’ve definitely noticed is different than the college newsroom: everyone is older. I realize I’m stating the obvious, but when you’re used to working with 20-year-olds, working with full-fledged adults was still a culture shock for me. The priorities for adults are significantly different than what I was used to as a college student, but the benefit you get is you see how they do their jobs and how they handle news and writing, and it’s that experience I can (and have) watched to gather my own way of reporting.

But the best way of evaluating my new is to go through it, bit-by-bit. So here it is:

The toughest adjustment: It has to be clocking 40 hours a week on a regular time schedule. While there were weeks at CM Life I spend more than 40 hours a week in the office, that was on a be-there-as-you-need-to-be basis. Even as editor, the only requirement I had was to be in at 11 a.m. Now, it’s usually an 11 a.m.-7 p.m. shift, five days a week. I know it doesn’t seem like it should be a big deal to me, but it has been.

The biggest similarity: It’s got to be the hunger for information. I see no difference in the drive to gather and disseminate information to the public from newsroom to newsroom. Earlier this week, one reporter exposed a plan one legislator’s aide had to open a film production studio just to make a profit off of Michigan’s 42 percent film tax incentive program. The drive to expose wrongdoing is still there, a plus when there’s a lot of talk of doom-and-gloom in college of the journalism industry.

The press pass I was issued when I arrived at the airport to cover President Barack Obama's landing.

The most exciting story I’ve written: Without a doubt it has to be my feature on the Comstock Park couple that got to tour Air Force One when it flew into Grand Rapids for President Barack Obama’s speech at Kalamazoo Central High School. While the story I wrote was just a discovery, the whole experience of going to the airport to see the president was exciting to me. Even getting screened by the Secret Service was fascinating, because I got to see the process of protecting the president first hand. As a politics junkie, I found the entire process incredible. Even watching the Kent County Sheriff’s deputies climb the roof at Gerald R. Ford International Airport provided a glimpse at the measures taken to secure the president.

The story I’m most proud of: Without a doubt it’s my piece on a Kenyan refugee flying into Grand Rapids after waiting for his visa for 10 years. Joseph Sewe, who was stuck in a refugee camp in Tanzania, was left behind in Africa when the rest of his family was granted visas to the U.S. He and his brother, Alvin, were left behind. Alvin died in 2006, and Joseph was granted his visa in May. I spoke to his aunt, Dorothy, who has quite the story herself. She was more than happy to share her story of trying to get Joseph reunited with her and her family, and her comfort in sharing her story made it so much better. After going to the airport twice (he had missed a connecting flight and Dorothy didn’t know), last Thursday, I watched as his family walked out of the gate and was rushed by Dorothy and her children. I have never seen hugs so tight at an airport before, it was incredible to share in such a huge family moment with them and tell the world about it. Stories like that remind me that I picked a good industry to go into.

Overall, so far it’s been a good experience. I’m seeing a lot and just learning how this whole thing works. In other words, three weeks down, the rest of my life to go.