Being an intern in unsure times

Over the past few months, I was a reporting intern for the business section of The Miami Herald. I didn’t blog during that time, mainly because I had no Internet access at home.

But I did want to post the essay I wrote for my independent study credit about the experience. It’s not meant to be a report of what went on — just what I learned.  Especially if you’re a journalism student, I hope you read it. I learned more about what my future holds from this internship than from any class in my J-school.

When I was managing editor of the Alligator, one of our online producers posted a column our opinions editor had written.

All the producer had to do was copy the text from the column and paste it into the Web template. Yet somehow, our opinions editor was credited as “Andrew Wynn.”

Adam Wynn, obviously, was not thrilled.

“I’m beginning to question our institution,” he said.

At the time, I laughed. But over the 10 weeks of my internship at The Miami Herald, I thought back to that moment every day as I begin to question our institution.

I questioned our institution when 59 jobs were eliminated newsroom-wide, including long-time writers and editors who had made the Herald their entire career. I questioned our institution when the continuous news desk ignored a garbage truck hitting a major toll plaza for two days — writing a brief two days later when it was fixed. And I questioned our institution as a steady stream of people came by my desk and told me to go to law school.

My internship at the Herald was not, in many ways, ideal.

Four weeks into my internship, the next round of newsroom layoffs was announced. Three weeks later, they were implemented.

Those three weeks were tense and quiet. The silence was the most unnerving. A few rumors swirled, but nothing like what you would expect from a room full of journalists.

People talked about furloughs and discussed privately whose jobs they thought were in trouble.

Then the layoffs came, and everyone from secretaries to editors were crying in the bathroom.

Being an intern during that time was draining. I wasn’t completely a spectator, but I wasn’t participating either.

My job wasn’t at stake, and my career wasn’t on the line. As an editor darkly noted later, I didn’t even take a pay cut.

But I was watching my future collapse around me.

The mayhem was worse in the business department, which took some of the worst hits in the newsroom. Multiple editors took the buyout, and reporters and paginators took hits to their income, either through being cut to part-time hours or being laid off.

There wasn’t anything I could say to people to make it better, and I wasn’t really a part of their world. 

Perhaps I had more of a vested interest than most interns. The Herald put bread on my table for about 15 years. My father worked there full-time as an editor and my mother freelanced. I had numerous fights with my sister, whenever my dad brought us to work, about whether we would take the elevator or escalator. 

The layoffs were painful for me, but I knew, as everyone did, that I would be leaving after 10 weeks. I never had the mentality, as they did, that the Herald would always be there for me. 

So I just tried to be unobtrusive, do my work, and not scream when the fifth person in a day came by my desk to say, “So, do you really want to do this?”

That’s not to say I didn’t get good experience.

I had no assigning editor, which left me swamped most of the time as editors tossed stories my way. But that’s just how the department worked, and I learned how to multitask as well as any reporter.

I covered the 68th Miami International Boat Show and Strictly Sail. I knew nothing about boats. I don’t particularly enjoy boating.

I learned more about boats in three weeks than I had ever thought possible. I wrote 50 inches for one boat show story, which is the second-longest piece I’ve ever written.

I got to write endless features, a few breaking news stories and several pieces I’m really proud of. 
Honestly, I could never say that I enjoyed every second of my time at the Herald. But I got to work with wonderful people, and I learned more about the industry than I would have in a more sugar-coated newsroom.

I still want to go into journalism, but I’ve realized that I might have to explore other options. During one, “why-don’t-you-go-to-law-school” interrogation sessions, I told a reporter that this was what I still wanted to do.

“Is this awful? Yes,” I said. “But not every day of my career will be like this.”

So I don’t have the bright-eyed innocence about journalism I once did. I’ve acknowledged that if I don’t have a job after graduation, I’ll take the LSAT and stop hating lawyers.

But I still love what I do, on the good days. I still get a rush out of deadline, and I still smile after a good interview.
If I question our institution, it’s because that’s what I’ve been trained to do. 

I don’t have the answers. But I hope that we, as a profession, will figure them out so that I, and all the other journalists who still love what they do, can have a future.