I started my week at the Echo a bit of a nervous wreck... Pam (the lovely lady who arranged for my work experience) gave me a paper and when I walked through the door, looking like a complete tool I asked her what she wanted me to do with Monday's issue of the Gloucestershire Echo (there are only a few questions you ask in life and regret immediately by the persons response) - Looking at my in a 'bless they've sent her on day release' kind of way she said "just read it dear, we'll be with you in a bit".
So I waited around for over an hour, meanwhile I was thinking - Oh god this is going to be worse than making coffees for the week, I'm actually doing bugger all! Luckily I got the chance to head up to Magistrates Court with a reporter to get the low down on all the crooks in Cheltenham, and of course put my knowledge of Journalism Law to the test. This totally backfired when we got up there and realised the courts were closed for an entire week for refurbishment - ahhh well.
When we got back to the news room, Tanya (features editor) kidnapped me and stuck me on features for the day which was great! At first I was a little dubious - I got sent out to wonder the streets of Cheltenham and find out about anything special going on during Race Week in the pubs and clubs (I thoroughly enjoyed it at the time, in hindsight it was just a job reporters don't have the time to do as it's not that important) - So all in all a relatively interesting first day but I didn't get chance to put pen to paper.
When day two kicked off it was another boring start with not much to do, I then got to go out and do some vox pops with people in Cheltenham Town Centre about the increase in petrol prices... again it was another of those jobs nobody wanted to do, but I was excited at the time because I felt like a big important professional... or not.
Day three started off OK, I was still on features but I was getting better stories to cover and actually managed to get a byline for Thursday's paper. Doing phone interviews was ridiculous! I truly felt like a fraud calling people up claiming I was a reporter from the Echo when in actual fact I'm only little Print Journalism student pretending to be a reporter for a week... it's a students version of dress up really isn't it?
Anyway I managed to get a page 10 lead for the following day's paper which I was so over excited about it verged on sad. You can check out my review of Red Rag's Irish Art Exhibition at on the thisisgloucestershire website by clicking on the underlined text.
So... we're onto Thursday when I got to write a few little preview pieces on bits and bobs going on in the area (like this quite pathetic little piece on Guinness), but nothing too big until Dan (another features editor) send me over a press release from Cirencester. It was about a gentleman called Tom Boyd who had wrote a musical adaptation of Twain's 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' back in 1954, it was picked up for the West End, then dropped! So he forgot about it, until recently it has been revived and brought back to life by what seems to be a wonderful cast - so I was epically pleased with the fact I got to interview Boyd, the legend himself.
Then I got asked to do a few more features, namely a story on an informal art exhibition in Cirencester and then one on another play by a quite established writer Hugh Whitemore.
He had written a one woman play about Winston Churchill's wife Clemmie... chuffed to get an interview with him too first thing on Friday morning.
And then it happened... my big story on the Echo (haha I sound like such a nerd).
... I think this post is up to a record length for me so I'm going to start another one with the "big scoop" on - I think it adds drama and suspense haha ;)
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