Jared: Nice to get a real-person source

Often, while doing small business features or any story in which you interview people at businesses, you get people acting like you're there to put their advertisement in the paper. Canned slogans. Answers that aren't genuine, and are especially uninteresting. People that won't break through that false exterior to be a real person.

Recently I interviewed the opposite. He was a small business owner who owned a home design studio with five employees. His is a fledgling business, so he could have tried to use me for free advertising. Instead, he looked me in the eye, gave me very honest answers. He wouldn't detail every aspect of his business (those that give his competitors an advantage) and I respected that, because I felt he was approaching me as a real person, and I tried to do that with him.

The interview was so interesting it went on for more than two hours, without break. I kept asking questions, interested in how the industry worked and how his business fit into it.

His interview was very refreshing.

Somer: end of the internship

Before I started my internship at the Spokesman I dropped off a cover letter and a few clips to the Moscow-Pullman Daily News in Moscow, ID. Thinking ahead for after the internship I was skimming journalismjobs.com and kept in touch with Moscow. A few weeks before my sports internship ended I accepted a position with the Daily News covering high school sports. My first day was yesterday and I feel completely overwhelmed. I started just three days after my internship ended and I'm jumping right into the heart of the high school sports season. Right now I'm working on previews, covering soccer games, taking calls at night and preparing for my first Friday football game this week.
I shadowed my new sports editor covering a high school game to see how he records stats, but I can't help but feel completely terrified of this new experience. I understand the game, but I've never had to keep my own football stats. It made my summer with the Spokane Indians baseball team seem like a piece of cake. But the only way I'm going to learn is to just do it. The Daily News is a p.m. paper which prints a weekend edition on Friday night. So I'll be on deadline, but thanks to my internship with the Spokesman, it shouldn't be too bad.
I feel very fortunate to have landed a job so quickly after graduating college. While I'll be working crazy hours because we're only a three-man(woman) sports staff, I know it will end up being a good experience for me.