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Emily Eppens

My Internship with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier


My summer as a news reporter intern has exceeded my expectations. I was
more than excited when I received the position at the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier,
it was finally a chance to do what I always wanted to do; write and report news.
The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier is the main newspaper for the Black Hawk
County region in Iowa. It is owned by the Lee Enterprises, which owns papers
ranging from Cedar Rapids, Dubuque and even in Lincoln, Neb. The Courier moved
locations in the past couple years and is now located right on the Cedar River in
downtown Waterloo. The organization is split into different sections; finance and
advertising are all done on the second floor while the newsroom, photography
department, subscription services and public relations departments are located on
the first floor. The Courier is a six-day newspaper publication distributed throughout
Black Hawk County; Saturday the only day excluded. The Courier publishes a
number of free-stand magazines for which I was able to write as well. I also had the
opportunity to work on a couple video assignments, sharpening my skill with a basic
video camera.
During my internship with the organization, I was assigned to cover a wide
range of topics ranging from crime and cops briefs, feature stories, numerous local
festivals, business reporting and a final upfront story. Some of my favorite
experiences were covering a story on the local Waterhawks ski team, shadowing the
politics reporter and meeting presidential candidate, Dr. Ben Carson, working on my
final article on organ donation, shooting video for a local neighborhood project and
covering RAGBRAI.

Through this internship I have greatly improved and expanded on my writing,


editing and reporting skill sets. Near the beginning of my internship, Nancy, the
editor-and-chief, came to me and told me that my leads needed a lot of work - they
werent creative or engaging enough. This summer I took great care to liven up my
writing not only in the lead, but through the entire length of the article.
During the past few college semesters, I have written for classes, the Iowa
State Daily and a number of campus magazine publications. I always found myself
struggling with writing longer feature articles and organizing my thoughts for news
stories. Now I am capable of writing a beyond 1000-word story in a single seating
and better able to organize the piece in my mind.
This internship also taught me that I am capable of so much more than I
thought I could handle. During my time as an intern for the Courier, I was often
working on eight to 10 stories at a given time. Instead of stressing out, I took the
time to get organized. To stay on track and up-to-date, I started a worksheet in
Google sheets to help me track the progress on every article I was working on. This
included what type of story it was, the name of the article, what step in the
reporting process it was in, if a photo and budget were assigned, the contact
names, and the deadline and run-date. To improve the organization of the story, I
would read similar previous stories that my coworkers had written to get an idea of
how to put the article together.
Something I discovered over the course of the summer was that news
happens on its own time. There were days I was swamped beyond imagination and
papers engulfed the entirety of my desk space. These were the days I learned how
to properly carry out engaging phone interviews, face-to-face interviews and even
interviews over Skype. They were the days I learned to use silence as a tool to

produce a better and lengthier response to the questions I asked the interviewee.
They were the times I used my co-workers and knowledge of social media to
cultivate a more accurate and well-rounded story.
And then there were the days where the news wouldnt happen at all. When I
reported and set up every meeting I needed for my stories and I would just sit at my
desk and read the local and national news all day. Those were days I went back and
copy edited stories to make them more understandable to the reader and the time I
took to update myself on local news happening in the area. They were the days
where I would ask numerous questions and ask for feedback from my peers.
Co-workers are key. I was treated exactly like another full-time news reporter
when I got to the Courier, I was expected to produce quality and accurate news
information regardless of what category the story fell into. Though I was given
independence, my co-workers were happy to answer any questions I had concerning
a particular story, AP Style or the newsroom terms I was not familiar with.
I received the opportunity to shadow a couple of my coworkers on their
assignments. One was with the politics reporter, I was able to shadow her on a
presidential event where Ben Carson was speaking. While I am still working on
improving my political knowledge so I can effectively write a story involving indepth politics, I greatly appreciated being able to learn and ask her questions while
she was covering the event.
I also was able to go on early morning police rounds with the crime and
courts reporter. He taught me how to check reports from the police and sheriff's
stations, the courthouse and the fire station. He showed me how to tell if a report
was important to pay attention to or not. Later, my boss taught me the correct

questions to ask when getting important information about a crime or court reports
and cases.
Throughout the summer, I would cover the many various festivals throughout
the area. This would include an advance story a few days before the festival, a
beginning or parade online story, a full feature print story, a wrap-up story and, if
needed, a follow-up story on crowd numbers at the end. The annual festivals I was
assigned to cover included the Fourth Street Cruise, My Waterloo Days, Sturgis Falls,
the Cedar Basin Jazz Festival, the Barbeque Loo and Iowa Irish Fest. I learned how to
effectively and creatively portray festival and parade-similar events while still
providing informative information to the community.
My favorite category of story came as a bit of a surprise to me. I have always
known I wanted to write informative and factual material but I always struggled to
connect news with the correct amount of creativity. Near the beginning of the
summer I realized that I wasnt having fun writing feature stories. I found it hard to
make them sound lively and engaging despite how well I may have covered the
story. The feature editors encouraged me to have fun with writing feature stories
and that it was okay to be a bit more descriptive with them. Once I figured that out,
feature stories became my favorite type of story to work on. I had fun cultivating
ideas to meet my feature deadlines. Some of my favorite feature stories included a
bit about the Budweiser Clydesdales, my Btrue magazine assignments about pets
on social media, a story on the Waterhawks Ski Team in Evansdale, a fun piece on a
high school band that was a hit at the Cedar Basin Jazz Festival and an article on the
Cedar Valley Pit Bull Rescue and the importance of shelter adoption. I liked writing
features so much, I signed up for JLMC 344, feature writing, for this fall semester.

The biggest challenge I faced over the course of the summer was completing
my final project, an upfront story on organ donation. An upfront story is a hard
news, multi-source story complete with statistics to back up the news given. I had
difficulty at first because I was unsure of how to proceed or how it differed from
other stories I have written. What helped me understand what my boss wanted was
remembering my multi-source story I had to write for my JLMC 202 class on
intermediate reporting. It was more detailed and in-depth than a normal everyday
news story. It was a piece I had to do a lot of research on. I talked to a person
waiting for an organ transplant, a person who had recently received an organ
transplant and someone who had a family member who gave organs. It was a hard
piece to cover - it involved a lot of careful research and it was a little emotionally
straining - but when I finished it, I felt like I had accomplished a new level of
reporting expertise.
In addition to JLMC 202, JLMC 341, my magazine publication class, helped me
greatly in understanding how to write for my magazine assignments. JLMC 242,
visual design, prepared me to work more closely with a photographer than I had
previously done for an improved and more informative photo to illustrate my
stories. My religion classes and JLMC 477, diversity coverage, helped me stay levelheaded and unbiased as I could be when I talked to people with views that differed
from my own. Even my statistics class helped me understand the statistics I
included in my upfront story. I am so glad I took JLMC 307X, basic video shooting
and editing, last semester as it helped me shoot video for the multimedia
assignments. Though I want to specialize in print and online media, I am thankful to
have the skills I need to perform in any journalism work environment.

My skills I have gained from writing with the Iowa State Daily and campus
magazines has been invaluable to me as a writing and reporting foundation.
Because of the skills I received from these campus resources, I was able to jump
right into my internship without having to ask anyone how to properly perform or
report. I already knew the various beats of coverage and the internship helped me
fine-tune my writing as well as my reporting.
The news editors were an important resource to me. They greatly helped me
improve my grammar and punctuation in my articles, an area I often find difficult.
After I would finish writing a story, I would pull up a chair next to the desk editor on
duty and read the story through with them. It helped me understand where I needed
to improve more than someone telling me would have. It helped me pick out a few
of my own mistakes that the editor may not have noticed otherwise as well, such as
name misspellings.
One area I wish I had more experience in before completing this internship
was knowledge of public affairs coverage. I had to learn how to find arrest logs and
cover a cops story from scratch as I had no previous public affairs coverage
knowledge. There was one day I had to return to the police station multiple times
because I did not know the correct questions to ask about cases and reports. For
this reason, I highly recommend that future 499 students complete JLMC 346, public
affairs reporting, prior to their internship.
I also wish there had been more communication in the newsroom. While my
coworkers were more than happy to assist me if I asked, sometimes things were
overlooked. For example, I might be working on a particular story without realizing
that it had already been assigned to someone else; an occurrence that could have
been prevented if there was just a little more communication back and forth.

Lastly, I wish I could have reported on more stories that included diversity.
While I covered a prayer vigil after the Charleston, SC shooting and a magazine
feature on a belly dancing class, I did not have a lot of opportunity to give a
minority a voice. Diversity is a beat I want to actively pursue in my future career
and I will actively continue looking for opportunities to do so.
My favorite thing about reporting is the people I am able to meet. There are
so many people from many walks in life; I always walk away with knowledge I had
not previously known before. I made connections with my co-workers in the
newsroom, they helped me greatly in offering resources for various story topics. I
know if I ever have a question about a certain beat or topic, I will be able to email
them for a helpful response from the professional viewpoint. My boss and the
editors will be valuable resources for reference letters when I start applying for
future careers.
I learned that Black Hawk County is a very close-knit community during my
internship, rural towns often help out other small towns. I formed a professional
relationship with the Cedar Bend Humane Society staff as I covered a few stories
about animal adoptions and etiquette and later began volunteering for them.
Through the shelter I discovered the Cedar Valley Pit Bull Rescue, a fairly new
rescue that not many people knew about and was able to write a feature about their
organization. I created working relationships with the coach and public relations
director of the Waterhawks Ski Team, the presidents of all the various local festivals,
local authors, and the rural community officials around the Waterloo area. I was able
to create a connection with the weekend police station coverage to the point where
I knew I could ask questions with confidence. I wrote articles on contributing
members of the community and even was able to form a cooperative relationship

with the CEO of Pizza Ranch for a business story I wrote. Through these connections
I will be able to network and obtain future references for any news story I may write,
whether for a campus publication or a town newspaper.
Before the start of the summer, I thought I wanted to be a news reporter.
Now, at the end of the summer, I know I want to be a news reporter. Every day on
the job is a new experience and holds endless possibilities for growth. Though I
loved reporting for the Iowa State Daily before, I would shy away from more
complex and in-depth assignments. Now I feel as if I am not only in the position to
report and produce an accurate article but also to lead and help other lessexperienced students with their journalism endeavors.
The internship helped me in the decision to switch my minor in religious
studies to another major. I had debated it before but never made a definite decision.
My internship put me in many situations with people with a wide range of
viewpoints regarding religion, political standing, race and sexuality. I decided to
switch my minor to a major to better educate myself on the people I will meet every
day on the job. This internship also made me realize that I want to become fluent in
a second language to better communicate with the world I will come into contact
with.
I highly recommend this internship to future 499 students. I think it provides
a taste of real-world journalism while not being an overwhelming first experience. I
used it as a tool to sharpen my technical and writing skills and challenge myself
with new genres of articles I was not familiar with. I was treated exactly like another
reporter on the job, the fact I had the word intern in my title did not lower what
my boss expected of me. The internship pairs just the right amount of
independence with education.

I would absolutely love to work for a large city newspaper or magazine in the future
and I believe my internship with the Courier has adequately prepared me on my
journey to that goal. I highly appreciate that even though the Courier is a print
publication, I was allowed to work with digital media platforms. Journalism is a
constantly changing field and I am glad my internship provided me diversity in
covering a wide range of media. This summer has not only sparked, but lit my
passion for the journalism field and I can see myself taking my education even
further in the future. I dont see myself just working in the field - I see myself
thriving.

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