Internship Weekly Blog Week 11 (Week 4 for me)

This week was a very low-key week for me. I only had one story published on the paper this week, which was the baseball story I covered the previous week. Otherwise, all of the stories that I worked on for this week where to be put on hold for another day. Despite that, it was still a productive week and I still got a lot of work done.

My week started on Sunday where I worked for two hours on my baseball story. I then came in on Monday and I got to type a letter to the editor from someone in Ellwood. It was very different to type something of that nature as well as the idea that people still mail physical letters to people as well. I then spent the rest of the day working on and preparing for other stories. I worked 5 1/2  hours that day.

I came back on Wednesday where I worked for four hours on a combination of stories. I worked on stories in which the Ellwood Chamber of Commerce will sponsor a USO dance that it is to celebrate all of the military servicemen and women and all of the veterans. The dance will also be World War 2 themed. That story will appear in a paper next week.

I worked six hours on Thursday in which I worked on two stories. I wrote one story on how the Ellwood City Borough enforces code regulations in which I talked to the Borough manager. I also worked on a preview story in which the Lawrence County Conservation District will be having a nature camp in Ellwood on Aug 3-7. Those stories will go next week.

Finally, I worked five hours on Friday for a total of 21 total this week. I worked on a story in which I wrote about an upcoming public non-profit radio station about to launch in Ellwood.

Overall, I am still learning more and more about the newspaper process and this is a great learning experience. The only thing I still have to work on is that I still tend to be nervous when I interview other people.

Internship Weekly Blog Week 10 (Week 3 for me)

This has been my busiest week so far at my internship. Not only did I travel throughout Ellwood to get my stories done, but I also had the pressure of having more than one story that I had to work on throughout the week.

However, I feel that having more pressure and things on my plate are good for me as they make the day go by faster as well as giving me more experience along the way.

I started my work week on Tuesday in which I worked on a story that dealt with a local group of people in Ellwood who, every year, work on houses for those in need. They call this weekly event the Carpenter’s Project. I talked to the leader and one of the chairman of the project for my story.

On Wednesday, I began working on a story that took me a few days to finish. Inside an old bar, there lies a mural painted by a man in the 1940s who did it with newspapers and also did it in exchange for food and shelter. Now, with the building set to be torn down, I spent two days on this story to talk to the building’s current owner, as well as the son of the building’s former owner years ago.

Earlier in the week I also started on a story in which it would be a preview for a medical marijuana round-table discussion that will take place in Ellwood next month. It took me awhile to get into contact for both of my sources for the story. I had to talk to the person in charge of the event, as well as State Representative Jaret Gibbons, who will be the moderator of the event, on what is the stance with the substance in the state.

I was able to finish that story Friday and start working on another as well. On Saturday, I covered the semifinal baseball game in the Beaver County Colt League Championship between Ellwood City and Riverside.

Overall, it was a solid-work week as I learned how to balance multiple stories at once. I was able to work 19.5 hours this week.The only problem I have is that I sometimes get nervous when talking to people, especially when I have to interview them. That is a skill I know I have to work to improve upon.

Internship Weekly Blog Week 9 (Week 2 for Me)

My second week as a intern is now in the books and I am starting to get into a groove as far as what my weeks will be like. I started out on Sunday July 5 by spending two hours working on the festival and 10K assignments that I was assigned. On Monday, I returned two both of my stories being on the front pages of the news and sports sections respectively. That is always a good feeling. On Monday I worked around 3.5 hours working on a story which was to talk to a friend of a woman who has stage 3 cancer. She is holding a spaghetti dinner to help fundraise for her friend. After I completed that story, I began researching for any other potential story topics.

I came back on Thursday where I worked a little over six hours. I went to the Ellwood City Area Historical Society where they were having a competition to name five mannequins they have on display. It was definitely one of the more unique stories that I have ever done. Later on in the day, I interviewed a sixteen-year-old motocross rider from Lawrence County named Justin Norco, as well as his family, for a sports story profile. It was an interesting interview considering that he self-taught himself only on the weekends and is still going to the amateur championships in Tennessee and Florida.

I came back on Friday and worked around 3 hours to type up that story as well as another story I started the previous day talking to Becky Guisler from the festival committee to see how the festival went overall.

So far, I feel I am starting to get into a groove when it comes to writing stories although it can be a challenge at times to start writing stories and leads. Also, since I was trained by a number of professors and by the Globe in which deadlines are important, I notice that I tend to write stories fairly quickly. They still turn out fine as Jim Orr, my editor, says I have good structure and information. I think that he feels surprised when I get a story done faster than he imagined. Finally, I also had trouble with AP style, which has always been a reoccurring problem for me.

Internship Weekly Blog Week 8 (Week 1 for me)

Hello, this is Nicholas Vercilla. I am going into my junior year at Point Park University. I am majoring in Journalism with a minor in broadcasting. On June 30th, I started my internship at the Ellwood City Ledger in Ellwood City, PA. It is a smaller newspaper that is a branch of the larger newspaper, the Beaver County Times. On June 30th, I will introduced to the front desk staff and shown around by my supervisor, Jim Orr, who is the editor of the paper. He was busy that morning and did not have time to have my work station set up. Therefore, I only worked three hours total that day. Two were in the office with some of that time interviewing Becky Guisler, a source for my first story, which was due the next day. I then worked an hour at my home writing and sending my story to Jim. The story was a preview story for the annual Ellwood City Arts, Crafts, and Food Festival.

I was also told to cover both the festival and the annual Ellwood City 10k race which both occurred this weekend as two separate stories. On July 3rd, I worked five hours covering the festival in which I covered the “Little Miss Firecracker” Pageant, one of the biggest events at the festival. I also managed to speak with various patrons, crafts and food vendors, and members of the festival committee, including Becky again as she was the chairwoman of the committee.

On July 4th, I worked 4.5 hours to cover the 10k race in which I talked to different contestants, including the overall winner of the race, and to Ed Leymarie, the main organizer of the event.

The internship itself is paid. However, you are not paid an hourly rate. Instead, you are paid $40 for each story written. Still, for my first week making $120, I would say that it is not bad.

Overall, I think I will enjoy the internship. It is a smaller paper in a smaller city so the stories will not be as big as they would be in New York or even Pittsburgh which is good for me as I feel that this is a good learning experience. This is still real-world experience. The only challenge so far is that there is no set schedule for me to work as Jim will tell me when to come in. I don’t like that because that means I could always be called in to work and can never have time to plan for anything else.

Welcome to My Portfolio

Hello, my name is Nicholas Vercilla. I am a journalism student at Point Park University. Welcome to my digital portfolio. In this portfolio, you will get a first-hand look at my experience that I have accomplished during my time here at Point Park. I have categorized this blog into different pages.

The first page is my cover letter. The second page is my personal resumé. The third page is my personal picture. The next five pages are organized by the type of writing that I have done at Point Park. The pages go from my published news articles, published feature articles, published sports articles, published opinions work, and any unpublished work that I may have written.

Each story will come with a link to the online version of the story on its respective website, a scanned picture of the actual newspaper it came printed on, and a brief 2-4 sentence description of the story and its importance.  The last page is the contact page, which includes both my home and cell phone numbers, email, and where to follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Link to my television reporting website