For an unpaid intern, I’ve got quite a few deadlines on my plate. This isn’t something I begrudge, as I actually enjoy the work I’m doing and see this as something valuable in the long run.
To be fair, the work is less than what I’d be expected to submit in school. Two interviews, an article to be fact-checked, and a list of boba spots in the city– with over two weeks to work on.
The problem is I procrastinated and didn’t do much last week. It’s now Sunday and my former manager has organized a little dinner for everyone who has ever worked in our department.
But I also want to sit and work away. It’s quite hard to come up with a list of boba spots when I haven’t even been to a few of them. I almost feel like I should get off my ass right this very moment and take the train to the nearest bubble tea spot on the list. My journalistic integrity is at stake here!
Jokes aside, I find the newsroom and the magazine publishing world to be so vastly different.
I was telling an award-winning journalist friend about my listicle assignment. “Isn’t it hard?!” he asked me. I very much agreed. I had to come up with 20-plus restaurants offering Mother’s day menus.
“People always say how it’s just a ‘listicle’ but it takes a lot to gather all this information, wrangle it and write it into bite-sized information. That’s why I never judge any form of journalism.”
He was right. I remember a few people quipping “Oh all you have to do is write a listicle and you get paid!” or how a classmate said they’d rather intern elsewhere, “They only publish listicles.”
And yet, I found writing the news to be easier. Straightforward.
How does one write creatively, persuasively and entertainingly? That in itself requires more mental effort than following a standard format.
