Saturday, January 6, 2007
My experience
Yesterday I spent all day with Phuong, Robert and Kery. My time with them started at 8:30 a.m. when Phuong picked me up from my hotel. I was a indecisive about what to wear, but finally settled on khakis and a sweater. Well waiting for Phuong I worried I would be under-dressed, but was relieved when I discovered Phuong was wearing jeans. It turns out the P.I. has a somewhat casual dress code. We went to a beautiful house nearby to interview a lady whose basement flooded. This interview was for a story about how repair companies are backed up for months following the recent rains. The repair crew was there fixing the basement, almost 6 weeks after the leak happened.
After the interview, we went to the P.I. The P.I. looks and feels like other newsrooms I have been to. However, the P.I. newsroom has one thing the others did not; a gorgeous, up-close view of the Puget Sound. I then met Sarah, a producer for the P.I. website. She showed me how they monitor the number of clicks each page gets and which stories are the most popular. In class I learned how newspaper circulation is on the decline, while the internet use is up. It was interesting to see first-hand how newspapers are working to make sure they are involved in new media. One method the P.I. is using is to add photo galleries and slide shows with reporters talking about the pictures and experiences.
Next, I talked to another man, who is designing a portion of the P.I. website specifically designed to attract young people. These are the people who are not subscribing to newspapers. Without these new readers, newspapers will be even more in danger in the future. So to counter this, the P.I. hopes this new site, called S.P.I. will attract readers by offering them more celebrity and fashion news, alongside hard news.
After that, I went to the morning meeting with all the editors. They discussed what they liked and disliked about that day's paper. Next, they went through the stories for the next day's paper and discussed where each story should go in the paper. It was there I learned Phuong's basement story would go on the front page, exciting!
Next, I met up with Phuong and Kery and we took off the the Flying Fish Restaurant where we met Robert. They treated me to lunch and I enjoyed a delicious organic hamburger. We discussed the future of newspapers, the Daily (Kery was the managing news editor there), Seattle in general and career advice, among other subjects.
Stay tuned for a post about the second half of my day.
After the interview, we went to the P.I. The P.I. looks and feels like other newsrooms I have been to. However, the P.I. newsroom has one thing the others did not; a gorgeous, up-close view of the Puget Sound. I then met Sarah, a producer for the P.I. website. She showed me how they monitor the number of clicks each page gets and which stories are the most popular. In class I learned how newspaper circulation is on the decline, while the internet use is up. It was interesting to see first-hand how newspapers are working to make sure they are involved in new media. One method the P.I. is using is to add photo galleries and slide shows with reporters talking about the pictures and experiences.
Next, I talked to another man, who is designing a portion of the P.I. website specifically designed to attract young people. These are the people who are not subscribing to newspapers. Without these new readers, newspapers will be even more in danger in the future. So to counter this, the P.I. hopes this new site, called S.P.I. will attract readers by offering them more celebrity and fashion news, alongside hard news.
After that, I went to the morning meeting with all the editors. They discussed what they liked and disliked about that day's paper. Next, they went through the stories for the next day's paper and discussed where each story should go in the paper. It was there I learned Phuong's basement story would go on the front page, exciting!
Next, I met up with Phuong and Kery and we took off the the Flying Fish Restaurant where we met Robert. They treated me to lunch and I enjoyed a delicious organic hamburger. We discussed the future of newspapers, the Daily (Kery was the managing news editor there), Seattle in general and career advice, among other subjects.
Stay tuned for a post about the second half of my day.
# posted by Michigan Apprentice Layla Aslani @ 10:45 PM 
