June 26

With July 4th a little over a week away, my editor Kathy thought it would be a good idea to write a story on a citizen of Woburn who either recently became a United States citizen or was trying to in the near future. The hard part so far has been trying to find that person. I've called the clerks office at town hall, the YMCA (in hopes that their ESL Adult classes might lead me to a new citizen), and several other outlets but so far have had no luck. I'm hoping a woman from the Y calls me back before Monday because the story's a timely one. The sooner I find someone the better.

In the issue that came out today, I had 3 bylines. One for the police log which I do every week, another for a brief follow up story I wrote on a Woburn man who was arrested during a drug deal, and the third for my Wyman Elementary story that ended up getting pulled from last week's issue.
Monday I have a meeting with Woburn's Mayor Thomas McLaughlin which should be a good experience. I'm interviewing him about a new reverse 911 system that was recently set up in town. I'll stay posted on how that one goes.

June 19

This past week I wrote a story about the Wyman Elementary School that went into detail about why the school was named what it was. I spent Friday walking around town doing person on the street interviews to see if anyone knew who Wyman was. The interviews were a little difficult to get through and after speaking with about a dozen people, not including the principle of Wyman Elementary, I wrote that story up.
On Monday things got a little more exciting when two men robbed a Citizen's Bank around 11:30 in the morning. It was my first on the scene breaking news story. I went to the bank looking for witnesses and questioned police officers, wrote my story and had it put up on the newspapers website as soon as it was completed.
On top of that, I did my usual Woburn police log and had all three of those stories published in today's paper.

June 12 2008

I just wrapped up my first week as an intern at the Woburn Advocate in Massachusetts and already have a sense that this summer will be a busy one. My first published story was about communicable diseases people can contract from mosquitoes and ticks (West Nile Virus, Lyme Disease, etc.).
I also went to the Woburn Police Station on Monday and wrote up the police log for the paper. Typing out all the crimes reported in the town over the past week.
I also had a reaction story assigned to me about Barack Obama after he clinched the democratic nomination, but my prime interview target didn't seem enthused to do it. I spoke with him once and and am trying to get a hold of him again for an upcoming issue.