New Internship Opportunities

I decided to explore other options for internships, so I sent out resumes to Seventeen Magazine, CosmoGIRL, Rolling Stone, and Alternative Press. Although a summer internship would be great I would rather have one during the Fall semester. I am waiting on their responses.

Outfoxed

Although this is my third time watching outfoxed, it is still an impactful and thought provoking movie.

It is so hard to be unbiased in the news world. First we are all human and we are biased by nature, second almost all news sources are funded by some big corporation or a bunch of small ones. The advertisers also have an indirect say as to what is reported and what isn't, those are known as gatekeepers. The gatekeepers are usually the editors or the someone around that status, and they decide what gets reported on and what doesn't. The gatekeepers usually have the advertisers in mind when they decide what is reported.

In Outfoxed we saw how Rupert Murdoch is the gatekeeper for Fox News and he sends out memos as to what gets reported and how it is portrayed. As an aspiring journalist this is extremely terrifying to me. I want to report the news as news, not as a version of it, but to get to a position to really make a change I know I will have to play the game for awhile. My only hope is that I don't get lost along the way.

The Internet needs Copy Editors

I, like almost everyone else, use facebook daily. One of the applications that facebook has is Bumper Stickers; which are cute little quotes or pictures with funny things on them to send to your friends or attach to your own profile. As I looked through the stickers I noticed more and more were grammatically incorrect or they had blatant spelling errors. I realized that not only did people not care about their lack of grammatical skills, they had no problem broadcasting them to the (facebook) world. I feel that now, more than ever there should be a call to action for copy editors to take on the Internet world with more force.

With slang and texting all these social networking sites allow this deterioration of the English language and I think that there should be some sort of policing before grammar is lost. I struggle with it, and I know how easy it is to slip into the informal world we have created for ourselves.

Other possible internships

This past week I talked to this girl Amanda, who I know through some work functions, who works at Rolling Stone, she wants me to put together a resume and send it to her along with some things I have written in the past. I also talked to one of my dad's co-workers Aliesha, and she said she could get me an internship at CBS. I told her I would be intouch with her but to be honest, I don't really want it. But it's always good to have a back up.

An odd way to start a (possible) internship

At my father's house for his annual Super bowl Party there were so many people, most of them I knew from working with him, some my family, some my sorta-family, and some I had no clue. While I was at the Tiki Bar, my dad introduced me to a woman, named Michele McDonald. Michele works for SCENE NY Magazine; she is the Assistant Society Entertainment Editor. We started talking about her magazine, and my major, some of the events we have covered separately, and need for an internship. She told me about the new section of the magazine SCENE is opening up with and how they are going to start to look for interns soon.

I had never heard of SCENE NY Magazine until I met Michele, but after checking out the website, it looks like something that touches upon all of my interests. The major categories for the magazine are Restaurants, Nightlife, Travel, Music, Fashion, etc.  My favorite part of the magazine is that it encompasses everything from "Manhattan to Montauk." 

She gave me her card, and naturally being in the age of technology I looked her up on facebook. We "facebooked" each other a couple of times, and we are in the process of setting up a lunch date for next week. This just reinstates my belief that no matter ho much you know, it's about who you know.

The Role of a Copy Editor

I feel that the role of a copy editior does have a place in my life. I am the type of person who types out full sentences while texting. I write "you're" instead of "ur." Also my spelling and grammar are not the greatest. I know that it is important to be able to pick out the problems as a copy editior, I feel that becoming one will greatly improve my grammar skills.

I detest getting text messages from my friends that have numbers in the middle of a bunch of letters, or when a new "slang" word comes out and it means somethign compleelty different from it's original meaning. I think that the informalness of texts, e-mails, and IMs are leading to the demise of the way we speak and write. Now don't get me wrong, I use "lol" all the time, but I try and make sure things are spelled correctly and that my messages make sense, which is more than I can say for most people my age.

Copy editing to me is a valuable asset.