Excited to enter the business

By Alex Mayster ‘10 - Journalism major

The idea of spending my summer working at a newspaper was exciting, but interning at the Chicago Tribune ­­­— that was a dream come true.

I grew up with the Tribune, turning to the paper to keep up-to-date on the latest news. So once I decided to pursue journalism as a career it only made sense to set a goal of one day writing for the Midwest’s most read newspaper. Although I still don’t technically work there, I am now one step closer.

This summer I was lucky enough to “work” in a place where tourists spend time taking pictures and trying to get inside. The Tribune Tower, which is located on Michigan Avenue, was built in 1922 and has stones from all across the world (from the Taj Mahal to the Berlin Wall) in the outer walls of the building. As cool as it was dodging out-of-towners to get into the place I worked, the real fun started on the inside.

My job was split into two different projects: working with the prep sports section until the season wrapped up and serving as a copy editor on the main sports desk. Working in the high school section required me to answer phones, record scores, set up schedules and update the Web site. This seemed a little dull at first but once the playoffs started I was more into high school sports than I have been since, well, high school. This was so valuable because I was able to learn some HTML and gain a better understanding of how the Web works.

After doing that for four or five weeks, I began serving as a copy editor for the sports section. This meant I was reading a lot of stories and coming up with headlines, subheads, and captions for the pictures. By the time I saw the stories, they had already been laid out so coming up with headlines was harder than one might think. You have to be able to get the point of the story across, and add some flare, in the perfect number of letters. Doing these things has given me such an appreciation for all the small things people do to produce a newspaper every day.

I learned so much while working at the Tribune. The number of articles I’ve read and stories I have edited has taught me a lot about the business. Seeing what it is like at a daily, metropolitan newspaper has been amazing, and it left me excited to enter the business.

The experience didn’t end at work. With the money I made from the internship, and a little help from my dad, I was able to sublet an apartment just blocks from Michigan Avenue and the beach. Spending this summer downtown has been amazing from an educational standpoint, but it also has been a lot of fun.