By: Michael Watts II, NDG Special Contributor
The past eight weeks here at the North Dallas Gazette was an educational learning experience for me and I am highly grateful for this amazing learning opportunity. I was fortunate to have amazing coworkers that took the time out of their schedule to get to know me.
When I first started at NDG, I was nervous because I was going to go out into the real world and getting a taste of what my life would be like, once I graduated from college. In the beginning, my projects included going to Dallas City Hall and listening to the residents in the area complain about issues occurring in their neighborhood in hopes the councilmember of their district would put a plan in motion to fix the issues going on in their local district.
As time went on, I learned how to upload stories to the NDG website. I attended a couple of Dallas Independent School District’s board meetings. There I listened to parents and staff members voice their opinions on certain issues going on in the district, like the new upcoming school year budget, the horrible conditions of South Oak Cliff High School and the plan to move the district headquarters six miles away from its current location. Parents were not pleased to hear about the new location’s distance.
Some of the stories that I did include, how the city of Dallas renamed the Continental Bridge after the city’s first African- American Mayor Ronald Kirk, One of the last Tuskegee Airmen dying at the age of 94 and Hillary Clinton discussing her upcoming Economic Policies if she becomes president.
Some of my personal favorite stories that I wrote for NDG, include Nintendo’s announcement about their upcoming Pokémon Sun and Moon games coming out later this year, A focus story over self- published teenage author Larontay Chester, Dallas becoming one of the best places to live and the city council stories, because they help me learn about the issues going around in Dallas, so I can let my grandmother know what is going on in her community.
I have also written stories highlighting the amount of violence going on in America. A few of these stories included Alton Sterling, a young African- American male killed by the police in Baton Rouge. Philando Castile another young African- American male killed by the police in Falcon Heights, Minnesota and five police officers killed following a peaceful protest in Downtown Dallas.
After the shooting of the police officers, I wrote two stories that were associated with the shooting. The first story was over how the doctors at Parkland Hospital reacted to the shooting and the scenery inside the hospital. The second story was over the memorial service, that the city of Dallas had to honor the fallen officers. A few of the guest speakers included former President George W Bush, the Chief of Police Chief David Brown and President Barack Obama.
As a journalist, being at NDG has helped me a lot. It further taught me the importance of teamwork. A newspaper facility is like an assembly line, if you don’t complete your part, then everybody gets delayed and then production of the paper gets off track. I have also learned the importance of time management. When you are writing for a newspaper, you don’t have all day to write a story. You need to get the information quickly and as accurate as you can to make a story. You never want to write a story that is false. It will ruin your credibility as a journalist and it will also hurt the reputation of your company’s organization.
After having this experience with NDG, I would recommend journalism students in the Dallas area to NDG, because it’s a great opportunity to learn about print journalism. You get to learn how a newspaper is set up, the different sections in a newspaper, how to write a story for one and most importantly, the real life experience of what adults go through every day.
Once again, I’m highly grateful for this learning opportunity and I strongly feel that this experience will help me to become a better journalist than I am now.
Editor’s Note: Michael, a senior at Langston University in Langston, Oklahoma, truly grew through his internship and provided us with an opportunity to have feet on the grounds during one of the hottest stories in the city and the nation. We wish him all the best and welcome Michael to write for us in the future.
If you are interested in applying for an internship please send an email to editor@northdallasgazette. The email should include NDG Fall Internship in the headline and links or attachments of your recent writing samples. If your school requires on-going evaluations we are happy to complete any documentation as needed.
