A Day in the Life

Today I had the wonderful opportunity to be a shadow at the Concord Monitor. It was tiring, yes, but educational and fabulous as well. Upon arrival and to my delight I saw that my fellow shadow for the day was Emma Scudder, of whom I played soccer with long ago. That day Emma and I were placed under the care of Meg Heckman, the Community Editor. After a tour of the newsroom and the presses, we headed off to a meeting which included the other editors as well as the editor-in-chief. Here we saw what goes into laying out a week of papers. The flow of creative ideas was quite impressive and seemed so effortless to these seasoned professionals. Next, Meg took us to the Monitor online to show how the paper was using its technological part as we waited to have lunch with Feliz, the editor-in-chief. We had a lovely meal at CC Tomatoes where we discussed colleges, new ideas and all things Monitor. I was very impressed by the way Feliz was able to come up with these great ideas for the paper at a drop of a hat, but then again, you’d expect the editor-in-chief to be skilled. After lunch Emma and I perused the Neighbors section of old papers to get a feel for what we would be writing as interns soon. It was from here the action started. Trent Williams, a reporter for the Monitor took us both to the Police Station to do a few interviews. First we met with Detective Mike Cassidy, an accident reconstructionist who took us through the process of a scene investigation. This info goes towards a story Trent plans to write for later in the week following up the report of 4 pedestrian accidents this month. After the detailed play-by-play we sat and talked with Chief Deputy John Duval about all the ties between the police and the media. My first trip out into the field was definitely and exciting one. By the time we returned to the Monitor, it was the end of the day and time to leave. We said our farewells and I headed to my car. Feeling quite accomplished and slightly drained, I drove out of my day in the life of a Concord Monitor employee.