Hour Media // Editorial Intern // Fall 2011

Amanda MeadeEditorial Intern // Fall 2011

FINDING AN INTERNSHIP to satisfy the requirement for my degree proved to be not as daunting a task as I initially thought it may be. While I was recently promoted to a full-time position at the office I am employed, I was worried about fitting an intern-ship into my schedule and concerned about the loss of income as nearly all journalism internships are unpaid.I initially applied for five different internships. Out of those five, I figured I would hear back from others before I heard from Hour. I’m not sure why I felt the need to sell myself short, I suppose I only figured my prior experience may have gotten me a call back from one of the other publications, that maybe I wouldn’t fit in as well at Hour. I was completely wrong. From August 22 to December 6, 2011, I was an editorial intern at Hour Media, which proved to be a fantastic learning experience.

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES My main task as an intern was formatting the content from the print editions of Hour Detroit and Detroit Home to make them suitable

for web. This involved packaging the InDesign files of the designed pages and familiarizing myself with Rivista, the content management system used by Hour Media to post content online. The task required me to be organized and detail-oriented. I had to pay attention to very small details, such as finding a title of a book in copy that needed to be italicized when formatting a particular story for the web.Hour Detroit: Hour Detroit is published every month, so I was able to take part in posting the issues from September through December.Detroit Home: As Detroit Home is published four times a year, I was still able to be involved in the posting of two issues: fall and winter. The fall issue was actually my first experience with working with Rivista, and my last few weeks of the internship were taken up by posting the winter issue, even though it wasn’t set to go live until the end of the month. It was really interesting to be able to notice the progress I had made from posting the first issue to the last. Once I had completed formatting all

LEFT: My name in the masthead of Hour Detroit. OPPOSITE: My contributor paragraph and picture, found in the December issue of Hour Detroit for my contribution of the Electric Six interview.

of the necessary stories I would have to design splash page banners for the main page and for three additional pages for Hour Detroit, a total of eight banners per month. Detroit Home only required four banners for the main page. This task would consist of me deciding on a list of articles I felt were most relevant for banners and send-ing my ideas to Rebecca Powers, the Editor in Chief, to be approved. Once I had a finalized list I would take graphic aspects of each story de-sign and fit them into their respective amount of pixels for each banner. I en-joyed having a bit of creative freedom while still just taking aspects from a pre-designed layout, and I was pleased with the finished result of all of my banners.

ADDITIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES I was also asked to compile the music listings for the Arts and Entertainment sections in Hour Detroit for the months of December,

January and February. For December and January I also wrote the quick blurbs that went along with the listings.Often I would pitch story ideas as they came to me. I was able to attend two editorial meetings, which I was glad to be a part of. I provided at least one idea in each of those meetings, but usu-ally my pitching would involve sending my ideas via email. Many of the story ideas I offered were shot down, but that proved to be a learning experience and was much for the better. It helped me to realize the exact kind of stories Hour Detroit was looking for. In turn I was able to think of even more suitable ideas.I was occasionally asked to fact-check various stories as well. They usually consisted of me checking names and prices of items and verifying the contact information for how and where to purchase said items. Some of the information was readily available online, and some I needed to call

to verify.Another smaller aspect of my required tasks was occasionally covering the hour-long lunch breaks for the front desk receptionist. All interns were involved and we had a set schedule, and we rotated so we only had to cover a few times each. It definitely wasn’t a far stretch for me, as I work as an office assistant at my other place of work. I would have to cover between 12:30 and 1:30 p.m., and during that time I would have to answer calls and politely handle any incoming guests. I would also make sure to bring some aspect of my work with me as to stay as productive as possible even away from my computer. It was a good chance to get research done on whatever story idea I was developing at the time.

PERSONAL MEANING OF THE EXPERIENCEThroughout my internship at Hour Media I was able to combine three of my favorite aspects of the

As an intern for Hour Detroit I was involved in posting content from the September, October, November and December issues.

journalism industry: writing, design and new media. Even further, working with Hour Detroit was great because its con-tent is directly up my alley of interests. I also felt that this internship gave me a perfect example of how these kinds of publications are run. I actually appreciated the environ-ment and atmosphere so much that as I would hope to have started my own magazine one day, I imagine it will be ran similar to Hour Media.

INTERNAL COMMUNICATION CLIMATECommunication seemed to flow very well throughout Hour Media. I was able to get assistance easily whenever I had a question on anything I was working on or anything I was expected to do.I felt as though I fit in straight away, everyone around me seemed welcoming and no one treated me as something less due to my title.New ideas are also absolutely encour-aged. In my final meeting with Rebecca Powers, she commented on how she appreciated my willingness to pitch ideas, regardless of many being shot down.Self-starting was very much encour-aged and accepted as well. The staff

around me often seemed very busy, and I believe my supervisor greatly appreciated my ability to start projects on my own. A lot of Rivista I learned from just jumping in and doing it, although I did notice many similarities between that and Tumblr, the site I use to blog. That was very helpful through-out the course of my posting. But I also must give credit to Gerald Blakeslee, the web project lead. On the first day of my internship he went through the basics of Rivista and he presented it in a way that was very easy for me to grasp.

EXTERNALHour Detroit: Some statistics of the read-ers of Hour Detroit are as follows: (infor-mation taken from www.hourdetroit.com):• 56% of readers are female, 44% male.• Readers are typically between 25-65 years of age, with the median age 43.• 90% of Hour Detroit readers are homeowners.Detroit Home: The audience of Detroit Home encompasses a great range of individuals, all who have the follow-ing in common: a need to distinguish their personal style within their homes. I feel my work helped this company to reach their goals by assisting with the ease of finding all

the stories online. As one must be subscribed to take full advantage of the online content, I liked being involved with the content at that extent. I believe I assisted to make things more accessible by posting them online.

LOOKING FORWARDI knew that my time at Hour Media would bring on a learning experience, but I gained an immense amount of knowledge from being involved there over the past three months. I have a lot of experience in the industry from working at The Oakland Post for nearly three years and being involved in several other publications, but I do believe the exposure I received at Hour was more fitting to what I am sure I will see in jobs to come.I’m confident in the fact that I worked very hard throughout the entirety of this internship. I decided in the beginning that as I wasn’t being compensated monetarily, I was going to make sure that the internship paid off in experience. I wanted to work just as hard as I would have in exchange for a

OPPOSITE: While working at Hour Media I was involved with posting the fall and winter issues of Detroit Home. BELOW: I compiled a list of seasonal beer names at local breweries for the December issue of Hour Detroit. RIGHT: My interview with Tyler “Dick Valentine” Spencer of Electric Six, also in the December issue of Hour Detroit.

paycheck, not only to benefit myself but to let my coworkers and supervisors understand my value.This experience also gave me confidence in the fact that I have something to offer a publication, and I feel as though it won’t be difficult for me to find work in this industry.I hope to continue working with Hour Media as a freelance writer. I plan to maintain a strong working relation-ship with several of my contacts there.

For a detailed account of each day of my internship, go to:makingthingshappeninmi.tumblr.com.

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