“The newspaper and media business is a career path I am a lot more interested in exploring post-grad.”

              My name is Maureen McDermott. I am a Junior at Iowa State University studying Communications and History. This past summer, I interned at the Spencer Daily Reporter. I had a great experience at the Daily Reporter. Throughout my time working there this summer, I learned a great deal about the newspaper business, how to write for a newspaper, and the Spencer community through various writing topics. I saw the internship opportunity in the Spencer Daily Reporter over winter break and thought that it would be a good experience for me to work on my writing skills. Going into the internship, I had no idea how much I would learn and how much I would be able to improve my writing and communication skills.

              This summer, I wrote stories for special sections, I reported on events happening in Spencer, and I also took pictures for the paper. I worked on Spencer 2026 Progress Edition throughout the summer. I got to interview multiple business owners around the community. This was a tremendous learning opportunity for me. It was great to learn about so many different businesses and get to talk to so many different people who have great achievements in their professional careers. It was also very fun and informative to go to special events in the community that I had never been to before.

              Working in an office setting was something that I had never done before. Being able to watch and be a part of how an office setting and business runs proficiently is an experience I believe will be useful to me in whatever field I go into. A part of the internship that I thought was a great learning experience was being a part of the weekly editorial meetings. Being able to listen to my editor, Randy, and staff writer Nick present their ideas and talk about topics for the paper was very interesting. Randy would also give us our assignments for the week and explain to us his visions for that week’s edition.

               Prior to my internship, I didn’t know very much about the newspaper and media business. After my experience this summer, the newspaper and media business is a career path I am a lot more interested in exploring post-grad.