JESSICA DaSILVA

I’ve been sparse this summer because of a tough no blogging policy at my press internship with Sen. Bill Nelson’s (D-Fla.) office. But now that it’s over and I’m back in school for my final semester, I’m ready to chat about the lessons I learned.

Having a non-journalism internship was a new experience for me. I realize it might seem strange that a student so dedicated to journalism would take a government relations internship, but these past few months, I’ve been watching all my friends graduate … and not find jobs.

There are a select few who found internships or jobs at small newspapers, but many of them have gone to law school, grad school, PR firms or back home to their parents because they can’t find anything. When I got rejected from 24 internships, I realized I needed to explore the other options that are available to someone with a journalism degree.

It was definitely not as bad as I was afraid it would be. The press shop I worked in consisted of four full-time staffers, and to my surprise, they all loved journalism. They pored over newspapers every morning, joked with reporters on the phone and lamented the state of the journalism industry. They didn’t try to avoid questions and they weren’t slimy people. Yeah, they were obviously trying to promote the senator, but they weren’t evil.

I learned a lot of valuable lessons about government relations, mainly to be straightforward with reporters and to “make news, don’t fake news.” They were comforting lessons that made me realize that there are PR professionals who love and respect journalism as much as those working in the industry.

It reminded me of something my old professor Richard Benedetto once said about being a political reporter, “To be a political reporter, you must love politicians.” Well, from what I could tell, to work in government relations, it seems you must love political reporters.

So where do I go from here? Well, this semester I have internship with the city of Gainesville’s press office, overseeing their social networking and Web presence and doing a little bit of video work. These two internships haven’t deterred me in the slightest from pursuing my dream to be a reporter, but if for some reason I couldn’t reach that goal, I know I’ll be OK.

And as for where I’m headed after graduation, I’ve enthusiastically accepted a six- to nine-month internship with the Las Vegas Sun. I’m considering this my big break and at this point, I’m pretty much counting down the days until I can head West. Great things lie ahead, and I can’t wait to live it up.

So last week was like, week of features. Those who know me know how much I can’t stand writing features.

It’s not that I don’t have an appreciation for the art, it’s just that if it’s not a hard feature, it’s hard for me to get into it. I don’t like to read about soft features; hence, i don’t like to write them either.

Today I was given two more soft features. *sigh*

I thought my week would be boring until I got an e-mail from Vidisha Priyanka on the multimedia desk.

I had sent her some multimedia ideas I had last week, and to my surprise, she liked them! She wants to meet on Wednesday to talk about them further and see if I could help with some of the research and reporting required for the projects.

I would tell you what they were, but I have a *friend interning for the St. Pete Times, and I’ll be damned if he leaks it to the competition! I will say they are political in nature, but until they’ve been realized, it’ll be a huge mystery.

*Not that you would, but I still have to take certain precautions.

A relatively recent post of mine sparked some debate in the comments below between Deux Ex Malcontent blogger Chez Pazienza and me. After the debate, a reader asked us for our opinions on the case of Washington Post writers David Broder and Bob Woodward.

First, here is a short summary of the backstory via WaPo ombudsman Deborah Howell’s column:

The propriety of David Broder and Bob Woodward taking fees or having expenses paid for speeches to special-interest groups was raised recently by Ken Silverstein, Washington editor of Harper’s magazine, in his Washington Babylon blog. Silverstein found the fees unseemly and asked whether editors had approved them.

This is my response:

This is a mistake of both the newspaper and the writers.

I like to believe journalists want to keep their credibility intact. I also like to believe that newspapers would set some specific guidelines so journalists could ensure they keep their credibility intact. That’s not always the case. Here, the newspaper has vague guidelines on speeches.

Even so, I can’t let Broder off very easily. He should know better! Even if he didn’t mean to look sketchy, you can’t really avoid that when you’re accepting $12,000 from a special interest group for a speech or letting them pay for your expenses at some fancy hotel in Florida.

Now, if there were extenuating circumstances such as your house getting foreclosed on, I could understand that. It doesn’t make it right, but I can’t say I would blame anyone for that.

Broder also said he ran it by his editors, but they forgot. I can see how that would happen because editors are generally very busy and have 500 thoughts running through their heads at once. But I can’t help but wonder - is this really WaPo’s speech request procedure? They don’t have a form to fill out or some kind of intranet request thingy? Honestly, I’m a little surprised at how informal that approach is. It seems like an easy way to slip into a troublesome situation.

Broder has said he’s embarrassed by the mistakes made and the embarrassment he brought the paper. This makes me think all of this was unintentional. Yet he should really know better than that, especially after working at WaPo for 30 some odd years.

Woodward is in a much different scenario than Broder. Unlike Broder, Woodward gave the money from his speeches to charity. While I still don’t like that Woodward was speaking at these events, I’m not going to condemn him for using the money in a noble manner.

The bottom line is that he didn’t keep it for himself, which makes me less inclined to think he’s doing something shady. And I’m not sure if you can really be swayed by money you don’t keep; it’s not like you owe an organization anything when it doesn’t pay your bills.

I realize the situation is very unclear, but those are my thoughts based on the information I’ve been given. If anyone has anything else they’d like to add, I’d really like to read it.

So The St. Petersburg Times education blog, The Gradebook, reported on some statements former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush made at the Orlando education summit.

This is what Jeb said in response to a question about vouchers:

“Let me start over, Ron. If you were a Martian, and parachuted down, and you were an expert on business systems or an expert on education for that matter, and you were sent by the Martian government to study other places and you landed here, and you were asked to report back, you would not design this system.”

This is what I would call “loljeb.”

I love politics. I like to talk politics, write politics, read politics…

I like to think I do this in moderation. I can’t engross myself in Washington shenanigans all the time… that just wouldn’t be normal or healthy. Plus, I have other passions I like to devote myself to like blogging, reading fiction, drinking, drawing (don’t worry, i never drink AND draw) and bad reality TV.

The Miami Herald’s political team could use some moderation in its use of AP wire and its focus on the national scene.

I subscribe to A LOT of politics feeds. I don’t read everything from all of them, but I can NEVER read everything from the Herald’s national news feed - there’s just too much!

I counted how many articles came in through some of my feeds yesterday (6/19) and here is what I found:

• NY Times - 12
• USA Today - 19
• WaPo - 25
• The Miami Herald - 40

Now, I think 25 is excessive; however, the Washington Post IS IN WASHINGTON. It’s the local paper! Why is The Miami Herald cranking out almost twice as many political articles as WaPo? What more could the Herald have to say about Washington than The Washington Post??

And another thing - look at who wrote these 40 posts:

• AP - 36
• Miami Herald reporters - 2
• McClatchy D.C. reporters - 1
• 404 error - 1

Aren’t those numbers kind of sketchy? McClatchy has one of the most impressive bureaus in D.C. Why do they need AP stories?

And to break it down by subject:

• International/National news - 4
• National news - 25
• National/State - 8
• State - 2
• Local - 1

OK, I’ve lived in Washington; people there snort, sleep, shit politics. They can’t get enough.

People in Miami do not like politics as much as people in Washington, D.C.

No, I haven’t consulted a survey, and I don’t have a reference to back it up. I don’t need one. It’s common sense. Washington, D.C., is a one-company town. Everyone’s job is somehow related to the government. So, everyone wants to know what the government is doing and they want to know everything. They want to know what the three branches are doing, what public administrations are up to, what lobbyists and grassroot organizations are cooking up, and much more.

Miami is not like that.

There is no reason The Miami Herald should have 40 articles about national and international news on this feed. There isn’t a reason for it to have 25! If 12 a day is a good enough number for the NY Times’ national news feed, shouldn’t it be good for The Miami Herald?

I’m not slighting the people in Miami. I’m just saying that people in Miami can get this news from a nationally circulated newspaper, instead of AP updates from The Miami Herald. They don’t need the Herald to tell them what’s going on in Washington. What they DO need is for the Herald to tell them how the happenings in Washington relate to them in Miami.

Florida’s politics are overlapping more with the nation every day. I mean, our governor is a rumored VP candidate for McCain. And let’s not get into how President Bush wants to start drilling holes off our coastlines.

So I’m not saying that the Herald needs to stop political reporting, just maybe rethink its focus. It is not WaPo, NY Times or USA Today - it’s The Miami Herald, and it can’t forget that, lest it forgets its community.