Allyson Bird - Internship Diary

Oct. 27:

I finished up a second presidential campaign donor piece yesterday, this time for our Lynchburg, Va., newspaper. The story wasn't so fun this time. I spent the entire drizzly day calling donors and didn't get one who was willing to go on the record. I took my list home and made more calls until 8 p.m. -- dinner-interrupting telemarketer style. Needless to say, I didn't get the warmest reception from a lot of folks.

This kind of story is one I can do every so often but not every day. It's difficult expecting people to answer questions you wouldn't want to answer yourself. But it's finished and ready to run this Sunday.

Today I went to Democratic National Committee headquarters with my mentor at the bureau. He interviewed DNC press secretary Tony Welch, who I'd met at the Democratic National Convention this summer while working as a blogger for the Wireless Election Connection team. I was writing a piece about Republican headquarters in Boston and ran into union protesters outside of their building while a press conference was being held inside. I asked Welch if the Democratic Party had put the protesters up to the job, and he said they'd "had a talk." I took a photograph of him with my camera phone, and he took one of me. I think I looked familiar to him today, but I figured it'd be in our best interest not to jog his memory.

next entry>>