My Interning Life: Melbourne Storm RLC
Posted: March 26, 2012 Filed under: Aubrey | Tags: Aubrey Hamlett, Interns, Internship, La Trobe University, Melbourne Storm, NRL, Rugby, Rugby League, Work experience Leave a comment »Hi Everyone,
At uni this semester I am undertaking an internship subject where we are required to do 120 hours worth of unpaid work experience. I already intern at Milk PR and, I will be doing a weeks worth of work experience at Cosmopolitan Magazine in April. It seems that these were not enough for me. I wanted to do more interning.
Late on a Sunday afternoon I was doing some homework for my internship subject and was writing down organizations I’d like to work for. Melbourne Storm was on my list.
I had met Social Media Manager Daniel Pinne at a photo shoot for Milk PR and Heartkids. Daniel was actually following me on twitter so we swapped contact details. I decided on a whim to send Daniel a quick email asking if he was still looking for interns. He replied the next day and we set up a phone interview.
I emerged from my home study after my conversation with Daniel and announced to my Dad, “Guess who is Melbourne Storm’s newest intern?” and he gave me a hi-5 and we discussed the challenge that lay ahead of me.
I’m not going to lie. I know little about NRL and about Melbourne Storm. A year ago rugby was not even in my vocabulary. How much things can change in a year.
Because of a university assignment I fell in love with rugby union and the Melbourne Rebels. Now because of my determination to find some work experience at a sports organization, I find myself working for the other rugby code – rugby league – and Melbourne Storm.
A year ago I also knew nothing about public relations and I look at how far I have come. I have recently finished up the PR for Sexpo Sydney with my boss Shereen. I set up several radio interviews for the international Sexpo talent such as Ron Jeremy, sent countless emails to the media locking in press, kept a WIP file of all my progress and wrote up media schedules for talent. I couldn’t have imagined doing these tasks by myself a year ago.
Yesterday I went to my first NRL game, Melbourne Storm v Sydney Roosters. Storm crushed the Roosters 44-4. I felt lucky to have experienced the game from such an incredible view, up high in the press box. Billy Slater is an absolute freak, I would almost compare him to Geelong’s Steve Johnson because of their abilities to read the play and score the un-scoreable.
My tasks during the match were to keep an eye on the Storm’s twitter feed, take photos of the match for a half time facebook post. At half time, I updated Storm’s facebook page with the photo I had taken and updated the page again at full time. Daniel told me that he was aiming for the days overal facebook ‘likes’ to be around 5,000. The page received well over that.
Storm’s official twitter page was going nuts. After the game I was in charge of asking fans a couple of questions to keep the conversation going and kept using the hashtag ‘#purplepride’. When I asked who was the best player on ground yesterday, many fans replied with one to three players but noted the entire team worked collectively for the 40-point roasting.
Later this week I will officially start at Melbourne Storm as a Social Media Intern.
Embarking on this new adventure at Melbourne Storm does make me nervous. I know I am capable of doing the work and learning everything I can from Daniel and the team. I would also hope that I bring a different perspective to my internship and some new ideas.
I realize how much of a chance Daniel is taking on me and I hope I can fullfil his expectations.
I also know that I’m not doing this internship without any fellow student support. Another LTU student Jonathan Demos will be blogging for Storm this season (Jonathan is also the match reporter for the Box Hill Hawks). Past featured intern Dion Bennett will also blog for the Storm on the odd occasion.
If I can give a piece of advice to interns and students reading this wondering how I did it all…my advice is to be proactive. You have to at some point stop talking about what you’re going to do and just simply do it.
Start that blog, create your own twitter account, write articles, get published and send out your resume to organizations asking about internships. Get your foot in the door in the media industry any way you can.
I honestly thought I wouldn’t have a chance this year after my attempts at finding a sports internship were looking slim. As one door closes, another door opens and, I suppose sometimes it’s a little bit of luck and being at the right place at the right time.
It is also your determination and belief in yourself to just send one more email and ask. Who knows you might eventually get a ‘yes’ like I did.
You can follow Melbourne Storm and my new boss Daniel Pinne on twitter. You can also read yesterday’s Melbourne Storm match report written by Dion.
My Interning Life: I want to be a Sports Journalist…
Posted: March 5, 2012 Filed under: Aubrey, Intern Profiles | Tags: Aubrey Hamlett, Communications, Interns, Journalism, Journalist, La Trobe University, Luke Jones, Media, Melbourne Rebels, Rebels, Social Media, Super Rugby, Twitter, upstart magazine, Waratahs Leave a comment »
Hi interns,
Following on from my post about how to be published writing about sport or news in general, I submitted an article last week and was published online.
I pitched an article to upstart magazine aiming to interview Melbourne Rebels player, Luke Jones and discuss the challenges of the upcoming Super Rugby Season.
This is how I did it.
1. Coming up with the idea
I met Melbourne Rebels forward Luke Jones last year at the Beyond Coconut event that I was involved in through Milk PR. I introduced myself and had a discussion with him about the team and the 2011 season. I mentioned that I would like to interview him so Luke gave me his contact details. I kept in touch with Luke and asked two weeks ago about doing an interview before the Super Rugby season started.
2. Media organization approval
Before I could interview Luke, I had to get approval from the Melbourne Rebels Media Manager, David. I had met David at the first pre season trial match in Geelong because I helped out with some tweeting for the Rebels. I had also been in contact with David since mid last year discussing work experience. David gave me his approval after I explained who I was interviewing, what the article would be about and where it would be published. David told me to more or less ‘go for it.’
3. Researching and conducting the Interview
Once Luke had agreed to being interviewed, I looked at his player profile and googled news articles about the young forward. I wrote down my questions about his own playing history and of course my questions about the Rebels up coming season.
4. Pitching the article
I sent off a quick email to the summer editors at upstart magazine;
Hi upstart, I am planning on writing a story about the upcoming Super 15 Rugby (union) season. I’ve arranged to do an interview with a player from the Melbourne Rebels, Luke Jones.
The Rebels have a lot to live up to this season with new star recruits and Wallabies James O’Connor and Kurtley Beale. Jones was the first Aussie school boy to be given a Rookie contract playing for Western Force in Perth.
I will aim to ask him about the Rebels and the upcoming Super Ruby season and discuss his own goals for the 2012 season.Please let me know if this interests you – rugby is rarely featured on upstart.
Thanks
5. Conducting the Interview
I spoke with Luke on the phone for about 20 minutes. My journalist boyfriend told me 3-4 minutes would have been long enough. He said the length of my interview with Luke simply created more work for myself in transcribing and finding the correct quotes to use. Lesson learnt!
6. Writing the article
After I spent an hour or so transcribing (yes, okay journalist boyfriend you told me so) my interview with Luke, I highlighed sections of what he said that I would use in my article. It took me about half an hour to draft my article, and another half hour to read over and edit it to make sure I was happy with it.
7. The waiting game
On Monday morning, I sent my article off to the upstart team. I attached a photo of my own and some links to photos of Luke to accompany the article. I gave a brief summary of what I had written about and also suggested a publish date (by Thursday as the Rebels played on Friday night).
I waited.
By 4pm that afternoon, I had my response.
Thanks very much for that Aubrey, good article. It will probably get a run this Thursday.
Success! My article was published with no editorial changes made. Perrrrfect.
8. What did I learn?
From this experience of writing my article, I learnt two key things. Firstly, never interview someone for 20 minutes if it is for a short article. For features, that length is…ok. Secondly I learnt keeping your article short, simple and to the style of your aimed publisher will help you in the long run. My article was published with no changes made to it by the upstart team.
Thanks for reading, I hope this information is useful to students wanting to get published and some of the steps you have to take to get there.
You can read the article I wrote and follow the Melbourne Rebels on Twitter.Post Script: In the article I wrote, I mentioned Luke was most looking forward to playing against the team he grew up wanting to play for, the NSW Waratahs. Luke got his wish on Friday night as he lined up as no.6 left blindside flanker. It was a very physical match. The Waratahs were constantly being physical towards Rebels players, especially in the scrum. Late in the second term, Luke probably had enough and ended up punching a Tahs player and gave away a penalty. Good on him I say, he’s a Rebel through and through. Nothing like a bit of retaliation and heart to show he wants to win against the people he grew up idolising. C’mon Rebels.
