Weekly Update

How about another productive week at the National Journal? Yes please.
Monday: This was a fabulous day at work because I did not have to come in. It was a holiday for Columbus Day, so we were given the day off because we had all been working so hard. Most of the time journalists do not typically observe actual holidays... but this was a nice exception.
Tuesday: This was a Terry Michael day! Today's guest was Tad Devine, one of the most well-known Democratic strategists and he talked about how he runs a business and campaign for candidates. I would not have even imagined it, but he also runs campaigns across the globe in places like Ukraine, Afghanistan, Bolivia, and Israel. He also takes care of Congressional house races. He worked on the Gore and Kerry campaigns as well. After the presentation, I headed downstairs to work. Today, my job was to study the kinds of breaking news alerts that different news organizations send out. I signed up for numerous alerts and built a guide so that National Journal could see how other organizations do them. My favorite breaking news update was easily NY Times because they gave you the most information in their emails. Oh, and today was my birthday...
Wednesday: This was a day to set up for the new video series that we are doing and that meant we had to go down to the studio and adjust the lights in the studio. This was a long process but it would be made much more exciting when by boss was shifting a light and accidentally dropped the studio light from the ceiling. It was slightly terrifying. I made sure after that not to stand anywhere near the lights. The light was evidently okay.
Thursday: Magazine and Terry Michael day! Today in class we had Tamar Jacoby talk about how she made the jump from journalism to immigration advocate. She told us about how she was involved in story and how none of the stakeholders would come together and that really spurred her interest on the topic. She now is the president of her advocacy organization. She believes that immigration solutions must combine the best of all worlds and isnt just a democrat of republican issue. After the talk, I found out that I was running the show for most of magazine day. I did it the week before, so I wasn't too intimidated. We also had a staff meeting that day that took up some time, but still left me with plenty of time to complete the work.
Friday: Ahh, the joys of Friday and the fact that it is the final day of the workweek.
Today was the day I worked on columns and learning how to put them into our system. It was quite the laborious process, but I finished by noon. Or at least I thought I had finished. It had forgotten about all the columns for one publication, so now on Monday I have to go back into the system and add a whole bunch of columns. Lets pray that it works out in the end. I think the IT guy has already seen enough of me this week.