Experiences at Pocono Record

Michael was selected as an intern with the 2004 Dow Jones Newspaper Fund, one of the nation's most prestigious newspaper journalism internships.

Initially, Michael spent 10 days at the Pennsylvania State University for an intensive copy editing residency. While there, Michael attended numerous journalism seminars on topics such as Associated Press style, word usage, clarity and ethics.

After this residency, Michael spent the rest of the summer in the Pocono Record newsroom in Stroudsburg, Pa. A member of the Ottaway Community Newspaper group, the Pocono Record is an established leader in journalism in the Pocono Mountain region.

While at the Record, Michael edited local and wire copy, wrote headlines and laid out pages for the daily newspaper using the newspaper's DewarView editorial management system and QuarkXPress, all while working against tight deadlines. He also helped coordinate pagination of the daily newspaper.

Michael also worked with both reporters and other interns editing stories. Michael also helped cover Sen. John Kerry's campaign kickoff rally in Scranton, Pa.

In addition, Michael was also trained on the newspaper's pagination system and charged with coordinating sending pages of the newspaper electronically to the newspaper's printing facility.

During the summer of 2005, Michael returned to the Pocono Record to work on the copy desk. At the time, the Pocono Record was transitioning to a new newsroom content management system, JazBox, made by Harris Baseview. In addition, the newspaper was upgrading to Adobe's InDesign page layout program and InCopy, a text editing application. Michael was trained on this new system and used it extensively to edit copy and design pages.

Michael also designed several front pages and front page packages. He was also responsible for coordinating the newspaper's local business briefs....