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My Newsroom Internship
by Luisa Kay Reyes

When the cameraman with the local news station, where I was doing my first summer internship after graduating from college, expressed his desire to work for National Geographic —  since, after his divorce, he could film in the wilds of Africa unconcerned over whether  he’d end up devoured by a ferociously ravenous thick-maned lion —  I felt bewildered.

For in spite of the professionalism these individuals relayed on the television screen, the focus at the station was on how the other summer intern was trying to break up one of the baseball players at the university from his live-in girlfriend. And how the news assignment editor, who was expecting by one of the married top law enforcement officers in town, was hoping he would leave his wife for her. And how the county news director, after breaking up a couple of marriages, announced she was going to move up in the society of a  locally prominent church — and was even encouraging a full-time reporter, pregnant by one of the owners of the nice Italian restaurant in town, to join  in her church-going mission.

By the end of the summer, I thought I just felt overwhelmed by this professional emptiness, until one of the young technical guys rammed his car into the building out of frustration.  The other summer intern very nobly told me, “Don’t base your future career choice on what you see here,”  which made me feel quite relieved.  Until soon the newsroom was abuzz with her revelation that she had succeeded in busting up the baseball player’s relationship — and was now desperately trying to figure out how to get rid of him.

IMAGE: “Jagged Television or Anti-Cretinization” by Isidore Isou (1989).

REYES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Luisa Kay Reyes has had pieces featured in the Fire In Machines, Hofstra University’s The Windmill, Halcyon Days, Fellowship of the King, Enchanted Conversation: A Fairy Tale Magazine, and other literary magazines.  Her piece, “Thank You,”is the winner of the April 2017 memoir contest of The Dead Mule School Of Southern Literature, and her Christmas poem was a first-place winner in the 16th Annual Stark County District Library Poetry Contest.

AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: Dressed up in my suit for the news station!