One downside to my otherwise fabulous internship is the fact that no one is ever available to speak with you when you need them to. Nor is anyone in advertising accessible directly. You have to go through their PR to arrange a phone interview, and even then you often have to go through an assistant to even get ahold of the PR.
Such has been my day of phone tag while trying to complete four different stories, only two of which look like they may pan out by day's end. Already did a rather interesting one about The Economist's "Green" issue (both of my sources were British -- awesome!) and am currently waiting to hear back from a veteran broadcast media buyer who was just named "chief activation officer" at Initiative, whatever that means.
Sure, it's not quite the same as my days of Paul Simon and Raven-Symone Q&As just weeks ago at the Dispatch. But no matter what you're reporting on at AdAge, you're guaranteed to talk to at least one "very important person," and often moreso. My mom has such a warped concept of what journalists actually do she didn't believe at first that I actually talked to the West Coast Pres. of NBC a few weeks ago.
So even though Tim Spengler or Marc Graboff may not have as much name recognition as Jessica Simpson or Dashboard Confessional, I'm arguably talking to people more powerful than the majority of my previous interviews combined. I mean, nearly all the celebrities I've interviewed have only achieved enough fame to be one album/movie away from being has-beens. They can't make or break careers at a network like NBC or influence the way people listen to and learn about music like NPR.
OK, enough about my job. In other news, I've been hanging out with the Y kids a lot this week, and it's been both fun to relive my dorm days, it's a little weird. A lot of the kids who hang out at "the stoop," as we call it, are 18 or less. At least two girls are 17 and born weeks after me in November, making me a full FIVE years older than them. That's pretty weird to me...
But I have also made two really good friends -- Aviana and Daniel -- who have become great surrogates when the Kent kids and Christie (who seems to have disappeared since I last saw her nearly two weeks ago) are busy. Not to mention I finally registered for my final online class (Intro to Technical Writing..I think I can handle that) and my part-time job hunt is finally showing some signs of life. I just got my first callback today from this toy store in Chelsea seeking parttime help and will be interviewing with them on Tuesday. I figure, I did Mr. Fun's for a summer. I could eeeasily do a toy store in Chelsea, right?
That's all that's worth updating for now, although I'm crossing my fingers I get out of here in time to see Anderson Cooper for FREE at the Y tonight. GOD, I love my building!!!
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