Rising journo

Spencer Tooth reflects on his work experience week at the Cairns Post

My name is Spencer Tooth, I am a full time year 10 student at St Augustine’s College and for the past week I’ve completed work experience at the Cairns Post.

For a long time I’ve thought of becoming a journalist so the chance to come and see what it is really like has been great. It hasn’t all just been sitting in front of a computer the whole time either, I’ve been able to tag along with the journalists when they’ve gone out to interview people.

I followed a reporter to court and learnt how journalists need to responsibly report of trials.

I also went to the fortnightly Cairns Regional Council meeting, where I watched councillors disagree with each other but also make decisions for the community’s benefit.

I saw how journalists come across their information and what they do with it to be able to write an engaging story.

One of the things that has always confused me was how journalists come up with a whole newspaper’s worth of stories every day. I’ve now seen and understood first-hand how everyone works together to come up with great story ideas and write them by deadline.

The team at the Cairns Post has been very welcoming and kind and they’ve shown me what being a journalist really means.

Journalists report on important topics they believe the community should have a greater understanding about. I’ve learnt they do this without bias and without inserting their own opinions in the story.

During my time here this week I’ve been able to write four stories that have been published in the paper.

I also got to go out to Cairns Esplanade to collect some information for a story, which was really interesting being able to talk to lots of different people in our community and hearing their views.

I learnt it was important to speak to a diverse range of people so multiple points of view can be included in one story.

I then saw that information turned into a story. I’ve learnt a lot about journalism over the past four days and I’ve really enjoyed it. I am very grateful to the Cairns Post team for making it happen.