Kenney dares to cover Death Race 2010

It took an eclectic mind and persistence for University of Montana School of Journalism intern Hollis Kenney just to break through and cover a sporting event like no other: Death Race 2010.

Kenney’s editor at the Rutland Herald in Vermont wasn’t sure this dramatic endurance event needed to be in the local paper. In the past, the organizer hadn’t been available to the paper’s reporters, and bigger media outlets were lined up to cover it this year.

Still, Kenney was determined to take his readers into the belly of this 10-mile race that somehow took the few contestants who didn’t drop out more than 20 hours to finish.

First, he convinced his editor to let him give it a shot. Then, he found that he had read the book that informed the organizer’s worldview. That common bond – the book, the Edison Gene, explores the advantages people with ADHD might have -- led to a more fruitful interview this year than last.

After all that, Kenney met with the race organizer at 4 a.m., climbed a mountain, and ran with the race leader in order to get an interview. It turns out that the race leader had learned a race-enhancing tidbit from Hollis’s race preview and was especially glad to talk because of that. The tip: Hollis had pointed out that pennies minted after the 1980s are significantly lighter than older coins. This mattered because each racer competed while carrying a sack filled with $50 in pennies.

“It just doesn't seem like work when you get to do stuff like that, and it makes up for all the little brief assignments and office time,” Kenney said.

The 24-hour race consists of tasks and cut-off times. Failure to complete a given task on time results in ejection from the race. Of the 100 races who registered for this year’s race, 19 finished.

Kenney said covering the race “... was pretty great, but I am very glad that I didn't have to do the whole 36 hour race.”

In addition to previewing the race and covering the competition, Kenney, whose primary focus is print journalism, shot his own photos for the story. When he's not chasing those who court death, Kenney has covered other athletes giving their all, including Special Olympians preparing for national competition and the Vermont sheep dog trials.

(Photo: John Illig crawls through mud and under barbed wire during the Death Race in Pittsfield, Vermont, on Saturday, June 26, 2010. PHOTO BY HOLLIS KENNEY)

Imagine Skiing all summer

Deep in the heat of summer Colette Maddock stayed cool covering the advent of the summer sport that has winter written all over it: wave skiing. An intern at Skiing Magazine in Boulder, Colorado, she has been covering the environmental impacts of climate change on winter sports, working on the magazine's gear review and writing for the magazine's Web site, SkiingMag.com.

"It's awesome here," she says. "I've been writing a ton of articles and helping to reform the online resort guide. It's been really busy, but it's great."
 Her wave skiing piece focused on a team of professional skiers who adapted alpine bindings to the aloha environment. Now they're carving turns and pulling freestyle stunts they had previously only dreamed of.

Photo: Skier Chuck Patterson gets his sea legs/ Mike Jones

Tornado stirs Gilleran to action in Billings

When a tornado shredded an arena in Billings, it was up to UM intern Emerald Gilleran to keep the news relevant to readers of the weekly Billings Outpost. She hustled to the damaged sites, talked to the tornado response team leaders and took a general accounting of damages.

Emerald has become a mainstay on the the front page of the Outpost, with election day and other stories keeping her byline out front.

Photo: Debris wrapped around a tree at MetraPark.Courtesy of NILE

Gilleran stalks voters, hears, taxes, yes!

Election Day had Emerald Gilleran chasing news all over Billings and netted her a page one round up story for the Billings Outpost. She even found a voter who said paying taxes is ok with her! Talk about a diversity of voices.

What are you covering that raises eyebrows or pulse rates? Let me know so I can share it with others. Email me at nadia.white@umontana.edu.

Cole and Alger take it to the Front Page

Tyson Alger at the Oregonian and Erin Cole at the Flathead Beacon have jumped into their respective internships feet first. Alger earned a front page spot with his local reaction-to-the-reaction piece on umpire Jim Joyce's blown perfect game call. At the Beacon, Cole made it to the front page with a politics piece about judicial elections. She's also making a regular appearance writing for the most entertaining police blotter in Montana.

How is your internship going? Let me know what's making you smile and I'll share it. (Let me know via email if things are making you cry, I can't promise to help, but I'll try. Be patient, internet connections are sparse for me.) nadia.white(at)umontana(dot)edu

Photographers -- It's never too early to share the best of what you're shooting. Help me dress up GrizBeat by sending along not too big .jpgs: nadia.white(at)umontana(dot)edu

A virtual Griz watercooler for Summer 2010

Phew. You got your internship. You're learning the ropes and getting your feet wet committing, I hope, daily acts of journalism. If everything around you seems new, let this site be a place to touch base with a community of old friends, or at least people you've seen around Don Anderson Hall.

As summer goes by I will post updates about what you and your classmates are doing out there on the road -- so please let me know via email -- nadia.white@umontana.edu -- when you have a particularly mind-blowing experience on the job: a front page story or photo, a first multi-media piece posted, you meet a long-time hero or witness history in the making. Please put Internship in the subject line, to make it my priority, and be sure to include links to your work and small .jpgs of your photos.

I will also post reminders about your sole responsibility to the school this summer: About midway through your internship, please submit your midterm evaluation. This is by you, and is an assessment of how your internship is going halfway through. You can find that form and any others you need to get credit for this class by way of a link an the lefthand sidebar or at http://www.jour.umt.edu/current-students/internships. Print it out, fill it in, and fax it to my attention at: 406-243-4650.

As your internship approaches its conclusion, please have your supervisor complete the supervisor’s evaluation. It is also available at the above URL. Please note that you and your supervisor must sign that completed form.

Remember to bring at least three samples of your work. These go into your file and become part of your graduation portfolio. You must have the three forms (Learning Agreement, Mid-Term Evaluation and Supervisors evaluation, plus work samples) to get credit for your internship.

We'll have a couple of photo contests along the way, too, to provide windows into each other’s world. These, of course, aren’t mandatory, but will help keep us all together as summer flies by. Sometime this summer (before the bitter end):

• Send me a picture of yourself that captures you doing your job.
• And send me a news photo that you took that has a story behind it.
• If you have a blog and will be writing about your work experience this summer, please consider sharing that with everyone. Send me the URL and I’ll post it on the blog.
• Every Friday I will post an open thread post. If you are struggling with some aspect of your internship and would like to throw it out to your classmates to help with — story ideas; lousy boss; unfriendly news room; too friendly newsroom, you can post it as a comment to the Open Thread post. Others can then answer you through  their own comments.
  

I will be traveling all of June and July. If you need me, email me at nadia.white@umontana.edu. You can follow my blog at http://travelswithjosie.com, if you’d like.

Have a great summer!

-- Nadia

Thanks to Mango Media for the graphic.

Photo contest: Dancin' in the streets

Montana Standard interns Laura Lundquist and Megan Wyckoff are sandwiched between two groups of dancers at the An Ri Ra festival in Butte. Meg, the shooter on the right, says the shot "marked the end of our festival coverage for the summer (in all we did three) and pretty much the end of our internship." Meg caught these members of the Tiernan Dance Group just before they went on stage.