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I'm Lauren Rae Orsini, a graduate student, journalist, infographic designer, anime convention reporter, and documentarian. Welcome.
Life at the Newseum
Filed Under Future of News, Journalism
Photo by Flickr user Son of Groucho.
I’ve been meaning to write and tell you all about how my new internship is going. I’m happy to say it’s going pretty well.
My position title is Multimedia/Web intern, so everything I do involves the Newseum’s Web site or interactive kiosks. That includes blogging, site building, learning the CMS (content management system for the non-techies), and plenty of video game testing.
Have you heard about The Tester? It’s a reality show where people compete to become a video game tester for PlayStation. Now, this is just my opinion, but after spending a few mornings testing a video game for bugs at the Newseum, why would people risk their dignity for a job like that? Having “video game” in the title does not make it cool. I’m fine doing it as an intern since it’s helping me learn the basics of game building, but it’s not exactly something I’d compete on television for the privilege to do. Basically, I’ve spent at least ten hours so far playing a game over and over and over, searching for bugs, finding bugs, and writing up exactly what triggers them. Penny Arcade was right on the money.
The coolest part of my internship so far is the actual writing part. I’m writing posts for the Newseum’s Future of News blog, which was created to promote their new TV series, The Future of News. None of my posts are up yet, but you can bet I’ll post when they are. My next entry will be about the history of photo doctoring.
Photo by Flickr user Son of Groucho.
I really like my coworkers (do I call the employees that?), my internship supervisor, and my co-intern, Andrea. While in response to the Newseum’s recent troubles, you’d think it would be a gloomy place to intern, it’s the people that make the experience so rewarding. I love the staff meetings because people are always cracking jokes.
In sum, things are going great. I’m sure that plenty of my future posts here are about things I accomplish at the Newseum.
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6 Responses to “Life at the Newseum”
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Sounds like you are having an interesting time at the Newseum. You never know what the Game Testing experience may bring you. THere are several gaming companies in the DC area including Bethesda Softworks and Firaxis games.
Glad things are going well – despite the hours of Dora the Explorer testing
I’d ask about your posts for The Future of News blog, but on second thought, I’d rather be surprised!
How exciting it probably is to be working at a museum! I can’t wait to read some of your posts on the “Future of News” blog, that’s really cool. It’s interesting to hear about what kind of work you are doing at the Newseum since I’m sure if I worked at a larger-scale museum like that (currently I’m working at a mid-sized Historical House Museum organization so I get to work in all departments) I would get a totally different type of job considering my background. However I would like to know more about what is going on throughout the entire museum, even if it’s not what I’m particularly interested in pursuing. Good luck and have fun at the Newseum! It sounds great (to me anyway)!
It is exciting! I don’t work with any of the artifacts (we’re currently getting ready for an Elvis exhibit though, so I’ve seen quite a few), but the Newseum offers internships for aspiring museum curators as well. Maybe sometime you can come visit and I can show you around! I bet it’s pretty similar to the museums you work in.
Wow your internship sounds great! Getting to write news stories for the Newseum blog is huge.
Sounds like your coworkers (yes you can call them that!) sound really awesome because they are cool, and you can learn a lot from them. Hopefully you don’t have to do too much video game testing… I mean I honestly feel sorry for the people on the Tester… they will get payed less then me, and work more then me and start to hate video games. Hopefully you don’t start to loath the very code that video games walk upon. Really looking forward to your Future of News posts. Be sure to let your rabid fanbase known by posting a heads up here! Sounds great can’t wait to hear more about your exciting adventures over the course of your internship at the Newseum
I am glad you used Penny Arcade to make your point about game testing, I laughed out loud at that comic!
But I hope you enjoy the Newseum experience. Let me know if you get to help them make another 4D movie!