Tayler Green

ENGL 4410

Dr. Morgan

5 May 2017

Internship Reflective Essay

Although Ive worked at The Black Sheep for two years, this semester has been a great

learning curve for me. As chief campus editor, my internship duties included managing a staff of

6-8 writers, a social media manager, overseeing all communication between the staff and the

national campus editor, editorial content and marketing of the online publication. Within editing

the documents, I edited the weekly content for style, structure, content, humor, grammar and

engagement. The types of articles The Black Sheep produces are college-related humor articles

that apply either to UNC Charlotte students or to people in the larger Charlotte area. We

produced 5 articles a week, planned through our weekly Saturday meetings, which it was also

my responsibility to plan and execute. By the end of the semester, it was also my duty to train the

upcoming editor, and I went through the process of passing over the editorial position to

Theodore. Between double-checking his work and guiding him through the process and writing

articles of my own, we ended the year on a pretty solid track.

After running The Black Sheep for two years at UNC Charlotte, I can easily say that this

was the best semester Ive had leading the newspaper, and the best staff I could have asked for.

Each weekly meeting was always fun; its not always easy to bring together 5-7 different writers

and strangers and hope that everyone will click. It went above and beyond; I had writers form

friendships with one another, collaborate on articles, and truly engage with each other at

meetings. Moreover, they kept the group chat on Facebook very active, supported one another
articles, and lent an ear to their fellow writers whenever an article got feedback (negative or

positive) throughout the semester. This collaboration and teamwork was certainly a positive

aspect of the semester, and made each week new, interesting, and fun to keep going, even during

midterms or finals.

Ive always enjoyed editing documents, and this semester was no exception. In this

semester, I would say I was able to do more editing than I have in other semesters. I took on

three new writers at the beginning of the semester, and as with new writers, I generally must

provide much more feedback until they get into the hang of The Black Sheep style and their own

style as a comedy writer. In planning articles and generating ideas, I feel that I lead the staff very

strongly this semester with coming up with creative, UNC-Charlotte specific ideas, and kept the

staff on top of reaction articles whenever something around campus came up. These documents

are featured on the portfolio site. As the months went on, the writers usually did not need major,

higher-level editing (such as structure of the article, the execution of the idea, avoiding generic

material), and posting the articles was made much easier. By the end of the semester, most of the

editing I was performing was grammatical, creating 250 word descriptions for the articles, or

perhaps coming up with a catchier title for articlesthe writers learned from the edits and

feedback they received, and I dont think an editor can hope for more than that. I also had the

opportunity to write a number of articles this semester to either fill in for a writer, or near the

end, allow Theo to run the staff and have me fill in as a writer. I love to write as well, so this was

also a great and different part of this semester.

Nearing the end of the semester, keeping morale high and the staff cohesive became a

real challenge for both Theo and me. I would say this was the greatest obstacle we faced all

semester. Staffers began to drop out of the meetings and had events and other responsibilities to
attend to; some simply prioritized differently, and chose not to come to meetings. We had one

writer drop out of the group without explanation. The social media manager was off and on all

semester, and was rarely reliable with tweeting out articles and making SnapChat stories only

officially quit in early April. However, Theo did hire another social media manager from his

circle of friends who picked up where Mason left off, and did an awesome job for the last few

weeks of school. It made me a bit disappointed that we didnt keep it together and as strong as

we did throughout the rest of the semester, but I still feel proud of everything we accomplished

this semester. In the case of these obstacles, I feel that this does happen at the end of every

semester, and that our content for the rest of the semester can not be overshadowed by only two

or three weeks of poor behavior. Even without meetings near the end, we still produced articles

and posted articles up until last week, which is phenomenal.

After two years of being editor of The Black Sheep, this staff was the best I ever had;

their ideas and writing were hilarious, and they made each week entertaining and fun, both in

their writing and in meetings. Also, after beginning the newspaper at UNC Charlotte, I feel

confident in the staff Ive left to carry it on and I know they will only continue to grow. I learned

so much in this semester, and I feel it was in part due to the weekly journals from the internship;

its important to reflect on the work youre doing and seeing milestones pass by. I learned how to

manage a group of motivated, creative thinkers and keep morale high (again, just up until the

inevitable end of the semester). I lead interesting and engaging meetings, and made sure that

writers felt like they were part of a staff, something I hadnt been able to do in prior semesters.

This was often through food from our social stipend, having meetings at my apartment, or going

to a campus event after a meeting together to bond as a staff. I learned to not over-do my edits,

and instead provide suggestions and feedback that allow the writer to make their own creative
decisions and stay in their voice. I learned, too, to let go of my newspaper-baby, in the process of

teaching Theo to become editor. From this semester, I feel that I am a stronger writer from

writing the past couple of weeks and consistently producing articles on set deadlines. I certainly

feel stronger as an editor by having had a staff this semester that produced such high-quality

articles, and having to push myself to provide feedback to make them even better.

The Black Sheep has easily been my favorite college experience, and Im thankful I was

able to devote an academic credit to truly put time and effort into this newspaper. Its been a fun,

stressful, and rewarding experience that I know will guide me into my career as a writer and

editor. I look forward to seeing UNCCs The Black Sheep articles posted around social media in

the future.