Week one

The first week of my internship has started off relatively slow as I am figuring out story ideas. On Monday, I met with two Northfield.org board members, Jane McWilliams and Rob Hardy, to brainstorm story ideas. I quickly realized the vast amount of story possibilities for me to cover in Northfield, even with the many stories that Northfield News and Locally Grown cover. One of the reasons I wanted to complete an internship with an organization like Northfield.org was to learn about the role of community journalism. Initially, it seems daunting to think that one person (like myself) could cover important topics with so many other great news sources available, but there are so many topics and issues in a town like Northfield that I don't think this is true. Even covering topics that have been reported on several times can bring in fresh perspectives and information.

I also attended Mary Rossing's swearing in at the city council meeting Monday evening and learned a bit about the Way Park and First Street closure issues (which to be honest I knew nothing about). For my first story, Mayor Mary Rossing agreed to meet with me tomorrow. I spent this afternoon researching Mary and her accomplishments and plans for Northfield. I have met Mary only very briefly but I know that she values being transparent to citizens in the Northfield community. Her willingness to meet with me re-enforces what she has already said and done to to make herself available to the community. As Northfield's newly elected mayor Mary has been interviewed a lot already (go to http://locallygrownnorthfield.org/post/7552/ for her interview with Bonnie Obremski about her first city council meeting as mayor). Still, I hope I can ask Mary some new questions from my perspective as a college student and other questions readers will find interesting.

Topics that I'm thinking about covering in the next few weeks are the new library early literacy programs, the impact of the St. Olaf/Carlton students on the Northfield community, and education in Northfield (still not sure of what specific topic with this). Any helpful information, contacts, events, or just suggestions in general would be great to hear.