Photo by Emily Featherston.
Washington Post Fellowship
Staff writer Emily Featherston at the Washington Post.
Several people who have seen me in the last few days have acted surprised.
“I thought you were in D.C.?” They will ask, confusedly.
Yes, I was in Washington D.C.
Thanks to the Timothy Sumner Robinson fellowship and Samford University, I got to spend two weeks at The Washington Post observing, learning and writing with some of the nation’s top journalists.
It may have only been for two weeks—a short time for a fellowship—but it was a fantastic and incredibly rewarding two weeks that will definitely have an impact on my career.
In those two weeks, I did everything from researching kids movies to helping with food photography in the Food Lab. I sat in on meetings with Marty Baron, the current editor of the Post, and a person movie goers may recognize as the editor of The Boston Globe during the Spotlight coverage of sexual assault within the Catholic church.
Primarily, I worked with the team of “Weekend,” a weekly special section about things to do in the D.C. area for the coming weekend. This entailed a lot of research about local restaurants, which inspired a majority of my meals on the trip, and gave me a look at food journalism.
I helped the “Local Living” team by putting together a couple recaps of their weekly style chats with prominent designers, and the “Soloish” singles blog by researching commencement speeches about love.
The Post even dedicated ink and paper in its “Style” section to my roundup of summer kids movies. You can bet I cleared out room in my suitcase for a few souvenir copies.
I also had time to chat with the Post’s social media team leader, newsletter manager and managing editor. Everyone I had the chance to talk with was willing to share and I was more than eager to learn.
Even though I spent my days in an office, this trip was anything but work. I certainly learned a lot, and I hope to bring some of that knowledge back here to Homewood, but I definitely had fun doing it.
Emily Featherston is a staff writer at the Homewood Star and a Homewood resident.
