A Chance to Cover a Big Story

Benjamin William Stephens

Internship Reflection - Summer 2024

My internship with Dan’s Papers this summer has been pretty great. The people I spoke to at Dan’s Paper were all very respectful and seemed willing to teach newcomers to the profession, getting to meet other journalists while reporting on stories was a great experience and allowed me to meet people working for very well-known publications, and all the work I did reporting and writing was very informative and served to improve my skills as a journalist all around. 

Easily my favorite part of this internship has been reporting on the Justin Timberlake DWI case as that was my first time truly being involved in a widely reported current event. He has pleaded not guilty.

I at least tried to attend every court case up until the most recent one which was on the 9th of August. I missed the first one since my editor only informed me that he wanted me to report on the court case while the court case had already started that day and I got stuck in the trade parade from Hampton Bays through Southampton to Sag Harbor but I was still able to take pictures of The American Hotel where Justin Timberlake had allegedly been drinking prior to being arrested as well as the court building which is right next to the hotel as it turns out. I also talked to some employees at the hotel with another intern to see if they knew anything about the incident but that didn't result in anything. 

My second time reporting on the Timberlake court case I accounted for traffic and arrived on time and I was able to get into the courtroom to write down and report on the events. This second time was a great experience even though Justin Timberlake didn’t show up for this one. I ended up getting some good photos of Timberlake’s lawyer, one of which ended up getting published and of course all the reporting I did made a good story on the case which can be found on the Dan’s Paper website and is titled “Justin Timberlake DWI Charges to be Refiled After Technicality”. Part of why I enjoyed this experience so much is because of the time I was able to spend talking to other members of the press and hearing all their stories of historical moments that they reported on or of how the press used to be back in the golden era as they called it. Another reason this time is so memorable to me is because at first it didn’t seem like the press would be allowed into the courtroom as there were too many defendants in other cases already in the tiny courtroom and the judge said letting us in would be a fire code violation. My fellow members of the press were not very pleased about this so I got to witness one of them lecturing one of the security guards on the importance of the free press and my editor even called up the court to try and get us in. Eventually the judge made the decision to move the Timberlake case to the top of the agenda and made room for the press so they could get the case over with without any problems. 

My third time covering the case was pretty interesting too as Timberlake appeared virtually for the case which was kind of cool but my second time covering the case is still my favorite. There were a lot of cool parts of covering this story, especially little things that you wouldn’t even think of like going on social media and seeing videos from the press outside of the courthouse and realizing that I had been standing right next to that person when they made that video. Just speaking with the other journalists there was an amazing experience though and I don’t believe there is any real replacement for getting advice from people who have been in this industry for years and work with industry giants like The New York Times, CNN, and NBC. 

Of course I got plenty of writing practice while working on smaller articles about new businesses and such but that doesn't compare in my mind to being on the scene reporting on some large event. I also got practice researching stuff which will certainly prove useful in the future. I guess I certainly got practice with all journalism skills now that I think of it. Now that I really think of it though I think that the most important thing about this internship is that I got confirmation that journalism really is what I want to as I found pretty much every part of this experience enjoyable.