Internship at Modern Luxury 

University of Maryland                                                                      Natalie Leinbach

Department of communication                                                         April 21, 2020

COMM386: Experiential Learning Spring 2020

POINT PAPER - FACT CHECKING

Subject.  I read through articles and identify every claim that has been made. I would check each claim with PR Representatives for the person or entity that we were covering in the article.

Background.  Every article written for D.C. Magazine has to be checked to ensure factual accuracy. This is part of the process in order to publish DC Magazine each month. We check every claim made including, down to name and location spelling, to ensure that every aspect of the coverage is correct. I would check five or six articles for each edition of the magazine before they were approved for printing.

Discussion.  After articles were written by our writers in Chicago, my supervisor would assign several to me. I would first read through them once to get an understanding of the piece. Then, I identified every claim that is being made by underlining them. Claims include location, names of drinks or products, spelling of restaurants or names, ingredients of dishes, and anything else. This was pretty time consuming. After identifying all the claims, I created a list of questions, asking to confirm each claim. For example: “Is “Chef Smith” the correct spelling?”

Since the writers are producing content about Washington DC while in Chicago, there is a lot of space for miscommunication. So, I would send my long list of questions to a PR Representative in charge of representing the subject of the article. Sometimes if the subject was not a large firm, I would send the questions directly to the subject. In some cases, it would take a while for the questions to fall into the right hands of the person within the PR firm who is in charge of representing the given subject of the article. But, when they all finally responded, I would compile a list of the inaccuracies to relay back to our Editor-in-Chief. With this, he makes the necessary changes, fitting them into the design template for the page, so that they mistakes are corrected.

 This process is pretty tedious but it is necessary. It can reflect badly on DC Magazine if we report on something incorrectly. Fact-checking ensures that everything is correct and it protects us from liability if something is still wrong; the liability would fall on the representative who confirmed false information. I enjoyed finding mistakes because it made all the time consuming work worth it.

Recommendation.  One of the problems was contacting the wrong person with my questions. But the solution was usually self correcting: the person I contacted would forward my questions to the right person and I would get my answers within a few days.

POINT PAPER - collecting assets

Subject. Assets are anything collected to include in the magazine. I would namely be in charge of collecting photographs for our pages.

Background. Magazines are visually driven. Images are the most important aspect to the appeal of our final book. In many cases, we would fill the magazine with content that was written specifically to accompany a beautiful photo.

Discussion.  Usually, I would need to collect photos for a piece that has not yet been written. I would cold email representatives for boutiques, museums, restaurants, or individuals asking for eye catching images to include in our magazine. Sending emails takes less than ten minutes, bu waiting for the responses could be days. But I would usually hear back because having a story in DC Magazine is beneficial for the subjects we write about, they like the publicity. I acted as the first line of defense to filter through images that could possibly be featured. My supervisor trusted my judgement to select the most appealing photos that also were in line with the brand’s specific aesthetic.

The most important aspect of the images is their resolution. In order for an image to run full page it would have to be at minimum 2000 by 3000 pixels, so I always had to ask for high resolution images. Using image inspector, I would check the images’ resolution to ensure that we could run them. After that, I would ask that they be submitted to the Modern Luxury photo portal, or do so myself. Then we were legally allowed to print the photos. From there, they were sent to the photo editor and went into the design template.

I always enjoyed this task because I got to exercise my own judgement on the photos we select for the page. It took time, but seeing the images that I selected in the design on the page was rewarding. Also, most of the people I came into contact with were very friendly and helpful, so the job was never an inconvenience.

Recommendation.  I would recommend making specific inquiries in the initial email. Sometimes I would ask for high resolution photos, with no specifications for what im looking for, because I didn’t really know. Knowing what you want when you ask initially definitely speeds up the process.

POINT PAPER - online research

Subject. Online research drives the whole operation at Modern Luxury. It’s hard to know what is going on all the time everywhere in Washington, so online research helps us get the lowdown.

Background. We write about interesting things in Washington that we hear about or see online. To learn more information we can take to the web. A lot of fact-checking can also be done online too.

Discussion.  The amount of time that online research consumes varies. Research could be double checking spelling for someone’s name, which takes a matter of minutes, or planning an entire story which can take days of online searches. A lot of what I did was fact-checking online. Many of the claims made in our articles can be confirmed online.This could be checking prices of products or services, addresses of hotels or restaurants, and more.

I would also use online research for looking up points of contact. For example, if I need some information about an art exhibit, I would often navigate my way to the media kit/press page of their website to get into contact with someone who can help.

Later, I will also talk about how I developed radio content, which is also based primarily on online research. I would look to see what type of events are happening that weekend in Washington and compile a list.

Research is something I have been doing for a long time.

Recommendation.  One of the problems was contacting the wrong person with my questions. But the solution was usually self correcting: the person I contacted would forward my questions to the right person and I would get my answers within a few days.

POINT PAPER - pitching stories

Subject. At a magazine, there is always room for ideas about what to write about. Pitching stories is essential to the process to keep the content flowing.

Background. How do you judge whether something is interesting enough to cover and put in print? It’s pretty easy! If our Editor-in-Chief likes it, and thinks our readers will like it, we cover it.

Discussion. I did a lot of brainstorming concepts at Modern Luxury. What will intrigue our readers and prompt them to stop on this page for a read? Maybe we could write about art exhibits. Maybe we could cover some new spa treatments. These ideas lead to online research which leads to the perfect picture to go on the page. But, it all starts with a good pitch.

In our office there was no formal process for pitching. Sometimes I would go into my supervisor’s office and rattle off a couple ideas, sometimes I would send him an email. In other cases, we would be in the middle of a conversation when someone shares something that prompts a lead. You never know when an idea will come to you but it was always pretty exciting. I remember one day I was sitting at my desk and Michael came over to me with an idea that was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t quite get it. He saw a page template that he really liked and he was brainstorming the best content to use to fill the template. We went over a few different ideas until we finally came up with the perfect game plan.

Pitching ideas can go hand in hand with collecting assets because a pitch may start with an image. Maybe there is a great vision of a page with a Victorian-style doorway that catches the eyes of page flippers. This could lead to coverage of luxury real estate in the area. Images or even ideas of what a page could look like is the way it starts sometimes.

Recommendation.  It can be hard to keep thinking of unique content. But it helps to converse with the people in the office to come up with new ideas to research. Once you start navigating the web, things usually just fall into place.

POINT PAPER - radio content development

Subject. I was in charge of finding things for my supervisor, Michael, to talk about when he records his radio show. Every Tuesday, I would come in to the office and take the first 30 to 45 minutes brainstorming content for his WTOP show that is played every week.

Background.  For about three minutes, Michael gets featured on WTOP to talk about what you should do during that weekend. He and the host record their segment on Wednesday nights and then it gets played between other news on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.

Discussion.  Michael McCarthy, Editor-in-Chief of DC Magazine, is the authority on things to do in Washington for WTOP. Developing the radio content required me to make a list of activities that Michael could choose to talk about on the show, advising listeners on what to do that weekend.

This is another form of audience based content development that I wanted to work on this semester. Whereas writing for DC Magazine is designed to market brands to affluent audiences, WTOP is more broadly focused on radio listeners roughly ages 30-50, probably listening to WTOP on the way to or from work. I had to look for events that are appealing to people who might have families, not twenty-something college students.

Recommendation.  Writing the WTOP script could get sort of boring, but I found some enjoyment in it by attending some of the events that I wrote about.