Day 5 - Thursday 8/1

I spent my day at the Northwest Telegraph and had a chance to see how a regional newsroom operates. The telegraph is a weekly paper and tomorrow is the deadline for next week's edition. On Thursdays the 'dummy' is drafted (i.e. layout of the paper with spaces delegated to advertising). I got see see how the paper was planned, sitting in on a meeting between Mark and Liam.

This morning I accompanied Mark to the Rio Tinto salt mine, as he was profiling the new operations manager. I sat in on the interview (and had the opportunity to ask some questions myself) and afterward we had a tour of the mine. The salt was like hot snow, and there were two massive mountains of it (as they stockpile during cyclone season). I learnt a bit about how they extract the salt from the ocean and process it through ponds, before directing it down a 40km long ditch to the central mine site. The operations manager drove us in his 4wd (after giving me a fluro shirt to wear) on a road alongside the ditch and when we stopped we were able to pick up the salt with our hands and get a feel for it. I found the salt mine fascinating.


Salt mine entrance

I spent most of the afternoon working on my article at the telegraph - I decided to take on the story about the businesses. I was also lucky enough to get a massage from the local massage lady who visits the telegraph every Thursday. So that was very relaxing :)

I've now got one article in the paper, which should be published by next week. Now it's just a matter of finding more stories...