Running header: Informational 1

Interview

Informational Interview

Troy Howe

Nichols College
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On March 2nd, 2019, over a phone call, I got to speak to Alexandra Francisco a graduate

from Ludlow High School in 2013, she then attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst

and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and graduated in 2017. She works

for a sports company located in Western Massachusetts called “Masslive” where sports can

vary from high school sports to writing about famous athletes, the duration of this interview

took about 22 minutes to accomplish. I chose Ms. Alexandra Francisco to interview because she

does close to what I want to do for a job when I get out of college, working and networking

with athletes and other people that have a profession in the sports field.

When Alexandra was in high school, she met her main mentor Charlie Cangemi. He is the

journalism teacher at Ludlow High School who really gave a vision to Francisco when choosing

her job profession. She then attended UMass Amherst and then she found another mentor

through the college named Steve Fox. He was the director of the UMass sport journalism major

and he was also the former sports editor at the highly prestigious Washington Post. Francisco

got right out of the gates and started her internship at NESN from May 2016 until September

2016 on their Red Sox production team. She also gathered statistics, wrote scripts, and

promotions for the live Red Sox's pregame show and experienced the production in the control

room. This was new to Francisco as she was never really acustom to working in the control but
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she took the bull by the horns and grinded it out. Francisco commuted an hour every day and

was also unpaid but getting the experience early she gained relationships with people industry

that are invaluable. She then had another internship at Get Set Marketing where she was a

digital content producer for 2 months from February 2018 until March 2018. After the 2

months, she got a job there where she started in March and has been working at Masslive as a

sports producer since August 2018 being her most recent job. Her duties involve Attending

games, writing stories, updating statistics, shooting and editing video, actively tweeting latest

news in sports. Francisco said that getting an internship was the best thing she did for her

career as a really put her foot in the door for plenty of more opportunities.

Three internships that would help me acquire skills needed for this job would be one, a

internship position in Worcester MA, that covers sports and local news in Worcester and the

towns surrounding it. This would help me get out into the field of journalism. Second, would be

an internship for Charter 3 TV, which is a sports-based news channel but also presents local

news and action in Worcester County, this internship would be a summer one so it would be

full time covering the upcoming high school fall sports. The third internship would be, an

internship position at NBC Boston. This would help me get connections throughout the east

coast and would help learn more about newscasting and how to provide local news to the

Greater Boston areas.

Journalism is not my dream job but going through this interview process has gave me a

vison of what to do and work hard for. The first goal I want to set for myself, is to get myself out

there more for opportunities I would never imagine of doing in my life. Having that mindset can

really take you along way like it did for Ms. Francisco. My second goal is to work or get an
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internship for some sports related company. Like Alexandra did, working for NESN would be a

privilege as I am a huge Boston sports fan so an opportunity like that, I would never pass up to

work for the television home of the Redsox and Bruins. My third goal is choosing the right

career path. I know for sure I want to work in the sports field, but I am not sure what direction I

want to go in. Marketing and statistics would be a dream job in the sports field, but I know I

have to work and set my goal to one thing and that is to work for a professional sports team.

The biggest takeaway I got from the interview was, it is possible to get the job you want

but, you have to work extremely hard to get there by taking time and doing the work to get

where you want to be in life. But I do believe I have the skills necessary to make this dream a

reality, I am hardworking and want to do anything to succeed in a business so difficult in

learning how to manage and operate sports teams. But I do believe I need to work on the skill

of getting more out to the public to get these types of internships and jobs that I wish I could

have today. Interviewing Alexandra, I believe really help me get a clear vison and goal of what

exactly I want to do and that’s work in the sports field. She really gave me a full rundown of

how she got to where she is today and I believe I can do the same even though it might not be

journalism, I think I can achieve something as great as that. If I had the chance to interview Ms.

Francisco, I think would just ask her more about how hard it was to get in the position she is

today. I believe the interview was a success all in all as I learned what it really takes to get into

the business I one day want to be in for the rest of my life.

Links for internships:

[Link]

JV_IC1154962_KO0,24_KE25,[Link]?jl=3011628730&utm_campaign=google_jobs_apply&utm

_source=google_jobs_apply&utm_medium=organic

[Link]

summer/495fc7b78b2542afb9fb43174aa2a220/job/?utm_campaign=google_jobs_apply&utm_

source=google_jobs_apply&utm_medium=organic

[Link]

internship-general-news/4673/11136093
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Troy Howe

Interview Questions

Alexandra Francisco, Sports Reporter, MassLive, Springfield Massachusetts

• Did you do an internship anywhere before working?

• What business you currently in?:

• What company do you work for?

• What are your everyday duties for a journalist?

• Do they have employees? If so, how many?

• Where did you go to school?

• What type of advice would you offer to a young professional wanting to get started in
the business?

• Who was your mentor growing up throughout high school and college?

• What motivates you to do your job every day?

• What is the biggest challenge of your job?

Troy Howe
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Interview Notes

1.) Interned at NESN on their Red Sox production team. It was unpaid, and she had to commute

an hour every day, but she claims that the early experience she got being around a professional

team of that caliber was unmatched. She made relationships and gained trust within the people

in the industry.

2.) Digital sports journalism is the study of journalism in the online world.

3.) Sports Producer for MassLive, this is a video recorded show that covers all high school sports

in Western and Central Mass. She claims that this job can be challenging at times but working

with sports is her passion, so she believes this worth it.

4.) Attending games, writing stories, updating statistics, shooting and editing video, actively

tweeting latest news in sports. These are all everyday things she has to do on a daily basis.

5.) She does not have any employees working for her right now but once she gets more of a

hierarchy in the business of Masslive.

6.) Alexandra Francisco attended Ludlow High School and Umass Amherst and studied

journalism.
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7.) Francisco claimed that It’s what you know and who you know, or more importantly, who you

impress. Small talk about sports and everyday life has helped her out a lot throughout her

career along with her impressive resume. She continued to say that you cannot get through

this industry by doing the least work possible, you have to work for it. And her being a woman

in the sports field is hard as you just have to work that much harder to get a good job in sports

journalism.

8.) Francisco’s mentor growing up was her teacher Charlie Cangemi. But who really helped her

to get where she is today was her college professor Steve Fox who was a former sports editor

for the highly prestigious Washington Post.

9.) Francisco said what motivates her is waking up everyday and going to work and doing what

she loves to do which is cover sports and write about them for the whole world to see. This

is because she is proud of the things she writes and wants to get her work out to the bigger

companies covering sports.

10.) The biggest challenge of her job was to make sure everything is perfect. She claims that she

is a perfectionist and if she sees something she does not like or feels like she has messed up

somehow, she has to fix it immediately. Francisco believes that proof reading and going over

things numerous amounts of times is very important because you do not want to publish

anything you, yourself do not like.