Report to Readers by Susan LoTempio

Who are those people?

  If you read the paper carefully, you've noticed over the past month new bylines at the top of local stories.

They are written by our interns, and an impressive bunch they are this year.

The 14 college students who are calling Buffalo home for the summer come from Columbia University, Amherst College, Boston University, Syracuse, Ohio University, Taylor University, University of Oklahoma, University of Central Florida, the Pratt Institute, Canisius and St. Bonaventure.

The college upperclassmen/women accepted into The News' program know they will be working hard and getting a lot of first-hand newspaper experience. The first day on the job is not about watching other reporters and editors do their work. Rather, the interns jump right in to report and write stories, take photographs, edit stories and design pages.

They leave at the end of the summer exhausted, but also bearing a portfolio of impressive work.

From the staff's perspective, we love the energy they bring into the newsroom, and their willingness to try anything - from covering the Taste of Buffalo to writing reviews of bands performing long before they were born.

Working with these young journalists gives us hope for the future of quality journalism.

The summer team

Each year The News hires young journalists from schools around the country to work in the newsroom over their summer break. Sometimes they are recent graduates, getting a little more experience before hitting the job market.

Despite their student status, our interns are held to the same standards as journeyman reporters and copy editors. Their bylines read "News Staff Reporter," and they are assigned to cover all types of stories, so you will see those bylines throughout our pages, from A-1 on.

Our city desk reporting interns this year are Amanda Erickson and Katherine Reedy from Columbia; Lauren Mariacher from Canisius; and Christine Thompson from Taylor University.

Our Lifestyles interns are Molly Hirschbeck from St. Bonaventure and Emily Sullivan from Amherst College.

In Sports, we are welcoming Amanda Comak from Boston University and Jackie Friedman from Syracuse.

Our Business intern is Christopher Michel from St. Bonaventure; in photo we have Sam Kolich from Ohio University; and our graphics intern is Milo Kowalski from Pratt Institute.

And on our news copy desk, we will have three interns, Robert Pape from UB, Corinne Schuler from the University of Central Florida, and Sarah Waldrop from the University of Oklahoma.

-- Melinda Miller

The (cartoonist's) pen is mightier than the sword

   Adam Zyglis has been an editorial cartoonist for The News for just under three years, but he has already made his mark.

As we announced late last week, Adam took third place in the 2007 National Headliner Awards for editorial cartooning. The top two winners - Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta-Journal Constitution and Matt Davies of the (White Plains) Journal-News, both have a Pulitzer Prize under their belts.

Did I mention that Adam Zyglis is only 24 years old? And a homegrown guy - a graduate of Alden High School and Canisius College.

Placing third "was really shocking," Adam told me Thursday. Since the contest is dominated by the big names in the world of editorial cartoons, he thought he'd have to enter for many years before getting noticed.

Adam, who has been drawing since he was 5, came on board after Tom Toles left The News for the Washington Post - and that was during a period when many newspapers were not looking to replace editorial cartoonists.

He had already won a basketful of awards in college, and when he was younger, he won the Editorial Cartoon Contest for local middle and high schoolers sponsored by The News' NeXt section.

Adam was studying computer science and math at Canisius until he was encouraged by some of his professors to switch gears and focus on his drawing talent and his interest in politics.

After a summer internship in The News' art department, Adam became a full-fledged member of the staff. He's drawing four to five cartoons a week now and politicians with familiar names have felt the sting of his pen (or pencil).

Sometimes he will create illustrations that accompany feature stories - one of his best was a rather bizarre rendering of the Erie County Fair, which many people love and asked to be made into a poster.

Adam says the best part of his job is the creative challenge: "The freedom to express yourself in a 4 by 5-inch space." The hardest part? "Trying to stay fresh and consistent."

No doubt the local news scene will give him much fodder in the future, as will the goings-on in Albany and Washington. At only 24, Adam's take on politics is not only fresh, it's far more insightful than many people twice his age. To see Adam's work, go to  http://www.buffalonews.com/opinion/editorialcartoons/index.html or   

http://www.adamzyglis.com

Meet Mr. McCarthy

  Robert J. McCarthy celebrated his 25th anniversary at The News today by receiving a pin and a handshake from the publisher.

  Then he went back to work.

  Bobby Mac, as I sometimes call him, is The News' political reporter and Sunday columnist. He also sits right outside my office, which is how I know he spent the day mostly working, not celebrating.

  What's important to McCarthy is getting the story - and getting the story right. And we're talking a lot of stories. When I checked his byline in our electronic library, there were close to 4,000 with his name on them.

Bob does his job the old-fashioned way, by cultivating sources, keeping in touch with them and earning their trust. Which is no small feat when you're covering politics.

His interviews with politicians are legendary - he's polite to a fault but never shy to point out inconsistencies in what they are telling him.

Bob McCarthy can work the phones like few reporters I've known. Mondays and Tuesdays seem to
be his busy days to make calls as he catches up with sources and prepares to write his
weekend column (which appears in the Viewpoints section). He takes his notes on a yellow legal pad, turning to the computer only when it's time to actually write the story.

Then there's that famous McCarthy laugh. As one reporter put it, "Bob's laugh reverberates throughout the whole newsroom."

There's been a lot of laughing over the past 25 years. And a lot of talk about St. Bonaventure, his revered alma mater.

But there's also a lot of respect for the man and his work. Commented a colleague: "You never know what Bob's personal opinions are about candidates or politicians. He never mentions them in the newsroom and they never show up in his stories."

That's the definition of a pro.