Having an article published professionally for the world to see is a very honorable moment, especially for a student. Allison Avila Rodriguez, who is a junior, had her first article published in the Potomac Local News on January 15 .

She reported on an indie film that premiered in Virginia after a decade of development. Ms. Miller, who teaches journalism, was able to help Allison get the job to write this article for the Potomac Local News. “I have taught Allison every year she has been at OHS, and I know she is a very strong writer with really good attention to detail. She is also kind of creative and artsy, so I thought this would be a freelance writing job that she would actually enjoy.”

Ms. Miller has expressed her emotion and thought about having one of her students’ articles published outside of OHS, “I am always proud to see my students succeed in the world of journalism! There is something really exciting about having work published and seeing your name in the byline. I hope Allison felt that excitement when her work was published!”

Now when asking Allison what inspired her to write, she said, “Ever since I took journalism in my freshman year, I had always had a love for the subject. And so, I really hope to pursue journalism as a career, or at least be in a field similar to that. Furthermore, hearing about this opportunity made me very excited to gain a head start as a professional journalist. Additionally, I also just love side quests and films too, so hearing that it was to report on an indie film premiering sounded super fun and interesting.”

When writing an article, it can take time and a lot of effort, but no matter the cost, Allison still took the challenge of writing her article. “The writing process was a little difficult. I took Journalism 1 as a freshman and Yearbook 1 as a sophomore, and the articles in the yearbook are significantly different from the ones in journalism. Therefore, I was very stumped on how to write this article due to the gap in my experience. Not to mention, this was going to go on a public and fancy news site, not just a school-based one, so I felt like this had to look extremely professional and serious, which is definitely different from my usual writing tone. I usually sound excited and kid-like for the student audience,” she explained.

Allison said that trying to interview the director in person was difficult. ” I had to initially interview the director in person. Sadly, that had to change because the time to interview kept getting delayed to later in the premiere. So, I had to do an email interview, which he replied to the night before the article was due! So, I definitely had difficulties working with the small amount of time I had to work with,” she said.

“Aside from that, some positives were getting to see the amusing answers from the director. I wasn’t a huge fan of the movie at first, but seeing his backstory and motives gave me a better perspective on it. And now I really love the movie, knowing the struggles and how much it means to the director and crew,” she added.

Allison talked about moments where the director covered other things that she had not mentioned in her article, “Out of the need to sound serious and straightforward, I didn’t include much of the process and specific backstory of the making of the film. I felt like writing about the process was just going to be a whole other article. However, at the end of the movie, there was a Q&A moment that detailed a lot of the process. They went into detail about how the movie was made over the span of 10 years, the tiring makeup production, the small budget of 10k, and the special effects.”

Once an article is finished, there will be a lot of revisions before it is published. These include spelling mistakes or adding extra details, so when  I asked Allison about having any revisions done on her work, this is what she had to say. “Not at all, half the article was also written by the owner of the news site, Uriah Kiser, and so a lot of the article was already written to his liking. More specifically, I only revised the spelling of my name and added more insight into the director’s background. For a little context, the movie is centered around a woman who moved into a new neighborhood and uncovers weird people and even more weird stuff along the way. The director mentioned in the interview that the inspiration was from his own childhood experience in a similar, weird neighborhood. He talked about being a student on the autism spectrum, as well as growing up middle-class in a very wealthy area. This caused him to feel very isolated–and I felt like that was very interesting and worth mentioning in the article. That was probably the only thing that was really revised by me.”

Now focusing on how long it took Allison to write her whole article and the whole publishing process, this is what she had to say, “The article took less than a week to publish! Saturday, January 10th, I headed to the event. Sunday, I prepared questions. Monday, I emailed them in the very morning. Tuesday, I got the answers at, like, 10 pm-11 pm at night. On Wednesday, I wrote the article alongside Uriah Kiser. And Thursday, it was published at 3 pm! The process wasn’t all that much about reviewing and rewriting; it was more about the interviewing and reporting to the event that took up most of the time to publish.”

Now that Allison has her article published, she expressed how happy and proud she is about it, “I AM SO HAPPY THAT I HAVE AN ARTICLE OUT! I feel like I have really started my career as a part-time journalist. My passion for journalism grew over time, but very quickly, I fell in love with it. And so, finally having something this professional means so much to me. The second most exciting part is the fact that this is also a paid internship opportunity. Since that reporting, I am now connected with a news outlet and work for them as a paid journalist!”

Since Allison is now starting her career as a part-time journalist, she also mentions her other article, which is in the works: “As of now, I am writing 2 more articles: one about the impact A.I has had on Osbourn staff, which will be on ohstalon, and the other one is an article detailing the walkout event at Osbourn, which will hopefully be published on the Potomac Local News site.”

The article about the walkout at Osbourn was also written by OHS junior Daeden Brown. It is out on the Potomac Local News, and you can check it out here: “Osbourn Students Walk Out Over ICE Policies”.

Check out her article on Potomac Local News, titled Indie Film ‘Prosperity Creek’ Premieres at Virginia ART factory After Decade in Development,