Student journalist tackles Internet in national column

College junior Melanie Redmond doesn't have a typical after-school job. While many students earn their spending money stacking books at Van Pelt or serving food at Eat at Joe's, Redmond writes a nationally syndicated column about the Internet for Knight Ridder, the company that owns both the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Daily News, called "Cyberchick." "In a good week, my column appears in 50 papers across the nation," Redmond said. The column is just one of Redmond's present journalistic ventures. She currently serves as managing editor of the Vision and is the co-editor of W.E.B. DuBois College House's newsletter, the WEB. In high school, she spent her afternoons loitering around the office of the Philadelphia Daily News. "I would just go up in the elevator and hang around," recalled Redmond. "I befriended a couple of people on the staff." Redmond's efforts paid off. In June 1996, she began writing for the weekly "teen" section of the Daily News. After Redmond wrote a piece related to the Internet, she was asked to take on the full-time Internet column. The topic of her column varies each week. In one recent column, she talked about on-line grief counseling. In another, she wrote about Halloween websites. "I realized that I wanted to be a journalist in the tenth grade," Redmond said. "One day I was talking in my computer class, and my teacher told me to stop talking and write my thoughts down." He offered her a passing grade if she joined the school paper. She did, and has been writing ever since. Redmond later participated in a two-week summer program for high school journalists run by the Daily News. "I loved the stress of having three articles due at once," she recalled. One of Redmond's favorite stories was an interview she did with Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell, the stars of the 1997 movie Good Burger, a G-rated comedy based on a Nickelodeon skit. She rode around in their limo and attended a public relations event at Dave & Buster's restaurant on Delaware Avenue. "The people from Nickelodeon gave me all day and they only gave the reporter from the Inquirer 20 minutes," she explained. She has also written articles about fires and missing children for the Daily News. While covering a recent area fire, Redmond noted that the Red Cross only provided the victims with shelter for one night. "I got the Red Cross mad at me," Redmond said. "I had to make sure my facts were straight so the paper didn't get sued." After Penn, Redmond said she would like to get a job in print journalism. "The thing about print journalism is that there aren't a lot of jobs," she noted. "If I do get a job right out of college, I won't go to graduate school." Redmond is also member of the National Association of Black Journalists and the house manager of DuBois. "Melanie is the nuts and bolts behind the paper. Any newspaper needs experienced people [like Melanie] to bring ideas to fruition," said College senior Malik Wilson, the co-editor of the Vision and a Daily Pennsylvanian columnist. 1990 College graduate Sonia Elliott, the DuBois house dean, added "Melanie is probably one of the most talented students I've ever worked with."