TNF Intern Finally Gets Headline Right

Megan O’Donoghue, who is going to be a terrific journalist some day but not yet, nailed a Tampa News Force (TNF) article’s headline after numerous edits.

“He just kept screaming at me and threatening to punch me in the neck,” said O’Donoghue, who is studying communications at the University of Tampa and is currently serving an unpaid internship with TNF, referencing Clark Brooks, the organization’s Senior Supreme Executive Premium Content Editor. “He kept yelling ‘No, no, NO!! Do it right!’, scratching out my work with a red pen and sending me back to my desk. He wouldn’t say exactly what he wanted and I just had to figure it out.”

“I wanted her to do it right,” replied Brooks. “There’s only one way for young people to learn and that’s the way I’ve learned everything my whole life: vague instructions and threats of physical violence.”

“At one point, he threw a coffee cup at me and it just missed hitting me in the head,” she said. “He said he was sorry and asked me to bring it back to him, so I did and he threw it at me again.”

The headline is meant to accompany a TNF featured article about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signing HB1365, legislation which is titled the “Unauthorized Public Camping and Public Sleeping” bill on Wednesday. The bill, which goes into effect as law on October 1 does not address how law enforcement agencies are supposed to enforce it nor whether it applies to people falling asleep at the movies, a bookstore, in a bar or on a bus or any other locations where one might nod off, but it does specifically require municipalities to designate a public space for internment camps, if local shelters are full, with approval from the state Department of Children and Families. These camps will be expected to provide security, behavioral health services and bathrooms with running water.

The irony of passing legislation that effectively makes being unhoused illegal without addressing any of the factors that cause that to occur in a state with a major housing affordability crisis makes the issue perfect for TNF to cover.

Accompanied by an unaltered photo which shows DeSantis beaming with his characteristically off-putting grin while displaying the signed bill as creepy unknown non-playable characters lurk behind him, including some really short dude gazing lustfully at a much taller man, the article will never actually be published since all the salient points have been made in this one, rendering O’Donoghue’s hard work irrelevant.

“One day here and I hate this place,” she said.