Southern California

NBCLA.com Internship Testimonial: Jeanne Kuang, Northwestern 2016

NBCLA.com was my first news internship, so I didn’t know what to expect when I walked into the shiny new Universal City newsroom on my first day. I thought, "If they just let me sit in here and throw a short news brief at me every now and then, for the intern, that would be fine.'"

I ended up writing two articles on my first day and many, many more during the 10 weeks I spent at KNBC this summer. I wrote about crime, city officials, the drought, immigration and countless other topics.

The internship is writing-heavy, which aligned well with my career aspirations. Writing two or three articles of mostly hard news every day was the perfect practice for someone who wants to go into print or web journalism, and one-on-one editing sessions with the digital producers taught me to adopt a sharper and more critical sense of news judgment. I learned how to organize stories and how to write concisely and effectively.

When I wasn’t writing an article, working on something website-related, writing tweets or calling a police department, just being in the newsroom was an opportunity to learn.
As an NBCLA digital intern, I was part of the digital team. I watched how the digital producers handled breaking news and I joined in during daily meetings as the team discussed which stories to promote on social media.

I also got to see how a broadcast news station works, something I had never had a glimpse of before. The digital team works with the broadcast side to get the most thorough and up-to-date reports, and during my time at the station I got a better sense of the role media plays in society and how the media can engage its audience, particularly for a quality station like NBC4 with close ties to the large, diverse, eventful Southern California community around it.

I didn’t know what to expect when I started my NBCLA internship. But it’s been an invaluable experience that really set the bar. After 10 weeks with a team of very skilled, very helpful professionals, I know I’ll have a lot to expect from future internships.

Link: Read Jeanne's stories

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