The Daily Nightly : Internal affairs

Interning at Nightly News

Sam Singal — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 11:36:00 GMT

By Cate Cauguiran, USC

Editor's note: We asked the summer interns to write about their experiences at 'Nightly News.'

It’s 2 o'clock in the morning.

It’s my last day at Nightly. I was the last intern to come into the program, and the last one out. That night, I had two hours to pack before my flight back to Los Angeles, where I would begin my senior year at the University of Southern California the next day.

Finally, I placed the finishing touches on my piece. After having spent the last seventeen hours putting together a two-minute news segment - breaking only to help with the evening newscast.

I left the newsroom with one of those lump-in-the-throat feelings, so I swallowed hard, smiled and walked out of the revolving doors with Nightly News fleece in hand and four basic lessons in mind.

Timing

It is everything.

When I commented how an interviewee spoke fast as I was logging it in real time, I was told, "Well you better type faster."

The news waits for no one, but that is the best part. They don't call it the "Rundown Routine" for nothing.

I could always count on a daily dose of cardio at 30 Rock.

Connections.

A professor told me "it’s not who you know, but who knows you... then it's what you know." The statement speaks for itself.

However, connections aren't always professional. During my internship I was able to encounter some of the most talented people in the business, not only through observation but in my conversations. As an intern I thought I could either keep my ‘I'm-so-in-awe-of-you distance’ or not. I chose not. The rewards were exponential.

Among the many people I encountered, I made a great connection with producer Maria Alcon, who unconditionally took me under her wing in making sure I learned and applied every one of these lessons I listed here. At the end she was not only one of my greatest mentors, but a good friend.

The journalist, the storyteller

Everyone has a story. This is something that can be considered common knowledge to all, but is most certainly fundamental knowledge to a journalist. At a Nightly Intern meeting with Ann Curry, she expressed this lesson with an unexpected but perfect example.

I asked her about her reporting on the current situation in Darfur, particularly about her interview with Sudanese President al-Bashir. I recalled the moment when the Sudanese president told her that the genocide "did not exist." Al-Bashir's "did not exist" comment came after Ann's visits to a refugee camp where she encountered a young woman who was raped and a young man who was blinded by the Janjaweed.

My activist heart repeated, "did not exist?!" slower and much more sarcastically.

To which Ann replied, "first and foremost, he is human" and that no matter what he may and may not have done he still has a story to tell and that we as journalists are the storytellers.

There is no such thing as a dumb question.

If there was one thing I was taught during this internship was "always ask questions."

Though the majority of my questions in my first few weeks consisted of how to get around the 5th floor maze, I asked, all the time.

"Where can I find..." "How does this work..." "Why did you do that?"

One day I asked the right question. And that led me to the Waldorf Astoria where I was able to sit in on a live interview. Not just any, Ann Curry's interview with former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

As an International Relations and Journalism major I was as excited as a teenage boy first in line for a Nintendo Wii.

Wrapping it up.

My eight weeks at Nightly News certainly gave me the award for best "how did you spend your summer vacation?" answer.

Recalling my first day sitting outside with my bought-off-the-street bagel in hand, Rockefeller Center was not glamorous, nor did it hold the aura that most prospective journalists have. It was tease, more of here's a glimpse of your maybe future ten years from now.

Leaving was different. Rockefeller Center still was a tease, but like mom always said, it's what's inside that counts.

This internship taught me the practicalities and the day-to-day components of a newscast, but it more than anything it instilled a passion in me that I feel part of the industry has lost to business and popular culture. My innocence can be attributed to youth, but as a song lyric says, "maybe only in our blind beliefs can we ever find the truth." I know that I am not alone in my goals, and if we are the new wave of journalist in the ever-changing media then we can change it.

My internship was in all senses a positive reinforcement. This was what I wanted to do. These were the people I wanted to be.

Every single person I encountered at Nightly--producers, correspondents, production crew and desk assistants helped me to build my foundation upon my passions for the journalism industry. They made me realize the importance of what it is be a journalist.

To be there those who cannot be. To be a voice for the voiceless. The advocate against ignorance by reporting not just America's stories, but also reporting unheard stories to America.

Ann Curry said one thing I will never forget.

"We need warriors. So please, join me, join the fight"

And that I intend to do.

More than any credit or course

Daily Nightly Editor — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 18:30:00 GMT

Editor's note: Today and everyday through the rest of the week, we'll be posting guest blogs from the news interns who joined us this past summer. We wish them luck on their first week back at school.

by Jenna Hanchard, NBC Nightly News Intern Summer 2007, Syracuse University

Every time I heard the words, “We’ll look for you right back here tomorrow night,” I wished that one night I could respond by saying, “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Brian.” Luckily this summer, that wish became reality. As I began to settle into the rhythm of the newsroom, my job quickly went from simply greeting the staff and blossomed into valuable hands-on experience.

Each day was as if someone held down the fast forward button on my life. It was exciting to work on different projects almost every day. The challenge of finding what worked best for each story and seeing it get on the air was thrilling. The pace of the day forced me learn how to make the best decisions in the shortest time.

One of the highlights was the daily 2:30 p.m. editorial meeting. I couldn’t wait for the comical yet journalistically sound editorial contributions from Brian. But even more, I yearned to understand how each broadcast was put together. Each editorial decision, from Paris Hilton to the London car bombings, provided me with a new insight into what is newsworthy and important to the American people.

Yet the intern interaction with the news staff wasn’t limited to an observation of how they think. I loved that we had personal and interactive time with many amazing journalists. Brian Williams and Ann Curry both halted their busy days and put down their BlackBerries to talk with us about the extraordinary journeys that ultimately lead them to NBC.

It was great to be going through a similar experience with my peers, from whom I also learned along the way. Sometimes a couple of the interns would go out to dinner after work to discuss the “biz,” the future of it and where we could hopefully fit in. Inevitably, none of those questions had concrete answers.

One of the most interesting parts of this business is the people in it. They have knowledge that cannot be found or taught at institutions of higher learning, and that is what made this experience, on many levels, priceless. What I have learned and taken from the experience will amount to more than any credit or course, and I am truly thankful to Nightly News for that.

Click here to read more intern posts via Internal Affairs.

The intern class of '07 will take the industry by storm

Daily Nightly Editor — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 18:30:00 GMT

by Joshua Clark, NBC Nightly News Intern, Summer 2007, Boston University

For all young men and women who aspire to be broadcast professionals, you would be well privileged to spend any part of your career at NBC Nightly News. I was asked to write about the singular highlight of my intern experience this summer but I assure anyone who reads this that the aforementioned task is quite impossible. It was all a blessing.

During my time at NBC Nightly News, I was given the opportunity to accompany producers on field shoots, submit story teases and pitches and assist with parts of segment production along with every other aspect of the broadcast. While many tune in at 6:30 p.m. EST and watch the news for a half an hour, I was part of the chosen few who help get the news on the air.

At the age of 20 my name appeared in the upper left corner of a script that was read for national news broadcast. I was also blessed to work with a group of young people (interns) who were as passionate and hungry for success as I was. I established long-lasting friendships that are sure to endure the years and survive coastal divisions.

And with all due respect and deference to all those who took us under their wings, nurtured us and taught us what it really means to be journalists, the intern class of summer 2007 is going to take this industry by complete storm. It is quite an amazing feeling knowing that one day you will rule the world while in the present, you stand atop the shoulders of giants. Not many people from my neighborhood had the opportunity to pitch their collaborative idea for a sitcom to NBC executives. It is rare in this day an age for anyone to work closely with a person, much less a group of people they have emulated since they were old enough to pick up a microphone and pretend that a hole in a cardboard box was a television.

We, the class of summer 2007, feel we are quite rare. But don’t worry: it hasn’t gone to our heads. More than anything we thank those who took the time to teach us about the business, the good parts and the bad.

Until we meet again.

Click here to read more intern posts via Internal Affairs.

Rundowns, research, and a psychic cat: My summer at 'Nightly'

Daily Nightly Editor — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 18:25:00 GMT

by Alex Bregman, NBC Nightly News Summer 2007 Intern, University of Pennsylvania

As I meandered through the construction of NBC News’s soon-to-be new digs at 30 Rock and finally made it to Nightly News’s temporary office, the first person I met was M.L. Flynn, the senior foreign producer for the broadcast. She heard me walk into the office, looked up from her computer and said, “You look like a new summer intern.” I guess I immediately showed my cards. She kindly told me to grab a newspaper and take a seat. Then the phone rang. It was none other than NBC’s chief foreign affairs correspondent, Andrea Mitchell, calling from Mexico on her way back from a trip to Cuba. This whole episode was pretty ironic for me considering that last summer it was the opposite. Back then I was in Andrea’s office during my internship at NBC’s Washington bureau, listening to M.L.’s voice on the phone. I suppose it was listening to those voices in New York that lured me from Washington to 30 Rock—from the center of the political world to the center of the network.

In Washington I learned how a reporter covers a beat. In New York I have learned how all those beats come together to make a broadcast, and it is not as easy as Brian Williams may make it look. At the end of our daily morning editorial meeting the executive producer, Alex Wallace, goes through the stories, saying, “If we had to do the broadcast at 9:30,” and writes a preliminary list. Never would that list be the same at 2:30 p.m. at our afternoon editorial meeting and, come time for the actual broadcast, that morning list would sometimes seem like last week’s news. The amount of debate that went into the final list of stories, called the “rundown,” which was never really final until 6:30 p.m., was one of the most interesting parts of the job this summer.

The most surprising part was probably how eager everyone was to help me out, from Brian down to the desk assistants. Part of my job included running errands or answering phones in the newsroom, but I quickly realized how even the most basic tasks contributed to getting the broadcast on the air every night. This summer I’ve done everything from getting coffee at 4 a.m. for Brian’s exclusive early morning interview with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to interviewing a cat therapist in the West Village here in New York City for a Lee Cowan report about an ominous cat named Oscar, which has this uncanny ability to predict death at a nursing home in Providence, Rhode Island. (Cowan wouldn’t go anywhere near the cat.)

From helping producers get their reports done on deadline, to running scripts and wires to Brian in the studio during the broadcast, to helping senior investigative producer Bob Windrem track everything from trouble in the NBA to Al Qaeda, it was one incredible summer, and as much as I do not want my college days to end, the world of television news does not seem like a bad world to work in after those days are over.