Through NATALEA'S Lens: kdka'S 2023 SUMMER internship

Monday, June 5th: I recorded my first stand up at the senior citizen place with the broken elevators with Chris Hoffman and Steve Willing. 

Tuesday, June 6th: Observed and sat in the studio with the producers for the 3 pm, 4 pm, and 5 pm.

Wednesday, June 7th: I went to the court house with Ross Guidotti for the verdict on the baby that was shot downtown... Ross taught me that the first person you want to talk to at a fire is the Incident Commander... After, I went to a breaking news story in Clairton with Ian. I recorded a breaking news intro.

Thursday, June 8th: I went with Ross and Aaron for the Juneteenth Press Conference at the Point.

Monday, June 12th: I went to North Allegheny with Chris Hoffman about how the plum superintendent was planning on leaving Plum for NA. Recorded an intro for it.

Tuesday, June 13th: First, Jeremy taught me how to fly a drone at acrisure stadium.. then went around with Jeremy as a reporter and went to the Pittsburgh Regional Transit Conference and interviewed three people with the mic. After, I went to the fire and interviewed the guy that lived across the street. It was pouring rain! My notebook got completely soaked!😂

Wednesday, June 14th: I recorded and produced my first news package at KDKA! I attended the Public Safety Press conference at the city council building with Chris Hoffman and Jeremy. After, we went to Acrisure Stadium to record the intro and outro. Chris did his live shots for the newscasts. 

Monday, June 19th: I helped write a few stories for the 4 pm newscast... I first had to look online at CNN News Source and decided what national stories should go on at 4... Tori loved them and said to write 5 stories.. She said I was a really good writer! 

Tuesday, June 20th: I wrote stories for the noon newscast and sat in the studio for the 4 & 5, and a little of the 6... I got to talk to Ken, Meghan, and Royce in the studio.

Wednesday, June 21st: I produced and conducted my own rundown for my 30 minute newscast. Vicky helped me and guided me through everything. I decided what local and national stories should go in. I proceeded to write about each one and put in effects. I really tried to envision what the newscast would look like. iNews is something that I got the hang of after working with the producers. They taught me the order of putting stories and why they put them in a specific order. The top breaking news stories at the beginning and when there is weather, a lighter story goes before so the transition is smooth. All weather reports go at the same time in the newscast for every station.

Monday, June 26th: I went around with Ian and Shelley for the amazon delivery driver getting attacked and shot at in Penn Hills on new field drive. I recorded an intro to the story. 

Tuesday, June 27th: I floated around the newsroom/studio this day to be around the anchors and see how it is in the studio.

Wednesday, June 28th: I worked with Ian and Bob Pompeani at the St.Clair golf course. I helped record stuff for the segment. After this, because of the bad air quality, we went to get drone footage of the air quality in the sky. 

Friday, June 30th: Brian and I went to the Pittsburgh Youth Changemakers conference in Oakland and I created my own news package of the event! I started to incorporate more movement in my intro and stand up. 

Monday, July 10th: This week, I worked with Corey. He is the special projects producer, and the executive producer of Talk Pittsburgh. I was able to shadow him and learn about the things he does. 

Tuesday, July 11th: I started the day out of watching Corey's special projects on vimeo. I watched the transformation of the new KDKA newsroom, the earth day piece, Intersections, and another one on the anniversary of the tornado on Mount. Washington.  He also talked about the telethon, Christmas in July segment, and we watched some of the children's feature stories. I also sat in on the noon show.

Thursday, July 13th: I went on a shoot with Kristine to the museum of play in Beaver Falls. I helped her log the entire story and interviews.

Friday, July 14th: I met Kristine and Ken at the Mt. Lebo High School Stadium for a special on rising soccer star Mia Bhuta. 

Monday, July 17th: I logged the Mia Bhuta story for Kristine, and went out with Meghan Schiller and Steve Willing to cover the Southside and what business owners are thinking and feeling about the crackdown over the weekend...  They gave out 35 citations and fined people. Meghan helped me record a few intros and stand ups to practice my movement while delivering. 

Tuesday, July 18th: I wrote both of my stories from last week for my packages.. I went back out with Meghan to work on a possible Giant Eagle getting build in Bloomfield with Aaron Sledge as well. They helped me shoot a few intros and standups. 

Wednesday, July 19th: I went with Kristine to the FLAG club drone session at South Fayette High School. I recorded an intro with the drone flying up. The FLAG club director invited us up to the school for Moe's. 

Thursday, July 20th: I worked my first night shift ever! I worked with Jen all night. I helped her out with some research on her package. 

Wednesday, August 9th: It was my first day back from vacation and I still wanted to come in to work! I didn't get any real sleep in 48 hours. I was with Lisa Smith for the week. She is the director of Community Impact. I job shadowed her and learned about how she sets up her rundown for Intersections. 

Thursday, August 10th: This was such a busy day and it was fun! First off, I sat in on the Quarterly station meeting with everyone from the station and was recognized at the beginning for being a new employee! Shawn, Chris (GM) and a few others spoke in front of the group and gave the survey results and spoke about a couple other new additions coming to KDKA. Then, I went out with Aaron and Kim Gable to the Carnegie Library and assisted and recorded a cute little intro with the book in my hand. Lol what a funny experience. Then, I joined the paramount cbs intern interview with Nate Burleson! It was awesome. He’s really cool and I feel like our energy matched really well. I made sure to ask a question and introduce myself at the end of it. There was a total of 87 interns on the call. CBS has been offering some all summer but this is the one and only one I was able to join.

Friday, August 11th:  So far I joined Lisa for her “Intersections” recording in the studio and met all the guests she was bringing on the show. I took behind the scenes pictures for her on her phone of her and all the guests. Then, I finished up the FCC Issues Report I kinda started yesterday. I think I did a really good job organizing the stories and choosing them in general. It took me about 4 hours to do. After, I sent her the email with the excel sheet and found some music for her MLK video on Megatrax!

Tuesday, August 15th: This week, I am with the web team! I had a zoom call at 10 am with Jon Fisher, he is the manager of the wb team. He went through each platform that they use and showed me each one in detail. I then sat with Madeline and she taught me more about the platforms they use. I wrote three stories that got posted on the CBS News web. I wrote about the ner Kennywood hiring events, the marathon registration and rewrote Shelley's story for the web. I also went around with Heather and watched her to behind the scenes social media for Talk Pittsburgh. 

Wednesday, August 16th: Today I went to the 2nd to last day of Steelers Training camp!! (I am writing this here lol). Earlier today, we got sound from Cam Heyward, Joey Porter, and some other players. I recorded an intro and stand up for a package I am going to create... I helped Ian clip the sound for the news packages that went out for the 4 and 5. The two packages that went out today were about the maui fires and how the Pittsburgh Steelers are trying to help and are connected, and how Damar Hamlin is coming back this weekend (Pittsburgh Native) on the bills. 

Thursday, August 17th: I helped clip video for the stream, wrote a few stories for the web, and went around with Heather for behind the scenes content for social media for Talk Pittsburgh. 

Friday, August 18th: Today I helped the web team write stories and observed what Heather did for the Talk Pittsburgh social medias!

Wednesday, August 23rd: I worked the overnight shift with Mark, Mike and Drew! I helped Mike write some stories for the web and helped Mark with some stories for the newscast. I also watched Chirs the editor use Edius to edit the 4:30 am and 5 am newscasts. He was teaching me his ways around the editor! 

Thursday, August 24th: I did my second overnight shift at KDKA from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. I helped Mark write stories and sat in the newsroom for the early morning newscasts!

Friday, August 25th: For the last day of my internship, I went with Royce and Fred for the day. Our first stop was Gateway's campus. Royce did a story on a girl who won a huge scholarship. I was able to talk to him and got great advice from him! After this, I went to Vandergrift with Fred for a breaking news story. The guy who was on the run ended up getting found in the basement of the winery. (It was an old church). He broke in through breaking through the basement door. 

Overall, it was a great summer and I appreciate everyone who has helped me along the way!