This September, I was hired as the National Desk Intern at NPR West located in Los Angeles. The studio serves as NPR’s western hub, which consists of national and foreign desk correspondents, the western bureau editors, engineers, and producers. Renée Montagne cohosts Morning Edition from NPR West and many of the interviews conducted with actors, musicians, and famous celebrities are recorded remotely through its studios.

As National Desk Intern, I work with national correspondents throughout the country and assist them with research, contacting sources and capturing in-field audio recordings for national programming. I have been assigned to gather audio from the Occupy L.A. protests in Downtown Los Angeles and the Rupert Murdoch protests outside of Fox studios in Century City. Both audio recordings were used during NPR’s All Things Considered.

Along with assisting reporters, I’ve had the opportunity to be the reporter on stories, including a report on a supernova that erupted in a nearby galaxy 21 million light years away. I interviewed the astronomer responsible for making the discovery and attended a stargazing party two hours outside of Los Angeles where a group of amateur astronomers searched for the exploding star.

The other story is based around the Copiale Cipher, an 18th century manuscript consisting of 105 pages of coded text. A University of Southern California computer scientist and two researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden decoded the text and uncovered the bizarre proceedings of an initiation ceremony conducted by a secret German society. Both stories aired on NPR’s Weekend Edition.

Having worked as a student announcer and producer at WGLT throughout college, I started this internship with more than three years experience in public radio. I was fully prepared to enter into a national media organization and utilize what I learned at GLT to accomplish my assignments at NPR. The NPR West staff are incredibly generous with their time, their mentoring, and their respect. And although I miss everyone at GLT, I feel right at home at NPR West.

Listen to Danny’s stories at wglt.org. Click on the npr logo in the upper right hand corner, do a site search for “Chance to Spot Rare Supernova” and “Copiale Cipher” to hear them

 

One thought on “Redbird spotlight: Interning at NPR West

  1. Jane Smolen says:

    Nice Job, Danny! Congratulations!