Summer Intern Orientation Day

New interns and Assistant News Director Rob

Jim, Walt, Larissa -- the early years

So interning is pretty much essential when you want a job in tv news. A journalism degree is great, but most news directors expect you to have some hands on experience to get a job. Today our new group of interns showed up for orientation. They're getting degrees all over North Texas (& Oklahoma) at schools like UNT, SMU, UTD, UTA. And I'm really looking forward to having them around because it never hurts to have some extra help writing, making phone calls and having voices out in the field.

and.. having interns around... had the rest of us talking about where we interned.

Assistant News Director Rob first interned at KSAT in San Antonio. He went on to produce in the same market, plus here in Dallas, manage in Washington D.C. before coming back here. So pretty much he's had a lot of experience. But it all started in San Antonio. I asked him if he ever messed up and got yelled at but he told me no. I think he's lying because he tends to cause trouble around our newsroom now.

Jim Grimes (weekend anchor) interned here in Dallas but at WFAA. He's been in this business for a while... and no one is still there that was there when he interned. I tried to get some juicy secrets on News 8 from him, but he won't tell me anything.

And Walt Maciborski interned at ABC News in LA. This is unusual because most people intern in smaller markets, and in local news.... not network stations. He also got paid A LOT (around $17 dollars an hour) which is a TON for a news internship. But ... that's Walt.

I'm a weekend producer-- I interned in Austin, because I went to UT. (hook 'em) I worked, for free, at KXAN and KEYE. I really loved both internships. I worked the morning shift at KXAN- which was tricky because I also worked at the student station. So I basically worked at the student station until 10 pm... took a nap on the college newsroom couch... and then went to the station at 3:30am. BLEH but it was worth it.