Not Your Ordinary Snow Day at NBC Washington

By Dean’s Intern Sophia Barnes at NBC Washington

Snow days are big for local news, and Winter Storm Jonas/Blizzard 2016/Snowzilla (no one could agree on a name for this one) was especially big. Indeed, it was the fourth biggest storm in D.C. Through my Dean’s Internship at NBC Washington, I witnessed the whole thing from inside a constantly buzzing newsroom.

My classmates had no school and my already-graduated friends telecommuted. Our digital team leader, Wendy Warren, had told me how huge this would be for NBC Washington, though, so I put on my snow boots and trekked to work.

That day was one of the most fun ones of my internship so far. My intern coordinator, Carissa, and the other digital team members trust me to do a lot of projects at NBC Washington. Snowzilla was no different.

I went to the morning meeting, where I learned all the important details the online arm of a news organization has to cover during a storm: roads, schools, official responses, safety tips are all information the public needs to know. We knew from our web data that people were looking to NBC Washington for the information.

After the team meeting, I got projects to “own.” I created our running list of event cancellations and constantly updated it. I ran over to the weather team with Facebook Live and Periscope to get a behind-the-scenes perspective from our weather people – that over 3,000 people watched as I live streamed it.

Everyday of my internship is busy: I published three stories on my first day. I will always remember Winter Storm Jonas, though, as one of the most fun and busy days at my internship with NBC Washington.