Public Media in the Time of Covid

By Dean’s Intern Grace Vitaglione at Current

I’m Grace Vitaglione, and I’m one of two editorial interns working for Current this summer! I was lucky enough to have my spring internship with Current extended throughout the summer and continue my work reportingGrace Vitaglione on news in public media. This gave me the opportunity to keep honing my reporting skills and to connect with even more public media journalists.

My favorite part of this internship is getting to talk to the people who I hope to work alongside one day in public media. It’s also been interesting to see how stations are rising to meet the challenges of the coronavirus lockdown, from holding virtual graduations to expanding local coverage of the pandemic. Many stations in remote areas are the only source of local news about how the coronavirus is affecting their town, and some are struggling to find the resources necessary to do so as funds drop.

But within the struggles of the past three months, there have also been a lot of fun memories. I watched high school students dance over Zoom in a virtual prom held by one radio station, talked to legendary film director Stanley Nelson about a revamp of his debut film and listened to a station’s collection of quarantine haiku sent in by listeners, which ranged from silly to thoughtful.

I’m very grateful to have had this opportunity, and hope to carry the lessons I’ve learned from my time at Current onwards into my journalism career!

Here is my staff profile at Current: https://current.org/author/grace-vitaglione/