To Science Channel … and Beyond!

By Dean’s Intern Hannah Sedgwick at Discovery Communications

The best Animal Planet send-off possible — cuddles from a sleeping puppy.

My internship at Discovery Communications always keeps me on my toes, and this semester has been no different. After spending the last nine months working with the communications team at Animal Planet, I shifted over to Science Channel’s communications team after some restructuring at Discovery.

I’m always up for a new adventure, and this time, it took me to space! Ok, not really. But I do spend the vast majority of my time at Science Channel pulling and editing episode clips with Adobe Premiere Pro for NASA’s Unexplained Files and other Science Channel shows.

I’m really thankful for the opportunity to learn more about video editing and the more technical side of being a communications professional. While honing your writing skills and perfecting your pitch is definitely important, I feel like the more technical skills, like video editing or Excel, sometimes get left behind. Now that I get to spend more time editing video for distribution to the press, I am definitely gaining valuable skills that I haven’t used for a few years.

Even though I’m spending more time on the digital side of PR, it doesn’t mean I’ve left my pitching days behind. My favorite part of PR is writing the perfect pitch to send out to a reporter. So far at Science Channel, I’ve been able to pitch a story about the narrator of How It’s Made to press in the DC area (and now there’s one story in the works!) as well as weekly pitches for Impossible Engineering. Last week’s episode focused on how AT&T Stadium was built and I was able to get a press hit with a local Dallas sports outlet. This week I even got the opportunity to write a release for a brand-new show on Science Channel! I’m excited to see what I can accomplish and learn during my final three weeks.