A Compelling Narrative at First Person

By Dean’s IBrown_Voxntern Elisha Brown at Vox and Scripps Howard Foundation Grantee

Wide-eyed and nervous, I started my first day at Vox about six weeks ago. Since then, I’ve learned so much about what goes into good journalism. As the First Person intern, I find compelling voices to write personal perspectives on the news, fact-check pieces, and work on long-term projects.

The best thing about working at the general interest website is that editors and writers really value your ideas and love to collaborate. I pitched a First Person piece that involved reaching out to a woman whose mother was killed in the Charleston shooting, and within weeks, we were able to share her story to our readers. On the collaboration front, if you don’t know a lot about a topic, there are countless genius writers with expertise on a beat who are right here and willing to help.

Another valuable skill I’ve learned as the features intern is that you have the time to improve a story, do more research, and follow-up with sources and subjects.  As far as the workplace, everyone at Vox is awesome and always open to chatting about the field. And as fellow Dean’s Intern Neha mentioned about her office, the kitchen is loaded with brain food – cereal, string cheese, fruit snacks. All the snacks.

I’m so excited to go to work each day and can’t believe my time at Vox is ending soon. The amount of knowledge I’ve gained in a few weeks is invaluable. Many thanks to the Dean’s Internship program and Scripps Howard for this experience.