Two Colorado College students who interned at the southern Colorado NPR station said they found meaning in their work this summer during an Aug. 19 event at Colorado Public Radio’s new headquarters in Denver.
Students Aeva Dye and Orion Cenkl, both minoring in journalism, spent their summer working in the newsroom of KRCC in Colorado Springs.
The pair produced newscasts and stories individually — like about a waterway project, a river festival, drought, and a county’s basic income program — but also had the opportunity to team up on features about a wildfire and data center.
Reporting throughout the summer had them digging through city zoning codes, traveling to the top of Pikes Peak, and following a river from its mountain headwaters to where it dries out in a small southern Colorado town. The duo also got to experience a staple of newsroom life by covering a late-night statewide primary election.
Prior to Block 1, the journalists showcased some of their work during a presentation.
Dye noted how when they first started, the two spent four hours writing a 250-word digital news story that originated from a press release.
“By the end of the summer this is something that would have taken one of us maybe 20 minutes,” she said. “So, I think that showed how much we got to flex the news muscle throughout the summer and learn how to do it.”
Colorado Public Radio President and CEO Stewart Vanderwilt called the presentations a “highlight of our year” at the station and thanked Colorado College as a partner. The interns, he said, made CPR better.
Throughout their internship, students got to tackle topics that were both familiar and foreign.
“I was interested in reporting on wildfire mitigation or wildfires," said Dye, who had taken "Burning Questions: Wildfire Journalism & Ecology at Colorado Firecamp" as a Career Catalyst block in the spring.
During her time at KRCC, "I did get an opportunity to report on wildfires, unfortunately,” Dye said.
She added that she also learned some hard skills like editing, using Adobe Audition, voice work, and interviewing.
"I also learned things like just flexing that news muscle, getting comfortable writing news and working with deadlines," she said. “I learned a lot about collaborations and support across CPR and across KRCC."
Cenkl recalled that during one of their first days at the station, KRCC Managing Editor Andrea Chalfin told the interns that they don’t break the news, but rather they put put it back together.
“This was a great foundation for what the summer ended up being for me,” Cenkl said. “In radio, you have to be comfortable working within a bunch of different mediums, whether it's voicing for radio, digital writing, social media, photojournalism … you’re constantly learning to adapt to what the story needs.”
The senior said he was grateful for an experience to learn something completely new.
“They didn’t expect interns to have prior experience,” he said. “It was super fun to work for a publicly funded news organization and I could see the impact of what we were doing every day.”
The two radio reporters have a leg up on their chances of doing this kind of work full time when they graduate. The KRCC internship can lead to public radio jobs after college.
Colorado Public Radio just recently offered one of last year’s CC interns, Havalin Haskell, its signature Max Wycisk News fellowship.
