IC News

It’s not the norm to see student journalists working shoulder-to-shoulder with professional journalists at major media outlets on the campaign trail. But that’s exactly what Ithaca College students accomplished this spring, traveling to report with CNN for the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire primaries, and with NPR affiliate WKNO-FM in Memphis for Super Tuesday.

“For a college student to have the skillset, the capabilities, to be able to help produce industry-level, quality content — that’s amazing,” says James Rada, associate professor and chair of the journalism department, who selected the students for each internship.

The trips came out of relationships the college has forged over the years, he says. Students previously worked with WKNO to cover Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy, 50 years after his death. Eric Sherling ’96, senior vice president of Washington and special events programming for CNN, invited Ithaca students to join coverage of the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire primaries.

These aren’t “coffee and copies” internships, either, Rada says.

“These students were part of the team,” he says. “They got to know what is means to be a journalist covering an election event.”

Over 10 days in February, Kristen Mirand ’20 helped CNN cover the New Hampshire primaries, preparing for the network’s four town halls and, on the day of the primary, visiting polling stations with crews to help with the reporters’ live shots.

“Being trusted by all these professional journalists, to help them out with their live shots and with the content they’re producing, it definitely speaks volumes of the school and the connections that we have,” Mirand says. “I wouldn’t get this opportunity anywhere else.”

Giulia Villanueva-López ’20, who was one of the students covering the Iowa Caucus with CNN, says it was “exhilarating” to be part of a large news organization’s behind-the-scenes planning — and to see how professionals navigate unexpected hiccups, like the caucus app’s failure to accurately tally votes, which delayed reporting of the results.

“It prepared me to understand how journalists have to handle any surprises that come at us,” she says. “You have to think of Plan A, Plan B, and more.”

Students have also come out of the trips with meaningful reporting experiences and clips, Rada says. “These news outlets, they’re already going to have reporting teams there, but we’re providing them with extra people,” he explains — which means students get to pursue their own stories.

During the Super Tuesday trip to Memphis, for example, students contributed radio hits that aired during the local block of NPR’s “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.”

“We started interviews a couple of hours after we got off the plane,” says Eden Strachan ’21. One of the pieces she reported, shot, and edited — exploring modern voting struggles through the lens of the National Civil Rights Museum — was embedded into an WKNO article. “I was really proud of that.”