Durant selected for an internship at WBAL TV station

For Dakota Durant ’18, the latter part of senior year has been full of exciting news. The communication & cinema major was selected for an internship at the  WBAL-TV station. “When I found out I got it, I couldn’t stop smiling,” says Durant, who connected with Justina Pollard, then director of programming and public affairs, at McDaniel’s internship fair. After meeting her with a firm handshake, he wasted no time following up with her in an email with his resume attached.

A Green Terror baseball player his first three years, Durant decided to forego his last season on the team so he could devote his spring semester to learning all he could at the station. He works Thursdays from  9 a.m.–5 p.m. and Fridays from 3:30–11:30 p.m., and now gets a regular adrenaline rush from helping the news team respond to breaking stories. “This is stuff I’m really passionate about,” he says.

Durant’s experience in broadcast journalism is totally immersive. He jumps in the news truck and goes out to cover stories with photographers and reporters. He interviews people in the field, handles the phones on the assignment desk, works in the control room and in the studio, and attends meetings to discuss the line-up for upcoming news shows. He is learning how to put together a 90-second news package, and has already gotten scoops, including exclusive footage of the scene inside a Baltimore County high school where a student was believed to be armed with a firearm (it turned out to be a pellet gun).

Pollard observes: “This young man is the ideal intern. Dakota’s a go-getter and his energy is contagious.”

That Durant is achieving such success as an intern is no surprise, Pollard says. She’s worked with other McDaniel interns who greatly impressed her. Nathan Trainor ’13 was a sports intern who was hired as an associate producer at WBAL and is now a news producer at WJZ-TV. Matt Fuhrman ’14 interned at both Maryland Public Television and WBAL-TV before he was hired at WBAL as an associate producer. He’s now a news producer at WGAL8 in Lancaster, Pa.