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Worcester State College Campus News
Item Article featured in the Telegram & Gazette on November 19,
2007
WSC student finds her 'voice' WASHINGTON - When Todd Grosshans, a producer for the Voice of America, offered to provide what he described as some "salacious" quotes about Emily Thurlow, Ms. Thurlow pursed her lips, raised an eyebrow and held up a note that Mr. Grosshans had left on her desk a few weeks earlier. "You're the best Gal Friday ever." She may not be running the show yet, but it's obvious that, in her time as an intern at the Voice of America, Ms. Thurlow, 21, a senior at Worcester State College from Brookfield, has found ways to make herself indispensable. Mr. Grosshans's note was a thank-you for her help searching stories, but that's not all Ms. Thurlow has done. Since starting her internship in September, she has written scripts, drafted press releases, shot and edited video on location, recorded sound, done voiceovers, suggested stories, listened in on phone calls with ambassadors and met members of the band Hanson. "I just want to learn as much as I can while I'm here and take advantage of every opportunity that's presented to me," Ms. Thurlow said. The Voice of America is a good place for that. Founded during the Cold War to broadcast American news into Communist countries, the federally funded organization today puts out news stories in 40 languages across the world on radio, TV and the Internet. Ms. Thurlow's internship is in the Voice of America's English-language video service, an 11-person unit. With such a small, close-knit group, VOA offers "an opportunity that you really aren't going to get in a lot of other networks, to get hands-on experience," said Patricia Bodnar, the executive producer. "At other places, you might just be logging tape." Every day, Ms. Thurlow helps put together a webcast for www.voanews.com and a television program for its India service. Broadcast on the Aaj Tak network in India as part of the "Headlines Today" show, the program has an estimated audience of 12 million people. Ms. Thurlow's duties include searching for possible stories for that day's broadcast and helping to write the broadcaster's scripts. She also edits video for those that have been selected. The webcast is filmed at midday, while the TV show is sent over a satellite feed at 2:30 p.m. "I think the fun ones (stories) are the oddball ones, the stuff you don't hear every day," Ms. Thurlow said - such as the piece on the world's most expensive dessert - an ice cream sundae showered with $25,000 worth of gold jimmies - that she worked on this month. Ms. Thurlow got her internship through the Washington Center, a nonprofit organization that acts as a liaison between organizations in Washington that need interns and college students who are eager to gain work experience in the nation's capital. In addition to news media and PR-related internships popular with communications majors such as Ms. Thurlow, the center also arranges placements on Capitol Hill and at the nonprofit and government agencies that abound in Washington. "We have a database of about 5,000 agencies at this point," said Kathleen Regan, the program manager for mass communications and Ms. Thurlow's adviser at the center. "If a student has a specific request, we research it to match their goals," Ms. Regan said. About 1,600 students a year are placed through the center, which also finds them housing, offers academic classes and arranges talks with mentors who are already working in the fields that the students are interested in. "About 30 percent of our students get job offers" after their internships, Ms. Regan said. The center also has an alumni director and an onilne alumni community, to whom students can post notices that they're looking for jobs. Since the center has been around since 1975, many alumni are now in a position to hire new graduates themselves. "A lot of times, agencies will come to me and say, 'We're looking to hire. Do you have anybody you can recommend?'" Ms. Regan said. What students get out of the internships depends on what they put in. "Emily really has taken me up on the suggestion of talking to everybody and seeing what are the pros and cons of what type of further training she needs, so that she's able to further narrow down what she wants to do in television," Ms. Regan said. Ms. Bodnar agreed. She said Ms. Thurlow has made the most of her time with the Voice of America. "She's the kind of person we think of as model intern," she said. Such dedication has become second nature to Ms. Thurlow. She worked two jobs back home to help put herself through Worcester State College. The college encourages as many students as possible to seek out internships, particularly through the Washington Center, said Alta Carroll, director of internships and Ms. Thurlow's adviser at Worcester State. High grades and excellent writing skills are necessary to get the best internships in the communications field, Ms. Carroll said. Ms. Thurlow meets those requirements. She's a very good student, and I love reading her journals," Ms. Carroll said. Many Worcester students complete their internships in Massachusetts. But for Ms. Thurlow, a chance to get hands-on production experience helped entice her to Washington. Television has been a passion for her since the third grade, when her teacher, Susan Miner, started a new media program for her students. "She said I was a natural interviewer," Ms. Thurlow said. "And I remember she said to me, 'I'm gonna see you some day, doing something.' And I don't know, it just kind of stuck with me." Ms. Thurlow's interest in broadcast journalism continued through her youth, and in high school she began to focus on production. "I really enjoyed putting packages together....I liked the darkroom; I liked taking photos. I really liked all of it. And I think doing production was something that encompasses all of my interests. I can do something on screen. I can do something behind (the camera). It gives me more to choose from," she said. But as much as she's learned here, she's not quite sure if she's ready to stay in Washington when the internship ends Dec. 15. "It's nice. But I really miss the weather," Ms. Thurlow said with a smile. "I know I'm crazy to want it to be 20 degrees, but I like the constant change. Plus, you can't beat the New England fall." Some in Washington might want her to stay. Amid the chatter in the Voice of America control room after a successful broadcast of the India show - which included a piece Ms. Thurlow produced on loggerhead turtles - a control room technician said he would like to see her working with the technicians more often. "Tell Emily to come visit the show. Stop blowing us off," he said in a mock outrage. Ms. Thurlow smiled and demurred. She has lots of places yet to conquer.
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