Job & Internship

January 2009 Internship Spotlight

Name: Chris Conetzkey
Major: Journalism
Company: espn.com

Duties: I worked on the NFL desk at espn.com primarily performing duties of an editor. I sat down each day with the other NFL editors to talk about how we were going to present our stories on the site. From there it was my job to prepare our centerpiece package on the site by editing stories, working with reporters, writing headlines, writing captions and writing teasers for stories. I also collaborated with the editors on planning different long-term projects, and had the opportunity to write a feature story about Hall of Famers Art Monk, Darrell Green, and Emmitt Thomas.

Most Memorable Experience: My most memorable experience, besides getting a face full of sweat on the ESPN basketball court courtesy former NFL defensive lineman Marcellus Wiley, was having my story featured as the centerpiece on http://espn.com. It was an awesome experience seeing my byline featured in such a prominent location. To get that centerpiece I pitched an idea to my editors to do a full package about all six of the NFL Hall of Fame inductees. I did a feature story about Emmitt Thomas, and then packaged that with an "in their words" piece about all six. For the "in their words" I interviewed a teammate and an opponent for each inductee, and compiled their responses.

Special Contribution: During the summer, the editors had me put together their weekly power-ranking feature. It consisted of me manually tallying up 12 writers’ votes for all 32 NFL teams. It took a couple hours, and during the season they do the rankings each week. I developed a program that allowed voters to submit their rankings into a spreadsheet that automatically tallied the results. It saved time, and the editors asked me to be in charge of the power rankings for the 2008 season. I got to continue working for ESPN after the internship and got paid $50 per week.

Advice to Future Interns: Wherever you go, make it your goal to provide a skill that your boss doesn't want to see leave at the end of the summer. Doing the power rankings is my example, and because I helped develop that, I got to continue working even after my internship ended.

Also, take every opportunity to let your boss know you have ideas of your own. All the cool things that happened this summer were a result of me pitching ideas. Some they liked, some they didn't. But when they ran with one of my ideas, I got a centerpiece on the site, and got to compile the rankings.

Finally, at the very bottom of http://espn.com is a link to the internship board. They post all the internships in late January. http://www.joinourteam.espn.com/joinourteam/home.html

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