Danae Bucci, an undergraduate student in Northeastern’s School of Journalism, has been spending her summer working at the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Colorado Springs Gazette as the Dow Jones News Fund (DJNF) Digital Media Intern. Danae was selected out of nearly 800 applicants to participate in the 2019 DJNF program, which aims to promote careers in journalism in the digital age. In her role, she has been managing a daily newsletter, assisting with and producing video and audio content for the Gazette’s online publication, and writing breaking news and business articles for both the online and print publication.

Danae’s adventures as a DJNF Digital Media Intern started out with a ten day training trip at Arizona State University in Phoenix.

“Each day was filled with seminars on all things journalism! I was able to learn more about a bunch of areas that I’m interested in such as videography, data visualization and even a little bit of web development,” said Danae, who has minors in Political Communication and Photojournalism. “After the ten days were over, I flew straight to Colorado Springs, Colorado and started at the Gazette, where I am doing military, business and breaking news reporting, and even helping out with the video team.”

The opportunity has been a great way to strengthen her skillset and broaden her reporting experience.

“Prior to coming to Colorado, I had never reported on the military, despite coming from a military family,” Danae added. “Now, I cover events on the local bases every week. I also love how open my newsroom is to letting me pitch my own stories and lead my own project. I’ve been able to pitch a video food series where I travel to different restaurants and cover some of their most popular dishes. I even got to do a beginner’s guide to fourteeners where I got to hike 14,000 foot mountain for work. How cool is that!”

In just a few months, Danae has already seen her video editing skills strengthen; her Gazette editor often requires quick turnarounds on projects. Danae has worked well under pressure and embraced it as an opportunity to improve the speed and quality of her work. Luckily, Danae’s classes and former co-op experiences helped prepare her for the intensity of a newsroom.

“Both my co-op class and my previous co-ops have really been able to make me feel more confident in my abilities in a professional setting,” she explained. “Without being able to gain skills in class and refine them in my previous co-ops, I wouldn’t have been able to feel as comfortable being outspoken about my ideas and contribute as much as I do in the newsroom.”

Danae has held positions at 7 NEWS/WHDH-TV (News Writer), iFactory (Content Strategist), and Wicked Local Media Solutions (News Reporter), as well as on-campus publications.

She has also been recognized with two New England Emmy Awards. The first Emmy was for Best College/University Newscast in 2017 for a student run newscast, which she anchored and contributed stories to, and the second was for Best Student Long-Form Non-Fiction video in 2019.

All of these experiences, and now her internship at the Gazette, have solidified her passion for the field of journalism.

“I love journalism because it gives a voice to the voiceless. I have seen first-hand how telling important stories can enact change on so many levels,” she said. “Former publisher of The Washington Post, Katharine Graham, once said, ‘news is what someone wants suppressed. Everything else is advertising. The power is to set the agenda. What we print and what we don’t print matter a lot,’ which I agree with wholeheartedly.”

“Without journalism, the world would not have a check on the most powerful in society,” Danae concluded, “and I want to be a part of something that can silence wrongdoers and shed light on injustice.”