Since she was seven years old, Astrid Rivera could not imagine herself as anything but a journalist. Now, her dreams are coming true.WNJU-47 Telemundo has a new intern this year. Rivera, a senior Mass Communication major at Campbell University, is one step closer to accomplishing her goals at the Spanish television station in Fort Lee, N.J.”Since Ms. Rivera began her internship, she has proven to be a tremendous asset to our unit,” said Arrate Reich, who is the planning editor at WNJU-Telemundo and Astrid’s supervisor.Rivera approached the director of WNJU, Hugo Balta, at a career exposition while at a journalism competition in Florida. Months later, she got the job.Also while in Florida, Rivera was picked to work on the prestigious Latino Reporter newspaper project. The project, sponsored by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, features a team of students and professional journalists working in a newsroom setting to cover breaking news, current events, and all aspects of the convention. Students work as reporters, photographers, copy editors and graphic artists. As a Hispanic journalist from Puerto Rico, Rivera is passionate about giving a voice to the Latin population.”Journalists play a vital role in affecting who we are as a society,” says Rivera. “Our job has the power to affect positive change. The stories we present every day have a great influence on how people in our nation view one another.”At WNJU-47, Rivera has been working with the assignment desk editors and assisting the reporters with their daily stories. She is also responsible for finding, booking, and executing various live broadcasts, as well as keeping up with the most important stories relating to the local Hispanic community. In addition to her daily duties, Rivera also provides administrative support in tasks such as answering viewer calls, logging tapes, and making dubs for interviewees.While this is Rivera’s first television internship, she has experience writing columns in several local newspapers. In the future, Rivera dreams of becoming a television reporter and possibly even the producer of her own show.”I believe that every time you reach a goal you have to raise the bar and go to the next level,” says Rivera. “I just reached a short term goal, but I will not stop here, this is only the beginning of my career as a journalist.”Photo Copy: Campbell student Astrid Rivera, right, interns at a Spanish television station in New Jersey.
Rivera interns for WNJU-Telemundo