Two Grady College students have received prestigious summer internships in business journalism that will be funded through grants from the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism.
Polina Marinova (ABJ ‘ 13), a deputy editor with “ Fortune,” welcomed the selection of Grace Donnelly (r) as a Reynolds intern at the magazine this summer.
Grace Donnelly, a senior journalism major, will be a data reporter at “Fortune” magazine, and Gabriela Mejias, also a senior journalism major, will be a business reporter with NPR. Both students will work in New York.
Donnelly will create data visualization projects and conduct related reporting. She will also work with other reporters and editors to create appropriate charts and graphs to illustrate print and online stories. Mejias will receive a week of field training at NPR affiliate WABE in Atlanta before reporting to work on NPR’s national business desk where she will report, write, edit and produce story packages for radio and online audiences.
Donnelly was executive editor of “Ampersand,” an independent student magazine and served as an Innovation Fellow with the Cox Institute for the Journalism Innovation, Management and Leadership. She demonstrated an interest in business journalism as a Fellow in a training program of the Cox Institute and the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. Donnelly previously interned with the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.
Marilyn Geewax, senior business editor with NPR, congratulated Gabriela Mejias (r) on her selection as a Reynolds intern with NPR this summer.
Mejias, a musician who will also earn a certificate in music business, has leveraged coursework in accounting, finance and marketing to inform her business reporting and writing. She completed a music industry internship with Team Clermont, promoting bands through press material and social media, and she developed a blog about the Athens music scene.
Donnelly and Mejias became eligible for the Reynolds sponsored internships by enrolling in a special topics course on business journalism sponsored by a grant through the Reynolds National Center.
“These students sought out a challenging course to complete their Grady College requirements. They not only met the challenge, they excelled at it,” said Keith Herndon, the Reynolds Visiting Professor in Business Journalism who taught the course. “Grace and Gabriela embraced an opportunity to learn more about developing and writing stories on complex topics.”
Including Herndon, the Reynolds Center has funded visiting professors in business journalism at 12 different schools since 2012 as part of an effort to seed business journalism programs at universities across the country. The program is administered by the Reynolds Center at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and covers the visiting professor’s salary, as well as renewable grants to fund business journalism internships and bring visiting professionals to speak to students.
