Newhouse students interning for NBC at XXI Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver

As viewers from around the world tune in to watch the XXI Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, 22 Syracuse University students from the Newhouse School are eagerly working behind the scenes as interns for NBC.

These students are among 110 NBC interns working alongside national and international communications professionals covering the Vancouver Olympics. Most have been placed at the International Broadcast Center (IBC), the central location of Olympic broadcast operations, according to Newhouse professor Sharon Hollenbeck.

“In the past, NBC Olympics has permanently hired a handful of students,” Hollenback says.

Newhouse students interning at the Olympics include broadcast journalism students Erik Elken, Nick Gibson, Tom Hautmann, Michael Jiang, Michael Lefko, Clay LePard, Jessica Shaw, Bettina Shore, Mike Smeltz, Paige Westin and Doug Whitehorn; magazine journalism majors Diana Martin, Alexandra Spychalsky and Kailin Van De Velde; public relations students Stephen Fox, Marc Heintzman and Ari Lipsky; and television-radio-film students Darren Bleckner, Kayla Fedeson, Kevin Hirst, Kara Rosenthal and Dan Siegel.

In addition, television-radio-film student Jaime Sasso is working as a freelancer for NBC this year, based on her impressive performance as an intern during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Students arrived in Vancouver days before the opening ceremonies and will complete their internship on Feb. 28.

For more information, contact Sharon Hollenbeck at (315) 443-9242 or shollenb@syr.edu.