Reporting from North Carolina: WCU Senior Sunny Morgan Selected for Prestigious Broadcast Fellowship Program
As college seniors across the country are preparing for graduation and ramping up
their job searches, many are participating in internships and other real-world opportunities
to advance their skills and experience.
Among these students is WCU senior Sunny Morgan, who landed a highly competitive broadcast fellowship at WRAL-TV in Raleigh, NC. The program, which took place over spring break, annually selects only 12 students from applicants nationwide.
The CBC-UNC Diversity Fellowship Program is led by professionals at WRAL-TV and the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Media and Journalism faculty in Chapel Hill. It offers hands-on experience for college seniors or graduate students within six months of graduation who plan to pursue broadcast careers as producers, reporters, photojournalists, or web editors.
Morgan described her experience as “incredible,” saying, “It really helped get me in gear to graduate and find a job.” She said she augmented her journalistic skills, learned new ones, and made connections at both the newsroom and UNC.
During the experience, the fellows produced two student newscasts; each also produced a news story. Morgan covered a tree-planting project in Durham.
“We all had a day to produce our own story, so we experienced a day of what it would be like on the job as a TV news reporter. We shot the story with a photographer, wrote the web scripts, and helped edit the video.”
This is not Morgan’s first real-world broadcast experience: A Philadelphia native, she previously landed a position as a junior reporter at the city’s FOX 29 News. On campus, this communication studies major/journalism minor is multimedia editor for The Quad student news service and on-air talent for student radio station WCUR. She is the founding president of WCU’s chapter of the Association of Black Journalists. Morgan is currently applying for jobs to TV stations across the country.