Tell Your Story – Journalism for Change

Grace Ganz is a senior at DU, who is getting her Bachelor’s degree from the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Science. She is a double major in Journalism and Music Performance. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Grace was able to complete a remote, independent internship as a journalist intern through The Borgen Project.

Grace Ganz Headshot

Tell us a little bit about your role and responsibilities in this position.

In this internship, I worked as a journalist intern for The Borgen Project. This is a nonprofit organization that works to
reduce global poverty and spread awareness of poverty through Congressional lobbying, social outreach, and public
education. I wrote two stories a week about global poverty in the fields of global health and technology. I also contacted
my Congressional representatives weekly, spread awareness on issues via social media, and organized a fundraising
campaign on behalf of the Borgen Project

What is your biggest takeaway from this experience?

My biggest takeaway from this experience was discovering just how possible it is for anyone’s voice to make a
difference political and socially. It’s so easy to contact your Congressional representatives in support of meaningful
legislation, and it’s really easy to spread awareness via social media on global issues and humanitarian crises that a lot
of people may just not know about. In that sense, this experience was very empowering for me as a young person who
really wants to use my journalism and virtual presence to tell the stories of historically marginalized communities and
voices – the opportunities to do so are endless.

What were you most proud of during this internship or experience?

I am most proud of my ability to work independently in this internship. Due to COVID-19, the internship was entirely
remote, virtual, and independent. As someone who loves collaboration and working with people, this format definitely
made me apprehensive. However, I was able to manage my time and write two articles a week, all of which I am very
proud of as well. This experience also made me feel better about working remotely in a career, which will likely be
something I will have to do for the first part of my career after I graduate in March.

What are your next steps for your career and professional journey? What do you plan to do after
graduation and/or how has this experience helped clarify your goals?

I plan to work as a full-time journalist and reporter as a career. This is a difficult task to achieve today, since journalism is
such a competitive field, but I feel confident that learning experiences like this internship help me prepare and be a
competitive applicant for larger-scale publications. This experience also helped me realize how much I want to travel the
world with my journalism; stories can only be so effective when you work on them remotely, and I often found that I was
missing the voices of the people affected by poverty in my articles. Thinking about this, I want to be able to interview
real voices when covering stories as complex as global poverty in order to provide audiences with that necessary
perspective.

 

By Grace Braddish
Grace Braddish