Communications Insight: Draper Media

Mitchell Weiner

COMM 495: Summer Internship

Salisbury University
 TV and sports have always played a part in my life which drove me to pursue a major and

soon a degree in Communications with a minor in film. When I declared communications as my

major, I never knew how many new areas of my life it would open. Once I reached college, I

bought myself a camera and through working with intramural sports I was given editing software

by the college. I fell in love with the editing part and telling a story that was mine to be

distributed to the public. During the summer of 2024 I was privileged to intern with Draper

Media, combining work through WBOC and the Delmarva Sports Network. Through these two

departments I was taught the ins and outs of news more than I could have known. The skills and

experience gained from this internship helped me understand the importance of classes I’ve

taken at school and gave me a great depiction of the work I would be doing after school when I

find a job. This internship taught me many life skills, not just in the workplace but also social

and time management skills.

Throughout this internship I learned many key skills to my career field, I realized how

important time is, communication with your team is, and always filming more than you need or

think you need to separate a good story from a great one. One thing this internship helped me

discover was my passion for sports videography and photography, I knew in school I wanted to

go into the digital content career field of sports but through Draper Media it was a clear vision.

During my time with Draper Media, my passion grew further, while working I constantly found

myself wanting to learn more which led to me discovering the different jobs, I never knew about

that wasn’t just using a camera and editing. The people at Delmarva Sports Network like Kayla

who is the head of the department, Noah, Ben, Manny, and Luke all were very open to showing
me the behind the scenes of what makes a production great. The same goes for WBOC, without

Zoe and Sean my two supervisors, I would have never met Amy, Lauren, Mike, Sam, Kristyn,

and many others that showed me how to put together stories.

My time at Draper Media was great, through the people I met and the work I did I feel

secure knowing I picked the right profession. The only thing I’m nervous about is the fact that

each person I talked to was worried about the amount of income they made. Since I will be

graduating in a year, and looking for housing, this scared me a little knowing money will be

affecting me. Although I will be doing work, I care about I wish I didn’t have to stress about the

money part when I first start out. However, I am not too worried about salary because I know if

I’m doing what I love and getting good experience then further down the line money will

increase because in my career field it’s about how well you do your job and who you know. For

example, if a lot of people know you are a good photographer chances are outside of work you

will be doing extra jobs for money. It is something to worry about right out of college, but salary

is not something that will make me want to pursue another career.

However, regarding my career path and passions something I am very proud of that I was

able to do through my internship was photograph a Delmarva Shorebirds game. Even though the

Shorebirds are not an MLB team, being able to say I’ve photographed a minor league team looks

great on my portfolio. Being put in that position where the Delmarva Sports Network team is

counting on me to deliver high quality pictures at the first game, they broadcasted felt amazing to

have that trust. I have taken a lot of photos and edited a lot of videos for both DSN and WBOC

but being able to go to the Shorebirds game felt honorable alone. Working with DSN to

photograph the Shorebirds probably was my favorite thing I did at my internship, with baseball

being my favorite sport and also a passion of mine, getting to combine my passion into one was a
great experience and showed me that trying to capture the ball at 90 plus miles per hour is not as

easy as it looks.

On the other hand, I would say the only time I disappointed myself was when I went out

with a reporter, Lauren, and as we were recording a portion of her talking the camera did not

record her. When we got back to the station and Lauren realized this, she quickly had to record

herself again as she was already running out of time for the video to be approved and aired. This

disappointed me because I had one job to do and that was just to record her, I’m not sure if this

was a fault on my end or the camera but it looked bad on me because it was a simple task.

Although it was an easy fix, I could tell Lauren was stressed and I knew if I just doublechecked

we could have resolved that issue and made her life easier while she was working under a

deadline. In the future after that when I would be sent out with photographers and reporters, I

always made sure the timer was running and the microphones was on to avoid any technical

errors that could result in panic, stress, and even worse the story being completely messed up.

Even though it was an error on my end Lauren would still get in trouble and I would not want her

hard work going to waste because of something I forgot to check.

Through this I learned the key concept of communication, being in the news and sports

world people are always talking with their co-workers. From phone calls and headsets to over the

air microphones, each person is consistently relaying information back and forth which is

something I learned very quickly. With the error I made with recording even though it was small

it could have turned into something bigger, learning from this proves that when I go to a sporting

event and people working the special effects and scoreboard in the van relay information such as

time left to speak and images that need to be shown is why always communicating is a big deal

so something like starting the timer or not recording a play doesn’t go unnoticed. Verbal
communication plays the major role, news and sports is an area where people are always

watching so the tiniest mistake is always seen.