Getting down to the news business

Today’s 24-7 news cycle challenges news organizations to chase breaking stories and compelling features from the local to global level—all while staying connected to social media.

As a result, it’s become increasingly important for these organizations to engage readers by keeping their sites fresh and flush with new content. Fourth-year international affairs major Britton Green would know. For the last six months, that’s exactly what he did for CNBC’s international news site.

Green recently completed a co-op in Singapore as a production intern on the news organization’s digital news team. His role primarily involved updating the news organization’s website with articles, photos, and videos, as well as other content provided by CNBC reporters, wire services, and newspapers such as The New York Times. Before publishing stories to CNBC’s news site, he double-checked the accuracy of headlines and hyperlinks as well as for the inclusion of the appropriate video and social media components.

“This co-op taught me how digital news media works and how organizations like CNBC bring the news to their readers each day,” Green said.

The experiential-learning opportunity offered Green an up-close look at the news industry’s fast-paced atmosphere and global outlook. He arrived for work at 6:30 a.m., when he and the rest of the digital news team in Singapore took over the task of updating CNBC’s international news site and the U.S. page’s international news section. Later in the day, that job was then passed on to colleagues working in the U.K. and U.S. offices.

Green, who is pursuing a business minor, noted that reading and producing daily news pieces for CNBC’s site on topics ranging from quarterly earnings reports to Asian entrepreneurs has dramatically expanded his knowledge of business concepts and trends.

“It’s been great soaking up everything from these business stories,” he said. “This co-op has been incredibly rewarding and impactful for me.”