LCO has had hundreds of interns come through its doors and graduate from the program. Many of these interns go on to do big things in their careers and take the lessons they’ve learned from Michael Levine and LCO with them. One of these past interns is Donald Morrison. Morrison works for KFI 640am News as an Anchor/Editor/Medical Reporter.
Donald was an intern back in 2001 on Michael Levine’s radio show. The internship allowed Donald to “gain the knowledge of how a radio show is put together as well as how to go about booking guests and promoting a show”. Donald noted that he had always liked TV/radio news broadcasting as well as sports. “I originally wanted to be a play-by-play sports announcer and felt working in TV or radio would help me accomplish that. I ended up working in the news and enjoyed it and stuck with it”.
Donald has covered a lot of breaking news stories, so we had to ask him about the strangest story he had covered. “The strangest thing that’s happened to me is when I called a porn director to ask him to comment on his recent federal indictment. It turned out he had no idea he was indicted. There was also an earthquake happening as soon as one my newscasts started. I had to inform everyone they were feeling a quake.” Though dishing out news of indictments and announcing earthquakes were among Donald’s craziest stories, he said however, the most significant story that he had covered was “…election of President Obama. It was a historic election that will be in the annals of American history.”
Reflecting on his days as an intern, “one thing I’ll always remember about LCO is watching Michael deal with interns and employees. I felt his demanding yet gentle style can really get the most out of people and help them realize their full potential.” Donald also said that the best experience he had while interning was getting to meet Mickey Dolenz from the Monkees and Charles Manson prosecutor, Vincen Bugliosi.
Morrison uses the PR skills he learned in his LCO days to for instance by, “promoting stories using Twitter.” He said also, “PR is about enticing and trying to generate interest. I do that through writing creative leads to stories so listeners will be interested. He continued on to note that “PR helps you learn the importance of packaging and imaging. this is important when it comes to presenting news. You have to do it in a way that will catch people’s attention through creative writing and delivery.”
LCO obviously utilizes the media daily, so we asked Donald about the importance and relevance of radio. “Radio is the absolute fastest way to disseminate information. There is no delay through web servers or computers. There’s no camera man and producing booth crew to wait on. A push of a button is all that’s needed to tell people what’s happening.
As a successful past intern we asked Donald to divulge some of the best advice he had received, he stated that working hard is of utmost importance, “it’s simple but no one gets ahead slacking off.”
As a final note, we asked who Donald would like to interview if he could choose anyone, “If I had to pick someone who’s living then it would be Gore Vidal. If it’d be anyone in history then it’d be Abraham Lincoln.
For more information about the LCO intern program, and to apply, please click here.
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