KTSW’s News Director Sent To NPR Training At CBI
By Emily Parma
Assistant Web Content Manager
This October, Seattle will host the CBI (Collegiate Broadcasters, inc.) conference for future journalists. From October 20-25, Reynaldo Leanos, KTSW’s news director, will participate in NPR’s Next Generation Radio Project, where students will be teamed up with professional journalists who will act as their mentor for the entire week.
Leanos was one of seven students in the nation to be chosen to participate in this project.
Emily Parma: How do you feel to have been one out of seven other students to be chosen nationally to go?
Reynaldo Leanos: I am really excited. I cannot wait until I go to Seattle and train with my mentor; she is the assistant news director at an affiliate NPR station in Detroit, so I am really excited to just learn from her as much as I can. Some of the other candidates have interned for CNN and these other big organizations so I cannot wait to meet them either. We have a chain email going where we just chat with each other and we all just keep saying how excited we are.
EP: What are you looking forward to most?
RL: Honestly just gaining more knowledge about journalism in general, you know, I want to learn as much as I can for myself and then I can obviously relay that information to my news reporters; it will be really beneficial to all of us. Also, just networking. A lot of these people work at NPR and other big stations, so I cannot wait to just network with new people and professionals. I graduate in May, so I am very excited, and starting to think about jobs, so this will be a good experience.
EP: How do you think this trip will help you in your career goals?
RL: I think networking. You obviously have to know what you are doing as far as reporting, but it is also who you know in the industry, that just plays a big part of it. I think it is also a good thing to put on the resume and to experience.
EP: How much of an opportunity is this training?
RL: Texas State University, I believe, as Dan (station manager) had said, has had the most amount of people attend this NPR Next Generation Radio Project than any other institution in the United States, so it’s kind of a big deal, and only seven were chosen throughout the whole nation. I am really honored and just so excited about it — and it’s NPR, I’m so excited.
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Doug Mitchell on October 15, 2014
Hello Ms. Parma
Two corrections: First, the Collegiate Broadcasters Inc. holds it’s conference in October, but it does not hold the conference in Seattle every year. Secondly, a minor adjustment, the dates of the Next Generation project this year in Seattle are Oct 20-25 and not what you have posted above.
Thank you for doing this story on Mr. Leanos. We too are looking forward to working with him.
He does indeed come from a long line of Texas State alums in our program(s). These include Rita Garcia, who was my intern at NPR in DC the Summer of 2006 and is now a morning anchor at the Fox station in Houston, Frida Villalobos, Manager of Communications for Neighborhood Centers Inc. of Houston and Erika Aguilar, who is now a reporter for Southern California Public Radio. And, two former Texas State graduate students are now working full-time at NPR in Washington DC, Sara Peralta and Kiana Fitzgerald. Both Kiana and Sara were hired after being interns at NPR.
Keep talking up your program. You all have earned it.
Doug Mitchell
Founder/Project Director
NPR Next Generation Radio