"Egyptian French Revolution"

Working at NBC Universal’s Network News Bureau in Burbank is an amazing opportunity and I am looking forward to the opportunities that the network is giving me. It’s been two weeks, but there are always opportunities to take advantage of. And I have.

My endeavor with NBC began on Friday, Jan 14^th, 2011, in the midst of Senator Gifford’s transfer for recovery to Houston, Texas from Tucson, Arizona. I logged countless hours of SOT’s that day and read countless wires to try and keep up with the different angles that Nightly News could take. I was told that all the correspondents would return from Tucson the next day and the assignment desk wouldn’t be so busy anymore. To their chagrin, but my delight, they were wrong.

By Saturday of the following week, on the other side of the world, Egypt was the new protagonist. Egyptians and their supporters worldwide rallied behind anti-government protests that were, and still are, intensifying across Egypt. Police clashed with demonstrators in several cities demanding the resignation of Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak.

Watching the footage that we received in the Burbank bureau come in from Cairo and other parts of Egypt, was interesting to say the least. The sentiment that Egyptian protestors emanated paralleled those of protestors in major U.S. cities: Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City, Atlanta and Washington D.C. among others.

As the Egyptian government severed all communication, Egyptians in the U.S. with relatives in Egypt grew anxious and angry. (I took initiative and looked for an opportunity to work directly on a story in Los Angeles. Since the start of my internship, I made an effort to get to know the producers, the correspondents and the rest of the staff. Even though our rapport was small, I familiarized myself with the staff and they got to know who I was, so by my second week, this tiny rapport led me to shadow a nationally renowned correspondent!) I logged some interviews for said correspondent and familiarized myself with the story the correspondent was working on. Every interview seemed to be redundant: essentially, everyone wanted Mr. Mubarak to resign. Changing his administration, wasn’t going to be enough to calm the Egyptians. Even naming former intelligence chief Omar Suleiman Egypt’s new – and first since he took office thirty years ago – vice president, did nothing to calm Egyptians.

So, the question then became, what angle to take on this story. Given the concern that grew among people who could not communicate with relatives in Egypt, that became the angle of the correspondent I shadowed. The correspondent pieced together interviews of relatives throughout the U.S. who’s loved ones were in Egypt. For the stand-up, we traveled to Westwood where a group of Egyptian activists organized a rally. It was a colorful display of people of all ages, races and genders, united for one cause: a new Egypt. In the midst of the protest/rally, the correspondent I shadowed shot a few stand-ups and interviews and then we headed back to package the story.

By 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, I watched the show open with Richard Engel, NBC’s News’ Chief Foreign Correspondent. His package was straight from Cairo, and an update on the Egyptian protests with some political response. It was a touching piece that seemingly showed that Egyptians were ready for change. The footage showed the streets of Cairo packed with people, but as Engel would inform us, most people were in their homes!

The rest of the show was all about Egypt with an exception of the weather segment and perhaps 4 minutes devoted to stories (not nearly as significant as the situation in Egypt) in the U.S. The correspondent’s package came in the second-block. It represented the reaction of to Egypt’s situation in the U.S. and I believe it flowed very well with the rest of the newscast.

I will end with a quote that I heard on the streets of Los Angeles while shadowing the correspondent, not because I agree or disagree with it, but because it conveys the ambiance that was felt in the Westwood rally/protest: I paraphrase, “This is the first time that the Egyptian people have stood up to our government. Before, we were scared, but now the government knows we are not scared. We want change, and there is no going back. I compare this to the French Revolution.”