Intern Watched the Olympics from Up Close

As skiers raced downward and skaters soared upward at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, Harvey Creasey III helped U.S. viewers keep up with the most important moments.

The senior, a multimedia journalism major in the Virginia Tech College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, landed a competitive NBC internship with the Olympics.

Creasey, from Richmond, Virginia, was a runner for the Today Show, which aired live from PyeongChang. He was part of the crew that organized the show’s portable set each day and helped guests prepare for their appearances. He also assisted on live shots with the show’s correspondents.

He was accepted into the highly coveted internship program in part because of his past experiences. He served as an NBC intern in New York during the summer of 2017 and in Rio for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Creasey expressed gratitude to his Department of Communication professors for preparing him for success.

“Their courses stress that there is a better way to tell a certain story, whether it’s through pictures, video, audio, or just text alone,” he said. “The format is as important as the content.”

Creasey learned something else from his Summer Olympics internship that he kept in mind during the winter games.

“What I realized in Rio is the country that exists during the Olympics is a fleeting place,” he said. “It will never be like it is again because of the half million travelers who come to watch, the media presence, and, in some cases, the built-in safety precautions. I was one of the lucky people who knew that place in that time.”

And, much like those days of summer, he discovered another commonality in his internships.

“Working for NBC at the Olympics is fantastic,” he said, midway through his time at PyeongChang. “But it’s going too quickly.”

Written by Leslie King