Summer intern joins BND newsroom to cover breaking news, find answer to reader questions
You may notice a new byline in the Belleville News-Democrat this summer with the recent addition of a reporting intern.
Bruce Darnell, who will be a junior in Mass Communications at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville this fall, has joined the newsroom staff on a 10-week internship, which began on June 10.
Bruce has already contributed to the BND with a high-utility, reader-suggested article about rules and regulations for those who use the Metro Bike Link trail, which connects St. Clair, Madison and St. Louis counties. He also reported on a garbage truck fire in Madison County, with useful information about how to properly dispose of lithium batteries.
And Bruce wrote the most recent installment in our Uniquely series. His article provides historical details about the Civil War encampment where Belle-Clair Fairgrounds are currently located.
Bruce is originally from Metropolis, Illinois, and is a 2022 graduate of Massac County High School. He’s not sure what his long-term future holds, but he envisions a future covering national and international topics.
“And I really like accountability journalism,” he said. “One of the more important aspects of journalism to me is holding powerful people accountable.”
In his spare time, Bruce enjoys playing video games, camping, traveling, writing poetry and spending time with his girlfriend, Olivia Larrison, who is studying forestry at SIU-Carbondale.
“We’d like to live kind of a transient lifestyle, traveling from one point to another and finding work for a particular time frame,” he said. “For me, that would involve doing a lot of freelance work.”
For now, he said he’s focused on gaining practical journalism experience with colleagues at the BND.
“I’m trying to learn as much as I can working at a paper that’s in a city and trying to experience what it’s like to come to a new place, learn all about it and put my feet down to write stories about the place. I feel like that’s something I’m going to have to do a lot,” he said.
