About Me

My name is Abigail Russ and I am a senior at the University of Maryland, College Park. I am currently pursuing a dual degree in journalism, from the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, and economics, from the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences.

During my first two years, I completed a certificate in the Public Leadership track of College Park Scholars. The experience taught me how to write policy memos and create, advertise and award grants through the university's Do Good Institute.

As a third generation Maryland Terrapin, I am actively involved in the College Park community. I am a member of Alpha Phi Omega, a service fraternity, where I serve on the Executive Board as the membership vice president; Maryland Images, where I give tours to prospective students and their families and am a multimedia journalist at Capital News Service. At CNS I practice quick-turning stories for our biweekly live shows. With every story I aim to find the best characters and incorporate creative standups to move the story along. I've had the opportunity to focus on telling health related stories to help people from Price Geroges' County, Montgomery County and D.C. to stay healhty. My time at the station allows me to practice using the tools I learned at NPPA's 60th News Video Workshop. I had the opportunity to attend the workshop early in my career to learn from the participants as well as the instructors.

When I'm not working or giving tours, I can be found cheering for the Terps at football and basketball games, cooking, swimming, traveling or watching the Pittsburgh Steelers.

I'm currently interning at NBC4 Washington where I assist in every aspect of the news process. I sit in on daily newsroom meetings, track story development throughout the day, work on the assignment desk, communicate with our partner stations in the area and go out on shoots with reporters to practice shooting, editing, storytelling and doing standups. I also get to work with our producers to see how they lay out the shows and create their newscasts. As our studio is being completely remodled, I've gotten to see the process of building a studio and setting up many different shots. In summer 2021, I was offered an internship at Patch.com through the Dow Jones News Fund. During a 10 day copy-editing bootcamp I practiced composing webpages, designing print layouts and writing headlines. My other internship experiences include working in the University of Maryland Office of Strategic Communications as a video intern and interning at Federal News Network reporting on the inner workings of the federal governments for bureaucrats. I love talking about my internships so if you have any questions about them ask me!