N.C. A&T’s Dockery Selected for NBCUniversal Tokyo Olympics Internship

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (July 22, 2021) – East Dockery, a senior multimedia journalism student at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, has been tapped by NBCUniversal to serve as one of 16 traveling interns for the Tokyo Summer Olympics internship program. NBCUniversal also hired 57 at-home interns, overall representing 26 universities. North Carolina A&T is one of several HBCUs represented, including Howard University, and is joined by North Carolina State and Elon University as North Carolina-based campuses.

“I was a competitive swimmer for seven years and I remember telling my family while watching the 2012 London Olympics that I wanted to go to the Olympics one day,” said Dockery. “Although I won’t be competing, I’m glad I can combine my passion for sports journalism and entertainment reporting and can represent A&T in this way.”

Dockery will spend several weeks in Tokyo serving as a runner in the Operations Department, primarily in the gymnastics venue. She and her peers will be responsible for providing support to various areas and departments including production, digital and engineering functional areas.

Dockery learned about the opportunity during her sophomore year while volunteering for the university’s 2019 National Association of Black Journalists multimedia short course. She connected with an NBC Sports Group representative and immediately applied for the internship that night, not knowing what the world would experience the following year.

The Olympic Games were postponed in 2020 because of concerns surrounding the global coronavirus pandemic. Although spectators are not allowed at the games, NBCUniversal eagerly anticipates broadcasting more than 1,300 hours of programming this summer for the world to see.

“We weren’t sure what was going to happen at first, but it worked out,” said Dockery. “This is my first time traveling abroad and I’m really excited.”

Dockery served as a 2019 Rhoden Fellow for ESPN’s The Undefeated and was named the 2020 Ed Bradley Scholar by The Radio Television and Digital News Foundation.