Interns are Excited as they start the Chris Moore Internship Program
Dabney, Kegler and Cerdan
Sydney Dabney and Kamani Kegler were welcomed as the 2026 interns for the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation’s Chris Moore Internship Program, which is named for after Chris Moore, a pioneering broadcasting journalist in the Pittsburgh area and a founder of the 53-year-old Pittsburgh Black Media Federation. Through this program, students are provided with resources, tools and experiences such as having the opportunity to work at local newsrooms beside professional journalists.
Dabney, a junior at Point Park University majoring in screenwriting, will be an editorial intern at Next Gen Newsroom that exist to support news organization consisting of several pillars: professional development, editorial collaboration, operations support, a teaching newsroom, career pathways, and community engagement. While Kegler, a junior at the University of Pittsburgh who is majoring in communication and journalism at University of Pittsburgh will work with NextPittsburgh that publish stories focused on people, projects, and places taking Pittsburgh to the next level. Where she hopes to publish five articles focusing mostly on art, Black History Month, and the history of Pittsburgh.
“I’m excited to start” Dabney said, explaining that she hopes to collaborate with other writers in the newsroom to see what they need help with as an editorial intern and to expand her own writing skills.
Kegler, too, said she feels “excited and nervous.” She’s looking forward to making her pitches and getting feedback from professional mentors.
For Dabney, her love of storytelling and writing began in childhood. “I realized I had a habit to take a random notebook and make stories [after] being inspired by what I seen as a kid; and fast forwarding to when I’m about 14 or 13 years old, I looked up what are writers for TV and films called and I saw screenwriter and was like ‘that’s what I want to do’ ” she said.
For Kegler, her path toward storytelling began when her high school received a grant and developed a media program that gave students access to media equipment, a green room and more.
Kegler immediately thought it was cool and joined the program but didn’t think of it as a career path until more people influenced her to major in communications. She later added journalism as a double major after taking a nonfiction class.
The class, she said, “was my first time being able to sit down and just write with nothing holding me back.” That experience led to her wanting to figure out what a path in journalism could look like.
Dabney, a West Philadelphia native, was also influenced toward writing when she entered a writing contest in the eighth grade and enjoyed writing about a favorite teacher for a chance to win tickets to a Phillies baseball game. She wrote about her fifth-grade teacher, who was the only Black teacher at her school and was someone who had was positive role model for her as a young student.
For Kegler, from West Philadelphia, said she was influenced to write when she took her first journalism class in college where she wrote a piece, “Call Me by Your Sexuality,” inspired by music artist Tyler the Creator to explore her own sexual identity through music. She described how powerful the writing felt and how “writing makes it solidified” she explained.
Both applied to the Chris Moore internship because they felt it was important to have the opportunity to work with an organization like Pittsburgh Black Media Federation where the professionals look like them.
When asked what they want to accomplish at the end of the internship Kegler said she wants to “be able to write my own things and be confident in that.”
For Dabney, she said, she’s interested in exploring options outside of screenwriting “to see if I have multiple strengths.”
India Cerdan, a senior at Commonwealth University Bloomsburg majoring in media and journalism will uniquely be working directly with Pittsburgh Black Media Federation remotely as a digital media writer, reporter, and website intern. Cerdan love of storytelling and writing began as a child like Dabney. due to her middle school teacher encouraging her to write poetry for a class assignment which only grew out after she discovered photography not long after.
While she always knew writing would be involved in her profession what influenced her to pursue a career in photojournalism was after taking a class at Community College of Philadelphia where she learned the techniques of photojournalism for the first time. There is where she discovered the thing she has been searching for in her work which was tying journalism and photography together. Cerdan hopes at the end of the internship is to become a stronger writer and utilize her experience as she prepares to graduate in May.
