October deadlines for journalism internships fast approaching

Now is the time to be applying for journalism internships and fellowships for spring and summer of 2018. Many news organizations have deadlines in October, so here’s a list to get you started.

OCTOBER 9

The Chronicle of Higher Education Internships (Washington, D.C.)

• “You’d be a full-time reporter in our newsroom, in Washington, D.C. Simple as that … In October, our intern-selection committee will read every application and pick the most promising 15 to 20 candidates. Roughly a week after the deadline, we’ll give those 15 to 20 people a writing test, to get a sense of how they work under pressure. Considering the applications and the tests, we’ll cut our list down to the eight to 10 most promising candidates in mid-October. One day in late October, we’ll interview the finalists by phone. In the following days, we’ll make decisions.”

OCTOBER 13

The New York Times Interactive News Internship (New York City)

• “You will work alongside developers, designers and journalists of The New York Times to build Web applications for enterprise packages and special-events coverage, as well as breaking news. Your work will be published on NYTimes.com and may contribute to The Times’s open source initiatives.”

OCTOBER 15

Chicago Sun-Times Newsroom Internship (Chicago)

• “The Chicago Sun-Times offers newsroom internships to college students and recent college graduates in the news, photography, social media, features, sports and Homicide Watch departments. These opportunities are offered in the spring semester, over summer break and the fall semester.”

The Baltimore Sun Mary J. Corey Journalism Internship (Baltimore)

• “The intern will work in the Sun newsroom as a reporter for 10-12 weeks sometime between May 15, 2018 and Aug. 31, 2018. (Exact dates will be determined mutually by the intern and Sun editors.) The intern would write daily stories in addition to a longer-term project. The intern will report to specific editor during internship though the intern will be given opportunity to work with multiple editors.”

The Newseum Institute’s Chips Quinn Scholars Program for Diversity in Journalism (Various Locations)

• “The program, operated by the Newseum Institute and funded by the Freedom Forum, matches qualified candidates with participating news organizations from across the country for 10- to 12-week paid internships. Selected scholars participate in an intense, one-week orientation/multimedia training workshop at the John Seigenthaler Center in Nashville, Tenn., in preparation for their internships. The training in Nashville is paid for by the Newseum Institute.”

NPR Internships (Note: NPR originally listed this deadline as Oct. 8, then pushed it back a week)

• Washington, D.C.

  • All Things Considered — “Interns are actively involved in the production of the daily program. They pitch stories, conduct research, pre-interview guests, and book studios at NPR and remote locations. They work alongside program staff and assist with the live program.”
  • Digital News Desk —”Conceive and execute ideas for blog posts and stories; Leverage social     media to help spot trends, report stories and engage NPR’s digital audience; Produce web pages using our content management system, as well as HTML and Photoshop; Perform routine administrative tasks.”
  • Education Desk — “You will be reporting to NPR’s Senior Education Editor, who leads the team’s daily and long-term efforts. You will work with all the members of the team, researching stories, pitching new ideas, writing for the NPR Ed site and helping correspondents line up interviews and sources for their stories.”
  • Investigative Unit — “The Investigations Intern uses reporting and interviewing skills, data analysis, resourcefulness and creativity to help create original stories. The team’s mission is to produce exclusive, important journalism of consequence, and each team member’s role is essential.”
  • Morning Edition — “Responsibilities:Conducts research for daily stories and long-term projects; Books interviews; Gets archival tape; Helps get the program on the air, which includes performing routine administrative tasks.”
  • Story Lab — “This is a chance to be part of NPR’s innovation lab, to help incubate and produce experimental content from across the newsroom. . .The intern will be on the ground-floor developing the next generation of NPR content, including developing pitches with newsroom staff, producing content and sharing lessons learned within NPR and beyond. This is a great opportunity to try out a lot of different approaches—from producing podcasts to broadcast series to videos—with reporters and producers from every corner of the newsroom.”
  • Washington Desk — “Washington Desk Interns play a vital role in political coverage on all platforms. In addition to maintaining our calendar of events, desk interns do research for reporters and producers, build clipboards for radio pieces, build digital story pages, log interviews, and have the opportunity to write for the web.”
  • Weekend Edition — “Join Weekend Edition as an intern and experience the behind-the-scenes production of NPR’s weekend morning news magazines. Weekend Edition Saturday and Sunday reach an audience of over 5 million listeners each week and if you’re an energetic, imaginative, news-focused person we could use your help.”

• New York City

  • Ask Me Another — “Assist with all aspects of production of Ask Me Another live tapings at The Bell House in Brooklyn including stage set-up, dress rehearsal, managing audience load-in, and post-show clean-up; Research and write prep materials for celebrity guest interviews; Draft web writing and promotional writing for new Ask Me Another episodes; Fact-check and proof-read scripts; Assist in generating ideas for games, jokes, scripts; Assist in social media strategy and execution.”

  • Planet Money — “Pitch great stories; Provide feedback at group edits and pitch meetings; Write copy for npr.org for each episode; Regularly post to Planet Money social media accounts; Monitor Planet Money inbox and social media accounts for feedback from listeners and share with team; Respond to listener emails, follow up on their story ideas; Do research into your ideas, and ours; Book guests; Help with tracking reporter narration in studio; Mix promotional materials; Help identifying and preparing past episodes for rebroadcast.”

• Culver City, CA

  • Morning Edition, West — “Conduct research for daily stories and long-term projects; put together detailed research packets to help staffers prepare for interviews; Book interviews; Obtain archival tape and transcribe interviews; Help get the program on the air, which includes performing routine administrative tasks.”

  • National Desk, West — “Activities, tasks, and goals of the NPR West National Desk Intern include, but are not limited to assisting NPR staff reporters, editors, producers, hosts, and freelancers in the creation of news programming, learning NPR News’s radio journalism ethical standards and practices and developing radio reporting and producing skills that will prepare her or him for careers at NPR member stations and at NPR itself.”

OCTOBER 16

The Nation Internships (New York City)

• Editorial — “Editorial interns experience a comprehensive immersion into The Nation and TheNation.com’s editorial processes. These interns’ primary responsibilities include fact-checking for the magazine and website, providing research support to Nation writers and editors, and assisting bloggers on TheNation.com.”

• Investigative Fund Editorial — “The Don and Doris Shaffer Intern is dedicated to working with the Nation Institute’s Investigative Fund, assisting in the creation and distribution of long-form investigative pieces that appear in a wide variety of media outlets. This intern will conduct research for reporters and editors, do in-depth fact-checking, and assist with push-out on stories.”

OCTOBER 20

Slate Science Internship (New York City)

• “The intern will help assist with reprints and light research, but the bulk of the time will be devoted to pitching, reporting, and writing. A background in science is a plus.”

OCTOBER 23

Gizmodo Media Group Editorial Internships (New York City)

• “The Gizmodo Media Group is seeking sharp, curious and fun aspiring journalists to intern with us in New York City in Summer 2018. . .We are likely to select up to 14 interns for Gizmodo, Deadspin, Jezebel, Kotaku, Splinter, The Root, Jalopnik, Kotaku, Environment and Music; our podcast, video and social media teams, as well as our analytics team. . .This is an eight-week, full-time paid internship for juniors, seniors and graduate students. The internships generally take place over end-June, July and August, with start dates somewhat flexible. Each intern is assigned to a specific site or to our Social/Video/Podcasts teams.”

OCTOBER 27

Omaha World-Herald Internship (Omaha, NE)

• “You’ll need previous experience because you’ll be assigned the same tasks that we give our full-time reporters. Interns work on a team of reporters and typically handle spot news and enterprise. . .We offer real-world experience in a 24/7 newsroom full of some of the friendliest and smartest journalists you’ll ever meet. You’ll work with an editor who will make you better. And you’ll get fantastic clips and glowing references if you do well.”

The Washington Monthly Editorial Internship (Washington, D.C.)

• “The Washington Monthly is looking for thoughtful, creative, driven interns. . .This is not a place where interns fetch coffee and observe journalism from the sidelines; you’ll be expected to research and fact check stories, pitch your own stories for the site, and help manage our social media accounts. This is a part-time, paid position, and we can do our best to accommodate a second job if necessary.”

OCTOBER 31

American-Statesman Internships (Austin, TX)

• “From a nationwide pool of candidates, we select four full-time interns seeking front-line experience in news, business, features and sports reporting, still and video photography and online content editing. Our program pays $450 a week for 11 weeks, and we provide housing at St. Edward’s University near the newspaper. What do interns do? The same work as full-time journalists here. Our objective is to help interns grow with challenging assignments. In other words, you won’t spend your time writing police briefs, taking mug shots and running errands. Last summer, one intern finished with three dozen bylines, three-quarters of which were on the front page or the Metro cover.”

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Internships (Little Rock, AR)

• “Interns receive fast-paced, real-world news experience with strong clips to show for their season with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Our interns are challenged to rise to the highest bar of journalistic excellence and their bylines are frequently seen on 1A and section fronts. . .Interns are carefully selected from hundreds of applicants from around the nation to fill 13-week summer spots on our city, state, business, features and copy desks, as well as two six-month spring and fall digital internships at Arkansas Online.”

CBS News Internship Program (New York City or Washington, D.C.)

• “Learn fundamental newsgathering skills, find, confirm and report news stories, log tapes, coordinate scripts, research stories, conduct preliminary interviews, assist during shoots, select footage, perform light clerical duties and assist staff members.”

NBC 7 Winter/Spring News and Digital Internship (San Diego)

• “Assignment Desk: Making beat checks, data entry of current and future news assignments. Coordinate guests and make tape dubs. May shadow news crews in the field. Writing/Producing: Assist with script writing, various newscasts. Guest coordinating, gathering segment guests. Log sound bites and data entry for future files. Editing: Assist with digital archiving project. Interns will turn tapes into digital format. Experience with non-linear editing helpful. Digital: Contribute to Telemundo 20 digital content and social media accounts.”

Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Journalism Internship (Washington, D.C.)

• “Right from the start, interns write articles for our digital magazine and website, contribute to our booklets on specific legal topics, and conduct research for other special projects. Interns are called on to provide significant contributions to our publications. Interns report and write on free press and media law issues for our quarterly digital magazine The News Media & The Law, website and guidebooks, and assist our staff and fellows in research.”

Slate Video Internship (New York City)

• “Handle video requests, including quick-turn edits based on breaking news; Research, asset collection, transcription, and other production support tasks; Video management in Brightcove, SnapStream, YouTube, and other platforms; Assist on shoots in our studio and in the field; Occasional shooting, writing, and editing opportunities.”

Telemundo 20 Spring News & Digital Internship (San Diego)

• “Assignment Desk: Making beat checks, data entry of current and future news assignments. Coordinate guests and make tape dubs. May shadow news crews in the field. Writing/Producing: Assist with script writing, various newscasts. Guest coordinating, gathering segment guests. Log sound bites and data entry for future files. Editing: Assist with digital archiving project. Interns will turn tapes into digital format. Experience with non-linear editing helpful. Digital: Contribute to Telemundo 20 digital content and social media accounts.”

The Dallas Morning News Reporting Internships

“All interns will also be expected to write features, take smartphone photos and video, and actively use social media in the news-gathering process.

• Local News (Dallas)

  • “Local News interns will be assigned a variety of reporting tasks primarily focused on, but not limited to, various events in and around North Texas. Assignments will be a mix of spot news, quick-turn and long-term enterprise coverage. Local News interns will also be expected — when needed — to write news features, obituaries, take smartphone photos and video and actively use social media in the news-gathering process.”

• Breaking News (Dallas)

  • “Breaking news interns will be assigned a variety of reporting tasks primarily focused on, but not limited to, spot news coverage. The interns will also be expected to write features, take smartphone photos and video, and actively use social media in the news-gathering process.”

• Business News (Dallas)

  • “Business interns will be expected to report and write daily and enterprise stories on areas of the North Texas business industry.”

• Features (Dallas)

  • “Features interns will be expected to produce a mix of short- and long-term feature stories.”
• Enterprise (Dallas)
  • “The Dallas Morning News enterprise intern will work directly with the Sunday and Enterprise editor, producing in-depth stories for digital and print. The candidate must be an exceptional reporter, writer and self-starter — driven by curiosity, ambition and open-mindedness to tackle a wide range of complex topics, producing stories that our readers will remember and want to share. The reporter’s topical terrain will be wide-ranging, but also guided by his or her passions.”

• Washington (Washington, D.C.)

  • “Interns in the Washington D.C. bureau will be expected to cover a range of government and political stories in and around the Washington area, as well as contribute to the stories of other reporters when necessary. It is preferred that applicants for the Washington internship have previous experience covering politics or government.”

• GuideLive (Dallas)

  • “GuideLive interns will be assigned a variety of tasks related to subjects including music, food, festivals, things to do, local celebrities, pop culture and more. In addition to writing for both GuideLive.com and the print edition of Guide, interns will also be expected to participate in social media, collaborate with other writers on projects and potentially work with video (both behind and in front of the camera).”

• Sports (Dallas)

  • “Interns will cover a variety of sports-related assignments ranging from high school sports to coverage of North Texas professional teams. Reporting assignments will be a mix of daily and enterprise coverage.”

• Al Día (Dallas)

  • “The Dallas Morning News offers reporting internships in at our Spanish-language publication, Al Día. Applicants for Al Día must be fluent in speaking and writing Spanish. Applicants will be called on for breaking news as well as short- and long-term enterprise. Applicants may also be called upon to work directly with reporters and editors of The Dallas Morning News.”

The Dallas Morning News Editorial Internships

• “The Dallas Morning News offers an internship in our Editorial Department at the downtown Dallas office. The main responsibility for this intern will be writing and researching online columns expressing his or her personal point of view, as well as aggregation posts that summarize others’ opinions. The intern will learn how to use audience metrics as a way to help inform — but not dictate — topic selection, as well as assist in selection and publication of editorial cartoons and editorial research projects.”

The Dallas Morning News Digital Design and Data Internships

• “Digital design and data interns collaborate with reporters, editors and photographers to produce digital products on deadline to help explain and visualize breaking news and feature stories. They conceptualize and build standalone and complementary data visualizations, interactive graphics and story presentations using HTML, CSS and JavaScript/JQuery.”

The Dallas Morning News Copy Editing Internships

• “Copy editing interns edit stories on deadline for accuracy, clarity, style, spelling and grammar for the print and digital publications, as well as write headlines appropriate for each platform. There are also opportunities to learn layout design on the news desk and how to manage the dallasnews.com home page and @dallasnews Twitter account on the web shift.”

The Dallas Morning News Audience Engagement Internships

• “The Dallas Morning News offers a summer digital producer internship at our downtown Dallas office. The intern producer will work directly with the Audience team to creatively promote our journalism. . .The interns will be expected to write strong digital headlines, craft social media posts and create multimedia elements for social, including video, GIFs, Snapchat stories, Instagram stories and Twitter cards. Other cool things an intern on our audience team would get to do: help manage the dallasnews.com home page, monitor real-time analytics and make decisions based on that information; improve and test headlines; optimize article pages; push news app alerts to our readers; and collaborate with writers and editors on plans for story promotion.”

The Dallas Morning News Audience Engagement Internships

• “From the first week, you will be expected to perform like a staff member – shooting and editing stills and video, working under tight deadline pressures, and utilizing social media on the job for professional purposes. Editors and other photographers will critique your visual storytelling and technique, including lighting, composition, lens work, cropping, toning and captions.”

The Denver Post Summer Internships (Denver)

• “Our editors choose full-time summer interns in news, business and features reporting (3 positions); digital production; photography; videography; and information design/visual communication.”

The Miami Herald Newsroom Internship (Miami)

• “We offer internships in news, business, features and sports reporting, photography/videography, copy editing, design, and multimedia.”

The New York Times Internships (New York City)

• Audience Development

  • “The Audience Development intern will be empowered to work with the entire Audience Development team on The Times’s news desk. Potential assignments include daily programming of the main @nytimes social accounts, giving SEO guidance in breaking news situations, developing UGC storytelling projects, contributing to analytic research projects and working with colleagues around the newsroom on different storytelling projects. Assignments will vary based on the skills and interests on the candidate and the needs of the newsroom during the internship period.”

• Audio

  • “The New York Times is seeking a podcast junkie to intern with our Audio team. You’re an avid podcast listener, and ideally someone who already has audio skills: you’ll assist producers in and out of the studio on “The Daily,” our flagship daily news shows, and other programs. Pro Tools experience is preferred.In the past, our summer intern has helped pull archival tape for “The Daily,” log tape for an ambitious narrative project and sat in on all editorial meetings.”

• James Reston Reporting Fellowship

  • “Interns are assigned to various news departments — typically Metro, Business, Sports, Science, Styles or Magazine — where they receive reporting assignments and earn bylines on their stories.”

• Thomas Morgan Visual Journalism Internships

• Design — “Working closely with art directors, the Thomas Morgan Visual Journalism intern in design helps design and produce pages and process art and photographs. The program aims to introduce the intern to newspaper design and to identify future designers for The Times. Morgan interns receive assignments for publication in various sections of The Times, receiving credit lines where applicable. The interns also attend editorial meetings and learn the various production systems used at The Times.”

• Graphics — “The Thomas Morgan Visual Journalism intern in graphics works closely with graphics editors, developing the skills to organize and present the news visually through charts, graphs and diagrams. Morgan interns will receive assignments to design and execute graphics for publication in various sections of The Times — receiving credit lines where applicable — and participate in workshops with ranking editors, reporters and visual journalists.”
• Photography — “The Thomas Morgan Visual Journalism intern in photography works with Times photographers and editors, shooting assignments for every section of the report. The goal is to give the interns a taste of news, feature and sports photography, as well as the opportunity to learn lighting techniques from professionals. Working closely with Times editors, interns are also expected to initiate enterprise projects apart from daily assignments. Morgan interns get assignments for publication in various sections of The Times, receiving credit lines where applicable.”
• Video — “You will work alongside our staff of reporters, cinematographers, editors and motion designers as we cover The New York Times to produce compelling enterprise, feature and breaking news video content. Your work will be published on NYTimes.com.”

Did we miss any? Send internship information to SPLC staff writer Emily Goodell at egoodell@splc.org or call her (202) 478-1926.

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