(L-R) Tre'Vaughn Howard takes photos and Brooke Stanley and Faith Lucas record a podcast for When the Dust Settles (Photos: Ana Koufidakis); and Natallie Rocha catches up with the latest business news (Photo: Anastassia Gliadkovskaya).

PRINCETON, N.J. — College juniors, seniors and graduate students are invited to apply to the Dow Jones News Fund for paid summer 2020 internships in data journalism, digital media, business reporting and multiplatform editing. The application and test deadline is Nov. 8.

Students selected by the News Fund attend a week of hands-on training at top universities in data journalism, digital media, business reporting and multiplatform editing before the internships start. During each training program interns are taught the latest newsgathering, editing and storytelling technologies.

Data journalism interns are trained by Investigative Reporters and Editors to collect, analyze and visualize data to unlock compelling stories; digital media interns boost their reporting skills using video, audio, data and social analytics at Arizona State University’s Cronkite School; business reporters spend a week in New York learning to cover all sectors from Wall Street to personal finance and local companies; and the multiplatform editing interns hone their news judgment, headline writing, copy editing and page design skills at the University of Texas, Austin, or Temple University (Philadelphia).

The Fund is partnering with American City Business Journals for a sixth summer to recruit and train 10 business reporting interns. The goal is to identify students who already live or go to school in one of ACBJ’s 43 markets, to increase the potential for employment after the internship ends. Interns accepted into this program will attend pre-internship training at New York University.

The Fund and sponsoring media cover travel costs to and from training and to newsrooms. Interns are responsible for their housing and transportation costs during the internship. Students who return to school after a successful internship will receive $1,500 college scholarships.

Snapshots from summer 2019:

  • Alexandria Ng, a recent University of Florida graduate, was one of two digital media interns sent to Hawaii News Now to cover breaking news and produce multimedia content for the web, write scripts and pitch story ideas. Before heading to Honolulu, she worked with 17 digital media interns to produce When the Dust Settles. Watch this brief video about the program.
  • Yue Stella Yu, who recently graduated from the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism graduate program, honed her data journalism skills at our residency taught by experts from Investigative Reporters and Editors. Yue used data at the Salt Lake Tribune to report on a wide range of topics from opioids to food insecurity to pollution. Read her reporting here.
  • Anastasia Marks, a senior at the University of Maryland, College Park, attended the editing program at Temple University and interned at The New York Times. Read her piece for The Times Insider about her experience.
  • Brendan Ward, a recent graduate of Georgia Southern University selected for the American City Business Journal business reporting program, was one of 10 interns who spent a week at New York University learning to cover all aspects of business. He went to work at the Atlanta Business Chronicle and after his internship ended he was offered a full-time job as a digital producer for the Tampa Bay Business Journal. Click here to read his clips.

College juniors, seniors and graduates enrolled full-time on Nov. 8 are eligible to apply, including December graduates, and U.S. students studying abroad.

To apply, students should visit the programs page on the News Fund’s website. Applicants are required to complete an online application and take a one-hour test for the program(s) they are applying to by Nov. 8.

Visit the Fund’s Directory of Test Monitors to find the campus contact for your school. Don’t see your school? Professors and college staff may sign up here to be test monitors and to receive program materials to distribute on campus.

College faculty who have volunteered to serve as test monitors should have already received posters and promotional items. Paper copies and links to digitized tests will be sent out next week.

THE ESSENTIALS