The Dow Jones News Fund internship program has a legacy of excellence dating back to 1960. Each year DJNF arranges paid internships for nearly 100 college students across the country and provides them with advanced hands-on training, industry mentors and a robust peer and alumni network to tap into.
Interns attend one-week training programs before reporting to work in paid internships at top media companies for 10 to 12 weeks. Weekly salaries start at $525. Interns who are enrolled full-time or graduates with federal loans are eligible for $1,500 scholarships.
Sign up for a 2024 information or test prep session here.
[WATCH: Recorded overview and application tips for 2023 program ]
[WATCH: Recorded test prep session for 2023 program]
In the application, due November 16, you will be asked to indicate which training programs/internship positions interest you. You may select more than one. Your choices:
+ Audience Engagement: Audience engagement internships vary by newsroom, but the mission always remain the same—help the news find its audience. From writing SEO-friendly headlines and producing engaging content for video and social to crafting newsletters and seizing on trending topics on social media, job expectations vary. Previous internship placements include: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Kansas City Star, The Marshall Project and Detroit Free Press.
+ Business Reporting: We place reporters in more than 30 newsrooms across the country covering a wide variety of topics from Wall Street to Main Street, including the stock market, new businesses and entrepreneurs, labor unions, minority-owned businesses, real estate, climate change, agriculture and automotive industries. Previous internship placements include: The Wall Street Journal, American City Business Journals, Barron’s, Insider, Fortune, American Banker, Detroit News and Automotive News.
+ Data Journalism: There are three different types of data internships we usually place interns in: 1) heavy emphasis on filing records requests and analyzing data using spreadsheets; 2) reporting and writing using government data or assisting investigative reporting projects; and 3) using coding and technical tools to build apps and interactive visuals for news stories. Previous internship placements include: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Kansas City Public Television, The Marshall Project, Investigative Reporting Network, IndyStar and USA Today.
+ Digital Media: Working as a digital media intern means many different things, depending on the newsroom. You could be working in print, social, video, audio or all of it. Interns receive across-the-board training so they can expand their skill sets using the latest technology and storytelling techniques. Previous internship placements include: Austin American-Statesman, Arizona Republic, Hawaii News Now, Nashville Public Radio, Colorado Sun and CalMatters.
+ Multiplatform Editing: Editors are the final check on a story before it is published. Multiplatform editing interns assess copy for accuracy, completeness, tone and style while also writing SEO-friendly headlines and designing pages on deadline. Previous internship placements include: The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Stars & Stripes and San Francisco Chronicle.
REQUIRED ATTACHMENTS FOR THE APPLICATION
Please have these documents ready to attach before starting the application:
- Résumé
- Unofficial transcript. (For graduate students, attach your undergraduate transcript)
- A 500-word essay: Tell us about a time you learned a life lesson the hard way
- Samples of your work. Please attach 3-5 clips of stories you wrote or links to digital content you produced. For data journalism you may attach code you have written or a data visualization you created; editors can provide headlines, page designs or social media posts. Please note you must combine your work samples into one PDF or Word document.
ELIGIBILTY
College sophomores, juniors, seniors and graduate students who are enrolled in school full-time as of Nov. 16, 2023, are eligible to apply. This includes December graduates. U.S. students studying abroad and international students already in the U.S. with work visas are also eligible. Former professionals (those who have worked full-time on staff as a journalist for a year or more) in the U.S. or abroad are not eligible.
Application Deadline: November 16, 2023
