Dow Jones News Fund 2022 interns complete training; grow at workshop (Video)

Eighteen college students and early-career journalists are headed to editing internships or returning to their newsrooms after completing 10 days of intensive preparation at the Center for Editing Excellence at the University of Texas at Austin.

Some of the participants have been placed in internships in multiplatform editing as part of  the Dow Jones News Fund internship program. 

Other participants were sponsored by the Texas Press Association or Southern Newspapers Inc. The Associated Press allowed students to use its wire service for content and instructional material, and School Newspapers Online hosted the Southwest Journalist website.

Newspaper professionals, visiting faculty and UT journalism faculty moderated training sessions in the first half of this 25th  residency program at UT Austin.

In the latter half of the pre-internship training, participants produced three issues of a model daily newspaper, the Southwest Journalist, as well as companion online and social media products.

Grants from the Dow Jones News Fund and contributions from participating news organizations cover the participants’ training. After two years of virtual training thanks to COVID-19, this year’s program returned to the UT Austin campus. Participants spent more than eight hours each day on classroom instruction and production of the newspaper and website. Now, the interns will serve in internships of 10 to 12 weeks, and the other participants will return to their newsrooms. 

Beth Butler and Bradley Wilson served as co-directors of the workshop with assistance from Kathleen McElroy, Candace Misko and Alice Rentz in the UT School of Journalism.

Faculty also included Mark Grabowski, associate professor at Adelphi University, and Griff Singer, retired senior lecturer at the UT School of Journalism and former director of the workshop.

The 2022 participants, their schools and their internship assignments are as follows:

• Maya Chadda, Boston University, WGBH (Boston)
• Shifra Dayak, University of Maryland, Stars & Stripes
• Lauren Guzy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Fredericksburg Standard
• Keri Heath, Wittenberg, BA; Dublin, MA; Galveston Daily News
• Owen Henderson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, San Francisco Chronicle
• Jess Huff, Northern Arizona University, Lufkin Daily News
• Anna Jackson, Belmont University, Houston Chronicle 
• Anastasia Johnson, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Los Angeles Times
• Dania Kalaji, University of Georgia, Bay City News Foundation
• Gayla Murphy, University of Houston-Victoria, The Brazosport Facts
• Reegan Saunders, Kent State University, San Francisco Chronicle
• Claire Schnatterbeck, Columbia University, patch.com
• Brady Stone, Texas A&M University, Kansas City Star
• Victor Swezey, Columbia University, Tampa Bay Times
• CJ Vetter, Texas State University, Hays Free Press
• Isaiah Washington, American University, WGAL (Lancaster, PA)
• Payton Williams, Cameron University ( 2021), The Lawton Constitution
• Catherine Wilson, University of Maryland College Park, New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung

The following were guest speakers:

• Abigail Allen, managing editor, Pilot Point Post-Signal 
• Ken Cooke, publisher, Fredericksburg Standard-Radio Post
• S. Mitra Kalita, CEO/co-founder, URL Media Holdings Inc.
• Corrie MacLaggan, statewide managing editor for the public radio stations of The Texas Newsroom
• Kathleen McElroy, director, University of Texas School of Journalism and G.B. Dealey Regents Professor in Journalism
• Yvonne Mintz, editor and publisher, The Facts (Clute, Texas)
• Philana Patterson, Deputy Editor, newsroom standards and ethics, The Wall Street Journal

Special thanks to the following:

• Shirley Carswell, executive director, Dow Jones News Fund
• Mike Hodges, executive director, Texas Press Association
• Yvonne Mintz, editor and publisher, The Facts (Clute, Texas) and Southern Newspapers, Inc.