Eleven college students and recent college graduates are headed to paid copy editing internships on daily newspapers after completing 10 days of intensive preparation at The University of Texas at Austin.
The interns are among a group of undergraduate and graduate students placed in internships in copy editing, sports copy editing, business reporting and digital journalism.
The highly competitive national program is funded by the Dow Jones News Fund, and participating newspapers and digital media services. The 921 applicants were required to take a test and complete an extensive application before being considered.
Newspaper professionals, visiting faculty and UT journalism faculty moderated the sessions in this 19th residency program at UT-Austin.
In the latter half of the pre-internship training, participants produced three issues of a model newspaper, the Southwest Journalist, as well as a companion online product, swjournalist.com.
The UT-News Fund interns serve internships of 10 to 14 weeks.
Grants from the News Fund and contributions from participating newspapers cover the participants’ pre-internship training, including housing, meals, transportation and instruction.
Participating newspapers also pay interns a weekly wage for their internship work. Students returning to their universities after the internships are eligible for a $1,000 scholarship provided by the News Fund.
Beth Butler and Bradley Wilson served as co-directors of the workshop with assistance from Lourdes Jones, senior administrative associate of the UT School of Journalism.
Faculty included Griff Singer, retired senior lecturer from UT-Austin; Mark Grabowski, associate professor at Adelphi University; Shane Garber, a doctoral student at UT-Austin; and Linda Shockley, managing director of the News Fund in Princeton, New Jersey.
Students also had the opportunity to visit with staff and managers at the GateHouse Media Center for News and Design in Austin, Dan Cunningham, senior editor of the Houston Chronicle, R.B. Brenner, director of the UT School of Journalism.
- Gregory Boyd, GateHouse Media, University of Oklahoma
- Meira Megan Gebel, Beaumont Enterprise, San Francisco State University
- Edward Graham, The Denver Post, American University
- Jack Heffernan, Grand Forks Herald, University of Oregon
- Dani Malakoff, Houston Chronicle, University of Kansas
- Zoe McDonald, The Denver Post, University of Mississippi
- Danielle Parenteau, Sacramento Bee, University of California — Berkeley
- Andrea Platten, Corpus Christi Caller-Times, University of California — Berkeley
- Paola Ruano, Los Angeles Times, University of Pennsylvania
- Jared Servantez, Bay Area News Group, University of Southern California
- Katherine Shea, Corpus Christi Caller-Times, University of Montana
