2010 Center for Editing Excellence

Ten college students and recent college graduates are headed to paid copy editing internships on daily newspapers and online news services after completing eight days of intensive preparation work at The University of Texas at Austin.

The interns are among a select group of 84 placed in internships in copy editing, business reporting and online journalism as part of a national, competitive program funded by the Dow Jones News Fund, a foundation of the Dow Jones Company, and participating newspapers.

The School of Journalism at UT Austin, one of five pre-internship training sites for copy editors and designers, has been part of the News Fund program for 13 years.

Participants in the UT workshop were involved in newspaper copy editing, design and production assignments as well as launching swjournalist.com, a venture into online journalism. Newspaper professionals, visiting faculty and UT journalism faculty moderated sessions.

The UT-News Fund interns will report for internships of 10-14 weeks. 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 Austin American-Statesman provided printing services for the newspaper.

Grants from the News Fund and contributions from participating newspapers cover the cost of the workshops, including instruction, housing, meals and transportation for the participants.

Participating newspapers in turn pay interns a weekly wage for their work during the internship. Students returning to their universities after the internships are eligible for a $1,000 scholarship provided by the Newspaper Fund.

Directing the UT workshop were S. Griffin Singer, director; George Sylvie, assistant director; and Sonia Reyes-Krempin, administrative assistant of the UT School of Journalism.

Faculty included Beth Butler, assistant workshop director from Kent State University; Amy Zerba, CNN.com, Atlanta ; Richard Holden, executive director of the Newspaper Fund; and Bradley Wilson, Coordinator of Student Media Advising, North Carolina State University. Drew Marcks, assistant managing editor of the Austin American-Statesman, coordinated the interns’ visit to that newspaper.

CLICK HERE to view the June 1, 2010 issue.

CLICK HERE to view the June 2, 2010 issue.

CLICK HERE to view the June 3, 2010 issue.

CLICK HERE to view photo gallery.