Summer internships

It’s that time of year when March Madness descends on all of us and when we begin to make big plans for what we’ll do outdoors as the landscape warms up and the days get longer. It’s also the time when college students begin to think about their summer plans, and start to consider an internship. Emerging from its own pandemic-pinched state, The Lakeville Journal is actively recruiting interns for a summer experience working on a weekly newspaper that serves its distinct community.

Last Saturday, The Journal crossed the state to attend UConn’s News Job and Internship Fair. News organizations from Connecticut and Massachusetts were represented in a room on the fourth floor of Oak Hall that became filled with the chatter of rising senior and soon-to-be grads looking for summer employment. The event was sponsored by UConn’s Department of Journalism and its Society of Professional Journalists.

It was cold and rainy outside, but there was coffee, bagels and doughnuts for the 50-plus students who showed up, moving from table to table to ask questions and hand over a resume or send a link to their bio on an iPhone to newsroom editors, who described their summer programs. Other news organizations represented included News 8 WTNH-TV, Fox 61 News, WFSB News, The Connecticut Mirror, the Journal Inquirer, The New London Day, The Meriden Record-Journal, The Connecticut Examiner, Western Mass News WGGB-TV and a few others.

The big majority of the student journalists already had acquired substantial experience either at The Daily Campus newspaper in Storrs or by working at other news organizations or in state legislatures or for political campaigns or on government research projects, among many other venues. They were an impressive group.

It was encouraging to see so much journalism crammed into the room at Oak Hall and out into the corridor. Journalism seemed alive and well — although it is on the move.  The experience and interests among tomorrow’s journalists includes but has reached past the print world to social media, video, television and radio news programming, and blogging, and whatever is coming.

The definition of a news desert, provided by the University of North Carolina’s Hussman School of Journalism is: a community, either rural or urban, with limited access to the sort of credible and comprehensive news and information that feeds democracy at the grassroots level. In an ironic note, the Hussman School at UNC, which reports that 225 counties in the United States do not have a local newspaper, also points to Tolland County, the home of Storrs, as a county without a newspaper.

As we have noted here before, The Lakeville Journal, now a 501 (C)(3) organization, owes gratitude to the Northwest Corner community for stepping up with support to keep the presses rolling for its readers. This summer, we look forward to sponsoring our own group of paid summer interns, and we will introduce them to you when they arrive in town.

If you or someone you know would like to be considered for our intern program, please send an email to Susan Hassler, Publisher, The Lakeville Journal Company, susanh@lakevillejournal.com.