CJS-INN Internship Program

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, responding to a news media job market in crisis due to the COVID-19 virus, collaborated with the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) in 2020, in 2021 and in 2022 to provide graduating students with paid internships to support their transitions to professional journalism. 

The internship program provides 10- to 12-week paid internships at non-profit news media companies, through a partnership with the Institute for Nonprofit News. Recent graduates are placed at regional news outlets to cover local communities, as well as at national outlets, where they will work in international reporting. Graduating students work as reporting interns covering issues ranging from local to international, during the summer or fall months. In the collaboration, INN arranges for some of its 300-member news organizations to recruit and select graduates from the graduating class into paid editorial reporting jobs. Students in all of the school’s master’s degree programs, including international scholars, are eligible to apply directly to the employers who will oversee their work.

The local news internships and reporting grants are funded by generous alumni of the school, including through the Dean’s Fund for Post Graduate Reporting Opportunities, a new multi-donor fund that honors outgoing Dean Steve Coll and anticipates the arrival of a new dean.  

The international reporting internships and reporting grants are funded by the Simon and June Li Center for Global Journalism, a new center at Columbia committed to preparing journalists to work, think and report globally. In 2022, there will be four Li Center for Global Journalism Fellows, two at PBS NewsHour, one at Coda Story, and another at Honolulu Civil Beat. The Scripps Howard Foundation supports three internships, two at Religion News Service and one at Jewish Telegraphic Agency, all to be administered through INN.

INN was founded in 2009 as an investigative news consortium. It works to strengthen the trusted sources of news by growing a network of nonprofit, nonpartisan news organizations. With more than 2,000 journalists in the INN network now generating some 150,000 original reports a year, the network’s news footprint is now similar in scale to NPR and the NPR affiliate network. INN members share news coverage, editorial and business resources and function as an innovation network developing new models for news media.

The Institute for Nonprofit News strengthens and supports more than 350 independent news organizations in a new kind of news network: nonprofit, nonpartisan and dedicated to public service. From local news to in-depth reporting on pressing global issues, INN’s members tell stories that otherwise would go untold – connecting communities, holding the powerful accountable and strengthening democracy. INN programs help these news organizations develop revenue and business models to support strong reporting, collaborate on editorial and business innovation, share services and advance the diverse leaders who are forging a new future for news.