Internships with High Country News

High Country News is looking for informed and enthusiastic interns to report on natural resource, environmental and community issues in the 11 Western states.

High Country News, published twice-monthly in Paonia, Colo., is a nonprofit newsmagazine "for people who care about the West." The paper reaches 25,000 subscribers — an estimated 50,000 readers — including grassroots activists, public land managers, tribal officials, government policymakers, educators, students and interested citizens.

The Los Angeles Times has written that High Country News is "the most influential environmental journal in the Mountain West," and according to Newsweek, "High Country News is a must for anyone following land use issues west of the 100th meridian." Our hard-hitting coverage has won many major journalism awards during the past few years, including:

• Utne Independent Press Award for Best Local/Regional Coverage
• George Polk Award
• Science Journalism Award from the American Association for Advancement of Science
• Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism
• James V. Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism
  

Every year, High Country News offers six internship positions, each six months long. Three new interns join us each June and January; we provide free housing and a $170-per-week stipend. To help defray moving costs, an additional $500 travel stipend is available.

For each internship session, we hire two Editorial Interns and an Online Intern. Our interns are a key part of the HCN team; aside from a few minor tasks such as sorting the mail and answering phones, interns spend most of their time researching, interviewing, writing, and developing content. We pride ourselves on fairness, accuracy and good writing, and we expect no less of our interns.

For all of our internship positions, some prior journalism experience and/or education is preferred. We also prefer applicants who are familiar with High Country News and who have lived in the West and are familiar with its environmental and community issues. We strongly encourage Native American and minority applicants.

The Online Intern works with the Online Editor and the Director of Digital Media to create news stories and multimedia pieces for our website. This intern will do some writing and also develop audio and video components for stories. For this position, we’re seeking someone who has both photographic and journalism background, and familiarity with online audio and visual programs such as Final Cut Pro and Flash. Radio and video experience is a plus.

The two Editorial Interns work with the Associate Editors to write news stories for the website and for the newsmagazine, ranging in length from 250 to 900 words. Depending on their experience and ability, editorial interns may also get the opportunity to write a 4,000 word cover story. Our editing process is rigorous - all copy goes through two layers of editing and it is not unusual for a story to see six or eight drafts. Reporting is generally conducted over the phone and the Internet, but we do have money to send each intern out into the field at least once to do on-the-ground reporting.

Our interns go on to become leaders in journalism and politics. They pursue careers as reporters, editors, educators, lawyers, policymakers and freelance writers.

Upcoming start dates and application deadlines are as follows. Applications must be received in our office by the deadline date. Please indicate whether you are applying for the editorial or the multimedia position.

Email applications are not accepted (unless you are sending links to multimedia samples). Please send all writing samples as hardcopy. The reason for the no-email policy is the fact that we usually receive more than 40 applications per session, and printing and collating each applicant's materials has proven to be inordinately time-consuming.

Summer/Fall 2009
Start date - June 29, 2009
End date - December 18, 2009
(Applications must be received by Feb. 27, 2009)

Winter/Spring 2010
Start date - January 4, 2010
End date - June 11, 2010
(Applications must be received by Oct. 8, 2009)

Applicants should send a cover letter, résumé, contact information for three references (phone and email), and three writing samples (plus multimedia samples, if applicable) to:

Jodi Peterson, Associate Editor
High Country News
P.O. Box 1090
Paonia, CO 81428

Call 970-527-4898 or email jodi at hcn.org for further information.