Donate to the Internship Fund

Training journalists, and leaders, for the American West

Invest in the Future of the West

Your contribution to the High Country News Internship Fund provides talented women and men the opportunity to learn about the complex issues facing the region and helps them gain the skills to make a difference.

The Intern Program

For nearly 30 years, the High Country News Intern Program has been a vital incubator of environmental journalism and activism in the American West. High Country News interns spend six months at the High Country News headquarters in Paonia, Colorado, immersed in a program described by many as an “intense graduate course” and a “journalism boot camp.” As members of the editorial team, they learn how to research, analyze, synthesize, write and (of course) rewrite stories about complex Western issues.

Interns bring vitality and a range of perspectives to High Country News; they walk away with a deeper knowledge of the West, a hands-on appreciation of the media’s role in a democracy, well-honed writing skills and a basketful of clips. And then they go on to do great things.

Our nearly 200 alumni have taken the valuable skills they learned as HCN interns and made great contributions to the West and beyond as:

Reporters, editors and photographers for a number of national and local periodicals, including Orion and National Geographic, daily newspapers, and the online magazine Grist;
Freelance writers for publications like the Los Angeles Times, New York Times Magazine, Outside and Audubon;
Award-winning authors;
Educators at colleges and universities; and
Staff members in top positions for government agencies, such as the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management, and important conservation groups, including The Nature Conservancy, Forest Guardians, Trout Unlimited, and several land trusts throughout the West.

Our Goal

The HCN board and staff have launched a $500,000 campaign to ensure long-term funding for this vital program, which trains, houses and pays six editorial interns (three interns every six months) at a cost of $50,000 per year. We are more than halfway to our goal, but we need your help to finish the campaign. So make your gift today and help seed the West with the great journalists, critical thinkers and leaders of tomorrow.

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High Country News is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. All gifts are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.

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Comments

To donate by phone, call 1-800-905-1155. For donations by mail, send to: High Country News, PO Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428. Be sure to note on your check that you are sending a Intern Fund donation. Thank you!

Former High Country News Publisher Ed Marston

Dear Reader:

Tom Bell didn’t found High Country News on a shoestring. To Tom, back in 1970 or 1971 or 1972, a shoestring would have been luxury.

Tom had something better than start-up capital. He had a vision of the West that demolished such flimsy constructs as county and state and federal land boundaries. Tom’s High Country News wiped out those straight-line boundaries so that we could see a 1 million-square-mile landscape that is among the most extraordinary on earth.