Say hello to the future of journalism

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/06/2014 (3628 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

True story: I cried after my first week as a Free Press intern.

The newsroom, circa 1988 at the old Free Press building on Carlton Street, was a throwback in the mode of The Front Page, fast-paced with chain-smokers and hard drinkers who would think nothing of shortchanging a raw rookie.

I got over the tears that were part of my Free Press baptism, but I always share my story with our interns as a way of assuring them they, too, will handle the transition from journalism student to working journalist.

As part of a long-standing Free Press tradition, we are delighted to welcome six young journalism students to our newsroom who will spend the next three months learning our craft — and even teaching the rest of us a few new tricks of the trade.

Internships are the best way to really learn the ropes, to take what you were taught in class and turn it into real reporting on deadline. And at a time when newsrooms across the country are shrinking, the Free Press believes it’s critical we do our part to help the next generation of journalists get their foot in the door. And unlike any number of other journalism internships, our summer students are all paid.

You’ll be seeing their bylines and photo credits, their headlines and web postings in the days and weeks ahead, but we thought we should introduce our 2014 class of summer newsroom interns to you today:

•  Kyle Edwards is this year’s Vince Leah intern, named in honour of the Free Press columnist and local sports legend who died in 1993. Edwards has completed his first year at Ryerson University.

• Sarah Taylor, from Loyalist College, joins the photo/video department as the Jon Thordarson Free Press Photojournalism intern, named after our longtime photo editor who died of cancer in 2010.

• Inayat Singh, who comes to us via Carleton University’s journalism program, is focusing on data journalism and our website.

•  Michael Shulman is a recent journalism graduate from the University of Western Ontario working on our night production desk.

• Jessica Botelho-Urbanski, from Red River College’s Creative Communications program, is working as a news reporter.

• Oliver Sachgau is also assigned as a news reporter and comes to us from Carleton.

 

Paul Samyn is the Free Press editor.

paul.samyn@freepress.mb.ca