The News Tribune in Tacoma, Wa. is one of the first I’d heard of to create a weekly “Web internship” for the newsroom. Anyone – a reporter, copy editor, designer – can spend one week with the Web team instead of doing their normal job.
During that week, the “intern” usually learns about technology by creating a multimedia project.
The News Tribune is one of several newspapers, including mine, to participate in The Learning Newsroom program. The point of that program is to change the newsroom culture from defensive to constructive.
Such a huge transformation requires a lot of training. And the weekly Web sabbatical is a good way to teach the newsroom about multimedia while also increasing online content.
Tacoma’s isn’t the only Learning Newsroom to start a Web internship; there’s at least one other program that I know of.
Comments (1)
There is more to gain from this than what the reporter gets. In my experience, newsroom-webdesk interaction often leads to a greater appreciation of the newsroom and the news process itself by the web team, who are often brought in more for their technical know-how than their newspaper experience. I would recommend reporters working for papers NOT trying this to bug their editors for an opportunity like this, even if it is not through a formal program.
Posted by john | December 8, 2006 4:27 PM
Posted on December 8, 2006 16:27