Internships - Education

Education Internship

Lookout Santa Cruz
Community & Commerce Team

Internships, 2022-23

Lookout Santa Cruz is a digital media site whose fundamental mission is to serve Santa Cruz county with a new and higher standard of news, information and community engagement. Serving trustworthy local news and information to today’s students and tomorrow’s voting citizens is a key part of Lookout’s mission. Lookout Santa Cruz now pioneers a first-of-a-kind program in the nation, offering donor-paid, free access to all of Santa Cruz County’s college and public high school students.

We now open one position for an education intern to creatively support and advance this important work.

This student engagement work fits well into Lookout’s overall model. Lookout Santa Cruz has begun the local news reboot that communities around this country need now more than ever. Founded by news analyst Ken Doctor in late 2020, its innovation is being watched around the country -- both in its mobile-first local news product and service and in its borrowed-and-scaled-down business model from the New York Times.

The Education Intern will work with Lookout’s Community and Commerce overall team, the group responsible for breaking new ground in mission-directed, community-centered business development. Our team of five strategizes and deploys our earned revenue initiatives across Membership, Marketing Partner Sales and Education.

Our Student Engagement Plan provides Lookout access to all high school and college students in the county. The plan has begun with providing access, and now profoundly moves into the engagement phase, drawing students with a variety of programs, curriculum integration and showcasing student voices in the framework of Lookout Santa Cruz. Our belief: All students deserve to know deeply about the place they live in. In our current social, cultural and political climate, it is now more important than ever before for all citizens – especially students -- to have easy access to reliable and trustworthy journalism about their local community.

We’re currently looking for a smart, savvy, digital minded intern to help us keep imagining, building and iterating the education portion of this exciting and new local news model.

What you would be doing:

Support Lookout’s Education program through outreach, administrative tasks, curriculum help and in school opportunities with projects that could include:

Creating news quizzes surrounding articles for teachers to use in their classrooms.
Participating in discussions with students around local issues.
Helping lead student engagement activities at both UCSC and Cabrillo College, actively bringing students into the news of the day and active involvement in their communities.
Helping reach Lookout’s education goals and brainstorming new ideas to reach them.
Tracking and analyzing data, which inform future decisions and campaigns.
Writing recommendations for Student Lookout, our weekly newsletter for college students.
Participating in web management and updating Lookout’s robust online platform.
Supporting production and communication around Lookout events Supporting Lookout’s sales pipeline with creative lead generation
Connecting with the community and students to share the work of Lookout through an engaging social media outreach strategy

What we’re looking for:

Someone with a passion for education, who is comfortable working with high school students and has an interest in curriculum development.

A creative problem solver who is solutions oriented. This is critical to Lookout’s culture and plays an important role in our decision-making process.

A detail-oriented team player who enjoys an array of projects. Assignments will range from class talks and curriculum development to digital platform management, event and analytics management.

A self motivated individual with great communication. You have identified the things that drive you — and sometimes wake you up in the middle of the night — and you are planning to go places in this burgeoning new media landscape.

Bonus points for…

Bilingual English/Spanish
Experience working with High School students
Experience with analytics tools and key metrics/KPIs
Expertise and ideas in TikTok, Facebook and Instagram best practices * Knowledge of web development and production
Familiarity with video production and photo editing

If you’re looking for these things, you should apply:

Experience in a non traditional education role
A fast-moving digital media business environment
Learning about digital tools/software that now power digital business operations
Meaningful experience that will build skills and resume
A startup environment where everyone has a voice and helps formulate every part of the business (yes, even interns)
A collaborative, ever-changing work environment where no one day is quite the same

How to apply

Please email a letter explaining why you’re interested in working with Lookout along with a resume with references to these addresses:

internships@lookoutlocal.com
jamie@lookoutlocal.com