Internships - Community Voices

Community Voices Team

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.

Community Voices, like Lookout, is anchored in traditional journalism, and uses the most innovative digital tools of the day to deliver content readers care about and can use. Launching in spring, 2022, Community Voices will provide a fair, invigorating forum for public debate in Santa Cruz. We address community issues by soliciting those with real expertise to share their insights and experience. We are rigorous about fairness, accuracy, accountability and transparency.

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

• A fast-moving digital journalism environment
• An opportunity to hone your writing, research and editing skills
• A meaningful community experience
• 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.

What we’re looking for:

We’re looking for smart, digitally minded, community-oriented journalism interns to help us ensure Community Voices is relevant, timely and insightful. We need our interns to help us with editing, fact-checking and research, but also to brainstorm with us and suggest ways we can best engage and serve the wide diversity of our publics. Best candidates are:

• Tech-savvy. We reach today’s audience and creatively build readership among students, using all the useful channels, focused around our mobile-first experience. (Seventy percent of Lookout use is mobile.)
• Motivated. 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 digital media landscape
• A detail-oriented team player. Assignments will range from fact-checking to copy editing to interviewing to organizing community engagement sessions.

What you would be doing:

Support the Community Voices editor through editorial and administrative help, including:

* Helping with copy editing
* Assisting with fact-checking
* Helping organize, read and sort unsolicited pieces
* Verifying the identity of people who write letters to the editor
* Helping sort solicited pieces that need editing
* Researching for editorials
* Suggesting ideas for op-eds
* Imagining innovative ways for delivering content
* Connecting with the community to find out what stories they care about
* Planning community listening sessions and panels

Bonus points for…

* Journalism experience
* Photo/video shooting and editing skills
* Expertise in social media
* Knowledge of data journalism
* Knowledge of AP style

Timeline

Community Voices internships are possible both during the school year and summer, either for credit or paid.

How to apply

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

• internships@lookoutlocal.com
• jody@lookoutlocal.com