Major Daily Newspapers- What Do They Want In an Intern?
Chicago Tribune Senior Editor Sheila Solomon lists the most important points. • A major metropolitan daily will be seeking experience. Always experience — the most important thing you can do is to get that experience. • To work at a major metropolitan daily, an intern may need to have had at least one internship at a daily, which cannot be the campus paper. • A major paper may hear from about 3,000 applicants for its internships. • Many smaller papers will look at students with college paper experience. You generally need to apply for summer internships early — start in September, October, and November. • Be ready with clips — a cross section of kinds of writing, news, features, etc. • Employers may very well call applicants’ editors. They know that your editors have had a part in assigning and editing your stories, so they will talk to those editors.
