Summer 2015 Multiplatform Editing/Copy Editing Interns

  • Intern

Company Description

The Star Tribune Media Company is the upper Midwest’s largest source of news and information, delivering more of what matters to Minnesota all day, every day.  In the 16th-largest U.S. market Star Tribune reaches more consumers than any other media brand, with the country’s 5th-largest Sunday newspaper, the most-visited local website, numerous mobile and tablet apps, and a portfolio of print and digital products. In 2013 the company was recognized with two Pulitzer Prizes as well as the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce “Best in Business” award. 

Job Description

The Star Tribune offers 10-week summer copy editing/paginating internships. We recruit nationally for this program and pride ourselves on choosing talented, driven college and graduate students who can edit breaking news as well as enterprise stories. Our summer interns are paid the same as first-year professionals, $706 a week.

We provide:

  • a real-world experience in a major daily newsroom
  • a challenging and affirming environment that includes mentors as well as supervisors
  • weekly brown-bag lunch discussions on topics such as investigative reporting, narrative writing and multimedia storytelling

We expect our copy desk interns:

  • to have a solid handle on grammar, spelling and punctuation
  • to bring an editor's eye for clarity, accuracy and fairness to their work
  • to have a knack for writing compelling headlines
  • to be able to handle basic pagination
  • to conduct themselves in a professional manner

Qualifications

The Star Tribune multiplatform desk (copy desk) is looking for interns with solid editing skills, a passion for writing great headlines and the ability to spot the errors that spell-checkers miss. Good communications skills and the ability to handle deadline pressure are a must. Proficiency with Web research tools and InCopy or similar word-processing software is preferred.

Most successful applicants have completed their junior year in college, worked for a college news outlet AND interned with at least one other professional daily news organization.  While we would never say never, the odds of your landing one of our internship spots are not very good if you've never interned at a professional newspaper, news magazine or website. We’re looking for budding journalists who've demonstrated they’re ready to make the most of this opportunity.

Your application, which must be uploaded or postmarked by Nov. 1 2014, should include:

  • Up to 10 clips of stories you've edited with notes explaining what role you played in making the stories clear, compelling reads.
  • A cover letter telling us what skills you’d bring to the position and why you want to be a journalist.
  • A resume detailing your journalism experience as well as three references, including their titles, phone numbers and email addresses.
  • Two letters of recommendation. At least one of those letters should come from an editor who’s seen you work in a professional environment on deadline. Please do not submit letters of reference from fellow student journalists.
  • Your references can email letters of recommendation to newsrecruiter[at]startribune.com with your name in the subject line, or they can snail mail them to Duchesne Drew.  Please ask your references to write your name on the envelope. They can send them to: Duchesne Drew, managing editor for operations/recruitment, Star Tribune, 425 Portland Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55488

Note: If you have questions that are not addressed here, feel free to email Duchesne Drew (ddrew[at]startribune.com) or Neal Justin (neal.justin[at]startribune.com). But please DO NOT email your applications to them. To apply you must use our online tool.

Additional Information

  • You must fill out our online application, which you can do by clicking on the link below.
  • You can upload your cover letter, resume and clips using our online tool, which accepts a number of file formats (PDF, JPEG, FIG, DOC, DOCX, TXT and BMP).
  • Our system will let you upload up to six files in addition to your cover letter and resume.
  • If you have more than six files to submit beyond your resume and cover letter, you should combine some of them.
  • None of your files can be larger than 2 MB.
  • We won’t see your application until you click submit. Once you take that step, you won’t be able to alter your application or attach additional documents to it.
  • The online application tool we use, SmartRecruiters, is optimized to work with Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Other browsers may not give you full functionality.