Berkeley Journalism
Summer Internship Program
”This internship is everything any student could ever hope for and more.”
Donate today to support summer internships for Berkeley Journalism graduate students.
It’ll change people’s lives. And there’s a $10,000 challenge gift that’ll help make it happen.
Year in and year out, Berkeley Journalism students find good-paying jobs in the field. Look under the hood of any quality media shop, and you’ll find our journalism grads doing great work as investigative reporters, documentary filmmakers, podcasters, editors, and more. 
One reason for this is the summer internship that students do at the end of their first year. It’s a transformative experience.
But there’s a problem, and it’s one you can help us solve: only about half of the participating newsrooms can pay their summer interns the $5,000 it costs to do the internship. Many of Berkeley Journalism’s students can’t afford an unpaid internship: they often are the first in their generation to go to college or have substantial family obligations to deal with.
Berkeley Journalism is committed to raising funds for the summer internship program—so that no one will be prevented from doing their summer internship due to financial difficulties.
Please donate today to ensure that every J-School grad has access to this terrific opportunity.
Real world experience that makes a difference.
After two semesters of training, Berkeley Journalism’s students are ready to take their skills to the next level, working side-by-side with and under the supervision of seasoned reporters, editors and producers across the country and beyond. This real world experience is the linchpin of their formal journalism education. As students are put through their paces, the skills they acquired in the classroom are reinforced and stretched to new heights. The results are impressive clips, credits, connections and confidence that will help students secure work after graduation.
That’s why Berkeley Journalism requires students to complete a 300-hour internship in order to graduate. We don’t want any of our students to miss out on the benefits that can come with a quality internship experience. In fact, as we see year after year, just one meaningful internship experience can completely change the professional trajectory of a student. For a school whose mission is to change the face of journalism, it’s imperative that each and every one of our students has access to an internship opportunity.
What students say about their summer internship: An "incredible opportunity."
One student told us how it gave them “an incredible opportunity to grow as a reporter.” Another described “the close relationship we developed” that “is likely to continue well into the future.” A third wrote about how it was “exciting to have played a small, but important role in a history-making moment — I learned to log tape for a now Oscar-nominated film!”
Here are a few more student comments:
"As a general assignment reporter, I covered city council meetings, labor protests, and other general assignments, including marches in Oakland and the LGBT prom in San Francisco. I learned much about applying AP Style, clear writing, and fact-checking. I also appreciated the chance to work on some short feature stories I pitched to my supervisor and got published. These different aspects of journalism developed my skills and experience as a writer and reporter."
—Charles Ayitey
Bay City News/Multimedia
"So far, I've learned about how a non-profit newsroom functions, as well as how a newsroom focused on a specific beat works. I've never worked for those types of newsrooms before, so this has really opened up possibilities for the kinds of places I can work after I graduate from Berkeley. I have almost 5 years of experience in news journalism now, but EdSource has still helped improve my researching, interviewing, and writing skills through this internship. It's also allowed me to be really independent with my work, meaning I've learned a lot about how to formulate and pitch new ideas and find a niche I'm interested in."
—Cara Nixon
Ed Source/Narrative, Multimedia
"I'm enjoying the internship and it's meeting expectations. It's exactly what I was looking for. A chance to get out there and practice my photography and storytelling on a regular basis, be able to focus in on photo, and also have freedom to conceive of story ideas and work fairly independently, with guidance as needed."
—Florence Middleton
Oaklandside/Photojournalism
"This internship is everything any student could ever hope for and more. I am actively practicing my reporting skills, leading field + grant research, building relationships with sources, scheduling shoots, and gearing up to move into the production phase. So far, we are achieving every small step we need and gaining access, slowly building up to the bigger picture (pun intended)."
—George Alfaro
Long Take Films/Photojournalism
Here’s a sample of recent reporting produced during Berkeley Journalism’s summer internship season:
The Taliban Won but These Afghans Fought On (The New York Times)
The Fellowship of the Tree Rings (RadioLab)
Transgender health challenges expose gaps in Bay Area health care system (Bay City News)
How Green is New Mexico’s Governor? (SearchLight New Mexico)
Stripped for Parts: American Journalism at the Crossroads (Kovno Communications)
Love, Murder and Miracles (Director: Yoav Potash)
Multiple fires erupt as heat wave descends on Southern California (Los Angeles Times)
What violence prevention in Oakland looks like (The Oaklandside)
Afghan journalists fled for their lives as the Taliban came to power. Two women tell their stories. (Bay News Rising)
Psychedelics Assisted Therapy: Spotlight on Marlena Robbins (Berkeley Science Review)
What newsrooms say about their summer interns: "We'd hire them."
"An exceptional intern. She was hardworking, deliberate, and eager to contribute. This was a mutually beneficial internship — she assisted us in our breadth of coverage, and she spread her wings into new realms. Because she showed such growth, her term was renewed, and she has since been kept on as an on-call writer."
—KQED
"Our Berkeley Journalism intern spent her 10-week summer internship on the Fast Break desk alongside a team of reporters tasked with writing smart, quick turnaround trending stories…She wrote 29 stories, one of which was a triple byline feature on Death Valley's heatwave that landed on the front page…she was a vital part of the team and showed the skills and knowledge to keep up with seasoned reporters."
—Angel Jennings, Los Angeles Times
"Our Berkeley Journalism intern's performance working as a full-time reporter for the Kabul bureau over the summer was excellent. He is an extremely hardworking and tenacious reporter who has a knack for identifying good stories and a skeptical eye that has served him well in a particularly difficult reporting environment…The highlight of his work was the reporting he collected for a story on members of the armed resistance rebelling against the Taliban. That reporting became an A1 story for the paper."
—The New York Times
"Our Berkeley Journalism intern was a tremendous asset for my team this summer, producing high quality work including 14 packages that aired on our key programs. She quickly learned the tools and programs we use at CNNI as well as all the procedural steps in bringing a package to air. She was highly creative and resourceful in her work."
—Steve Tuemmler, CNN International
Other recent internship hosts:
Donate today to support summer internships for Berkeley Journalism graduate students.
It’ll change people’s lives. And there’s a $10,000 challenge gift that’ll help make it happen.
