A project of the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.
A project of the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.
The Community News Service connects University of Vermont students with media across the state — especially local papers — to provide hands-on internship experiences and free material for partners. Students take a lecture course to learn the theory behind journalism and work directly with the CNS editor to report, write and revise stories.
It’s a win-win: Students get published in professional newspapers and have more training and editing than they’d receive at a busy outlet. Partners receive free stories, edited to professional standards, to supplement their coverage without needing to train or edit novice writers.
Our program generally works like this: We pair one or more students with an outlet; the outlet assigns stories and provides guidance via local expertise; and we edit and manage the students through the process. Students can find and pitch their own stories, too, but we expect most ideas to come from partners.
These relationships walk a fine line between an outlet’s autonomy and students’ learning needs. To better strike that balance, we clarified and formalized our publishing policies and expectations.
Editorial process
We expect our partners to publish the completed, edited stories or multimedia pieces that CNS interns produce. Editorial purgatory eliminates the benefits of this program. If for some reason the story cannot run, please let us know.
We also expect those stories to run as submitted, except for grammatical or style changes or contextual additions that a student living outside the coverage area might neglect.
Editors at partner outlets have ultimate control of their content, but their involvement in the CNS program dictates that the student experience is the highest priority. With regard to handling student copy, CNS developed the following guidelines based on the republishing and content-use policies of nonprofit news outlets across the country:
If the story clearly communicates the subject matter and its focus reflects the student’s reporting, large structural changes should be avoided. For example, if a student covers a meeting of local leaders and focuses the story on the most prominent or animated part of the discussion, the focus should not be shifted without consultation;
If a story has holes or other needs, the partner editor should communicate with the CNS editor and intern to add the information;
Large-scale rewrites, or changes that render the copy unrecognizable as the student’s, should always be avoided. Stories might not read like those of an experienced pro, but they need to reflect the student’s best effort and ability. The perfect is the enemy of the good;
For intern work deemed unsatisfactory, the partner editor should communicate with the CNS editor and the intern, rather than rework the piece alone. Students need the opportunity to learn from the process and see the results of their work;
If the work of a CNS intern is to be wrapped into another article, the partner editor should communicate with the CNS editor and intern before doing so. In these cases, we would expect either a double byline or a reporting credit, depending on the extent a student’s work is used;
Partner editors should feel free to make small-scale edits and changes that reflect house style, geographic terms, updated dates, important local context, etc.;
Requests for additional reporting after submission must be made with the understanding that CNS interns are unpaid students with many other obligations, so those requests may cause publication delays;
The partner editor should send a link of the published story to the CNS editor. If the story is available only in PDF form online, the partner editor should send the text of the story. If there is an unusual delay between submission and publication, please let us know.
General republishing
Work by CNS students is published on our website and available for republishing by anyone, regardless of partner status. We want to get our students’ work to as many readers as possible. These are additional guidelines for republishing:
Make sure the reporter has a byline and make clear the work is from Community News Service. Most news outlets use this format: John Smith | Community News Service;
We recommend including an editor’s note at the top or bottom of the story explaining CNS and its relationship to the publication. An example: “Editor’s note: Jill Smith is a reporter with the Community News Service, a program in which University of Vermont students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost”;
If an outlet republishes an article from the CNS site but was not involved in producing the story, the note should include: “[ OUTLET] was not involved in the reporting or editing of this story”;
If an outlet plans to incorporate work from CNS into its own story, it should credit the CNS reporter, either with a double byline or a contributor line, whichever is most appropriate.
Intern management
In the past, CNS offered partners three arrangements: CNS fully managing interns, partners fully managing interns or a hybrid model. A hybrid version often works best and is now our default method. In that structure, CNS trains interns, guides their reporting, edits their stories and manages them on a day-to-day basis. Partners provide story assignments or ideas and offer guidance for sourcing or angles as needed. If you would prefer to completely manage an intern from assignment to publication, we can discuss that.
We’d like interns to experience a mix of coverage: quick-turnaround stories, hard news, features, profiles. Assignments can be tailored to each student’s strengths and schedule. Stories with loose deadlines are always helpful.
On funding: There is no requirement for partners to fund the students (who all receive academic credit for their work), but partners are welcome to pay CNS interns. We encourage partners to hire graduating students or give students paid assignments on academic breaks.
Please contact editor Justin Trombly with any questions: jtrombly@uvm.edu.
