Canadian singer Tom Cochrane produced his most popular song in 1991. In it, he delivered a musical metaphor made for the open road; it begged to be played with the volume up and the windows down. “Life is a highway,” he belted. “I want to ride it all night long.”
Journalism, often a reflection of life and society, is like a highway, too. The world of journalism is more of a transportation system, ranging from the dirt roads of small weeklies and the suburban streets of regional dailies to the superhighways of metro newspapers or national TV and radio networks. The journalism map includes magazines, websites, public relations, nonprofit work, a spectrum of beats, podcasts and documentaries.
Journalists are typically prepared for the road by universities, professors, classroom assignments and school newspapers across the country. A new movement is putting students and young journalists on the road sooner.
The State University of New York (SUNY) is among the latest institutions to unveil a program that pairs students with local publications as part of their coursework, utilizing grants to pay university editors to work with students and refine their copy before it is delivered to publication editors. The concept, rolled out by the University of Vermont in 2019 but expanded greatly since, gives students real-world opportunities with bylines at a professional news organization. It also offers publications, often struggling to cover communities with strained payrolls, more content to deliver to their audiences.
Publication editors can work directly with university educators to provide students with relevant assignments and pitches.
Todd Franko is the catalyst behind the movement at SUNY, which has 64 campuses across the state of New York. Thus far, 20 campuses have launched programs with nearby publications, and Franko is excited to onboard many more. SUNY’s campuses range from urban to rural. The campuses are located in communities big and small, which have publications to match.
SUNY has adopted the program initially started by Richard Watts with the Center for Community News, or CCN. CCN is associated with the University of Vermont. Franko is a former colleague of Watts at CCN. Franko has launched a SUNY version of CCN, called the Institute for Local News (ILN). Both Franko and Watts are SUNY graduates.
Franko said the initiative starts with support at the top.
“SUNY and ILN are in a special situation in the country,” Franko said. “It’s the only college-driven local news mission where the top position said that we are going to make local news service part of a SUNY-wide mission. That just continues the energy. We had a great internship program this summer. It was our first time through [the internship], paid for by SUNY and by the SUNY Research Foundation, and that furthered our energy.”
The CCN concept supplements internships. Unfortunately, many publications across the country have cut their budgets for interns.
For John McIntyre, publisher of Spotlight Newspapers, the program offers a new layer of possibilities. Spotlight News, a group of weekly community newspapers, and The University at Albany recently won an international award for a collaboration with student journalists. The award, the Global Youth & News Media Prize for Journalism, was awarded by a nonprofit organization based in France.
The collaboration was led by Elaine Salisbury, director of UAlbany's journalism program, according to reporting by Spotlight News. The program was supported by SUNY and ILM, as well as CCN.
The newsroom supports just two positions, according to the article, down from eight in the last decade.
In an interview with Editor & Publisher, McIntyre explained that Spotlight News has always been a training ground for journalists, usually through internships.
“It’s a really great program,” McIntyre said of the new model. “I’ve been here 27 years, and we’ve had interns here almost every year, nearly every semester. So, we’re used to having students around us. Being a very small newspaper, students coming out of journalism schools or out of college will come to places or newsrooms like ours to do their first venture into the world.
“If we have interns now, they're either part of the school curriculum, or we go out and have the interns apply for grants to get funding. We no longer offer paid internships. In today's media environment, we have a hard enough time paying our employees. That’s just the way it is.”
Working with college students takes some patience, McIntyre said. “It takes a couple of times to get through that first story process. You have to teach them what you need, and they have to learn the ropes. That first one always takes a lot of time, and then it gets faster and better as we go on.”
Having an editor affiliated with the university assisting with assignments helps the process. Likewise, publication staffers talk to classes about real-world expectations.
“We work with them on developing stories, and at the same time, we're coordinating with the instructor of the class to really get a good handle on what we’re looking for. Ultimately, the instructor becomes the primary editor. They preflight the stuff and work with the students one-on-one to hone it to a point where it’s acceptable to publish here.
“We also work with the advanced journalism program. We set aside certain beats, whether it's a school beat for a particular school district or a specific planning board or things like that. We have them go out and work a particular beat depending on the skill level of the student, and that's determined by the professor."
At peak production, the newsroom may publish work from about 10 students over a week, McIntyre said, though it's far less toward the beginning of each semester. The production depends on when the students are ready. The emphasis isn’t on meeting deadlines; it’s understanding the process and content expectations.
The benefits outnumber the sheer production number. Spotlight News also gets an inside look at promising journalists and can sometimes land them for internships during the summer months. Down the road, those interns may be hired on as full-time journalists.
“I think that the most important thing that this program with SUNY has done is that we have created lanes by which these students can learn,” McIntyre said. “Some students are in the fast lane, some students are in the middle lane, and some students are in the breakdown lane and just trying to work their way into the first lane. Right? That really works in this case. As students progress, they move into a faster lane, take on more responsibility, receive better stories and produce a better product. And that’s the way a newsroom should be run.”
Franko said several of the SUNY campuses already had relationships with community publications before ILN came along.
“And then it became just connecting with more existing comms and journalism programs and cheerleading and letting them know the water’s all right. This is a good program.”
Watts, who was among the first to raise funds and build out the infrastructure for paid university editors to connect student programs with publications, is excited about where things are headed — not just with his friend Franko and SUNY.
“On a personal level, I’m a SUNY grad, and this was an idea I worked on for three-plus years. It was really exciting to see the chancellor’s office embrace it and take it to the level that they have,” he said. “We’re also in a very early conversation with the California State University system.”
Watts said CCN is approaching 250 programs at 200 universities in 2025, thanks mainly to SUNY.
With any luck, Watts and his friend Franko will expand their student and publication pipelines on both coasts to 300 programs in the coming year.
That’s a lot of on-ramps to the journalism highway.
Bob Miller has spent more than 25 years in local newsrooms, including 12 years as an executive editor with Rust Communications. Bob also produces an independent true crime investigative podcast called The Lawless Files.
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