Internship program ideas

Prompted by a question from Curtis Hubbard, trainers discuss ideas for orientation programs for newsroom interns:

I'm trying to put together an intern indoctrination program. Here are topics I've come up with so far. What am I missing? Also, if you have handouts on any of these items that haven't been made available to this list before, I'd love to see them.

1. Presenting yourself/professionalism
2. Interview techniques
3. Introduction to using the archives and the library
4. Plagiarism, sourcing and fact-checking
5. Use of company vehicles, equipment

P.S. -- I think E&P had an article once about a newsroom in which interns were required to keep notebooks of their clips. Do any of you do something like this? Do you go over them with the interns? What types of things do you look for, or what do you suggest avoiding?
-- Curtis Hubbard, The Daily Camera, Boulder, Colo.

The Oklahoman's interns go through two days of orientation before they even start reporting or editing.
Here are some topics that we teach that I didn't see on your list:

• "Working two notebooks: How to do enterprise reporting on daily deadlines."
  
• "What my editors expect of me."
  
• "Press to Print to Porches/What other newspaper departments besides the newsroom do."
  
• "The visual side: Working with photographers to improve readership of stories."
  
• "The Art of Storytelling."
  
• "What 'convergence' and 'total coverage' mean" (including a tour of our partner TV station).
  
• "Peer coaching: How it can help you improve your stories." (Besides mentors for each intern, we have a peer coaching team of editors and reporters who will review their stories and give them ideas for improvement.)
  

Also, during many years, we've asked our interns to do a team project in conjunction with an editor or other reporters. Projects on FOI and other areas have been great learning experiences for the interns.
-- Joe Hight, Daily Oklahoman

We also take the interns on a tour of town, showing them not only tourist sites and landmarks, but some places of news interest. We make a day of it, stopping along the way for lunch. It gives you lots of time for questions.

And we take them by the courthouse, city hall and police station, introducing them to people they might need to know and showing them where to find various records. This also involves discussion of our open-record and open-meeting laws.
-- Steve Buttry, Omaha World-Herald

We rent a bus for a day and have a staffer do a tour of town and the suburbs for the interns. It was a huge hit.

We also do a welcome reception for the interns soon after they arrive. We order food and invite everyone on staff to come in and meet the interns. We get the interns to talk about themselves a bit (and we tell the regular staffers they can't eat unless they talk to the interns).

We also do weekly sessions. Topics have included:

• What your editors expect from their interns for the summer
  
• A session by former interns on how to succeed during the summer
  
• A session on how to get a job after your internship.
  -- Sue Burzynski, Detroit News

We adjust our orientation a bit every year (and we're dealing with only three or four interns during the summer), but a town tour that we have done is a popular ession with interns and often prevents an "I'm lost and late for the assignment" call for their editors. I've heard of places that make it a scavenger hunt.

Once a week a team leader takes them to lunch or dinner (again only 3 or 4 involved) and does some quick training on ethics and standards, ways to develop enterprise, mainstreaming and diversity standards and the topics you mentioned.
-- Rene Kaluza, St. Cloud Times

This may be more basic than what you're looking for, but here are some of the things that go into our orientation packet for new reporters (including interns):

• a map of the state
  
• a guide to the state's open meetings and public records laws
  
• a libel handbook
  
• a staff-written guide to the state's court system
  
• handouts on covering crime news, accidents, fires
  
• the paper's CQ policy
  
• a summary of some key news policies
  hope that's helpful.
  -- Mimi Burkhardt, Providence Journal

Along with the formal sessions on expense reports, etc., include some way of briefing people on the folkways of your particular newsroom. Every workplace has its idiosyncrasies. Not knowing them can be embarrassing, for interns or any new hire.
-- Evelyn Hsu, The Poynter Institute

Great intern ideas.
A couple more that have served us well:

• Each of our interns is assigned a regular staffer as an "intern buddy." Usually, it's someone who works alongside the intern and has similar interests, etc. This gives the interns an instant non-management contact to help them get acclimated to the newsroom and the city. Many buddies have alerted us to tiny problems before they could become large ones.
  
• At the end of the summer, we ask interns to rate their experiences, such as whether they got enough guidance and which of our weekly training sessions helped them the most. We've made a lot of changes as a result of these forms.
  
• We give a list of interns to all people who answer the phones throughout the building, not just inside the newsroom. Few things erode a potential source's confidence more than calling the company switchboard and being told that the reporter he/she is calling back doesn't work there.
  -- Liz Petros, Lexington Herald-Leader