The award-winning Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism is seeking applicants for two paid summer internships.

The interns will report on investigative stories and may use other skills, including photography and data analysis and visualization, to produce investigative coverage.

The internships will begin in June and end in August. The internships may be extended.

Eligibility is limited to undergraduate and graduate students who are enrolled, at the time of application, in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where the nonprofit and nonpartisan Center is based.

Pay is $10 an hour. The schedule is about 40 hours per week and is flexible.

The application deadline is 5 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 1.

The newly hired interns will work with the Center’s four-member professional staff.

Interns receive intensive training and experience in interviewing, researching and writing, as well as data analysis, public records and fact-checking. They work with partners at Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television and news organizations across the nation to produce investigative reports.

Interns also collaborate with ethnic media outlets in investigative coverage. Some travel around Wisconsin may be required. Access to a vehicle is required.

Interns are provided office space in Vilas Communication Hall.

In-depth, investigative and computer-assisted reporting skills are preferred. Web, audio and video skills are desirable.

Reports are distributed on WisconsinWatch.org, the Center’s Web site; public radio and television; and by news organizations around the nation.

Applicants are asked to submit the following in electronic form to ahall@wisconsinwatch.org:

  • One-page letter describing why they’re qualified for the job.
  • Resume including work and journalistic experience, awards, GPA and at least two references.
  • Up to five examples of published or broadcast work.

Questions may be directed to Andy Hall, the Center’s executive director, at ahall@wisconsinwatch.org, 608-262-3642, or in the Center’s office, 5006 Vilas Communication Hall.

The Center strives to increase the quality and amount of investigative reporting across Wisconsin and to train the next generation of investigative journalists while creating a replicable, collaborative model for local investigative journalism. The Center is guided by its mission statement: Protect the vulnerable. Expose wrongdoing. Seek solutions. It focuses on government integrity — particularly the role of money in politics and policymaking — and quality of life issues of importance to the people of Wisconsin, including the environment, justice system, education, economic issues, health and public safety.

Over the past two years, stories produced by the Center’s staff, interns and classroom collaborations have received nine Milwaukee Press Club awards, and a citation from the Dane County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. This year, the Center’s collaboration with the UW-Madison journalism school won the Associated Press Media Editor’s first Innovator of the Year for College Students award.

More details about the Center’s journalistic and financial operations are available at: https://wisconsinwatch.org/about/

In addition to internships, the Center is able to provide paid freelance experience to a limited number of students.  If a student has a good idea (print or visual), we’d like to hear.

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Andy Hall, a co-founder of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and a former Investigative Reporters and Editors board member, won dozens of awards for his reporting in 26 years at the Wisconsin State Journal and The Arizona Republic. Since the Center’s launch in 2009, he has been responsible for the Center’s journalistic and financial operations.

Hall began his career in 1982 as a copyboy at The New York Times. At The Republic, Hall helped break the “Keating Five” scandal involving Sen. John McCain. At the State Journal, Hall’s stories held government and the powerful accountable and protected the vulnerable through coverage that addressed the racial achievement gap in public schools and helped spark the creation of the nationally noted Schools of Hope volunteer tutoring program, revealed NCAA violations by University of Wisconsin athletes, and exposed appalling conditions in neglected neighborhoods such as Allied Drive and Worthington Park. Hall won a first-place award in 2008 for beat reporting from the Education Writers Association. He also has received National Headliner, Gerald Loeb, James K. Batten and Inland Press Association awards for investigative, financial, deadline and civic journalism coverage. Hall has served as a mentor to the staff of La Comunidad, a Spanish-language newspaper in Madison, and has taught numerous courses at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication. He serves on the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council Board of Directors, Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism Board of Directors, and Indiana University Media School’s Journalism Alumni Board, of which he is president. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University and, in 2016, received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the IU Media School. He also serves as a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News membership task force to create and uphold high industry standards.