two PAID internships at ProPublica, NY

ProPublica is looking for two interns – PAID ($700/week?!). GO FOR IT.

Research Internship

ProPublica is seeking a research intern to support the newsroom on investigative projects. The internship is full-time, based in New York and pays $700 a week.

The intern will work closely with the Director of Research, reporters and senior editors to help with ad hoc requests while also balancing longer term research projects the intern will manage.  Projects vary depending on newsroom needs, but the intern could work on tracking down former employees of a Fortune 500, calling states to get autopsy data, creating a newsroom guide for backgrounding people or finding examples of kids who were injured in a certain type of accident.  

Candidates should have some experience with or a strong enthusiasm for public records, databases such as LexisNexis and Pacer and FOIA requests. An ideal candidate has a meticulous attention to detail, a passion for digging and strong reporting skills.

Additionally, the intern will have the opportunity to work with ProPublica’s Social Media team on crowdsourcing and collaborative reporting projects, assisting with calloutsreporting recipes and research/verification of user-generated content. The intern could also pitch ideas to report and write shorter pieces for our website.

Interns at ProPublica have gone on to work at The New York Times, Reuters, PBS FRONTLINE, Bloomberg, NPR, Center for Public Integrity and the Chicago Tribune.


To apply, please send an email to liz.day@propublica.org [Subject Line: “Research Intern”] with your resume and a note explaining why you’d be a good fit.  Also, please describe how you’ve investigated a person, business or topic and what methods, databases or public records you used to do it. We’d love to see links to relevant work that shows your skills, as well as either a brief idea for an investigative story you’d like to research or a short description of how you would have researched a story published on ProPublica’s website.

Please also include how long you’d be able to work until, up to a year, and when you’d be available to start. No calls please.

ProPublica is committed to building a diverse workplace. Candidates must be eligible to work in the United States. 

Engagement / Reporting Intern

ProPublica is seeking an intern to both report and help build community around our investigative projects with social media and engagement tools.

The internship will begin this summer. It will last a minimum of 16 weeks and can be extended for up to a year. It is full-time and based in New York. Compensation is $700 per week.

Interns will be part of our investigative team focused on quick-turn reporting that riffs off the news as well as our engagement team, which works across social networks to build communities around our coverage and develops crowdsourcing and social media strategies for our reporting. Applicants should have prior journalism experience, and a demonstrated interest in leveraging social media for newsgathering purposes.

Here are a few examples of the kind of explainers and hard-hitting pieces we do, as well as examples of our engagementefforts. Nieman Lab has also written about our approach todigital journalismcrowdsourcing and audience engagement.

Interns at ProPublica have gone on to work at The New York Times, Bloomberg, NPR, Center for Public Integrity and the Chicago Tribune.

If you would like to apply, please send an email to internships@propublica.org with your resume and a note explaining why you’d be a good fit. Also, include two clips and an explainer-type sample post. It should help guide readers through some accountability topic in the news. Here are a few examples.

Please include your clips as attachments—either Word docs or PDFs. Your application will come into the inbox of several staff members, so there is no need to address it to a specific person. Deadline for applications is March 3, 2014.

ProPublica is committed to building a diverse workplace. Candidates must be eligible to work in the United States. 

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