Interns learn from pros, will be missed

We lament this time of year when the cicadas sing loudest, signaling the end of summer and the end of summer-intern season.

The Dispatch has a long history of paid internships that provide college journalism students with an opportunity for real-world experience, along with mentoring and weekly conversations with editors. Those elements make it a true internship program, not just a summer job.

Each year, we hire some of the top journalism students in the country to work on each of our desks. This year, we have had or will have interns on the Copy Desk and on the Business, Features, Metro, Digital, Public Affairs and Sports desks. Many are here during the summer, but some are with us at other times.

The Sports Desk, for example, often hires an intern for the fall, when we are swimming in sports news. The Photo Desk typically has had interns year-round, but this year we held those spots for the fall to help with the many sports assignments. And the Public Affairs Desk typically hosts two interns in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism Statehouse News Bureau, a program founded by Ohio University and The Dispatch to provide intensive training and experience in covering state government and politics.

All are assigned professional partners — full-time employees who do the same type of work each student will be doing — to serve as a mentor and friendly face in the newsroom when they need advice.

During the summer, when more than a dozen interns are with us, we hold weekly lunch gatherings so that the interns get to know one another and can hear from veterans of the newsroom. The students learn about investigative reporting, the art of interviewing, the

fine points of data analysis, the importance of working with other departments, how to obtain public records, and a host of other topics. We infuse all lessons with conversations about accuracy and ethics.

I hosted these lunches for many years; more recently, reporter Holly Zachariah has taken over. She takes this role very seriously, believing, as many of us do, that it is our responsibility to "pay it forward" by providing both opportunity and guidance to our future journalists.

I tell each of our interns that he or she wants to be the

one I remember — for good work — when we have an opening or when a fellow editor at another paper calls for a reference. Our former interns are now in jobs across the country and beyond. Some work in small newsrooms, and others work in some of the largest — the Associated Press, Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal, to name a few.

And those who impress us sometimes end up back here. A number of our former interns are now full-time staff members — because they made a strong impression and we remembered them.

Pelotonia coverage

Some of us from The Dispatch newsroom are

recovering this Sunday after long bicycle rides on Saturday in the Pelotonia event to raise money for cancer research. Others are still riding in the final leg of a 180-mile journey across central Ohio.

We often don't have the opportunity to cover an event from the inside, but in this case, the Dispatch Media Group had people scattered across the course on bicycles. Photographer Eric Albrecht and copy editor Jeff Pierron are among pacesetters in our small but enthusiastic Dispatch Media Group peloton.

Some of the 13 of us riding in the event were on the lookout for compelling stories or breaking news, which we could relay via

cellphone to the reporter and photographers covering it. We also helped raise more than $18,000 of the more than $14.3 million raised by Pelotonia by Friday for cancer research. (Donations are still being accepted at www.pelotonia.org.)

Our contributions are modest compared with the mighty pelotons from L Brands ($2.6 million raised so far this year) and Team Huntington (almost $2.4 million), but we're happy to be part of this effort to stamp out cancer.

Food section

Some of you wrote after seeing Food Editor Lisa Abraham's farewell column last week. One reader wondered

about the real reason Abraham left. There were several: She has taken another job that will allow her to live in the home she and her husband still own in northeastern Ohio, and they will be nearer to their families there.

Others wondered about whether we would continue writing about food. The short answer is yes. If you were to visit the newsroom most any day, you would see clearly that we enjoy food. We know that most of you do, too. Please be patient with us as we sort out the details for providing that coverage.