FOR THE SEVENTH year in a row, The Journal is offering a paid fellowship to help a student or recent graduate gain valuable work experience and kick-start a career in the news.

We’re one of 20 newsrooms across Europe working with the Google News Initiative and the European Journalism Centre to provide an eight-week paid fellowship between June and September.

This year, we’re looking for a student to work across our newsroom on a range of tasks, including pitching and writing stories, helping our team of journalists in their research for articles, podcasts and newsletters, and working on ongoing projects.

With over 400,000 daily readers, The Journal is the one of the most visited and trusted online news sources in Ireland. As you should know if you’re reading this, our journalists publish a mix of breaking news, in-depth reporting, explainers and exclusives.

Our objective is to provide open access to quality journalism for every online news consumer in Ireland, equipping our readers to make informed decisions on those issues which impact their lives.

The placement will involve the successful candidate becoming part of this and learning about how a busy, thriving newsroom in Ireland operates on a daily basis.

The candidate will learn about the tools that journalists use when approaching breaking news and investigations, and they will be expected to perform numerous tasks, during which they will work closely with the team’s assistant news editors and news editor.

By the end of the eight weeks, they should know who to approach to confirm a breaking news story, and be confident to write a story ready for publication. 

Our ideal candidate would be a Student Fellow who loves the news and has knowledge of the Irish media landscape and political system. They will be a fluent, fast writer and know how to identify, research and structure a good news story.

It would be an advantage to be knowledgeable of Ireland’s political and legal systems and other elements of public life, and to display an awareness about the main issues or stories that currently impact the lives of people living in Ireland, such as housing and the cost-of-living crisis.

Ideally, the successful candidate will have at least some experience of writing news stories for their college newspaper or website; or equivalent examples of prior work that demonstrates their abilities and interest in journalism.

The candidate should be passionate about The Journal’s mission to provide open access to quality journalism to a diverse audience, reflecting an Ireland that they recognise and telling the stories that are important to their lives. 

The Journal has a great track record when it comes to internships and the successful Student Fellow will be expected to be a trusted part of the newsroom.

They should be extremely comfortable picking up the phone to cold-call someone, and should be able to express their enthusiasm for the job and the news, in general, and have a clear passion for journalism.

Members of our team work closely together and we foster an atmosphere of collegiately rather than competition. The candidate should thrive in a team environment.

There should be a high level of comfort with online publication tools and social media platforms, while fluency in English is an absolute must. 

Although we offer hybrid work, the Student Fellow will have to be trained closely by an editor in our office, so they would need to be able to work from Dublin city centre.

The fellowship will last for eight weeks between June and September– though we’re flexible on the dates.

To be eligible you must be 18 years of age or older and either expected to graduate from higher education in 2023 or to have graduated already in 2021 or 2022 (though PhD students are unfortunately not eligible).

You must either be from Ireland or else living/studying here, and you must be legally allowed to work in Ireland. Full eligibility details can be seen here.

The deadline is 11pm on Friday 21 April, and you can apply here. Best of luck from all of us in the newsroom.