Here’s How to Apply for PressProgress’ New BIPOC Labour Reporting Internship This Summer

PressProgress is an award-winning non-profit news organization focused on uncovering and unpacking Canadian news through original investigative and explanatory journalism.

Our journalism focuses on holding the rich and powerful accountable, exposing unfair and unhealthy working conditions and shining a light on hate and bigotry.

We are excited to offer a summer internship aimed at journalism students and recent graduates who are Black, Indigenous or people of colour and interested in pursuing labour reporting.

About the internship

PressProgress frequently publishes reporting that touches on the lives of workers, including workers from racialized communities. Many of these workers grapple with conditions that often go underreported in Canada.

And when these stories do get reported, they are too often reported by journalists with different lived experiences than workers from these communities.

PressProgress’ internship is designed to help begin to change that by creating a paid internship that will provide mentorship, training and the opportunity to produce and publish original journalism focused on labour issues.

Who we are looking for

We’re looking for self-motivated, creative journalists who are interested in developing an original reporting project on labour and workplaces that consists of 3-5 separate stories exploring a specific topic from multiple angles.

The project should be built around original research and investigative work conducted by the applicant over the course of their placement.

Qualifications

• Commitment to Journalism: We are prioritizing applicants with a demonstrated commitment to pursuing journalism as a full-time career. The successful applicant should be a current journalism school student or a recent graduate (within the last 5 years) looking for experience. We will also consider applicants with entry-level experience working in journalism.
• Knowledge and Experience: Applicants should have a good working knowledge of journalistic methods and research tools, as well as knowledge of Canadian labour issues. Any prior experience in journalism or labour will be considered an asset.
• Multimedia Storytelling Skills: Experience producing content using different media and across different platforms will be considered an asset.

Work Details

• Remote work — can be based anywhere in Canada.
• The internship is designed to involve 200 hours (five weeks) of work but may be completed in up to 12 weeks, depending on availability of hours.
• Schedule is flexible, with meetings happening during typical daytime hours. We are open to accommodating schedules that include other education, work and life commitments.
• We do not believe in unpaid labour — the successful internship application will receive an honorarium of $4,000 CAD.

How to apply

If you are interested and meet the qualification requirements, please apply for the position by Friday, March 25, 2022 (11:59 PM PST) and include the following:

1. Cover letter.
2. Resumé.
3. Two references.
4. Up to three samples of past news reporting (no opinion or commentary, please).

In the cover letter, please include an introduction to yourself and your educational or professional background (1-2 paragraph), a summary of the focus of your proposed reporting project (2-3 paragraphs) and a description of how PressProgress could help support your reporting (1 paragraph).

Contact information

Applications should be addressed to Luke LeBrun, Editor of PressProgress, and sent to llebrun[at]pressprogress.ca.

Our organization values diversity and is committed to fostering an environment of inclusion and cross-cultural sensitivity. We encourage applications from Indigenous people, racialized people, people with disabilities, people from gender and sexually diverse communities and/or people with intersectional identities.

Clarification (March 22): We’ve updated this posting to clarify that applications should be sent by 11:59 PM PST on Friday, March 25, 2022. Please contact us if you have any questions about the application process.