This article is part of RJI Impact, a series documenting how RJI projects are making a real difference for newsrooms and audiences all over the country. It was originally published in the Winter 2026 edition of RJI Insight, RJI’s biannual print magazine. A digital version of the magazine is available here.

Creating opportunities for newsrooms to get new ideas from digital natives has become a cornerstone project for the Reynolds Journalism Institute through its summer Student Innovation Fellowship.

Last summer, Mizzou School of Journalism senior Genevieve Smith joined the Keene Sentinel in New Hampshire as an Innovation Fellow to focus on audience growth and digital subscriptions.

“Genevieve supercharged us over the summer,” said Cecily Weisburgh, executive editor for digital at the Sentinel. “She was making an impact within the first week, coming in with enthusiasm and knowledge.”

Editors at host newsrooms say they like the program for three reasons:

1. Students are tackling new challenges
2. RJI pays the students, not the newsrooms
3. RJI’s Emily Lytle, who oversees the summer fellowship program, provides structure and support to help projects reach the finish line.

One of the Sentinel’s goals was to better understand how to make the most of its email newsletter in their effort to increase subscriptions.

Smith developed a system to track which newsletter readers become Sentinel subscribers and a model to predict which readers were most likely to subscribe. She also worked on improving the newsroom’s Google Analytics setup, created Instagram templates, expanded the Sentinel’s presence on Bluesky and developed an Airtable database to improve coordination between editors, reporters and visual journalists.

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Cite this article

RJI Online (2026, Feb. 17). A summer fellowship that boosts newsrooms’ digital capacity. Reynolds Journalism Institute. Retrieved from: https://rjionline.org/news/a-summer-fellowship-that-boosts-newsrooms-digital-capacity/