For many newsrooms, experimenting with innovative approaches to solving problems is less about creativity than about time and staffing — difficulties that can worsen existing disparities between large news organizations and their smaller, community-focused brethren. In response, the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism is sending seven journalism students to work at community newsrooms all over the country this summer.

While many of the projects will likely revolve around the theme of audience engagement, the Innovation Fellows will tackle a wide array of tasks, including connecting with Spanish-language readers and maximizing the impact of science journalism.

“These students are committed to leaving their newsrooms with solutions and strategies that will persist long after the fellowship is over,” said Randy Picht, executive director of RJI. “This kind of hands-on experimentation not only sparks ideas but follows through to test and improve practical tools and tactics, and that is invaluable for an industry increasingly constrained by budget and staffing.”

From picturesque Bend, Oregon, to bustling New York City, the students will each receive minimum $8,000 stipends with the possibility of further compensation from their news organizations. Over the course of the 12-week fellowship period, they will also write articles for RJI’s Innovation in Focus series with insights for journalists and news organizations looking to emulate their work.

“The Student Innovation Fellowship is one of my favorite programs because students get to immerse themselves in a newsroom and strategize or problem-solve in real time,” said Emily Lytle, Innovation in Focus editor at RJI. “It takes the experimentation that we do in Innovation in Focus to the next level by giving them a new sense of ownership and leadership over their projects.”

Read on to learn more about the students and their news outlets, and stay tuned when summer arrives to learn how to replicate and repurpose the projects in your own newsroom.

Meet the Fellows

Junior Sophia Anderson will go to New Orleans, Louisiana, to work with NPR-member radio stations WWNO and WRKF. She will aim to make information obtained from public records more widely beneficial to journalists and the public, crafting a toolkit to help reporters avoid simply taking the information they need and letting the rest go unseen.

“The project we’re going to test it on is the 20-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which is this summer,” Anderson said. “We’re going to try and create a long-term data project covering when Katrina first happened up to the aftermath.”

Anderson has gathered a wide range of experience at the School of Journalism, having previously assisted newsrooms with creative experimentation as an RJI Innovation Staffer and working as an investigative reporter and producer at the School’s own NPR-member station, KBIA-FM. Now, the fellowship allows her to bring together two of her primary areas of interest.

“I’m really passionate about public radio, and I love the data side of journalism,” Anderson said. “My approach to writing a story is always about finding the numbers, so I’m excited to be able to work exclusively with numbers this summer.”

Anderson will work with Ryan Vasquez, news director for WWNO and WRKF.

Senior Kalyn Laire will work with multiplatform community news outlet Epicenter NYC to integrate AI tools into its workflow. Fresh off a stint as a Potter Digital Ambassador, she is excited to continue to focus on finding novel solutions to issues in community-centered journalism.

“I really, really like getting to the end of a problem and finding solutions for smaller newsrooms,” Laire said.

But this fellowship will add a new twist, pairing an emphasis on local news with the hustle and bustle of one of the world’s capital cities.

“I’m from a really small town, so I was always used to having a big community,” Laire said. “Bringing that to New York City is very cool, and I’m so excited to be part of that.”

Laire will work with New York Times alum Carolina Valencia, who leads partnerships, communications, community engagement, video and AI initiatives at Epicenter NYC.

Junior Kathambari Ramkumar will assist Mountain State Spotlight, a nonprofit investigative news organization in West Virginia, with audience engagement and reporting. She expects the experience to serve as an extension of her previous work at the School of Journalism and in various internships, including a Knight Nonprofit News internship last summer.

“I got really interested in rural reporting when I did that in Kansas City last summer, and I want to carry that forward,” Ramkumar said.

Meaningful community engagement through journalism, an important part of the Mountain State Spotlight’s mission, is also an increasingly important part of Ramkumar’s hands-on education.

“I’ve realized I really do like creating events and working directly with the community — trying to serve the community through my reporting,” Ramkumar said. “So I’ve been trying to expand on that through the work I do outside of school.

Ramkumar’s mentor will be Tyler Dedrick, audience manager at Mountain State Spotlight.

Senior Sophie Rentschler is heading to Source Weekly, a weekly paper covering news, arts and culture in Bend, Oregon. There, she will use analytics to improve the engagement and reach of its science journalism — an ideal topic for the journalism and physics double major and former NASA intern.

“I’ve always been really interested in learning about how journalism and life sciences can match to tell a greater story,” Rentschler said. “[Source Weekly] already has a really robust science journalism presence, so I’m just trying to enhance that as much as I can.”

The outlet’s distinctive style also resonates with Rentschler’s career goals, which again seek a fusion between scientific curiosity and journalistic storytelling.

“This outlet is very close with its audience, and it tries to maintain that closeness with kind of a magazine style,” Rentschler added. “That is something that I also aspire to do in the future, to work for a science magazine like Scientific American or Science Magazine.”

She will work with Nicole Vulcan, Source Weekly’s editor in chief.

Junior Cristal Sanchez, a member of the winning team in RJI’s 2023 Student Innovation Competition, will help nonprofit Spotlight Delaware build a Spanish-language audience into its statewide local news.

“There are a lot of hardships with trust and community building, especially since mainstream news isn’t always the best at portraying Hispanics in an accurate light,” Sanchez said. “So I’ll be helping them out with that.”

Building off her previous efforts to make news accessible to Spanish-language audiences, Sanchez wants to deepen her experience in audience strategy to complement her reporting skills.

“I knew that I wanted to focus more on Spanish-language strategy rather than reporting because I feel like if I get to know the strategy of it first, reporting will come more naturally to me,” she said. “This is more of the research and experience that I need to do it.

David Stradley, Spotlight Delaware’s director of community engagement, will serve as her mentor.

Junior Genevieve Smith, another recent Potter Ambassador, will head to Keene, New Hampshire, to work with local news outlet The Keene Sentinel. She will launch a newsletter series informing people about things to do in Southwest New Hampshire, as well as develop strategies to promote The Sentinel’s journalism.

“They did a community listening session and got a lot of feedback on things the community wanted them to cover, but they had already done a lot of that coverage,” Smith said. “So I’ll be working on how to bridge the gap between what we’re covering and actually getting people really engaged with that coverage.”

For Smith, the fellowship’s priorities align neatly with her own.

“I was really interested in doing something in community engagement and outreach, and then I knew RJI worked with more local, community-based papers, and I wanted to do something more local,” she said. “The fellowship felt like a good mix between the two, to still stay in local news but also doing outreach.”

Outreach won’t be a new priority for The Sentinel, which co-founded Keene’s Radically Rural Summit, an industry conference that featured RJI Innovation in Focus Editor Emily Lytle as co-leader of its community journalism track in 2024. Jack Rooney, The Sentinel’s managing editor for audience development, will mentor Smith.

Senior Makayla Voris will help Sioux Falls Simplified, a digital news outlet and newsletter serving Sioux Falls, South Dakota, grow its audience while also promoting civic engagement. Working with founder Megan Raposa, one idea is to put together a pamphlet to inform people about their local government.

“The trend Megan is noticing is that while Sioux Falls is growing and growing, people are becoming less and less involved,” Voris said. “We really want people to become more involved in the local government sphere.”

Having gained hands-on familiarity with reporting and strategic communication at the School of Journalism, Voris hopes the experience will add yet another dimension to her skill set and potentially spark new interests.

“I want to get a little bit outside my comfort zone and see what other things journalism has to offer,” she said.

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Cite this article

Fitzgerald, Austin (2025, Jan. 31). Seven Student Innovation Fellows to spend summer at community news organizations across the country. Reynolds Journalism Institute. Retrieved from: https://rjionline.org/news/seven-student-innovation-fellows-to-spend-summer-at-community-news-organizations-across-the-country/