UNE's Community News Initiative is meeting needs of future journalists

In the two years since the Community News Initiative was launched at the University of New England, it has placed several students in journalism internships at media outlets across southern Maine, providing them with real-world experience and the boots on the ground needed to help support local journalism, which has been in rapid decline across the country.

Now, UNE plans to elevate the young program by bringing back the local news conference hosted in the fall of 2023 to connect students with Maine media outlets and by developing a reporting practicum with a goal of expanding local student-produced news in Maine.

But the initiative’s original aim already has been achieved: students from first-years to seniors have benefited enormously, said UNE Professor Michael Cripps, Ph.D., the director of the School of Arts and Humanities and the co-director of the Community News Initiative with Jesse Miller, M.F.A., associate teaching professor of writing and communications.

“We’re having tremendous success with this. And that’s at a school that does not currently have a journalism program,” Cripps said. “We’re punching way above our weight.”

UNE’s community news conference held in the fall of 2023 quickly expanded the network of both paid and credit-based internships at Maine news outlets available to UNE students studying communications as a major or minor. As a result, students worked as published journalists at Maine media outlets such as the Portland Press Herald, Maine’s largest newspaper, and at The Maine Monitor, a nonprofit that focuses on investigative journalism.

And, already, the initiative has produced stars.

In just two years, Emily Hedegard (English, Communications and Media Arts, ’25) earned an internship at the Portland Press Herald, had a story picked up by The Boston Globe, landed a job at The Maine Monitor, and earned a full scholarship to Arizona State University's Cronkite School of Mass Communications graduate program.

“I was immediately paired with the Portland Press Herald, which was a very exciting opportunity for that fellowship,” Hedegard said. “But I was only supposed to write two articles during the school year, and I pulled Michael (Cripps) aside and said, ‘Hey, can we make this an internship? How do we do that?’ So, he opened the gate just enough that when I asked, they said yes. So, I ended up doing two internships with the Press Herald over the course of the school year.”

Meanwhile, first-year student Quinnly Raducha (English, ’28), who came to UNE without a journalism background, suggests where the UNE initiative is going. Raducha immediately started reporting for UNE’s student newspaper and, soon after that, the Sanford Springvale News, a local online newspaper. In the past year, Raducha produced five articles for the paper, including a profile of an Olympic runner and two news stories on city council meetings.

“It wasn't always easy, but it was good to get the experience to be able to write about a meeting like that where they covered some heavy topics,” Raducha said. “The fellowship has given me a lot of experience interviewing people, which I didn't have. And the editor at the Sanford-Springvale paper gave me suggestions for questions to ask, so that really set me up for the interviews. I have always liked to write, and to write about important topics. I’ve known for a long time I want to do journalism.”

There has never been a more important time to encourage students to learn journalism as contributing interns and those pursuing careers, Cripps said. The news industry that is changing across the country as newspapers continue to fold is evolving quickly in Maine with some newspapers turning into nonprofits, new ones cropping up, and long-time weeklies going to an online-only format. 

In the spring of 2023, UNE launched the Community News Initiative with funding from the University of Vermont’s Center for Community News, which provides seed money to startup programs to strengthen partnerships between local news outlets and college reporting programs to address the decline in local journalism.

As the Community News Initiative continues to grow, UNE is meeting the needs of its student journalists by investing in new learning spaces and experiences to connect them to print and broadcast professions. The University’'s revamped Communications and Media Arts major has evolved to include new programming with help from the program’s new Communications Production studio, which hosted an on-campus visit from award-winning media executive Stacia Deshishku.