We have a deep pool of qualified applicants, among them a number of talented journalists who are either recent graduates from top university multimedia journalism programs or aspiring to begin careers in public radio after working in other media.
Of the many ways we work to serve communities and create a better society, supporting the next generation of journalists has become a more important and intentional organizational goal.
JPR has always been a starting point for early career journalists, with notable JPR alums including NPR Climate and Energy Correspondent Jeff Brady and Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) Senior Vice President and Chief Content Officer Morgan Holm. Both Jeff and Morgan came to JPR as students at Southern Oregon University and credit the experience they gained at JPR for helping advance their careers.
Since 2018, when we completed our new studio facility, hired a permanent full-time news director, and secured sustainable funding for a core of full-time reporters, we’ve developed into an even stronger place to foster emerging careers in journalism. We’re now an ideal size -- large enough to have a skilled team of professional colleagues from which to learn, yet small enough to enable reporters to gain practical experience quickly, covering multi-dimensional topics and engaging in complex reporting projects. In larger newsrooms, these projects are generally the domain of only seasoned reporters. Former JPR journalists April Ehrlich and Emily Cureton are examples of journalists who advanced their careers by getting an opportunity to learn at JPR. Both April and Emily came to JPR with significant newspaper reporting experience (April from the Roseburg News Review and Emily from the Del Norte Triplicate) but little or no audio journalism experience. They both quickly developed the skills they needed to become effective and accomplished audio storytellers and were able to further their careers in public radio at larger stations. Emily moved on to Georgia Public Broadcasting and is now the Bend Bureau Chief for OPB and April is a weekend editor at OPB.
In addition to offering mentorship opportunities gained through professional experience, JPR also actively partners with several academic programs to provide students experiential learning opportunities. The deepest and most long-standing academic relationship we have is with our licensee, Southern Oregon University (SOU). Each year, SOU students from a diverse range of majors learn and work at JPR, producing and engineering the Jefferson Exchange, screening music, and working in news. In addition to Jeff Brady and Morgan Holm who landed at JPR as part of their SOU academic experience, other accomplished SOU alums include Erika Soderstrom, who’s now an Associate Producer of the national program, Marketplace, at KPCC in Southern California and Charlotte Duren, who became a producer for To The Point at KRCW in Santa Monica before becoming Events Manager at KUOW in Seattle. Each summer, JPR also participates in the Charles Snowden Program for Excellence in Journalism, administered by the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. This program, which honors the life and career of Charles Snowden, a longtime editor at the Oregon Journal and The Oregonian, places top journalism students graduating from Oregon universities in newsrooms around the state to help them gain practical professional experience. Since its inception in 1998, more than 300 students from 15 Oregon colleges and universities have been awarded Snowden internships at Oregon news organizations and more than 80 percent have secured full-time employment as working journalists after earning their degrees. JPR regional reporter, Roman Battaglia, started at JPR as a Snowden intern following his graduation from Oregon State University and is now a permanent part of our newsroom after making a stop at Delaware Public Media.
As we say so often during fund drives, your investment in our work supports the news you rely on each day. But, perhaps equally important, your support is also an investment that helps develop the next generation of journalists in Oregon and around the country – journalists who will tell powerful human stories, hold public officials accountable, and strengthen our free press as a vital institution of our democracy.