A College Intern’s Guide To The Importance Of Local Journalism

For some journalism majors, they knew that writing was their calling from the beginning. They spent years learning the art and history of journalism as well as all the various types of it. I was not one of those.

I only discovered journalism in the fall of 2022, as a junior in high school, and that was by pure chance. Had my favorite teacher from the previous semester not also been the journalism teacher, I would have never found the art.

When I began college at Kean University in the fall of 2024, I was not a journalism major. My heart was in history education, but as I know now, my heart was never really there at all. I first started writing for my college’s paper in March of 2025, and the calendar is closing in on the first anniversary of my official major switch.

Since then, I have earned several incredible opportunities. First came the opportunity to serve as my college newspaper’s editor-in-chief as the new advisor (whose impact on me I would be understating if I said he was an incredible mentor) began to reshape the paper into a new era. 

Then came the opportunity to write about my favorite thing in the world, NASCAR, for Above the Yellow Line. Thirdly, but not finally, came the opportunity to partner with the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium (NJCIC) as a part of their summer internship program. I would be paired with a local newspaper and write for them for eight weeks. 

I began my partnership in the middle of June, and since you are reading this story on New Jersey Urban News, you can probably guess which newspaper I landed at. I would be paired with an independent, local newspaper that specialized in community journalism for urban Black and Brown communities in New Jersey.

What I Knew Going In

Before I write about what I learned from New Jersey Urban News, I would like to circle back to something I wrote about earlier. I mentioned my newspaper advisor, Dr. Vamsi Chaitanya Pedasanaganti, but we all call him Dr. Vamsi. Along with working closely with him for the newspaper, I also enrolled in his News Literacy class for the Spring 2026 semester.

In that class, Dr. Vamsi taught at great length about the importance of community journalism. I recall an exercise that showed a majority of mainstream media was owned by the same five or six billionaire conglomerates. That shook me to my core. What do billionaires know about what a middle- or lower-class person in New Jersey is going through? How do they know what matters?

I went into the summer knowing that community-based journalism was important because only the community could truly understand what that community cares about. Still, I had not seen it put into practice. At this time, I had only written for The Tower, a college newspaper, and Above the Yellow Line, a motorsports outlet. I knew that it was important, but I would quickly learn how truly essential it was.

What I Learned

Through New Jersey Urban News, I quickly learned how incredibly important this art is. The audience New Jersey Urban News caters to has been historically mistreated by society and left out of newsrooms. Their voices were not heard, their perspectives not seen, their needs not met. During my early pitches, I recall receiving feedback that I needed to do a better job targeting my pitches to that specific audience, a thing I had never really had to do before.

It took me a few weeks, but I found my footing as time went on. I saw my co-intern and colleagues tell important and relevant stories. Statewide stories such as the housing crisis in New Jersey were told, as were stories specifically about underserved voices such as Pride Month coming to South Jersey.

The first story I got through the door was a listicle on cooling centers ahead of the heatwave in early July. It was an important story that took a lot of scattered information and condensed it into one easily digestible and accessible location for anyone to read. If someone’s power went out and they lost their air conditioning, and perhaps didn’t have friends or family to rely on or a car to get far, they could find nearby cooling centers in their town. They would have this information because of my piece.

I produced multiple other important listicles throughout my internship. Another one I did was a list of data centers in Urban New Jersey as well as council meetings for every town this newspaper covers. Data centers are an incredibly relevant issue right now, and the main way to protest them is going to council meetings and demanding none be built. Similarly to my cooling centers article, I took all that information and put it in one easy-to-read location. I made information accessible to the people that need it the most.

I also profiled Jeremiah La’Porte, a member of the community who has built a successful organization based on youth empowerment. Getting to hear his story firsthand and share it with his community was an incredible experience. His story may not be told by a big newspaper owned by a corporation, but it is perfect for local journalism.

On the accessibility route, I did a profile on an organization, BlackMenHeal, that provides up to eight free therapy sessions for Black men. Many Black men may need help but not be sure where to access it, or may not have the money to access it, but would be able to because of the story I wrote.

The most impactful piece I wrote was Life With Depression As A Person Of Color In New Jersey. For this piece, I did everything that makes community journalism so important. First, I took a broad topic and explained it in one easy-to-read, accessible place. Second, I gave people access to information and affordable ways to get help who may not have gotten it otherwise. Finally, I interviewed multiple people in urban New Jersey, including a man whose son was murdered at four months old. 

That moment, when a man I hardly knew opened up about his deepest trauma and trusted me to tell his story to the world to help other people, is the most impactful moment of my journalism career. It was at that moment that I truly understood the importance of what I was doing. The importance of this field. The importance of local and community journalism. 

I wrote other stories that are relevant to the communities these newspapers cover, but these stories stood out to me the most. These stood out to me as examples of the true importance of local, independent, and community-run journalism.

Looking Forward

In the final meeting during my internship, I was offered the opportunity to stay with New Jersey Urban News as a freelance writer. I said yes without a second thought. I will not only continue my career in local journalism at New Jersey Urban News, but I will continue it within my university.

I was one of two students selected by Dr. Vamsi to lead his inaugural research project at Kean. This is the New Jersey News Accountability Project, a grant-winning project devoted to filling news deserts in Elizabeth, Union, and Roselle. These are communities, like the ones New Jersey Urban News covers, that the mainstream billionaire media tend to ignore. 

My internship with NJCIC and New Jersey Urban News was an incredible experience that taught me a lot about local journalism. I went into the program unsure if local journalism was my thing, but I exited it knowing that it is.