Job Title: Environmental Journalism Internship

Organization: Mongabay

Type of opportunity: Mongabay.org offers an exciting internship opportunity. This opportunity primarily involves writing environmental news stories for our affiliated news site – Mongabay.com. Our interns will have the opportunity to develop their writing skills and have their news stories be published on our renowned website which boasts over two million global readers every month. This is an unpaid, 10 hrs or more per week six month commitment.

Duties: Our Environmental Journalism Interns will be writing roughly six+ news stories on a variety of environmental topics over a course of a six-month commitment. Topics will be assigned to our interns by one of our Editors. Mongabay interns will also receive writing guidelines and feedback on their news stories before publication.

Desired qualifications: Our application process is competitive and we will select up to four interns for the term. Below is a list of traits we look for when selecting individuals for our internship program:

• Excellent communication skills
• Self-motivator
• Passionate about environmental subjects
• Positive attitude
• Coach-able and open to learning
• Strong values – personally and professionally
• Problem-solving skills

Internship Perks:

• Publishing experience in a high-profile news outlet
• Become part of a community of passionate and talented writers
• Coaching and support: meet and greet training session via Skype and Q&A with Mongabay staff
• Develop writing skills
• Resume building
• Mongabay letters of reference and personal recommendations
• Advancement: opportunity to be promoted within Mongabay

Start and end dates: January – June 2020

Salary/pay: Our interns are unpaid working virtually (at home or wherever the intern feels most productive) with set deadlines to be met. We are flexible on how many hours per week the intern is able to work but an average of 10 hours per week is required for the full six months. Some weeks could require 15 hours or so while others may be considerably less; our interns have to be flexible and plan accordingly.

How to apply: Applicants are required to submit the following documents (have these items prepared before beginning the application process):

1. Resume
2. Cover letter
   • Indicate why you are interested and what values & skills you can contribute to Mongabay
3. Submit a writing sample from a journal entry or blog article
   • Or you can choose one from the following three articles to complete a writing sample
     1. Beyond the numbers: Human attitudes and conflict with lions (Panthera leo) in and around Gambella National Park, Ethiopia
     2. Changes in the West African forest-savanna mosaic, insights from central Tago
     3. Thismia kelabitiana (Thismiaceae), a new unique Fairy Lantern from Borneo potentially threatened by commercial logging
   • 600-words (max)
4. Optional: submit an additional writing sample of your own

For more information, please contact Maria Salazar at maria (at) mongabay.org

For a list of our former interns and contributors, visit our internship bio page.

Application deadline: Nov 15, 2019