By Jack Rooney
The annual Idaho legislative session traditionally begins in January with the State of the State and budget addresses on the first Monday of the term.
Since 2015, student journalists from the University of Idaho have been there to cover these tone-setting speeches, the start of their semester-long experience reporting from the state Capitol in Boise.
“The press release is distributed and the text is distributed and the pictures are right there — it's so handy in terms of just getting the students rolling,” said Glenn Mosley, a senior instructor at the university’s School of Journalism and Mass Media (JAMM). “Because they're down there and they're nervous and they're wondering, ‘What have I gotten myself into?’ and all of these things. And it helps them focus.”
After that, students cover a mix of political and public policy news, working with Mosley, who oversees the program and edits their stories, and the editors of about a half-dozen newspapers statewide that run weekly stories from the reporting interns.
“It absolutely is what the editors are interested in, what we're interested in and what the students are interested in,” Mosley said. “And I like to leave a little leeway in there because, and I suppose that's the educator in me, but if I have a student who's there and is expressing an interest in a thing and a passion in a thing, I want to allow them to pursue it because that also helps them develop their judgment and their critical thinking skills and all of those things.”
The program, a partnership between the university’s journalism school and the McClure Center for Public Policy Research, averages between two and three students a year. Students receive a stipend of $3,000 for the semester — funded by the McClure Center, which is housed next door to the Capitol — and earn roughly nine credits for the internship. Students have to live in Boise or near during the semester as the commute from the central campus in Moscow is 300 miles.
Variable credit comes from a 400-level course, Mosley said. And the program is open to students across the university.
“We have a good relationship with our friends in political science, and they, from time to time, have offered the students additional credit for additional work, research papers on their experience and what they learned and things like that,” Mosely said.
Students produce 50-75 stories throughout the semester. In 2020, when the program grew to three students, they combined for 100 stories, all of which are also shared with outlets across Idaho at no cost, Mosley said.
In Boise, the student reporters get direct support from staff at the McClure Center. They also join the Idaho Press Club and Capitol Correspondents Association while working as part of a veteran statehouse press corps.
“That was the most valuable part of it, for me, was being able to be there and be taken under the wing of this whole niche of statehouse reporters who knew what was going on,” said Logan Finney, who completed the JAMM-McClure Legislative Internship in the spring of 2020. “Because otherwise, even being a political science major going into it, it’s drinking out of a firehose when you get to the statehouse.”
Finney said he was typically at the Capitol from about 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, and earned six credits for his internship (he also took two online courses for another six credits to remain eligible for financial aid).
Finney is now an associate producer for Idaho Public Television, working on Idaho Reports, a weekly public affairs show he contributed to as a student reporter. Finney graduated at the height of the pandemic but was able to land a job at PTV based on the work and relationships he built doing his time reporting from the statehouse.
“So, I was able to talk my way into a part-time position here at PTV, helping to cover COVID and producing coronavirus coverage for Idaho Reports,” he said. “And then stuck on with them and covered two more legislative sessions and applied for the first open, full-time producing job that came my way.”
Finney is one of a handful of JAMM-McClure program alumni working full-time in journalism and other public affairs jobs in Boise, Mosley said.
Moving forward, he added, the program is on solid ground, and hopefully poised to grow. Ideally, the University of Idaho would establish a similar program in Washington, D.C., where students would focus on covering the four-member Idaho Congressional delegation.
“That would be quite an undertaking for us, which would take some planning,” Mosley said. “And then I think besides that, to grow the program in Boise, I think it would be terrific to have somebody based there, doing the day-to-day stuff, a member of the journalism faculty in addition to the McClure staff. I think that would be a huge boost for the program.”
For more Information:
https://www.uidaho.edu/class/jamm
https://www.uidaho.edu/president/direct-reports/mcclure-center/students/undergrad
Glenn Mosley, gmosley@uidaho.edu
