Be the next BikePortland News Intern

Do you have a passion for all things bike, journalism and/or writing experience, and the ability to work 10 – 20 hours a week, while being paid only with our gratitude and some great experiences to show for it?

If so, you might just be perfectly suited to be the next BikePortland News Intern.

We’ve had two interns so far this year: still on board is Jonathan Reed, aka J.R., who helps keep us sane behind the scenes with his web expertise and project management skills.

And Dan Liu spent a good part of the spring and early summer riding all over town (and the region) taking photos, interviewing people across the bike spectrum, participating in events, and writing excellent news stories about it all.

Last week, right after Pedalpalooza, Dan set off for a bike trip across the country to his new home of Madison, Wisconsin where he will pursue a PhD in the history of science. He’s bound to do splendidly and have a blast, but we’ll miss him here — and are seeking another hardy, good-humored soul (or two) to continue his work turning out some of the many daily news stories we long to cover.

Check out the full list of stories Dan wrote for us. His adventures included covering a wedding, a camping trip with Cycle Wild, the transit issues that came up during a ride out to the Gorge, and several other events. He interviewed and wrote about a bike-oriented clothing designer, a local coffee roaster who delivers by bike, and Safe Routes to School organizers, and he did a profile of a local non-profit bike shop.

Our ideal news intern has a passion for bikes, demonstrable journalism experience, and is a college student or recent graduate. You’ll need to have access to a laptop computer and a digital camera of some sort.

Some day we’ll be able to add more paid members to the team, but for now the compensation includes occasional perks as well as the substantial joys of riding your bike around, talking with people about bikes, and seeing your writing help inform and inspire Portlanders (and beyond).

Check out our our internship description and get in touch if you think you might be a good fit.

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Elly Blue (Columnist)

Elly Blue has been writing about bicycling and carfree issues for BikePortland.org since 2006. Find her at http://takingthelane.com

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Joe Rowe
Joe Rowe
14 years ago

Why not make BikePortland more democratic and expand the list of interns and contributors?

I’d really like to write an article about the ODOT and PDOT dictatorship On this and many other topics myself and many others would put in the work to be unbiased if I felt there was an audience.

When a cop or judge is unfair, there is a formal complaint process. But with PDOT and ODOT there is no system of checks or balances.

Jonathan, I know this site should and must remain your family income, but that could grow if you innovated. Craig of Craiglist played with the idea of community news but never hatched the plan. Indymedia and the Oregonian have major issues.

Having taught newspaper, it seems the world is ready for change.

What would others report upon?

Coldswim
Coldswim
14 years ago

Joe, you’re talking about something like ourpdx.com where they have a large group of contributors who submit stories that they want to write about. The idea sounds great, but there’s perhaps only 30% of what’s there that I’d care about reading. I like the filter that Jonathan puts on this site, where I know that if it’s up here then it’s most likely news worthy. Since roughly 90% of what’s put on the site is something that interests me I tend to spend most of my time here, where as not so much on those community contributed sites.

I’d be afraid of the dilution having too many contributors would do to this site.

Adams Carroll (News Intern)
14 years ago

Joe,

Thanks for the feedback. We have no limit on the number of contributors, but I do limit what gets covered and how it gets covered.

I personally question the value/impact of community news sites where everyone/anyone can contribute. It sounds great and all, but I agree with the commenter above.

As for your comment about how my “income could grow” if I innovated. I agree! there are a million ways to innovate, but I am very careful about the when/how and I won’t innovate just to grow.

My #1 priority is high-quality, focused content.

Like I said, we are open to anything…but we won’t publish just anything.

thanks.