VTDigger intern Emma Green listens as Pastor Steven Tendo, right, speaks before a check-in meeting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security facility in St. Albans on Tuesday, June 16, 2026. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger License plate surveillance. Im migration enforcement. A dairy economy under strain. Rising temperatures and energy costs. All of it was reported this year by journalists who came to VTDigger as interns — and the newsroom is now hiring for fall. Applications for the Jim Welch Internship Program are now open through Aug. 7. Two full-time, paid internships begin Sept. 8 and run through Jan. 8.  This is a general assignment job. The bulk of the work is breaking news, dailies and the stories that fall through the cracks between our reporters’ beats. Such stories are crucial to our statewide newsroom. Interns are also encouraged to identify and pursue deeper reporting projects of their own, and several have — but that comes on top of the daily work. Our interns’ stories have impact. Brendan Rose, who recently completed his internship, used public records requests and a data analysis to show Vermont police had circumvented the state’s limits on license plate surveillance by reaching across state lines. Our current interns are producing work with similar reach. Emma Green covered a federal habeas case that offered rare public insight into how a Vermont prison handles detainees with serious mental illnesses. Tsehai Alfred traced a wave of dairy plant closures to the structural costs squeezing Vermont producers. And Grace Bertrand found that Vermonters pay nearly $4 million a year to keep seven fossil fuel plants idling for the handful of hours the grid needs them. Digger is looking for two new interns to continue this important work. Because the job requires in-person reporting, interns must be able to live in Vermont for the duration. The pay is $17 to $18 an hour.  To apply, submit a resume and cover letter through our application portal, then email three reporting samples as PDFs to Shane M. Graber, deputy managing editor, at [email protected]. Questions can also be sent to Graber at the same address. Read the story on VTDigger here: VTDigger is hiring fall reporting interns. ...read more read less