By Doug Kouma
Alumni News staff
With the establishment of a Dow Jones Newspaper Funding Editing Intern program training center at UNL, the College of Journalism and Mass Communications is taking a leading role among the nations best journalism programs.
Daryl Frazell, an associate professor of journalism at UNL, says the student interns going through the college’s program are producing high-quality work on the job, and that is causing many editors to take notice of UNL and its students.
“It’s making a reputation for us all around the country, and we are becoming known as one of the better schools for editing,” Frazell says. “So it increases the job opportunities available to our students and our graduates.”
Richard Holden, executive director of the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund, says a major factor in deciding to establish the training center at UNL is that many UNL students do so well in the program.
UNL has had 11 Dow Jones winners in the past three years.
“As tough as it is for me to say, I was amazed at the quality of the copy editing students coming through Nebraska,” Holden says. He is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism.
The Dow Jones newspaper Fund, considered one of the most prestigious internship programs for undergraduates, awards up to 80 editing students internships every summer to students from schools around the country. Internships are awarded based on the students’ scores on an editing test, students’ grades and an essay. Prior to their 10-week internships, the students spend two weeks in a training program at UNL or one of four other schools.
Frazell says UNL has had a record number of students accepted into the program – as many as six in one year.
Because UNL students are doing well on the fund’s editing test, they must be getting good instruction, Holden says, and the funds think students from other schools can benefit from that, too.
Holden met with Dick Thien, a professional lecturer in the college, and Dean will Norton Jr. at a convention in the summer of 1992 in establishing the UNL editing center.
“I was very impressed by Thien and by Will and their commitment to teaching editing,” Holden says.
Thien says Holden is one of the best boosters the college has.
“I get calls from editors around the country wanting to hire our editors,” Thien says. “When I ask them why they chose to call us, many say Rich holden says Nebraska must be doing something right because of all the Dow Jones editing interns it places.
“That’s a solid salute to Daryl Frazell and the way he has put the editing program together.”
Holden says he is so impressed with the students graduating from UNL that when newspaper editors call him asking where to find new editors, UNL is one of the first places he suggests.
“The students from Nebraska have done very well, and it certainly reflects very positively on the university as well,” he says.
Frazell agrees that the program is a good tool for promoting the college. He says that in addition to enhancing the program’s reputation among editors, the training center is helping spread the word about UNL among universities.
He is pleased with the program and wants to continue it as long a Dow Jones asks UNL back.
“I think this is an outstanding program,” Frazell says, “and I’, glad they’ve accepted us and invited us back for another year.”