The Winooski News is recruiting local contributors to report and write news stories in community languages such as Nepali, Somali, French, Swahili, and others, including English.

Contributors will receive up to $200 for each published news story.

The Winooski Voices program is an opportunity for us to feature stories about the community and by the community. At the same time, it’s an opportunity for anyone interested in building journalism experience to sharpen their writing skills, tell the stories of their community, and leave with some compensation and published work for their portfolio.

This program connects more of Winooski’s own residents to the publication. The Winooski News is currently supported by student reporters from the University of Vermont. This model has allowed local coverage in a city previously without a newspaper, and we are excited to expand the base of reporters to include our neighbors in the Onion City.

How it works:

No experience? No problem! The Winooski Voices program requires no previous reporting or journalism experience, only an interest in writing and an openness to learning. Our editorial team will provide training as needed and support you throughout each step of the process, from reporting through publication. Experienced freelance writers are also welcome to participate in the program.

Reporters can choose to write in English or in a community language other than English, such as Somali or Nepali. The final written version will be in the reporter’s language, with editorial help in English through a translated version of the text. The article will be published in the reporter’s language, for example, a recent article written in Nepali.

For reporting in English, the final edited piece will be published with buttons to automatically translate the article into other community languages, an example of which can be found here.

Have a story idea you would like to cover? We can help you develop it. Not sure what to write about? That’s great too, we can find an assignment that may fit with your interests.

Interested or have any questions? Contact us at news@thewinooskinews.com.