Some WSJ interns to delay until the fall, 2021

Wall Street Journal editor in chief Matt Murray sent out the following announcement on Tuesday:

All,

We wanted to follow up on the company note about interns and how the coronavirus has affected newsroom plans for this year.

Our internships are among the most sought-after in the industry and for years have contributed to the education, development and diversity of the industry’s future talent. Many folks here got their start as interns at the Journal, Dow Jones Newswires or through the Dow Jones News Fund.

We got more than 7,000 applications for this summer, and Sarah Rabil once again led the selection efforts. We’re pleased to share that 30 interns were chosen, with help from many of you, as part of this class well before the shutdowns. We’ll introduce you to them later this week in a special edition of the #Hello newsletter.

Because of the disruption caused by Covid-19, we’ve worked with managers and each intern to ensure they have a safe and successful experience. We also gave them a few options given the circumstances.

Happily, of the 30 interns, eight decided to proceed this summer with fully remote internships. The rest are deferring to September, January or next summer in hopes of being in the office. We’ll evaluate further as we get closer to each start date.

For this summer’s eight interns, Brent Jones and Till Daldrup will provide a full virtual training plan. A new member of Sarah’s team, Andrés Martínez, will oversee the intern program. We’re again asking for volunteer mentors to provide extra support, especially for our remote interns, so please contact Sarah and Andrés if you’re interested.

Obviously these are unusual times, but our interns will get a robust experience, and this (virtual) newsroom will benefit from their presence as always. Thanks in advance for welcoming and supporting them over the coming year.