The Student Newsroom and Innovation Lab, which ran from 2003 through 2023, with a hiatus only in 2020 during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The program immersed undergraduate and graduate college students in a digital media environment by providing hands-on experience covering ONA’s Annual Conference and Online Journalism Awards ceremony.
Each year, students and mentors were selected from pools of applicants and tasked with producing content and tools for a dedicated Student Newsroom website before and during the conference.
The impact of the program over the years can be found throughout the journalism field. In part bolstered by this hands on experience, many students went on to be change-makers in local news, work at prominent national and international journalism organizations, found companies or further their academic research.
Over the years, the Student Newsroom and Innovation Lab was generously supported by the Knight Foundation, Microsoft Start and Democracy Forward, TEGNA Foundation and Canva.
Stories from the Newsroom
The student newsroom has been a signature component of ONA’s annual conference for over a decade. Get to know past participants and their experience.