Founded in 2019, the Community News Service is a hands-on journalism program based at the University of Vermont that gives students the opportunity to report and write for news outlets across Vermont.

Our program is friends with UVM’s Reporting and Documentary Storytelling Program, and our classes are housed in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Students work with our professional editors to find, report out, workshop and publish journalistic stories. Some students are paired with a specific news outlet for assignments. Other interns work on our specialized teams, which function like wire services for a statewide audience.

Our goals are twofold: We want to help grow the next generation of journalists and buttress local news in Vermont with no-cost stories. We collaborate with more than 20 outlets in the state to make that happen. Every story you see on this site is republishable, with credit.

Interns with CNS typically earn credits through one of the sections of course CAS 3922, some of which feature regular lecture sessions focusing on the fundamentals of journalism. But all our student journalists learn this trade the old fashioned way — by doing it themselves. They take story assignments and plan their execution with editors. They conduct background research and interview subjects and report on location. They draft articles, workshop them with our in-house editors and revise them till they’re ready to print. They can take on photojournalism, podcasts and videography, too.

At the introductory level, most students team up with a specific local news outlet in Vermont and take a lecture course. But students can also pursue more advanced internships: We have a legislative reporting team (Capital News Service), an environmental reporting team (Green Beat) and a rotating bevy of independent study–style beats, like arts and immigration. Our program also manages the Winooski News, a startup digital news outlet covering our neighbors in the Onion City.

We aim to be the premier hub for student-produced journalism in Vermont and help the work of student journalists get published across the state. Over the years, we’ve placed interns directly with:

• The Addison County Independent
• The Barre-Montpelier Times Argus
• The Chronicle in Barton
• The Bradford Journal Opinion
• The Charlotte News
• The Colchester Sun
• The Commons in Windham County
• The Essex Reporter
• The Essex Retorter
• The Hardwick Gazette
• The Herald of Randolph
• The Hinesburg Record
• The Mad River Valley Reporter
• The Milton Independent
• The Rutland Herald
• The St. Albans Messenger
• Vermont Community News Group papers (the Stowe Reporter, the News and Citizen in Lamoille County, the Shelburne News, the South Burlington Other Paper, the Charlotte/Hinesburg Citizen)
• The Waterbury Roundabout
• The Williston Observer
• The Winooski News

Our students have also increasingly seen stories republished in Vermont’s statewide outlets: VTDigger, Vermont Public, Vermont Business Magazine and Seven Days.

Don’t see your outlet’s name? Drop editor Justin Trombly a line at editor@vtcommunitynews.org.

Thanks to our generous donors…

UVM’s College of Arts & Sciences and Office of Engagement, AARP, Gannett Foundation, Lintilhac Foundation, ISNE, Windham Foundation, Scripps-Howard, Pomerleau Real Estate, National Life, Vermont Electric Co-op and the many UVM alumni and friends who so generously support students.