Two students, one from Washington State University and one from the University of Washington, have begun their coverage from Olympia for Washington Newspaper Publishers Association member newspapers.
They are Alexandria Osborne and Renee Diaz.
Diaz is a fifth-year student at the University of Washington studying Journalism and Public Interest Communications.
She’s been a staff member at the university’s student-run newspaper, The Daily, for the past two years.
Osborne interned last summer at The Tri-City Herald, where she covered city planning and wrote feature stories.
She is currently a junior in the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at WSU pursuing a degree in multimedia journalism. She’s also been a writer and editor at WSU’s student newspaper, The Daily Evergreen.
Leading the interns in Olympia is Larry Ganders, who started his career as a reporter and ultimately went to work for WSU as a lobbyist in Olympia. He also supervised WSU’s internship program in Olympia.
Since the 2011 Legislative Session, the WNPA Foundation has provided scholarships for journalism students to do full-time, supervised reporting on the state Legislature in Olympia. (Methow Valley News publisher Don Nelson is president of the WNPA Foundation.)
These students file reports on issues of interest to rural or suburban communities. The stories are available to all WNPA members.
Legislative internships are named in honor of Kris Passey, Wallie V. Funk and Jerry Zubrod. Passey was the former owner of the Marysville Globe and Arlington Times and a founder of the Washington Coalition for Open Government.
Funk, an avid photographer and community activist, was publisher of the Whidbey News-Times, South Whidbey Record and the Anacortes American. Passey and Funk both passed away in 2017.
Zubrod was WNPA Executive Director for more than two decades.
Intern stories are distributed to WNPA member papers by email and posted at wastatejournal.org.
