Digital Content Writing Intern

Explainers are among the most read formats in digital journalism because readers constantly encounter stories they do not have the background to understand.

Writing one well requires you to learn a subject properly and then rebuild it for someone who knows nothing about it.

This task is fully desk based.

Choose one current issue that is genuinely complicated.

Suitable subjects include a new law or bill, a regulatory change affecting consumers, an economic measure, a public health development, or a technology policy debate.

Research it thoroughly using primary sources first.

Find the actual law, notification, judgment, or official document rather than relying on news coverage.

Then read at least five credible reports about it, including at least one that is critical of it.

Keep a research file with every source, its link, and the key point you took from it.

Now write an explainer of 700 to 800 words structured with clear subheadings.

Open by stating plainly why this matters to the reader.

Then cover what has actually changed, why it is being done, who benefits, who is affected negatively, what the main criticism is, and what happens next.

Define every technical term the first time you use it.

Keep sentences short and avoid jargon entirely.

Then test it on a real reader.

Give the explainer to someone who knows nothing about the subject and ask them to tell you, in their own words, what it means and why it matters.

Wherever they hesitate or get it wrong, your writing has failed rather than their reading.

Record exactly where they stumbled and revise those passages.

Add a short FAQ section of four questions answering what a reader would most likely still want to know after finishing, since explainers that anticipate the next question perform far better than those that stop at the basics.

Finally, write a short note identifying the three places where you found the subject hardest to simplify, explaining how you solved each one, and recording what the test reader struggled with.

Submit the research file, the finished explainer with its FAQ, the test reader feedback, and the simplification note.

A digital story succeeds or fails largely on its headline, which must be accurate, appealing, and discoverable in search at the same time.

These three demands often pull against each other, and learning to balance them is the point of this task.

Everything can be done from home with a browser.

Select five published news stories from any credible news website, covering different subjects such as politics, business, sport, health, and technology.

Read each story fully, because you cannot headline what you have not read.

For each story, write four different headlines.

The first should be a straight factual headline stating what happened.

The second should lead with the most surprising element.

The third should be written for search, built around the words a person would actually type when looking for this information.

The fourth should be written for social media, where the headline competes with entertainment rather than other news.

For every headline, record the character count and write one line explaining the thinking behind it.

Then identify which of the four you would publish and why.

Next, examine the real headline each publication used.

Compare it with your four versions and write a short assessment of what they prioritised and whether you agree with the choice.

Next, research how search actually works for news.

Find out what a search engine uses to understand a news page, including the headline tag, the page title, and the opening paragraph.

Note how these differ and why a page often carries one headline on the site and another for search.

Then test your own assumptions.

For three of your stories, type the search terms you predicted a reader would use and record what actually comes up.

Compare the headlines that rank well against yours and write down what they do differently.

Finally, write a half page note on accuracy in headlines.

Identify two of your own headlines that came close to overstating what the story actually established, and rewrite them more carefully.

Explain why search optimisation creates pressure towards exaggeration and how you resisted it.

Submit all twenty headlines with reasoning, the search research, the ranking comparison, the publication comparisons, and the accuracy note.

Digital publishers tell the same story in different formats for different audiences and platforms.

Understanding which format suits which subject, and what each one gains and loses, is a core skill for online writing.

This task is entirely desk based.

Choose one subject that can genuinely be told both ways.

Good options include a year in review of some field, a guide to a process such as applying for a government scheme, a comparison of options available to consumers, or the development of a long running issue.

Research the subject properly from public sources and build a fact file with every point you intend to use and where it came from.

Now write the listicle version in roughly 500 words.

Give it a clear numbered structure, make every item self contained so a reader can start anywhere, and ensure the order follows some logic rather than being random.

Then write the narrative version in roughly 800 words.

This one should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, carry the reader through in sequence, and use at least two quotes drawn from your sourced material.

Then write the headline and opening for each version separately.

The same story needs a different entry point depending on format, and reusing one headline across both is the most common sign that a writer has not thought about why the formats differ.

Next, examine the reading experience.

Estimate how long each version takes to read, identify the point in each where a reader is most likely to stop, and explain what you placed before that point to carry them past it.

Finally, write a comparison note of about one page.

Identify what the listicle version could not convey that the narrative managed, and what the narrative made harder that the list handled cleanly.

State which format you would publish for this particular subject and explain the reasoning in terms of the reader rather than your own preference.

Add one line on which version you found harder to write and why.

Submit the fact file, both versions with their own headlines and openings, the reading experience analysis, and the comparison note.

Digital newsrooms plan ahead, because publishing well requires knowing in advance what is coming, who will read it, and how success will be judged.

This task puts you in the planning seat, and needs nothing beyond a spreadsheet and research.

Choose one news vertical such as business, sport, entertainment, technology, education, or health.

Define your target reader in writing: their age range, why they come to this coverage, what they already know, and when during the day they are likely to read.

Research what is actually coming up in your chosen vertical over the next two weeks.

Scheduled events, results announcements, policy deadlines, release dates, and anniversaries are all predictable and can be planned for in advance.

Build this into a list of known upcoming news pegs.

Now build a two week content calendar in a spreadsheet.

For each day include the planned topic, the format, the headline you would use, the publishing time, the reason this piece suits this reader, and the single metric by which you would judge it.

Mix planned pieces with deliberate gaps left open for breaking news, and explain in a note why those gaps exist.

Add a second sheet listing the research and sources each planned piece would require, so that another writer could pick it up.

Then plan the distribution.

For each piece, note where it would be promoted beyond the website and what the accompanying copy would say, since publishing and distribution are now the same job rather than two separate ones.

Next, build the contingency.

Identify the three most likely ways your plan would break, such as a major breaking story displacing everything, a scheduled event being postponed, or a planned piece falling through for lack of sources.

Write what you would do in each case, because a calendar that assumes nothing goes wrong is of no practical use.

Finally, write a one page plan explaining how you would review performance at the end of the two weeks, including which metrics would tell you to publish more of something and which would tell you to stop.

State clearly which metric you would refuse to optimise for even if it rose, and explain why.

Submit the calendar, the source sheet, the distribution plan, the contingency plan, and the review plan.