Five students at Temple University’s Klein College of Media and Communication are gaining paid professional experience this fall through the Philadelphia Journalism Collaborative’s new Reporting Corps.
The program pairs students nominated by Klein faculty with partner newsrooms for a semester of work that can include reporting, photography and social media production. Its inaugural cohort includes Christian Barnes, Susanna Coyle, Steve Jeffries, Christian Lee and Morgan Ritter.
The idea grew out of the collaborative’s move to Temple in summer 2025. Now housed within Klein’s Center for Community-Engaged Media, the Philadelphia Journalism Collaborative (PJC) sought ways to involve students and faculty while supporting its more than 25 partner newsrooms.
During meetings with those partners, PJC Program Manager Gene Sonn and center Director Letrell Crittenden heard a common concern: Newsrooms had more stories to pursue than staff available to cover them.
“There are always more things that they would like to do than they have people to assign,” Sonn said.
The Reporting Corps offers students newsroom experience while helping partners expand their reporting capacity.
“I think that it is going to be an innovative effort that will really highlight how our students can benefit from collaborative journalism,” Crittenden said.
Denise James, an associate professor of practice of journalism and the faculty liaison between PJC and Klein, described the program as “a two-way street.”
“They get real-world experience with real-world feedback and real-world deadlines,” James said of the students, “and hopefully a sense of real-world accomplishment.”
Partner newsrooms, she added, “get to be part of ensuring that a group of young journalists is prepared to work in this world.”
James encouraged faculty to nominate students, then worked with Sonn to review nominees’ resumes and work samples and select the first five participants. They plan to repeat the selection process for the spring semester.
Meet the inaugural Reporting Corps
Morgan Ritter | Technical.ly
Ritter, a senior journalism major from Fanwood, New Jersey, began reporting for her high school newspaper, The Fanscotian.
“I just loved the process of it. I loved interviewing people and writing articles,” she said. “It was challenging for me at first, but it made me feel so fulfilled to tell people’s stories.”
At Temple, Ritter is editor-in-chief of Her Campus Temple, a Klein Rising peer mentor and an Honors REACT peer instructor. She recently completed a summer internship on The Philadelphia Inquirer’s arts and culture desk.
Through her placement with Technical.ly, Ritter hopes to expand beyond arts and culture reporting. She is particularly interested in stories about local successes that might otherwise go untold.
Christian Barnes | Chalkbeat Philadelphia
For Barnes, a senior journalism major who grew up near Reading, Pennsylvania, journalism offers a way to connect people and cultures.
“I’ve always had an interest in human stories — about ways of life, different cultures,” he said. “I was always the kid that wanted to tell somebody something, the ‘did-you-know’ kid.”
Reading Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail” helped solidify his interest in the field.
A Klein Rising peer mentor, Barnes has published work in Philadelphia Neighborhoods and The Temple News and reported for Klein’s Logan Center for Urban Investigative Reporting. This fall, he is working with Chalkbeat Philadelphia.
Steve Jeffries | Next City
Jeffries, a senior journalism major from Raleigh, North Carolina, first developed a passion for creative writing. Thomas L. Friedman’s “From Beirut to Jerusalem” helped draw him toward journalism.
“The kind of journalism that speaks most to me is long-form, more narrative work, and I enjoy bringing that literary quality into stories,” he said.
Following a summer internship with Metro Philadelphia, another PJC partner, Jeffries is working with Next City. He hopes the Reporting Corps will help him deepen his understanding of Philadelphia and its communities.
“It seemed to be an excellent opportunity to start to understand the Philadelphia journalism environment and some of the organizations there,” he said.
Christian Lee | Green Philly
Lee, a senior double major in journalism and political science from Edison, New Jersey, discovered his enthusiasm for journalism through Temple Update.
His first assignment, covering a fencing invitational, took him into the early morning hours to finish. The experience left him proud of his work and eager to continue.
Since then, Lee has reported, anchored and served as a meteorologist for Temple Update. He has also completed internships with PHL17 and News Center Maine, where he produced television stories, reported live and covered breaking news.
Through his placement with Green Philly, Lee hopes to continue developing his social media reporting skills.
“Everyone’s telling me that it’s changing, but I want to change it,” Lee said of journalism. “It’s a great industry, and I’m excited to see where it goes.”
Susanna Coyle
Coyle, a junior double major in journalism and audio and live entertainment from Abington, Pennsylvania, came to journalism through a lifelong love of music.
A classically trained clarinetist who has played in bands, she writes concert reviews for WHIP, Temple’s student radio station. She also co-hosts the comedy podcast “Last Two Standing” and helps other students develop their own podcasts.
Coyle sees both music and journalism as ways to connect people and help them understand the world around them.
“I really care about human connection and just the way that people receive things and respond to them,” she said. “That’s why I really like doing journalism, and that’s why I really am interested in solutions-based journalism.”
Her experience includes serving on the production crew for “La Charla,” Temple’s Spanish-language talk show, and working on the team that produced 6ABC’s Thanksgiving Day Parade broadcast. Through the Reporting Corps, she hopes to strengthen her written reporting.