Inaugural Pedro Gomez intern brings bilingual coverage to The Republic
A Syracuse University senior is the first recipient of the Pedro Gomez Foundation-National Association of Hispanic Journalists bilingual internship at The Arizona Republic, La Voz and azcentral.com.
April Santana, 22, is double majoring in political science and magazine, news and digital journalism at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.
During her 10 weeks at The Republic this summer, Santana is covering community news and sports. Among other things, she has written about the 11th anniversary of DACA, Pride nights at professional sports games and the LGBTQ+ Latino community.
The Gomez internship was established as a bilingual reporting job to honor the first-generation Cuban-American journalist who joined The Republic as a national baseball writer in the late 1990s. In 2003, Gomez left the paper to become an on-camera reporter for ESPN. He died unexpectedly in 2021 at age 58.
Much of Santana's work is also published in La Voz, The Republic's Spanish-language site on azcentral.com.
“Having representation is very important in journalism because we are missing out on a lot of viewpoints to resonate with the people that are being covered,” said Santana, a Dominican Republic native who lives in New Jersey.
Applicants for the Gomez internship are required to be proficient in English and Spanish and a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, which screens the candidates and makes recommendations to the Gomez Foundation and The Republic.
This is the inaugural year for the internship, which is expected to continue in summer 2024 and beyond as an opportunity for bilingual journalism students, said Sandra Gomez, Foundation president and wife of Pedro Gomez. It's important for the internship to be in a place that would reach Latinos and have an impact on the Hispanic community, she said.
“As the Foundation has evolved, we have leaned toward everything staying in Arizona,” Gomez said.
Summer internships: Meet The Arizona Republic's summer 2023 interns
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Gomez internship honors late ESPN baseball reporter
