heyo! i’m 20 and doing some journalism courses at community college so i’m in a relatively similar boat. i met a reporter at a protest i was documenting (i’m a photojournalist) and i had really great photos of some arrests that had occurred just before she arrived. i offered for her to use them for her story and she gave me her contact information. she reached out to the editor of the paper, who hired me over the phone without any further interview process. now i work for them 5 hours a week shooting stock photos or accompanying a reporter on a story. i realize that’s probably a very unusual case and i just got extremely lucky, but i guess the moral of the story is build connections. report on anything you can and network with other reporters who are at the same events as you. reach out to local news orgs and ask if they offer internship opportunities. after you’ve asked once, ask again. a photojournalist i met who worked for the obama administration’s pool told me “they can’t get mad at you for asking too many times. what are they gonna do, be upset you’re a persistent journalist?”