Four graduate journalism students and three recent alumnae from DePaul University’s College of Communication have been selected to work in the U.S. Olympic Committee’s (USOC) press office during the Winter Olympics in Vancouver later this month. The student interns will write and edit stories and arrange interviews with Olympic athletes.

“This is very unique,” said Bob Condron, director of media services for the USOC. “We have never done this with a United States university. These students earned their way to the Games through the incredible job they did at the U.S. Olympic Team Media Summit in Chicago last September.”

DePaul journalism instructor Mike Conklin, who covered two Olympic Games as a longtime Chicago Tribune reporter, forged a partnership with Condron and the U.S. Olympic Committee while Conklin was planning his McCormick Foundation Olympics Specialized Reporting Institute last September at DePaul. Noting the USOC was convening a summit in Chicago at the same time as DePaul’s event, Conklin invited Condron to participate in DePaul’s institute. Conklin then arranged for DePaul journalism students to work at the USOC press office in Chicago during the summit. DePaul students wrote, edited and produced the USA Daily Newsletter that went to the 350-plus media outlets and USOC staff and was posted on the TeamUSA.org Web site, Condron said.

At the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, which run Feb. 12 through 28, DePaul students will continue to produce the USA Daily Newsletter. They also will help support network morning shows, such as NBC’s “Today” show, and assist with the Managing Victory Program, which involves coordinating media interviews with U.S. medal winners after the presentation of medals. In addition, the students will cover USOC press conferences and Olympic events and then write news stories for the newsletter and for the USOC’s hometown news bureau, Condron said.

The students will also blog about their experiences for ChicagoNow (http://www.chicagonow.com/), an online community of bloggers launched by the Chicago Tribune Media Group in August 2009.

“I know from my past Olympic experience and dealing with interns at the USOC and elsewhere that they will be at the absolute nerve center, doing significant work,” Conklin said. The graduate students will receive academic credit for the internship, he added.

DePaul journalism students have covered the Iowa presidential caucus, presidential election and inauguration, and the 2016 Summer Olympics host city announcement in Copenhagen while enrolled in the program.

DePaul’s College of Communication is the second-largest provider of master’s degrees in communication in the state. It is the third-largest provider of bachelor’s degrees in communication in Illinois and second-largest in the Chicago area. Graduate programs include journalism; media and cinema studies; public relations and advertising; and organizational and multicultural communication. It offers undergraduate programs in journalism; media and cinema studies; public relations and advertising; and communication and media.