COLLEGE PARK — The Local News Network at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism has selected its 2025 class of interns who will spend the summer working at local news outlets.
Ten Merrill College students were chosen to participate in the internship program, which serves the LNN’s mission to strengthen local news coverage while providing students with invaluable experience in local news reporting. All 10 will be interning at news outlets in Maryland and Washington, D.C.
The cohort includes (internship outlets are in parentheses): Mara K. Bell ’27 (The Frederick News-Post), Razak Diallo ’27 (Washington Business Journal), Sam Gauntt ’27 (Maryland Matters), Lillian Glaros ’27 (Streetcar Suburbs), Aamaly Hossain ’26 (Southern Maryland News), Matthew Kauffman ’26 (The Daily Record), Max Schaeffer ’26 (Bethesda Magazine), Alexander W. Taylor ’27 (The Baltimore Banner), Katelynn Winebrenner ’26 (Cumberland Times-News) and Olivia Yasharoff ’26 (Washingtonian).
The Local News Network internship program provides stipends for each student to intern at the listed local news outlet. The stipends cover living expenses and summer tuition credits.
Four interns are funded by the LNN. Four are funded by Board of Visitors member Ralph Crosby’s recent gift to LNN. One is funded by The Gridiron Club and one is funded by the Joseph R. Slevin Award.
Merrill College launched the Local News Network in 2022 thanks to an anchor commitment from the Andrew and Julie Klingenstein Family Fund. The college created the LNN to aid locally focused news outlets by creating important localized news content and by teaming those news outlets with student reporters.
Award-winning journalist Jerry Zremski, the Klingenstein Family Endowed Chair in Journalism, directs the Local News Network. Zremski serves as lead instructor for a reporting course focused on beat reporting, and a course in enterprise reporting and solutions journalism. Every semester, dozens of Merrill students from those classes take part in a project that aims to provide important content to support Maryland news outlets.
Follow the Local News Network on X (formerly known as Twitter) @LNNMaryland. For more information on the Local News Network, email Zremski at jzremski@umd.edu. Applications for the 2026 internship program will open in January.
Meet the Interns
Mara K. Bell ’27 will be interning at The Frederick News-Post. She is a native of Frederick and a journalism major at Merrill College. A Banneker/Key scholar and a member of the University Honors program, she has reporting experience at The American Bazaar, The Black Explosion, WMUC radio and Just the News.
Razak Diallo ’27, a native of Upper Marlboro, will be interning at Washington Business Journal. He is pursuing a dual degree in journalism and cinema studies. His interests are long-form journalism and documentary. He is the managing editor of The Black Explosion.
Sam Gauntt ’27 of Stevensville will intern with Maryland Matters. He is a journalism major who serves as assistant news editor at The Diamondback, where he has also served as a reporter. He was interim associate editor of College Park Here & Now and editor-in-chief of the Campus Current at Anne Arundel Community College.
Lillian Glaros ’27 will intern with the Streetcar Suburbs newspapers. She is a journalism and Spanish language, literature and cultures major from Riverdale Park. She is a staff writer for The Diamondback on the transit beat and a freelancer for College Park Here & Now.
Aamaly Hossain ’26 of Dunkirk will intern with Southern Maryland News. She is double majoring in journalism and psychology, and is on the pre-law track. She spent the past two summers as a law clerk and investigative intern at the Maryland Office of the Public Defender.
Matthew Kauffman ’26 of Olney will intern with The Daily Record in Baltimore. A journalism major with a minor in law and society, he is a member of the College Park Scholars program, a staff writer at The Diamondback and an intern with the Undergraduate Student Legal Aid Office.
Max Schaeffer ’26 of Takoma Park will be interning with Bethesda Magazine. He is a journalism major with a minor in law and society. He has been covering Maryland athletics for Testudo Times since his first year and has also produced in-depth stories on other topics for Merrill College’s Local News Network.
Alexander W. Taylor ’27 of Baltimore will intern with The Baltimore Banner. He is a journalism major with a concentration in economics. The news director at WMUC radio, he also has reporting experience at the South Baltimore Peninsula Post and Baltimore Witness.
Katelynn Winebrenner ’26 of Mount Savage will intern with the Cumberland Times-News. She is a journalism major with a specialization in investigative reporting. She has reporting experience with College Park Here & Now and Merrill College’s Local News Network.
Olivia Yasharoff ’26 of Potomac will be interning at Washingtonian magazine. She is a journalism major with an art history minor. She has worked with The Diamondback, WMUC News, Bethesda Magazine and, most recently, Unwind Magazine.
For more information, contact:
Josh Land
joshland@umd.edu
301-405-1321