Six-month fellowship pays $30,000; fellows will work at Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting, USA TODAY and Wisconsin Watch
WASHINGTON, DC; August 11, 2022 – In its commitment to increasing diversity in the field of investigative journalism, the Fund for Investigative Journalism is offering six-month Diversity Fellowships for three journalists. The fellowships are open to individual applicants from groups underrepresented in investigative journalism due to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, physical ability, gender or religion.
The Fund is partnering with three news organizations who will host fellows in their newsrooms: The Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting, USA TODAY and Wisconsin Watch. To apply, journalists will submit a proposal for an investigative story they would work on during the six-month fellowship, while embedded in one of these three newsrooms. Proposals for USA TODAY can be on any topic. Proposals for the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting and Wisconsin Watch need to have a state or regional focus. The Fund and host outlets will review and score proposals jointly.
Journalists will receive $30,000 for the six-month fellowship, and host outlets will receive modest grants to cover other costs of the investigations. Fellows will be supervised by key staff at the host outlets, and they will also be able to request free legal help and editorial mentorship from the Fund.
The application form and instructions are online here. Applications are due September 27 and decisions will made in November. Journalists who are selected for fellowships will arrange their start date with the host outlet.
Below are just a few of the projects produced by journalists through previous Diversity Fellowships provided by the Fund:
- Gaming the System, a four-part series in the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, republished by palabra, by Romina Ruiz-Goiriena in 2020. This fellowship was in partnership with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and the series helped spark a new federal law addressing corruption in immigration.
- The Robert Mueller of Latin America, on Reveal by the Center for Investigative Reporting, by Maria Martin in 2020
- ICE Air, a series of reports revealing conditions on government flights with federal immigration detainees by Angelika Albaladejo in 2020. Her reporting was published in Capital & Main, The Guardian, the Miami Herald and palabra, and received a prestigious Sidney Award.
- Black Women and Domestic Violence, a series of reports published in The Grio, Ebony, NBC News and elsewhere by Chandra Thomas Whitfield in 2019
- Doomed at Birth, uncovering how Jewish laws and customs marginalize children born out of wedlock, even in cases of rape, for Jewish Telegraphic Agency, by Michele Chabin in 2018
- A Teenager in Solitary Confinement, documenting one case as part of a much larger issue, in The New Yorker, by Lisa Armstrong in 2017
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