News Corp Media Fellowship for Digital Innovation 2025

Fellows learn firsthand how these top outlets are navigating the changing journalism landscape. By shadowing reporters and editors across different departments, the fellows gain a comprehensive understanding of how an innovative news outlet operates in the digital age, and bring back new skills to transform their own newsrooms.

Each year, ICFJ and News Corp accept applications from a different region or country, making this opportunity available to a wide range of global journalists. To complement the four-week fellowship, ICFJ designs a three-day orientation to meet the training needs of each year’s fellows. Past topics have included mobile, investigative and innovative journalism. The participants also meet with media experts to learn more about issues such as press freedom, ethics in the digital age and media law.

The fellowships are tailored to the individual interests and needs of the participating journalists. News Corp editors have, in the past, designed fellowship activities to focus on topics such as data journalism and visualization, audience engagement, business journalism and journalism ethics in the digital age.

Benefits

• The selected News Corp Media Fellow will have the opportunity to:
  • Contribute to WSJ projects on analyzing audience engagement
  • Lead peer-to-peer discussions
  • Promote an exchange of ideas and knowledge
  • Establish new partnerships and relationships with WSJ teams
  • The fellow will receive a stipend and expenses during their time in New York City will be covered.

Eligibility Criteria

• The fellowship is open to English-speaking journalists and editors. All travel expenses are covered by the program. The fellow will receive an honorarium.
• To be considered for the fellowship, journalists must:
  • Participate in two, two-hour webinars conducted by editors and reporters with expertise in digital tools, data journalism and visualization, artificial intelligence, mobile journalism and audience engagement. Webinars will be open to a select group of up to 50 journalists. Both webinars will occur in April.
  • Receive one of four news innovation grants to support a data or digitally-driven project. Only journalists who participate in both webinars are eligible to apply for these grants. Projects should promote new forms of storytelling, data journalism and visualization, or citizen engagement. Each grant recipient will also receive online editorial coaching and mentorship from experienced editors, reporters and experts. The reporting period will run from July through September.
• Only journalists who complete both stages successfully will be considered for the News Corp Media Fellowship. The ideal fellow will be one who:
  • Has worked in a newsroom as a reporter
  • Is currently working in a newsroom
  • Has a strong news sense and curiosity
  • Demonstrates strong collaborative skills
  • Has an interest in audience engagement and building community
  • Is digitally savvy but wants to expand on skills like digital strategy and project management
  • Comes with ideas for several projects to work on during the fellowship

Application Requirements

• English-speaking journalists and editors with experience working with data, audience engagement, or newsletters are welcome to apply for the webinars – the first step toward the fellowship. Journalists from all countries are eligible for the opportunity.
• While reporting skills will be useful, the fellowship has a non-reporting component, instead focusing on audience, newsletter and other digital journalism skills. The selected journalist should not expect to receive bylines during their fellowship.

For more information, visit ICFJ.