CFAs: StoryReach U.S. Fellowship Program

This is a chance to innovate with your peers and the Center’s team on high-impact projects that combine breakthrough reporting and effective audience engagement.

The part-time, yearlong Fellowship is designed for reporters from all beats, desks, and media formats. The ideal candidate will have at least three years of experience with ambitious investigative or in-depth enterprise reporting projects. They’re eager to find candidates who also have some experience with audience outreach or a partner newsroom with creative and effective ideas for engaging audiences beyond publishing.

Through funding and resources for reporting and outreach, exclusive training and support, and monthly virtual cohort gatherings, their Fellows will gain valuable insights and practical tools to connect their reporting with their communities in innovative ways.

Focus Areas

• While they welcome proposals on a broad range of local underreported issues, this year they are also placing special emphasis on a few topics:
  • Health: Reporting on scientific progress, cutting-edge research, and policies important to global health and financial support for health programs.
  • Marine Fisheries: Any underreported topics related to the management or stewardship of marine fisheries or topics, as well as issues, related to the overall health of fisheries, supply chains, or environmental impacts affecting the Great Lakes or vital watersheds or waterways in your region.
  • Human Rights: Stories highlighting the intersections of racial justice with issues like sexual and reproductive rights, gender-based violence, migrant rights, excessive force, arbitrary detention, and hate crimes.
  • Climate and Jobs: Reports on how Midwest work sectors are affected by climate change, exploring worker and employer experiences, job risks, and community responses to rising temperatures and extreme weather events.

Benefits

• The opportunity to work on an urgent, underreported issue for a substantial period of time.
• Access to mentors and specialized training opportunities.
• A community of like-minded colleagues that will continue beyond your Fellowship.
• Financial support to cover records requests, travel expenses, data analysis, and stipends.
• The opportunity to find strong collaborators, ideas, and inspiration for your project or future projects.
• The support to experiment with new ways to reach audiences in your region and deepen connections with the community your outlet serves.
• The chance to further amplify your project through the Pulitzer Center’s outreach and education programs.
• An opportunity to connect with the Pulitzer Center’s Data and Research team for advice on your reporting project.

Prize Information

• The 12-month, part-time Fellowship will provide journalists with up to $30,000 to pursue their reporting project and innovative engagement activities that expand the reach and impact of their reporting.

Eligibility Criteria

• Staff or freelance journalists working for local or regional outlets in the Midwest U.S. on a wide range of platforms, including digital, print, radio, video, and multimedia.
• Team players with the experience and/or ability to work collaboratively across newsrooms.
• Reporters with a deep interest in engaging diverse audiences with their stories, and exploring creative and audience-informed strategies to engage those audiences.
• Reporters can be based anywhere. However, they must be partnered with a local or regional news outlet in the Midwest U.S. Fellowships are remote.
• Reporters from any nationality are eligible to apply.

Application Requirements

• A short statement of purpose: How this particular Fellowship fits in your career path and why you are best positioned to be a StoryReach Midwest Reporting Fellow. (500 words)
• A detailed description of the reporting project: you seek to pursue during your Fellowship, including a plan for audience engagement activities.
• Your plan for audience engagement: should include the distribution channels for the reporting and a brief strategy for identifying and reaching key audiences (both online and offline) that need to engage with your project.
• They also will ask for a budget: that lays out the anticipated costs of the project.
• Three examples (links) of your best stories: published in the past three years.
• A letter of commitment or interest: from a media organization(s) that would publish your story(ies).
• Three professional references: These can be either contact information or letters of recommendation.
• A copy of your resume or curriculum vitae.

For more information, visit Pulitzer Center.