Fellowships
Explore open fellowship opportunities in media and communication.
Ready to get your career started but unsure where to begin? Apply for a fellowship program. These programs are designed to help early-career journalists develop a strong foundation for a successful career. Fellowship programs are often full-time paid positions that provide mentorship and guidance.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Deadline: Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025
Wage: Paid
Instructions:
Born from a tradition of journalism and deeply engaged in innovative digital ventures, The Chronicle is powered by an essential mission: to inform, empower, and connect the people and institutions that work to improve society. Today, The Chronicle serves the higher-education community through the industry-leading news and information resource: The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The Chronicle of Higher Education is seeking two reporting fellows to join our newsroom. The fellowship runs from July 2025 to July 2026. The fellows will work as general-assignment reporters, covering a broad set of issues at the center of the academic enterprise.
Your chief responsibility will be to produce smart, engaging coverage of the themes and concerns that touch our readers every day. You will pick up assignments and pitch stories about issues of deep national importance, such as race, student activism, and finance. Through creative story ideas and careful reporting, your work will shed light on the everyday experiences of scholars, administrators, and students.
We're looking for recent college graduates or early-career journalists with a passion for storytelling and in-depth reporting. You should be curious about higher education, but previous experience covering the sector is not required. You'll need to be self-motivated and proactive, eager to collaborate with others, attuned to how news is distributed online, accustomed to pitching ideas, and flexible enough to juggle multiple stories and approaches — including breaking news and self-driven enterprise writing — at once. You'll write on deadline often, and you'll look to drive conversations about the big issues facing colleges and universities.
The Chronicle is independently owned and based in Washington, D.C. The Chronicle is a hybrid, remote-flexible workplace, and employees work with supervisors to determine a work-from-home and in-person schedule for our D.C. office. While candidates in CA, WA, TX, FL, NC, NY, NJ, MD, MI, and VA may be considered for remote work, we feel that at least some in-person work enhances the fellowship experience.
This position will pay $55,000 a year with benefits — including health, dental and vision, access to a fitness facility, and paid time off — which are among the best in the business. Fellows can also expect internal and external opportunities for professional development, a one-on-one mentorship program with a senior staff member, and chances to travel for reporting.
If this sounds like the place you want to make your mark, submit a cover letter, résumé, five clips, and three brief pitches for story ideas. Cover letters should be addressed to Daarel Burnette II, senior editor.
Interested in applying? The Chronicle will host a Zoom information session about the fellowship on Friday, December 13 at 2 pm ET. The meeting ID is 4419187951 and the passcode is 416484.
We will begin reviewing applications on Monday, January 15 and hope to extend offers by early March.
States Newsroom
Deadline: Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024
Wage: Paid
Instructions:
Generations of structural inequities, such as racism, misogyny, homophobia, and ableism, have led to discriminatory policies and practices that limited who could become journalists. Most news organizations are primarily white and male, according to a 2018 article by the Pew Research Center. Today’s early-career professionals from historically underrepresented backgrounds are not only confronted with limited career prospects, they have few opportunities to cover the government decisions that affect their communities. States Newsroom wants to change that!
The Capital Reporting Fellowship is a summer program that places students and new journalists in our newsrooms across the country. Whether you are an advocacy-minded student, a journalist-to-be who needs help honing your truth-telling skills, or a strong writer who is considering reporting as a career path, your participation in state government coverage matters more now than ever before. This is an opportunity to develop a skill set to hold elected officials accountable for what happens in statehouses across the United States.
Maccabi USA and Maccabi Media
Deadline: Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024
Wage: Unpaid
Instructions:
Maccabi USA and Maccabi Media are proud to present a career-development program offering a unique international experience for aspiring sports media professionals who are Jewish. Following a comprehensive application process, a team of students will be selected to cover the 2025 Maccabiah (M25) in Israel, from July 1-22, 2025 with a domestic training camp to start a few days in advance.
Participants will perform several of the following sports media roles while covering the 2025 Maccabiah and must show previous experience during the application process in as many of these areas as possible:
o Play-by-Play, Color Analysis, and/or Sideline Reporting
o Live Event Production/Streaming
o Videography & Editing Video for Daily Features/Packages
o Sports Reporting (Interviewing & Writing articles)
o Social Media Content Creation
Please click the link to learn more about the position and to apply.
Hearst Connecticut Media Group
Deadline: Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024
Wage: Paid
Instructions:
Hearst Connecticut Media Group is staunchly committed to high-impact investigative journalism – journalism that unearths information otherwise hidden, provides in-depth analysis for readers, and frequently leads to positive societal change as a result of robust work on often systemic issues.
To further our commitment to this journalism, HCMG is launching a new 3-year investigative fellowship position. The role has been launched in memory of Chip Malafronte, a longtime member of the HCMG and New Haven Register sports department, who passed away on August 12, 2020 after a long battle with cancer. He was 48.
Focus: This important fellowship provides a passionate and curious journalist an opportunity to produce impactful investigative reporting on matters of significant public interest, focusing on the intersection of government transparency, the First Amendment and issues of importance impacting the daily lives of people across the state of Connecticut.
Another aspect of the fellowship includes a national journalism focus. During each of the three years, the fellow will take a national lens to an issue of utmost importance to people in Connecticut – and across the country. Year one will look at the complex issues surrounding school safety, and what can be done to protect students in the future.
The local and national work will both be done with the goal of surfacing and sharing data and information, with a strong eye on transparency, to help inform readers’ everyday lives, while providing deepened reporting in a multitude of ways.
The work will be issue-oriented, yet strongly people-focused. It will have significant multi-media components and examine not only on problems, but solutions. The fellow will produce content that provides readers with useful information on Freedom of Information laws and public access to records and meetings and will invite input from readers on issues of concern.
Reporting will be focused on accountability journalism on the local and statewide level with possible collaborations across Hearst, with other newspapers and television properties, while also exploring the outside partnership possibilities to help further this work.
Stories will explore how local and state government makes information and access available to Connecticut residents in key areas including:
- Public health and safety
- Education
- Government transparency
Structure: A 3-year program with strong senior editor involvement and opportunity for collaboration with the Hearst Newspapers’ development hub, data reporters, investigative reporters and audience team. This position reports to a senior newsroom leader, adept at investigative and open government reporting. While participation in the 3-year program is not a guarantee of future employment, our goal is to recruit candidates who eventually would join our full-time newsroom staff.
The successful candidate will have opportunities for growth. For example, we will support their participation in industry conferences or specialist trainings, as well as support areas such as travel to deepen the coverage for the national journalism work. These areas will be dependent on manager approval, with input from the fellow.