Deadline: 31-Dec-2025
The Pulitzer Center is seeking ambitious reporting proposals from freelance and staff journalists from around the world who wish to report on vital ocean and fisheries issues and are in need of support for their reporting projects.
They welcome story ideas on illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, including fisheries subsidies, overfishing, and the depletion of fish stocks, impacts on small-scale fishers and livelihoods in coastal communities, as well as solutions-oriented stories. They encourage applications for all formats of reporting on climate impacts, pollution, and biodiversity loss, and they would also like to see more applications on lesser reported topics, including: Climate change impacts (other than sea-level rise), Deep-sea mining, Marine energy generation, The blue economy, Marine genetic resources and the sharing of benefits, Marine Protected Areas (creation, implementation, and management), Species and habitat loss, restoration, and protection, Ocean science, Blue carbon and ecosystem value, Marine geoengineering, Shipping, Polar issues, Fishmeal production, Aquaculture and blue foods. Transparency and governance is a cross-cutting theme for all of their focus areas.
This initiative aims to support enterprising journalists with ambitious reporting projects that will expose long-running fisheries problems and produce high-quality journalism that can lead to more sustainable fishing practices, stronger supply chains free of forced labor, and greater resilience for coastal communities. Through this support, the Pulitzer Center intends to build a global network of journalists dedicated to surfacing vital and underreported ocean and fisheries stories.
The grants cover hard reporting costs such as travel, accommodation, meals, local transportation, data analysis, visualization costs, and local reporting partner fees. The Pulitzer Center emphasizes cost-efficiency and does not support staff salaries, equipment purchases, routine breaking news, advocacy campaigns, or general institutional expenses.
Grants are open to all journalists including writers, photographers, radio producers, and filmmakers. Both freelancers and staff journalists can apply. The Center encourages applications from experienced reporters as well as early-career journalists. Diversity of voices in terms of gender, ethnicities, backgrounds, and nationalities is an important priority.
Applicants must provide a 250-word project description, a detailed publication plan, a preliminary budget estimate, three published work samples, three professional references, and a copy of their curriculum vitae. Optional additional details can also be included, but the summary is the most critical part. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, with responses usually provided within a month of submission.
For more information, visit Pulitzer Center.
