Deadline: 3-May-21
Applications are now open for the Knight Wallace Reporting Fellowship 2021.
Wallace House is once again turning their Fellowship model outward with the Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellowships, a remote-format, working fellowship program for the 2021-22 academic year that will fund ambitious reporting projects focused on the major challenges of their time and responses and efforts toward a reimagined future.
They are offering ten Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellowships for accomplished journalists with different backgrounds and experience to report on their most pressing issues, from social shifts precipitated by the pandemic to the nation’s deep political divisions to persistent social justice issues surrounding race, ethnicity and inequality. Selected Fellows will not be required to leave their news organizations or places of work. This remote fellowship will maintain their multidisciplinary approach and cohort-based philosophy.
The Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellowship for the 2021-2022 academic year is a working fellowship featuring:
- An eight-month program focused on supporting ambitious, in-depth, innovative journalism projects examining their most pressing public challenges including but not limited to social shifts precipitated by the pandemic, the nation’s deep political divisions and persistent social justice issues surrounding race, ethnicity and inequality
- A remote structure that allows reporters to remain where they live
- A cohort of ten Fellows selected from a pool of experienced journalists from a variety of beats and expertise
- A $70,000 stipend to support reporting and fellowship participation dispersed monthly from September 2021 through April 2022
- An additional $10,000 in supplemental support to cover extra costs including health insurance, reporting equipment and travel-related expenses
- Weekly remote seminars with University of Michigan faculty and subject matter experts from a wide range of fields
- Professional development and supplemental skills workshops
- Subject to public-health guidance, one-week Fellow
- ship Cohort sessions held at Wallace House on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor with travel, lodging and hosting expenses covered by the program
- A year-end symposium at the University of Michigan highlighting work produced during the fellowship
Eligibility Criteria
- This program is open to staff, freelance and contract journalists. Applicants must have at least five years of reporting experience and the work history and editorial support to manage a major, long-term project.
- Applicants must be either a U.S. resident or a legal resident residing in the U.S. or its territories. Uncertainty around international travel and visa restrictions makes it difficult to sponsor non-U.S. residents at this time.
- Applicants who are staff journalists at established media outlets must be able to demonstrate managerial support to focus on an in-depth reporting project for their organization and participate in all fellowship activities from September 2021 through April 2022, the period of the fellowship.
- Freelance journalists who apply must have a record of high-level work for established media outlets. Freelance applicants must also have a detailed proposal of where they would place the project, or if possible, an organization committed to publishing the reporting project
- Published or produced work is a requirement of the fellowship. The output should match the proposed project and form of journalism. For instance, a documentary filmmaker might complete one film during the period of the fellowship; a long-form magazine writer might produce one or two published pieces; a community-based or enterprise reporter might produce a project that appears weekly or monthly. The fellowship is not intended to support daily beat reporting that would be produced regardless of fellowship support. It is also not intended for book writing.
- All work produced during the fellowship will be owned by the media organization for which it is produced and will carry an agreed-upon acknowledgment of support by the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists at the University of Michigan.
- Journalists selected for the Reporting Fellowship are still eligible to apply for the traditional residential Knight-Wallace Fellowship in the future.
For more information, visit https://wallacehouse.umich.edu/knight-wallace/reporting-fellowship-journalist/