Deadline: 17-Jul-23
The Data Fellowship offers journalists an opportunity to transform their reporting by training them to “interview the data” as if it were a human source.
Equipped with the tools to find original sources of information and perform data analysis, Fellows graduate from this hands-on training program prepared to produce a major investigative or explanatory health reporting project in the months that follow.
This program offers training on data acquisition, cleaning, analysis and visualization led by some of the nation’s most skilled data reporters and journalism practitioners. They teach journalists how to “bulletproof” their data, ensuring accuracy in reporting. Whether you are new to data reporting or you want to master more advanced techniques such as the “R” programming environment, their personalized program — with its three skills tracks — will equip you with tools and techniques to produce major investigative and explanatory health reporting projects.
Following the training week, Senior Fellows mentor reporters as they pair original data analysis with compelling narratives culminating in a groundbreaking Fellowship project focusing on an overlooked health issue in their community.
- California Health Equity Impact Fund: Their California Impact Fund offers mentorship and support to reporters who think big and want to make a difference in their communities through investigative or explanatory reporting on promising approaches to chronic ills. Click here for details.
- Domestic Violence Impact Reporting Fund: This fund provides reporting grants and mentoring to journalists to report on domestic violence in their communities. The grants will be made in conjunction with a symposium on domestic violence that was held in March 2023 for journalists and community storytellers. Click here for details about the symposium and here for a list of the 2021 Domestic Violence Impact Reporting Fund grantees and links to their projects. The Blue Shield of California Foundation and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation support the symposium and the grants.
- Impact Fund for Reporting on Health Equity and Health Systems: This fund provides reporting grants of $2,000-$10,000 and five months of mentoring by a seasoned journalism professional to competitively chosen journalists from around the country to support their reporting of ambitious investigative or explanatory projects on structural or systemic issues in the health care system that lead to racial disparities in health outcomes.
Benefits
- Admitted Fellows receive:
- A $2,000 stipend to defray reporting costs
- A four-day in-person, hands-on training in beginner, intermediate or advanced Excel or R-Studio
- Five months of professional mentorship, including skills-building workshops and ongoing learning
- Fellows also are eligible to apply for five months of professional mentorship in engaged journalism and $1,000-$2,000 to support those creative efforts.
Eligibility Criteria
- Their Fellowships are open only to professional journalists. Full-time students are not eligible to apply.
- They welcome freelancers to apply, but they must earn the bulk of their income from journalism and have a confirmed assignment with an outlet to be considered. This includes a signed editor checklist and letter of recommendation.
- They embrace a broad definition of health and the belief that it is shaped by their environment — their schools, their neighborhoods and their communities. In accordance, they admit many reporters across a spectrum of beats and train them to view their reporting through a health equity lens. Some of their very best Fellows never formally covered health before attending their Fellowship.
- They welcome journalists from newsrooms both large and small. They have admitted reporters to their Fellowships from national outlets with hundreds of staff members and from local newsrooms where there are just a few reporters on staff.
Why Apply?
- Participants gain confidence, skills, sources, and new storytelling approaches on the circumstances that shape the health of residents of their community. There is also plenty of fellowship, and participants gain new perspectives and new colleagues. The program also provides technical advice that helps fellows enhance their skills and advance their careers.
- Applicants do not need to have a background in health, but they should be interested in learning about how the health of a community and its residents is shaped by social, environmental, educational, and economic issues, as well as public policy.
- What Participation Includes: For all their Fellowships, they cover the cost of the hotel, airfare, meals, and tuition. Each Fellow is assigned a Senior Fellow who provides advice on their Fellowship projects for the six months following the seminars in Los Angeles.
For more information, visit Center for Health Journalism Data Fellowship.