Here’s a list of current media and journalism fellowship programs, including the deadlines for applying. If we’re missing any major programs, or you would like your program to be in the featured fellowship slot, please contact Mark Glaser at mark [at] mediashift [dot] org to let us know, and we’ll add them to the list. All featured fellowships are paid promotional slots.
FEATURED FELLOWSHIP
John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford
Stanford, CA
The Knight Journalism Fellowship is a 10-month-long residency at Stanford University aimed at implementing and improving on innovative ideas in collaboration with a group of journalists from around the world.
Deadline: Dec. 1, 2015
Apply now!
OCTOBER 2015 DEADLINES
Soros Justice Fellowship
The Soros Justice Fellowships fund outstanding individuals to undertake projects that advance reform, spur debate, and catalyze change on a range of issues facing the U.S. criminal justice system. The Fellowships Program is part of a larger effort within the Open Society Foundations’ Justice Fund to reduce the destructive impact of current criminal justice policies on the lives of individuals, families, and communities in the U.S. by challenging the overreliance on incarceration and extreme punishment, and ensuring a fair and accountable system of justice. Fellows receive funding ($58,700–$110,250) through the following two categories: Advocacy Fellowships or Media Fellowships.
Deadline: Oct. 21, 2015
Google Digital News Fellowship
The Reuters Institute is seeking applications for a Google Digital News Journalist Fellowship as part of its world renowned Journalist Fellowship Programme based at the Reuters Institute in Oxford. This fellowship is for two terms (6 months) starting in January 2016 and is aimed at a mid-career journalist resident in one of the continental European countries which will be covered in the 2016 Reuters Institute Digital News Report, namely; Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. The fellowship will appeal to a journalist who is excited by the opportunity of producing a research paper based on some aspect of either the survey data or digital journalism more generally with a direct focus on the professional and industry implications based on their own experience.
Deadline: Oct. 21, 2015
Atlantic Media Editorial Fellowship
Washington, D.C.
The year-long Atlantic Media fellowships are for recent college graduates who want to work in a digital-first newsroom. The editorial fellowship will begin in January 2016 and run through December 2016. Editorial Fellowship responsibilities may include the following, blogging, copy editing, fact checking, manuscript review, multimedia editing, photo research, reporting, social media, video, writing.
Deadline: Oct. 23, 2015
Knight Visiting Nieman Fellowship
Cambridge
The Knight Visiting Nieman Fellowships at Harvard offer short-term research opportunities to individuals interested in working on special projects designed to advance journalism in some new way. In addition to working journalists, those who should consider applying include publishers, programmers, designers, media analysts, academics and others interested in enhancing quality, building new business models or designing programs to improve journalism. Project proposals may be completed during the time spent at Harvard or be part of a larger undertaking. All visiting fellows are expected to be in residence in Cambridge during their study and present their findings to the Nieman community at the end of their research period. There are no academic prerequisites, and a college degree is not required.
Deadline: Oct. 23, 2015
Tow-Knight Entrepreneurial Journalism Fellowship
Join the Tow-Knight Entrepreneurial Journalism Program at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and spend Spring 2016 launching a journalism startup and studying new business models for journalism. During their semester, fellows have conversations with media leaders and entrepreneurs in guest lectures, workshops and product sprints. Weekly startup visits have included Twitter, Facebook, Google, Kickstarter, BuzzFeed, IDEO, NYTimes, among others organizations in New York’s rich and diverse publishing and tech community.
Deadline: Oct. 23, 2015
NOVEMBER 2015 DEADLINES
AHCJ Reporting Fellowship on Healthcare Performance
This fellowship sponsored by the Association of Health Care Journalists is a yearlong program allowing journalists to pursue a significant reporting project related to the U.S. health care system. It can be local or national in scope, or a little of both. Fellows pursue the projects with the support of their newsrooms or freelance outlets, which commit to publish or air the work.
Fall Deadline: Nov. 2, 2015
Margins Fellowship 2016
The Asian American Writers’ Workshop is now accepting applications for The Margins Fellowship, a special opportunity for emerging NYC-based Asian American creative writers to carve our a publishing home in The Margins, the AAWW’s online magazine of arts and ideas, and develop as a writer. Three writers of fiction, poetry or creative nonfiction based in New York City aged 30 and under will receive $5,000, residency time at the Millay Colony for the Arts, mentorship, access to the AAWW writing space, exclusive career lunches and workshops and publication opportunities in our online magazine, The Margins. This fellowship is perfect for an energetic young writer looking to get their start, tired of sending out SASEs and submissions, and eager to have a space to write in a literary community.
Fall Deadline: Nov. 9, 2015
Open City Project Grants 2016
The Asian American Writers’ Workshop is now accepting applications for Open City Project Grants, a unique opportunity for emerging Asian American writers to publish narrative nonfiction over the span of six months on the vibrant immigrant communities of New York City. In 2016, Open City will offer a $2,500 grant, skill-building workshops, and publishing opportunities to six writers to write on the vibrant Asian immigrant communities of New York City. Three grantees will be selected for the first six-month period, from January to June 2016. We will be accepting applications for the July-December grant period in April 2016. We are especially looking for neighborhood-based projects in spaces such as Sunset Park in Brooklyn, Manhattan’s Chinatown, Flushing, Jackson Heights, and Richmond Hill in Queens, and other growing Asian immigrant communities across NYC.
Fall Deadline: Nov. 9, 2015
A Digital Path to Entrepreneurship and Innovation for Latin America
This 18-month, multi-phase program is for 28 Latin American professional fellows from Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, and 10 of their U.S. counterparts. The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and its selected partner organizations in each country will recruit professional and citizen journalists, media business managers, digital entrepreneurs and technologists to create media business models that harness the power of digital tools to generate sustainable new revenue. Applicants must be fluent in English.
Fall Deadline: Nov. 15, 2015
Fund For Environmental Journalism
The Society of Environmental Journalist’s Fund for Environmental Journalism welcomes applications for grants of up to $5,000 to underwrite story projects. In 2015 grant cycles, funding is available for story projects in three categories: 1) open topic, including international; 2) coverage of land-use issues of North America; and 3) coverage of biodiversity conservation and climate-change impacts in North America. For the first time, applicants may also include a stipend in the proposed budget.
Fall Deadline: Nov. 15, 2015
The McGraw Fellowship for Business Journalism
This non-residency fellowship provides experienced journalists with grants of up to $15,000 to produce deeply reported investigative or enterprise stories on critical topics related to U.S. business and the economy.
Fall Deadline: Nov. 15, 2015
ivoh Restorative Narrative Fellowship
ivoh’s fellowship is an extension of the organization’s work around Restorative Narrative — a genre of stories that show how people and communities are making a meaningful progression from a place of despair to a place of resilience. The fellowship will provide four fellows with a stipend to spend six months telling Restorative Narratives in various communities. The fellowship is open to media practitioners of all kinds — photographers, journalists, gamers, documentary filmmakers, and advertisers. Each fellow will receive a $2,500 stipend to cover costs associated with their work for the fellowship. These costs may include travel, data analysis, research expenses and more. The fellowship is designed to enable fellows to work independently over a six-month period while maintaining their regular work. Fellows, who will work with a story coach during the fellowship, will maintain autonomy throughout the storytelling process and will not be beholden to their story coach or funders.
Fall Deadline: Nov. 16, 2015
DECEMBER 2015 DEADLINES
Nieman-Berkman Fellowship in Journalism Innovation
This non-residency fellowship provides experienced journalists with grants of up to $15,000 to produce deeply reported investigative or enterprise stories on critical topics related to U.S. business and the economy.
Fall Deadline: Nov. 15, 2015
JANUARY 2016 DEADLINES
FASPE Summer Ethics Fellowship in Journalism
Europe
FASPE Journalism uses the conduct of reporters and other media professionals during the Holocaust and in Nazi Germany as a launching point for an intensive course of study on contemporary journalism ethics. FASPE is predicated upon the power of place. Fellows visit Auschwitz and other sites in Germany and Poland where they consider how to apply the lessons of history to the ethical challenges of their profession today.
Deadline: Jan. 5, 2016
IN PROGRESS OR FUTURE FELLOWSHIPS
Alexia Foundation Grant Program
Various locations
The Alexia Foundation provides grants of $25,000 to students, professionals and women for a serious documentary photographic projects. Deadlines for this year are closed.
Associated Press Global News Internship Program
Various locations
This paid internship program is for students who are aspiring cross-format journalists and will contribute to AP’s text, video, photo and interactive reporting. The application period for the 2015 internship is closed. Questions may be emailed to internship@ap.org.
Bay Area Video Coalition Mediamaker Fellowship
San Francisco, CA
The fellowship selects fellows for a 10-month program that supports project development with professional mentorship in multiplatform and transmedia storytelling through emerging technologies and strategic marketing.
Data & Society Fellow
New York City
The fellowship brings together researchers, entrepreneurs, activists, policy creators, journalists and public intellectuals who are interested in engaging one another on the key issues introduced by the increasing availability of data in society.
Donald W. Reynolds Fellowships
Columbia, MO or remote
The fellowship offers an annual program for individuals to develop innovative ideas within journalism and to help build the public’s knowledge in these areas.
Edward R. Murrow Press Fellowship
New York City
The fellowship offers one fellow a nine-month period of writing, reporting and providing analysis on newsworthy international events at the Council on Foreign Relations headquarters. Interested candidates who meet the program’s eligibility requirements can apply online between January 1 and March 1 on an annual basis.
Fellowship in Professional Journalism for Morning News Journalists
Dallas, TX
The fellow will contribute to the student-generated news website at the University of Texas at Austin Moody College of Communication as well as teach a course in her own expertise.
Fulbright Journalism & Communications Grants
Fulbright offers opportunities in Germany, Ireland, Spain and Taiwan. The timeline for this year is now closed but will start again in the early spring.
Google Journalism Fellowships
Various locations
The fellowship is for undergraduate, graduate and journalism students interested in using technology to tell stories in new and dynamic ways at various organizations.
Innovation in Development Reporting Grant Programme (IDR)
The Innovation in Development Reporting Grant Programme (IDR) is a media-funding project operated by the European Journalism Centre (EJC). The grant programme aims to advance creative reporting approaches, thus enabling a better coverage of international development issues. The grant intends to raise awareness about these issues by enabling the production of stories that have a strong impact on media audiences in the following nine European countries: Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
Deadline: Mar. 2, 2016
International Reporting Fellowship for Minority Journalists
Various locations
This short-term program allows journalists of color the chance to travel overseas to report on and publish stories about underreported issues of interest to their communities.
Joan Shorenstein Fellowship
Cambridge, MA
The fellowship brings journalists, policymakers and scholars together to the Harvard Kennedy School to advance research in media, politics and public policy.
Deadline: Feb. 1, 2016
Knight-Mozilla Fellowship
Various locations
Fellows spend 10 months embedded with partner newsrooms, such as the New York Times and ProPublica. Fellows are developers, technologists, civic hackers and data crunchers who work with the community inside and outside of their newsroom to develop open-source projects.
Knight Science Journalism Fellowship
Cambridge, MA
The nine-month Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT aims to increase mid-career journalists’ understanding of science, technology, medicine and environment by working with scientists and policy makers.
Knight-Wallace Fellowship
Ann Arbor, MI
The Knight-Wallace Fellowship brings journalists to the University of Michigan to bridge academia together with journalism.
Kyoto Prize Journalism Fellowship
San Diego, CA
The Kyoto Prize Journalism Fellowship at Point Loma Nazarene University is an initiative to develop modern education in the sciences, philosophy, society and the arts.
Meredith-Cronkite Fellowship
Phoenix, AZ
The week-long multimedia fellowship program sponsored by the Meredith Corporation and its Phoenix television station, KPHO CBS 5, offers broadcast journalism students from underrepresented groups a week of hands-on experience.
Metpro Tribune
Los Angeles or Chicago
Metpro helps beginning journalists launch careers and boost diversity in Tribune newsrooms.
MJ Bear Fellowship
Through the Online News Association, the MJ Bear Fellowships identify and celebrate early-career digital journalists who have demonstrated that they deserve support for their efforts.
Munk School of Global Affairs Global Journalism Fellowship
Toronto, Canada
This fellowship awards 20 fellows the chance to work at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs for media around the world in various platforms from broadcast to online.
National Geographic Photography Fellowship
Various locations
The two-year fellowship allows photographers to share their visual expertise with diverse areas of the National Geographic Society and with the public, producing stories, sharing their storytelling knowledge with other explorers, and bringing the Society’s mission to illuminate, teach, and inspire the world at large.
Reuters Journalism Fellowship Programme
Oxford, UK
This fellowship allows 25 mid-career journalists from around the world to conduct academic research in Oxford for various months in the academic year.
RJI Fellowships
Missouri School of Journalism and Elsewhere
The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute invites proposals from people and institutions to collaborate with RJI on innovative ideas and projects to improve the practice or understanding of journalism. The fellows program gives people and institutions the time and space to create, test and measure strategies, products and services that will strengthen journalism in the 21st Century. There are three types of RJI fellowships: residential, non-residential and institutional.
Santa Fe Institute’s Journalism Fellowship In Complex Systems
Santa Fe, NM
The fellowship is for veteran journalists interested in exploring complex systems science more deeply and understanding the issues underlying current scientific debates in many scientific fields. The 2015 application period for this fellowship is postponed.
Scripps Howard Foundation Multimedia Fellowship
Washington DC
This year-long fellowship allows post-graduates to create multimedia projects for the Scripps Howard Foundation Wire’s website as well as mentor undergraduate students. Next year’s application deadline is in April.
The Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism
Atlanta, GA
The one-year fellowship is offered to six journalists and is designed to enhance public understanding of mental health issues and combat stigma and discrimination against people with mental illness.
Deadline: Apr. 13, 2016
World Press Institute Fellowship
Various locations
The fellowship is offered to 10 journalists from around the world and provides immersion into governance, politics, business, media, journalistic ethics and culture of the United States.
Sonia Paul is a freelance journalist based in India, and is the editorial assistant at MediaShift. Her work has appeared in a broad range of media, including the Al Jazeera Media Network, Caravan, Foreign Policy, Guardian, Mashable, New York Times, PRI’s The World, Roads & Kingdoms and VICE News. She previously produced the grant-funded podcast series Shizuoka Speaks, based in Japan. She is on Twitter and Instagram @sonipaul.