Knight-Bagehot Fellowship

The Knight-Bagehot Fellowship offers journalists the opportunity to enhance their understanding and knowledge of business, economics, finance and technology, as well as gain a strong understanding of the business of journalism itself.

Fellows spend two semesters at Columbia Journalism School and take most of their classes at Columbia Business School. The fellows meet weekly for off-the-record seminars and dinners with top journalists, entrepreneurs and corporate leaders.

In scope and depth, it is the most comprehensive and rigorous business journalism fellowship in the world. As such, Knight-Bagehot fellows are required to have earned a bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) from an accredited university. The fellowship is an academic program in which the fellows are enrolled in classes and receive grades for their work. Fellows meet together once a week for a seminar and dinner, and each fellow chooses their own particular set of business and journalism classes. Three academic tracks guide those choices. Two tracks lead to a Certificate in Economics and Business Journalism. The third leads to a Master of Arts in Journalism.

The fellowship runs during Columbia’s academic year from mid-August through May and accepts up to 10 fellows each year. Each fellow receives free tuition, health insurance and a stipend to offset living expenses in New York City. For the 2022-2023 academic year, fellows received a stipend of $60,000 plus health insurance. They may apply for subsidized housing in a Columbia-affiliated facility.

The fellowship is named for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which established an endowment for the program, and Walter Bagehot (pronounced BADGE-it), the 19th­-century editor of The Economist. The program also depends on grants from a number of other charitable foundations, corporations and publishing organizations for a significant portion of its annual budget. The sponsors have no role in the selection of fellows or the curriculum, which are both entirely managed by the Director of the Program and the Journalism School.