19th News Fellowship
Applications for our 2024-25 Frances Ellen Watkins fellowship are open until May 31, 2024, at 5 p.m. CT. Meet our 2023-24 fellows and explore their work here. And here’s a look at the work of our 2022-23 inaugural fellowship cohort.
Named for the “mother of African-American journalism,” the program was launched to provide recent graduates, mid-career alums and former students of Historically Black Colleges and Universities with full-year, salaried fellowships with full benefits in the areas of reporting, audience engagement and news product and technology. Learn more about Frances Ellen Watkins Harper below.
About the program
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Fellows will spend a year working in reporting, audience engagement, product or technology roles with full-time salaries and benefits, made possible by the generous support of Michelle Mercer and Bruce Golden. Fellows will receive on-the-job training, mentorship and professional development opportunities. We also provide career coaching to prepare fellows for their path after their fellowship.
Fellowship tracks
Our cohorts include three reporting fellows, one audience engagement fellow and one product & technology fellow.
Fellows in the reporting track should expect to gain more experience in:
Covering issues deeply through original reporting, researched context and nuanced framing
Pitching stories they want to follow through the lens of equity and representation
Identifying and developing areas of expertise within their reporting
Exploring storytelling across digital platforms and in-person events
Centering the voices and experiences of people on the margins, who are often affected the most at the intersections of gender and policy
See stories reported on by our 2023-2024 and 2022-2023 fellows.
Fellows in the audience engagement track should expect to gain more experience in:
Finding, pitching, producing and reporting out audience-centric stories that live first and foremost on off-platform channels like Instagram. For example, our callout for Black country music fans, or our roundup of Women’s History Month quotes from our current fellow cohort
Optimizing and distributing journalism across platforms — such as on our site, via search, on social and in newsletters — to meet different audiences where they are
Crafting accurate, compelling headlines, social and newsletter copy, and visuals on deadline
Working with different roles across editorial, audio, event and product teams to execute on audience engagement projects
Using key newsroom platforms and tools to draft and schedule social media posts, update our homepage, monitor real-time metrics and trending topics, and produce an article or newsletter
Fellows in the product and technology track should expect to gain more experience in:
A specific engineering focus, building on existing skills in PHP and/or WordPress development, front-end engineering in HTML, CSS and JavaScript or data science quantitative analysis
Testing product feasibility, writing technical requirements and estimating timelines
Collaborating with engineers, product designers, researchers and managers to build, test and launch new features for products, like our website, republishing tools, apps like Apple News, and revenue and audience databases. For example, our current fellow built analytics dashboards for staff.
Communicating about technical progress, roadblocks and tradeoffs in a way that is understandable for non-technical stakeholders
Making technical decisions based on factors like ethics, security, performance and accessibility
Who can apply
Eligible candidates should be any one of the following:
A recent graduate (within two years of graduation), early-career (three to four years’ experience) or mid-career alum (5-10 years’ experience) of a Historically Black College or University
A graduating senior of a Historically Black College College or University with a graduation date prior to the anticipated fellowship start date of October 2024
An individual who attended a Historically Black College or University for at least two years, and either transferred or did not graduate
All applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States. This can include conditional student/work visas, provided The 19th will not be required to take additional steps in sponsorship
Eligible candidates should also have the following:
Some relevant experience in their chosen fellowship track
A genuine interest in growing their career in journalism
Alignment with The 19th’s values and community guidelines
How to apply
When submitting an application, prospective fellows will need to submit the following:
A cover letter explaining why you want to work at The 19th, and what impact this fellowship program would have on your career goals
Your résumé
Relevant samples of your work
Feel free to reach out to jobs@19thnews.org if you have any questions.