Deadline: July 31, 2024
Are you looking for a new, fresh way to cover your community’s chronic problems? Do you want to meaningfully engage your audiences and hold politicians accountable by asking and answering the question, “Who is doing it better?” Then the Solutions Journalism Network Building Democracy Fellowship 2024 may be for you.
The Solutions Journalism Network is seeking 15 U.S.-based newsrooms that are up to the challenge of rethinking how and why they cover government and democracy, expanding the vital coverage of what’s going wrong with newsworthy stories highlighting efforts that are going right, and what communities can learn from them.
Benefits
- Selected newsrooms will commit at least one reporter and editor to this project and will receive a grant of $10,000 and nine months of training, resources and coaching to integrate solutions journalism into their existing government reporting. Each month, participants will spend about 13 hours on this project, three hours in trainings and workshops and roughly 10 additional hours of independent work.
Eligibility
- They are very interested in news organizations that want to cover the government’s large and important infrastructure investments through a solutions lens.
- They are also particularly interested in newsrooms that serve communities where civic participation is low, as shown (as a proxy) by low voter participation.
- They will give preference to newsrooms that fit either or both of those categories, but don’t let that stop you from applying.
- Previous solutions journalism training is not a requirement for this fellowship. However, newsrooms that have previously participated in SJN fellowships including Advancing Democracy, Democracy SOS or Renewing Democracy are strongly encouraged to apply.
Application
The deadline to apply is July 31. The fellowship that will run from September to June 2025. They will break from October 22 to November 19 due to the election and will monitor developments and adjust programming as necessary to accommodate the need to cover issues that arise before or after that.
For more information, visit Building Democracy Fellowship.
