Upcoming fellowship dates
Fellowship week: October 8-11, 2024
Application deadline
July 10, 2024
Description
Our 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 in the five months that follow either a major investigative or explanatory health reporting project or a series of individual data-driven health stories that focus on issues important to their communities.
This program offers training on data acquisition, cleaning, analysis and visualization led by some of the most skilled data reporters and journalism practitioners in the nation. They teach journalists how to “bulletproof” their data, ensuring accuracy in reporting. Following the training week, Senior Fellows mentor reporters as they pair original data analysis with compelling narratives on underlooked health issues.
Admitted Fellows receive:
- A $2,000 stipend to defray reporting costs
- One week of extensive, hands-on training in beginner, intermediate or advanced Excel or R-Studio
- Five months of professional mentorship
Fellows also are eligible to apply for professional mentorship in engaged journalism and $1,000-$2,000 to support those creative efforts.
Reporting themes we support
We embrace a broad view of health, which doesn’t just happen at doctors' offices and hospitals. Health is shaped by our environment — our schools, our neighborhoods and our communities. We strive to admit Fellows whose work and interests for their collaboration with us reflect that. And woven through our work is a focus on how systemic inequities can shape life outcomes and child and family well-being. As participants in our program, journalists also learn how our model of impact reporting can lead to narrative and policy change.
With the Data Fellowship, we support different reporting themes for projects and stories for National applicants (outside of California) and California applicants.
National proposals should focus on child health and well-being, incorporating one or more of the following themes:
- The impact of systems on children and families, including foster care and child protective services
- Economic and social forces and policies that strengthen or weaken families and communities
- Housing insecurity for children and families
- Safety net programs, their effectiveness and their impact on family stability
- The impact of chronic stress, poverty, multi-generational and childhood trauma on child development
- Health care policies and access to care for children and families
- Unmet mental health needs of children or parents and lack of services
- The intersection between partner violence and child abuse
- Approaches to improving outcomes for vulnerable children and families
- The impact of chronic stress, poverty and childhood trauma on child development
- The intersection of race/ethnicity and/or class in child and family outcomes
California proposals should focus on how community conditions influence health and well-being, including the following themes:
- Racial, ethnic, economic and geographic health disparities
- Health-related environmental justice issues
- The impact of community violence on health and well-being
- The performance of California’s safety net
- Health and mental health challenges for immigrants
- The school environment and the emotional health of children
- Public policies — or failings of public policies — to address the high cost of housing, transportation challenges, air pollution and neighborhood safety
- Innovative solutions to the state's public health and health care challenges
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Don’t see your question answered there? Reach out to us at chj@usc.edu.