The Persephone Miel Fellowship is designed to support journalists from outside the U.S. and Western Europe who are pursuing ambitious reporting projects and enable them to bring their work to a broader global audience.

The Persephone Miel Fellowship is overseen by the Pulitzer Center and was launched in partnership with Internews, a media development nonprofit. The fellowship benefits journalists with limited access to other fellowships and those whose work is not routinely disseminated internationally. The fellowship is named in honor of Persephone Miel, the former senior advisor of Internews, who dedicated her life to advancing the work of journalists across the globe. Miel fellowships involve reporting from within the applicant's native country—or following migrant communities from there to other locations.

See the announcement of the fellowship at the Internews ceremony in honor of Persephone in October 2010. Take a minute to meet our 2020 Miel fellows, Hsiuwen Liu (Hong Kong) and Alizeh Kohari (Pakistan).

Eligibility: The Persephone Miel Fellowships are open to all journalists, writers, photographers, radio producers or filmmakers, staff journalists, as well as freelancers and media professionals outside the U.S. and Western Europe who are seeking to report from their home country. Female journalists and journalists from developing countries are strongly encouraged to apply. Applicants must be proficient in English.

Selection: The fellowship recipient will be selected by the Pulitzer Center. Selection will be based on the strength of the proposed topic and the strength of the applicant's work as demonstrated in his or her work samples. We are looking for projects that explore systemic issues in the applicant's native country and that provide an overarching thesis, rather than individual spot reports from the field.

Terms of grant: The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting will provide a grant of $5,000 for a reporting project on topics and regions of global importance, with an emphasis on issues that have gone unreported or underreported in the mainstream media. Specific grant terms are negotiated during the application process based on the scope of proposed work and intended outcomes. Payment of the first half of the grant is disbursed at the beginning of the project, upon receipt of required materials, and the second half on submission of the principal work for publication/broadcast.

The Pulitzer Center also offers the fellow the opportunity to be mentored by a journalist from our global network of grantees. 

The Center works with fellowship recipients to distribute their work across international media outlets to reach the widest possible audience. Projects with multimedia components that combine print, photography, and video are strongly encouraged.