Pulitzer Center International Reporting Fellowship Program 2019, USA

Many of today’s international crises have a strong religious component, yet media coverage often omits or oversimplifies these complexities and nuances. The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University believes that a deep examination of faith and values is critical to address today’s global challenges, and that the open engagement of religious and cultural traditions with one another can promote peace. With this mission in mind, the Berkley Center will select one Georgetown student annually to receive the Pulitzer Center International Reporting Fellowship. Projects should investigate or illuminate the religious dimension of an international issue, bringing to light what is often overlooked, untold, or misunderstood.

Working closely with the Pulitzer Center, recipients will build on their project proposal and decide on storytelling strategies and a plan of deliverables. Deliverables could include a combination of articles, photography, audio, video or other medium through which to convey the reporting to be published on the Pulitzer Center website. Recipients are encouraged to seek other outlets for their work, though these need not be included in the initial project proposal.    

Pulitzer Center staff members provide editorial support as students turn their reporting into publishable material and assist with helping students establish deadlines. The Pulitzer Center also pairs the reporting fellow with a professional journalist who has been a Pulitzer Center grantee and can offer the student advice, whether about the region where the student is traveling or on the subject matter of the reporting (or both in some cases). Additionally, the Pulitzer Center hosts an annual fellows’ weekend in Washington, D.C., to expose fellowship recipients to the work of other fellows, provide an opportunity to network with professional journalists and editors, and further broaden horizons.

Fellowship recipients are required to adhere to the Pulitzer Center’s Ethics and Standards Policy throughout the reporting project. The fellow will be expected to complete work associated with the fellowship by the end of August 2019. The Pulitzer Center will disburse half of the fellowship funds when the fellow submits necessary paperwork and shows travel/flight arrangements and half upon submission of all agreed-upon deliverables (articles, photos, etc.).

Up to $3,000 is available for field reporting for summer 2019.

The fellowship is part of a collaboration between the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

The 2018 Application Cycle

Deadline: January 15, 2019

Information Session: October 24, 2018 | 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. | Maguire 304

Who

Any full-time undergraduate or graduate student enrolled in a Georgetown degree program (including May 2019 graduates) is welcome to apply.

Applicants should be committed to examining the religious component(s) of the issue they select. No specialization in a religious studies field is required, however, applicants should be able to demonstrate a nuanced understanding of the role of religion in world affairs in their application, alongside the ability to tell a compelling story. Previous reporting experience is not a requirement for this fellowship. Pulitzer Center editors will work closely with the fellow on storytelling strategies, reporting methods, and travel logistics.

Where

The fellow will spend several weeks working with Pulitzer Center editors in Washington, D.C., and at least two weeks in the field working on the international reporting project.

When

Applications are due January 15, 2019. The fellowship winner will be announced on February 15, 2019.

The fellow will be expected to complete work associated with the fellowship by the end of August 2019.

How

The fellow will be expected to produce several media pieces such as blog posts for the Pulitzer Center website, articles, video and/or slideshows. The fellow will work with Pulitzer Center editors to determine a set of deliverables for the project appropriate to the fellow's past experience. The Pulitzer Center will provide technical and editorial support through the planning, reporting, and writing/production phases of the fellowship.

As this fellowship requires journalistic independence, students should not propose stories about a Georgetown project.

The strongest proposals will identify an untold religious angle/story that is part of a wider systemic issue of global importance and will present a clear, succinct plan for telling that story.

Representatives of the Berkley Center, the broader Georgetown community, and the Pulitzer Center will evaluate applications and choose the fellow.

You are encouraged to look at other projects supported by the Pulitzer Center in the past, both to learn from successful projects and to avoid proposing a project that has already been funded by the Pulitzer Center.

A strong proposal includes:

• What issue the applicant wants to address
• Whose stories s/he wants to tell
• Where the applicant will travel to cover the issue
• Which media the applicant thinks will tell the story best
• Who or what kinds of people the applicant plans to talk to, how he/she will make the material accessible to lay audiences
• How the project matches the Pulitzer Center's goal of focusing on under-reported systemic issues of global importance, and how the project meets the Berkley Center’s additional goal of focusing specifically on untold religious aspects of said issue
• What the applicant hopes to get from the project and why the project interests the applicant