Apply for Editorial Integrity and Leadership Initiative (United States)

This fellowship for public media journalists will strengthen news leadership and ethical decision-making skills. Over nine months, participants will receive individual coaching, learn from industry experts, collaborate in small peer groups, and work on a personal project that will benefit their newsroom and their own leadership.

This course is free for 26 admitted participants. Tuition is covered by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Training that fellows can expect during the duration of the program will include:

• Exploring successful approaches to leadership and ethics within public media
• Identifying a challenge, and addressing it over the course of the fellowship
• Focusing on community engagement, including identifying new potential audiences and using data and metrics
• Having difficult conversations, giving feedback, empowering staff and managing your relationships with supervisors
• Dealing with vulnerable sources
• Recruiting and training the next generation of journalists, including in-house talent
• Managing projects, community partnerships, budgets and resources

Fellows will participate in:

• 12 live online workshops
• Three virtual peer group meetings
• 12 virtual one-on-one coaching sessions
• A two- to three-day virtual closing session in April 2025

Learning Outcomes

• In this course, public media journalists will:
  • Sharpen the skills you use in making editorial and ethical decisions.
  • Identify an issue facing your newsroom, and use a framework to test, learn and track progress.
  • Use custom tools and assessments to gain awareness of your personal leadership style.
  • Tap into the mission of public media and apply those values to your leadership and work in the newsroom.
  • Deepen an audience- and data-informed approach to meeting the information needs of communities.
  • Identify skills necessary to lead high-functioning teams, manage conflict and guide your newsroom through important change.
  • Focus on how to recruit, grow and retain top talent.

Criteria

• You must be a public media journalist in a U.S.-based newsroom to apply for this program.
• The application requires a reference letter from a supervisor that highlights your current influence as a leader and how this fellowship might impact your leadership and career trajectory.
• This program is designed for public media journalists currently serving in an editorial leadership role.
• Applicants must be committed to participating in all aspects of the program, including the in-person week starting Sept. 16, and their supervisor and station manager should share in that commitment.
• You should also have the support of your supervisor and station manager to commit to full participation in all aspects of the program, including the in-person week that starts Sept. 16.
• Applicants who weren’t selected for the first cohort can apply again for the second one.
• Participants for the second cohort will be notified no later than June and convene in St. Petersburg for five days the week of Sept. 16.
• Fellows will be matched with mentors and coaches, and will be assigned to work in small peer groups from within their cohorts.
• After the in-person program launches, fellows will begin alternating-week 90-minute live online trainings, have regular check-ins with their coaches/mentors, join in conversations in a Slack workspace and build on relationships with fellowship colleagues.

For more information, visit Poynter Institute.