The WBUR Newsroom Fellowship is a newly-launched program from WBUR, Boston’s NPR station, which hopes to connect young journalists with hands-on training in public media.
Geared toward recent grads and early-career journalists, the Fellowship hopes to develop skills through the guidance of WBUR’s editors and producers, while offering a chance to work with newsroom journalists. Fellows will be involved with news production at every level.
WBUR’s description for the fellowship has been copied below. Check out their recent announcement of the opportunity for more information.
Newsroom Rotation
The Fellow will embed in different parts of the newsroom, rotating approximately every three months, maximizing exposure to the many aspects of public media. Each fellow will be paired with a newsroom mentor that will guide them through the entire fellowship program.
- Newscast. The Fellow will learn how to gather and write headline-style stories for broadcast, navigate WBUR’s newsroom content management systems, and record and edit audio.
- Live broadcast. The Fellow will join the production team of a WBUR show, will pitch ideas and learn how to produce daily segments for air, both live and pre-recorded.
- Digital. The Fellow will learn how to prepare stories for WBUR’s website, write headlines, and deploy social media strategy.
- Reporting. In the final months of the fellowship, the Fellow will use the skills developed in the previous rotations as a reporter in the newsroom. The Fellow will both have a chance to pitch ideas and be assigned to stories, working with an editor to learn piece scripting, editing, and story production.
Fellowship & Application Details
- The fellowship will run from January through December 2021. Applications, open now, are due by Friday, October 9, 2020, and finalist(s) will be notified by Friday, November 6, 2020.
- The fellowship is open to candidates who have recently received — or are about to receive — an undergrad or graduate degree, or who have recently embarked on a career in journalism.
- Fellows will receive a salary of $50,000 along with healthcare and other Boston University benefits.
- To apply, candidates should submit the following materials to fellowship@wbur.org
- A cover letter explaining what matters to you most when it comes to journalism, what you hope to achieve in the fellowship, and a description of your interest or experience in promoting traditionally underrepresented voices and issues in journalism.
- Resume
- Work sample, for example: news clip, audio sample, an academic paper, or piece of creative writing
- Two references
