Great Lakes Local News Fellowship
Applications for the 2027-2028 academic year are now open.
Deadline for applicants is February 1, 2027.
About the Fellowship
The Great Lakes Local News Fellowship is a specialized Knight-Wallace Fellowship that supports journalists revitalizing local news in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin.
Wallace House Center for Journalists launched the Great Lakes Local News Fellowship in 2024 with a $1 million challenge grant from the Michigan-based Song Foundation supported by a $280,000 matching grant from the Illinois-based Joyce Foundation.
A fellowship to help rebuild, lead and sustain local news.
As members of the Knight-Wallace Fellowship class, Great Lakes Local News Fellows live in Ann Arbor during the academic year while retaining the flexibility to stay connected to their newsrooms. Applicants apply with an actionable journalism project for their organization, such as scaling a new outlet, rebuilding coverage and community engagement, or developing a sustainable model. The cohort-driven program seeks to build connections between local news changemakers across the region.
Great Lakes Local News Fellows receive:
- $90,000 stipend and health insurance for the academic year
- Access to the University of Michigan’s professional schools and faculty
- Hands-on guidance in entrepreneurship, organizational development and sustainability, and technology
- Post-fellowship support to help bring your entrepreneurial journalism projects to life
Meet our Fellows
Clare Roth ’27, leader of The Ohio Newsroom. Focus: Leverage shared infrastructure across public media and partner with civic institutions to create and sustain regional reporting positions that serve news deserts.
Reid Williams ’27, co-founder and co-director of the Local Journalism Foundation of Kalamazoo County. Focus: Develop civic strategies to foster people and communities to seek, value and act on news.
Elizabeth Jensen ’26, of Press Forward Northern Michigan. Focus: Develop strategies to bring together new and existing newsrooms across the 23, mostly rural, counties in Northern Michigan.
Irene Romulo ’26, co-founder of Cicero Independiente, a bilingual newsroom that reports with and for the majority immigrant community of Cicero, Illinois. Focus: Explore structural mechanisms to build, expand, and sustain community-owned newsrooms.
Become a Founding Donor
We are collaborating with philanthropic partners across the Great Lakes region to establish a $5 million fund within the next five years to sustain and expand this fellowship.
Learn how you can help us build a future where local journalism thrives across the Great Lakes region.
Contact:
Lynette Clemetson
Wallace House Director
(734) 998-7666
Applications for the 2027-2028 academic year are now open!
We encourage accomplished journalists from local news ventures in the Great Lakes states committed to strengthening local news to apply for this opportunity to innovate and lead.
Eligibility
- Open to U.S. journalists and journalism strategists building or growing local news outlets in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio or Wisconsin.
- Applicants should live in or have a demonstrated understanding of the area they are proposing to serve and have at least five years of working experience.
- Applicants should have a clear intent to remain in and serve a community in one of our focus states after the completion of their fellowship.
Application Requirements
- Applicants must explain in their personal statement their current connection to local news in one of the Great Lakes states.
- In their project proposal, applicants must describe their entrepreneurial journalism project and how the fellowship and extra resources would help them achieve their goals.
- Applicants should be specific in the skills they have and the skills they need to develop.
Frequently Asked Questions
I have an idea for a new journalism venture in the Midwest. Should I apply to the Great Lakes Local News Fellowship?
New journalism ventures in the “ideas stage” and not yet launched are best suited for our traditional Knight-Wallace Fellowship. We encourage you to apply to our general applicant pool and pitch your idea. The Great Lakes Local News Fellowship is designed for entrepreneurs and strategists who are far enough into a new venture to know what they don’t know and have specific growth, strategic and engagement challenges to tackle.
What sorts of projects are a strong fit for the Great Lakes Local News Fellowship?
The Great Lakes Local News Fellowship is intended for projects that have begun to be implemented but need support to develop or expand. Examples of potential projects include – but are not limited – to crafting or retooling a business plan, strengthening a funding and revenue model, addressing a technical or distribution challenge, or designing community engagement strategies to rebuild public trust in journalism or reach underserved communities.
Do Great Lakes Local News Fellows need to reside in Ann Arbor, Michigan?
The Great Lakes Local News Fellowship is part of the overall Knight-Wallace Fellowships – which is a residential fellowship program. Attending weekly seminars at Wallace House on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and auditing classes at the University of Michigan is a core part of this immersive, cohort-based experience. However, Great Lakes Local News Fellows are allowed and expected to stay connected to their newsrooms during the fellowship, because their projects are real-time pursuits that they are iterating on and implementing during the academic year. Great Lakes Local News Fellows can structure their weeks to travel to their home states periodically to stay connected to their teams. Please be clear in your application about your specific situation and how often you would hope to travel if offered the fellowship.
Is the Great Lakes Local News Fellowship only for journalists and/or journalism strategists from newly launched media organizations?
We especially encourage entrepreneurial project proposals from applicants working for media organizations launched within the past five years. We are also very open to “intrapreneurship” projects from applicants working for long-standing local media organizations. These “intrapreneurship” projects should be designed to address a very specific community need.
My news organization is not well-known. Should I still apply?
Absolutely! The purpose of the Great Lakes Local News Fellowship is to help address the alarming decline of local journalism and the resulting breakdown in social cohesion necessary for informed, functioning communities. We seek to support journalists committed to rebuilding strong, inclusive local news outlets. These journalists need not hail from well-known organizations – but rather from organizations of any size fostering community engagement, action and change.
Find FAQs about applying for our traditional fellowship here.
Next Steps
- Review preparing your U.S. application.
- Fill out and submit application form. Application forms are hosted on the OpenWater web platform.