Wallace House returns to an in-person fellowship for the 2022-2023 academic year.

After a rewarding experience with two remote fellowship classes producing innovative work and in-depth journalism on the most pressing issues of the day, Wallace House is delighted to announce the return to in-person Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowships at the University of Michigan for the 2022-2023 academic year.

The Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowships will offer an academic year of study, collaborative learning and access to the resources of the University of Michigan for selected journalists to pursue ambitious journalism projects. Fellowship support includes a $75,000 stipend over eight months, the opportunity to audit courses across the university, professional development workshops and private seminars with journalism leaders and world-renowned experts. Fellows will reside in Ann Arbor and enjoy gatherings and activities in the comfort of Wallace House.

An invitation to apply

Applications for U.S. applicants are now open and are due on February 1, 2022. We hosted a webinar on December 17 to discuss the program and application process. It’s now available to watch on-demand.

The fellowship is open to a range of journalists, including reporters, editors, data experts, visual journalists, engagement specialists, designers and developers, entrepreneurs and organizational change agents.

Staff, freelance and contract journalists are welcome to apply. All applicants must have at least five years of reporting experience and hold a U.S. passport. Our international fellowships for the 2022-2023 academic year have already been awarded to international journalists who previously committed to the program and could not participate due to the pandemic. We plan to open international applications for the 2023-2024 academic year next fall.

An academic year to pursue an ambitious journalism project

The possibilities of what a journalist can do as a Knight-Wallace Fellow are as varied as the people we accept. We’re looking for bold journalism projects demonstrating an eagerness for growth and a commitment to the field. Areas of focus can include, but are not limited to, sharpening professional skills, addressing a challenge facing your newsroom, digging into research and data for a long-term reporting project or developing a journalism venture.

 


The Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowship for the 2022-2023 academic year is an in-person fellowship featuring:

  • Eight-month program of immersive study away from daily deadlines
  • $75,000 stipend for living expenses in Ann Arbor. Costs for auditing courses and participating in required workshops and fellowship activities are paid for by Wallace House.
  • Support for individual journalism projects designed to develop new skills, research a topic for long-form reporting, address a newsroom challenge or explore a journalism venture.
  • Specialized resources and access to faculty at the University of Michigan
  • Private seminars with newsroom innovators and world-renowned experts for candid, off-the-record conversations
  • Workshops to sharpen skills and leadership ability

Application Deadline is Feburary 1, 2022

Applications are now open. The deadline to apply is at 11:59 pm ET on Tuesday, February 1, 2022. 

Offers for Knight-Wallace Fellowships for U.S. applicants will be extended in early May 2022.

The 2022-2023 academic year begins Monday, August 29, 2022. Fellows are expected to arrive in Ann Arbor at least one week prior for fellowship orientation. 

 

Watch the Q&A Webinar

For more information on the fellowship and how to apply, Wallace House Director Lynette Clemetson and Associate Director Robert Yoon hosted a Q&A webinar that is now available to view on-demand.

 

Watch the Q&A Webinar now 

More about the Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowships

How to Apply

FAQs

 

Meeting and Bonding for the First Time, Over Zoom

Kicking off the Reporting Fellowship à la Wallace House style. Reporting Fellow, Jaeah Lee introduces herself to her fellow Fellows with a presentation about her life and journalism career.

First Impressions. Deep Connections.

My first assignment as a Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellow arrived in my inbox, and I immediately dreaded it. Each Fellow was to prepare a presentation about ourselves and our journey into journalism, to give one another a sense of who we are beneath the titles, bylines, and accolades. “We’d like to hear about your personal interests and what motivates you,” the email read. We’d do this over Zoom and each get 20 minutes. Twenty minutes! Just the thought of it made me shrivel.

As journalists, we often ask people to be vulnerable with us. to share their darkest memories, their innermost selves. I knew I was pretty bad at doing this myself, to be on the receiving end of probing personal questions. The last time I opened up to a group of journalists I barely knew, I broke into tears unexpectedly, and no, it was not the pretty kind but the sort of awkward, heaving, ugly cry that only gets worse when you try to stop it.

Couldn’t we just do a little virtual happy hour and keep things safely superficial?

Lynette Clemetson, Wallace House director, and Robert Yoon, associate director, opened the Fellowship’s first week with their own intros. They blew me away, which, of course, only made me more nervous. They each prepared a polished slideshow complete with archival family photos, decades-old clips, witty headlines about their careers, and spoke candidly about some of their most vulnerable moments—the times they questioned whether they should leave the industry, the doubts and anxieties they faced in between milestones. They were honest and heartfelt and inspiring in a way I wasn’t entirely prepared for. They set the tone for the rest of us.

As each Fellow took their turn, they took us inside their family histories, the reporting experiences that changed their lives, their career highs and lows, the insecurities and challenges that lingered. Many moments took me by surprise. Several Fellows shed a tear or two while sharing some of the hardships they experienced, and I cried with them, not just because I was moved, but also because I saw pieces of myself in their stories. While watching another Fellow speak—someone I met years earlier, whom I deeply admired and considered a friend—I realized that there were so many things about her life that never came up during our many phone calls catching up and talking shop. It dawned on me then that this wasn’t your average week of introductions.

By the time I presented, I felt like I already knew the group in this strangely, beautifully, intimate way.

My 20 minutes went by in a flash. By the end of the week, I even wished we had more time. We would have stayed out talking late into the night if only we could gather in person. The feeling reminded me of these dinners I used to have with a group of girlfriends during my twenties when we’d meet at someone’s apartment and take turns sharing stories about relationships, family, work, marriage, motherhood. We called it girl church.

On the second week of the Fellowship, a Fellow joked with me that she wondered if we had all unknowingly joined an eight-month journalism therapy program. We laughed. And the truth was, whether it was going to be like therapy or church, I couldn’t wait for what was ahead.

Jaeah Lee is a 2022 Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellow and an independent journalist based in San Fransisco. Her feature stories have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The California Sunday Magazine, Vice News, Topic, Columbia Journalism Review, and Mother Jones.

Announcing the 2021-2022 Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellows

The University of Michigan announced today the Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellows for the 2021-2022 academic year. A cohort of 11 journalists from a range of backgrounds and experiences will participate in a remote fellowship to pursue and publish in-depth reporting projects during this unique year of transition and reopening. 

Created in 2020 to support ambitious journalism and respond to the remote needs of Covid-19, the Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellowships provide an academic year of support and collaborative learning. Fellows undertake projects examining pressing public challenges including social shifts precipitated by the pandemic, the nation’s deep economic and political divisions, and persistent social justice issues surrounding race, ethnicity and inequality.

“We are proud to welcome this new group of fellows and to provide them with the resources to report and write about complex and timely issues,” said Lynette Clemetson, director of Wallace House. “The depth and range of the proposals we received this year is a testament to journalists’ ongoing commitment to illuminating people’s lived experience and the structures that shape our society.” 

Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellows will remain where they live while participating in weekly remote workshops, professional development sessions and seminars with University of Michigan faculty and experts. Two one-week Fellowship Cohort sessions at Wallace House on the University of Michigan campus are planned for the 2021-2022 academic year, subject to public health guidance.

The Reporting Fellowship is designed to benefit both working journalists and U.S. newsrooms. Each Reporting Fellow will pair with a local or national news organization to develop and publish their reporting project. The support of the fellowship allows news organizations to pursue ambitious journalism that they may not have the staff or funding to support independently.

Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellows will receive a stipend of $70,000 for the academic year plus an additional $10,000 in supplemental support to cover extra costs including health insurance, reporting equipment and supplemental travel-related expenses.

This adapted fellowship takes the place of the traditional, residential Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowship for the 2021-2022 academic year.

The Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellows and their reporting projects:

Assia Boundaoui, independent journalist, Chicago, Illinois
Redacted Stories: Reexamining FBI Surveillance Records of a Muslim-American Community

Nichole Dobo, Writer and Senior Editor for Audience Engagement, The Hechinger Report, Wilmington, Delaware
A Reckoning: Higher Education and Rural America
for The Hechinger Report

Daphne Duret, investigative reporter, USA Today, Lakeworth, Florida
Breaking Silence: The Plight of the Police Whistleblower
for USA Today

Jose Fermoso, Contributing Senior Reporter, The Oaklandside, Oakland, California
Oakland’s Deadly Roadways: Reckoning with Inequities in Urban Design
for The Oaklandside

Andrea González-Ramírez, independent journalist, New York City
A Watershed Moment for Addressing Sexual Violence in the U.S. Military

Erika Hayasaki, independent journalist, Southern California
History, Hate Crimes and Police Brutality: A Tale of Black and Asian American Lives in Two Cities
for The New Yorker

Jaeah Lee, independent journalist, San Francisco, California
Medical Fact vs. Fiction in Fatal Police Encounters

Surya Mattu, Investigative Data Journalist and Senior Data Engineer, The Markup, New York City
Watching the Watchers: Investigating How Smartphone Apps Are Used to Track Us
for The Markup

Simon Ostrovsky, Special Correspondent, PBS NewsHour, New York City
Modern Mythology: How Disinformation Bends Reality and How to Stop It
for PBS NewsHour

Elizabeth Scheltens, Senior Editorial Producer, Vox Media, Columbus, Ohio
Climate Resilience in the Great Lakes Region
for Vox

Kat Stafford, National Investigative Writer, Race and Ethnicity, The Associated Press, Detroit Michigan
From Birth to Death: How Generations of Black Americans Have Faced a Lifetime of Disparities
for The Associated Press

More about the Reporting Fellows and their reporting projects »

Announcing the Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellowship for 2021-2022

An Academic Year to Produce Ambitious Reporting on our Most Pressing Issues

Each year the Knight-Wallace Fellowships at the University of Michigan summon journalists to think boldly about their craft and enhance their skills to meet the needs of a changing industry. As the U.S. continues to grapple with a global pandemic and continuing economic, social, and political upheaval, ambitious reporting on efforts to move forward is essential.

The Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellowships will remain remote for the 2021-22 academic year, to respond to this unique period of transition. Applications are now open and are due on May 3. We held a Q&A Webinars on February 19 and April 1, to discuss the application process for interested applicants and newsroom editors.

The Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellowship will provide a $70,000 stipend over eight months plus $10,000 to support supplemental costs for reporting projects to be produced during the period of the fellowship. Our Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellows will participate in professional development and digital seminars with researchers and experts tackling challenges across a range ofields and disciplines. Fellows will have remote access to the world-class resources of the University of Michigan and regular opportunities for engagement with faculty and students.

We’ll select a cohort of ten accomplished journalists with different backgrounds and experiences to pursue in-depth reporting projects that require time and resources. Selected Fellows will not be required to leave their place of work.

We’re looking for proposals that step back from breaking and incremental coverage. Reporting projects may examine any issue or facet of society but should be timely and should involve capturing how the country and communities are grappling with change and moving toward solutions.

If in-person gatherings become possible and we can ensure a safe experience, we will host Fellows for two one-week sessions at Wallace House in Ann Arbor: one in the fall and one in the winter, culminating in an on-site symposium at the end of the academic year to highlight the reporting work produced during the fellowship.

A Focus on In-Depth Reporting

Published or produced work is a requirement of the fellowship. Applicants must submit a detailed reporting proposal related to the seismic challenges we now face. The output should match the proposed project and form of journalism. For instance, a documentary filmmaker might complete one film during the period of the fellowship; a long-form magazine writer might produce one or two published pieces; a community-based or enterprise reporter might produce a project that appears weekly or monthly.

Areas of focus can include but are not limited to science and medicine, the economy, law and justice, business, race and ethnicity, education, inequality, technology, the environment, and entertainment and recreation. Areas of coverage can be local, national or global.

The fellowship is not intended to support daily beat reporting that would be produced regardless of fellowship support. It is also not intended for book writing.

All work produced during the fellowship will be owned by the media organization for which it is produced and will carry an agreed-upon acknowledgment of support by the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists at the University of Michigan.  

The program is open to staff, freelance and contract journalists. All applicants must have at least five years of reporting experience and be either a U.S. resident or hold a U.S. passport. Uncertainty around international travel and visa restrictions makes it difficult to sponsor non-U.S. residents at this time.

 

The Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellowship for the 2021-22 academic year is a working fellowship featuring

  • An eight-month program focused on supporting ambitious, in-depth, innovative journalism projects examining our most pressing public challenges including but not limited to social shifts precipitated by the pandemic, the nation’s deep political divisions and persistent social justice issues surrounding race, ethnicity and inequality
  • A remote structure that allows reporters to remain where they live
  • A cohort of ten Fellows selected from a pool of experienced journalists from a variety of beats and expertise 
  • A $70,000 stipend to support reporting and fellowship participation dispersed monthly from September 2021 through April 2022
  • An additional $10,000 in supplemental support to cover extra costs including health insurance, reporting equipment and travel-related reporting expenses
  • Weekly remote seminars with University of Michigan faculty and subject matter experts from a wide range of fields
  • Professional development and supplemental skills workshops
  • Subject to public health guidance, two one-week Fellowship Cohort sessions held at Wallace House on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor with travel, lodging and hosting expenses covered by the program
  • A year-end symposium at the University of Michigan highlighting work produced during the fellowship 

Application Deadline is May 3

Applications are now open. The deadline to apply is at 11:59 pm ET on Monday, May 3. 

The Reporting Fellowship offers will be extended at the end of June.

 

An Invitation to Learn More

For more information on the fellowship and how to apply, Wallace House Director Lynette Clemetson, and Associate Director Robert Yoon held a Q&A webinar at 12:30 pm ET on Friday, February 19. Interested applicants were invited to join and ask questions. Newsroom editors who would like to know more about this opportunity for reporters on their team were also welcome to join. You can view the recording of the webinar on-demand here. 

A Q&A webinar for editors was held on April 1 at 12:30 PM ET. You can watch the recording of the webinar here. 

View the Q&A Webinar

View the Q&A Webinar for Editors

More About the Reporting Fellowship

Who Should Apply

How to Apply

Application Timeline

FAQs