At a time when the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 epidemic continues to affect students and employers across the nation, Columbia Journalism School is collaborating with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to provide graduating students with reporting grants to support their transitions to professional newsrooms.
About the Program
Columbia Journalism School established a $50,000 fund in 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2020, administered by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, to award individual grants to graduates so they can continue work on their theses or develop other freelance stories to be pitched for publication. These reporting grants have also funded local news reporting and international reporting.
The Pulitzer Center solicits proposals from the graduating class every spring to report on enterprising stories focused on crises anywhere in the world. Reporting Fellow selections are made jointly by the Columbia Journalism School and the Pulitzer Center based on applications that include project proposals. Fellows receive mentorship from the Pulitzer Center team, which also pairs each Fellow with an adviser who has a particular interest or expertise in the Reporting Fellow's proposed project.
The reporting grants are funded by generous alumni of the school, and the international reporting grants are funded by the Simon and June Li Center for Global Journalism, a new center at Columbia committed to preparing journalists to work, think and report globally. Recipients of the international grants are known as the Li Center for Global Journalism Fellows. The Pulitzer Center, founded 16 years ago, is dedicated to raising awareness of underreported global issues through direct support for quality journalism across all media platforms and a unique program of outreach and education to schools and universities. The Columbia Journalism School is a member of the Pulitzer Center’s Campus Consortium, with an emphasis on support for the school’s documentary filmmaking students.
2023 Post Graduate Reporting Fellows
Now in its fourth year, the Pulitzer Center honored ten members of the Columbia Journalism School Class of 2023 with reporting grants. Learn more about these excellent journalists and their work here.
Past Post Graduate Reporting Fellows
In the program's fourth year, ten members of the Class of 2023 were awarded reporting fellowships. The grantees and their stories include:
- How the Women’s Selecta Became the Best Soccer Team in El Salvador (El Faro) and its Spanish version | Nelson Raudah Zabla '23
In the program's third year, 10 reporting grants were awarded to members of the Class of 2022.
Grantees and their stories include:
- The impact of coastal erosion in Ghana (Joy Online, Citi Newsroom, and Business & Financial Times) | Richard Abbey '22
- Hasta Encontrarlos (Till We Find Them) | Jean Chapiro '22
- After the Fire: Bronx Residents Return to Building That Burned (Shelterforce) | Ngozi Cole '22
- Italy’s kidnapped children — a story of institutional violence (POLITICO Europe) | Eleonora Francica '22
- Kashmir’s Wular Lake Is on Its Deathbed (in progress) | Surbhi Gupta '22
- New Koreans (EST Media) | Jia Jung '22
- No Accountability: How a Rare Effort to Compensate Iraqi Airstrike Victims Failed (The Intercept) | Pesha Magid '22
- U.S. legislation banning undocumented immigrants from higher education (The Chronicle of Higher Education)| Marcela Rodrigues '22
- The Taliban rule in Afghanistan (in progress) | Mehr Sher '22
- Controversial Canadian Silver Mine ‘Likely’ To Reopen in Guatemala Despite Opposition | Hayley Woodin Hastings '22
Please note: most in-progress story titles are unofficial and merely descriptive. All titles should be considered unofficial until publication.
Read More: Reporting Fellow Stories and Projects: Articles, photography, multimedia, and field notes by Reporting Fellows, published by the Pulitzer Center and other news media outlets.
In the program's second year, 10 reporting grants were awarded to members of the Class of 2021.
Grantees and their stories include:
- Ghana’s New Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill (Protocol, The New York Times) | Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu '21
- In Lockdown With Their Rapists (PassBlue) | Damilola Banjo '21
- Land, Water, Blood (The Guardian) | Richard Brown '21
- A 'Prevention Revolution' Offers Hope in the World’s Largest HIV Epidemic (The Nation) | Shane Burke '21
- In Kenya, These Interventions Are Decreasing Maternal Mortality (Al Jazeera) | Anna Gordon '21
- Reconstruction in Diyarbakır, Turkey (in progress) | Monica Hunter-Hart '21
- Who Holds Halfway Houses Accountable? (Pulitzer Center) | Rebecca Kelliher '21
- 'Disaster Capitalism': The Effects of Water Privatization on Majority-Black Communities (Pulitzer Center) | Catharine Smith '21
- The Dark Side of Italy's Rubber Valley (Pulitzer Center) | Giulia Pozzi '21
- Survivors of Unexploded Ordnance in Laos (in progress) | Matthew Reysio-Cruz '21
Please note: most in-progress story titles are unofficial and merely descriptive. All titles should be considered unofficial until publication.
Read More: Reporting Fellow Stories and Projects: Articles, photography, multimedia, and field notes by Reporting Fellows, published by the Pulitzer Center and other news media outlets.
In the inaugural year, 18 reporting grants were awarded to members of the Class of 2020.
Stories included:
- Food Revolution in New York's Latino Community (Grub Street/New York Magazine) | Muriel Alarcón '20
- A Quiet Revolution: Female Imams Taking Over an LA Mosque (The Guardian) | Amel Brahmi '20
- Pandemic and Human Rights Abuses in Uganda: Deaths, Injuries, and Broken Promises (Pulitzer Center) | Musinguzi Blanshe '20
- Non-Unanimous Juries in Louisiana (The Nation) | Zoe Chevalier '20
- Environmentalists Target Mountains of Fertilizer Waste (Undark Magazine) | Bianca Fortis '20
- Homeless in a Pandemic-stricken Chicago (Chicago Reader) | Sarah Gelbard '20
- The Former Soviet Union Immigrant Vote (Pulitzer Center) | Anastassia Gliadkovskaya '20
- Pills in the Post: How COVID Reopened the Abortion Wars (The Guardian) | Sarah Hurtes '20
- Credit unions for formerly incarcerated persons in New York (in progress) | Kirsti Karttunen '20
- The Persistent Mysteries of Electroconvulsive Therapy (Undark) and Should Electroconvulsive Therapy Be an Option for Children with Severe Autism and Catatonia? These Families Say Yes (MindSite News) | Astrid Landon '20
- In Politically Torn Tbilisi, Transgender Sex Workers Fight to Survive (POLITICO Europe) | Chloe Lula '20
- COVID-19 and Indigenous Communities in Latin America (Goats & Soda/NPR) | Sofia Moutinho '20
- One Woman’s Quest to Defy the Odds of Addiction (Belt Magazine) | Aryana Michelle Noroozi '20
- Sustainable Farming Revolution in Puerto Rico (Miami Herald) | Syra Ortiz-Blanes '20
- The Olive Trees Apocalypse (Atlas Obscura) | Agostino Petroni '20
- Special Needs and COVID-19 (in progress) | Sadia Rafiquddin '20
- A Year of Pandemic Pivots: An Exhausted Fine Dining Industry Inches Toward Reopening After a Year of Unimaginable Losses (Eater) | Sara Sheridan
- The Show Must Go On: Travelling Showmen in the Vale of Health (The Fence) | Isobel Thompson '20
Please note: most in-progress story titles are unofficial and merely descriptive. All titles should be considered unofficial until publication.
Read More: Reporting Fellow Stories and Projects: Articles, photography, multimedia, and field notes by Reporting Fellows, published by the Pulitzer Center and other news media outlets.
About the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
Founded 16 years ago, the Pulitzer Center is dedicated to raising awareness of underreported global issues through direct support for quality journalism across all media platforms and a unique program of outreach and education to schools and universities. The Columbia Journalism School is a member of the Pulitzer Center’s Campus Consortium, with an emphasis on support for the school’s documentary filmmaking students.