The Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights awarded five grants totaling $180,000 to journalists and newsrooms for reporting on inequalities and misconduct in the American criminal justice system.
The Lipman Center’s Initiative in Reporting on Race and Criminal Justice provides newsrooms and reporters financial assistance and professional collaboration to pursue major reporting projects in their communities on law enforcement, prosecutorial, judicial, incarceration, racial and human rights abuses.
The grants will support yearlong reporting projects and will cover costs for data acquisition, analysis, and visualization, additional staff, FOIA requests, travel or other reporting needs.
“Stories about civil and human rights are, by definition, vital and indispensable to our understanding of how government works. That is especially true at the local level, where resources can be scarce. The Lipman Center is dedicated to making this reporting possible and gratified by the terrific efforts of our grantees,” said Robe Imbriano, Lipman Center director and Ira A. Lipman Associate Professor of Journalism.
The 2025 grant recipients are Capital & Main, a nonprofit newsroom based in Los Angeles; Arizona Luminaria, a nonprofit newsroom based in Tucson; independent journalist Indy Scholtens; independent journalist Oishika Neogi; and MuckRock News, a collaborative news service based in Boston that will work with local newsrooms for its Lipman project.
"The Lipman Center's work begins with a deep respect for local journalism, for staying with the story that others overlook," said Jelani Cobb, Dean and Henry R. Luce Professor of Journalism. "So we are especially proud to support these reporters and outlets as they confront abuses of power with clear focus and commitment to the public good."
Members of the grantee selection committee were Lipman Center Director Robe Imbriano; Nina Alvarez, CBS assistant professor of international journalism; and Dolores A. Barclay, project manager of the Lipman Center and adjunct associate professor of journalism.
The Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights was created in 2017 with a gift from the late Ira A. Lipman to inform and shape the ways we research and report race, diversity, and civil and human rights in the United States and globally. This reporting project is made possible by Arnold Ventures.
Visit here to learn more about the Lipman Center.
