2025-26 RJI Fellows Presentation

Описание: The 2025-26 RJI Fellows built tools, platforms and guides to address needs in the journalism industry. In this presentation each Fellow showed a demo of their resource and answered a couple questions.

Tara Francis Chan built the Powering News which supports newsrooms with innovative and nontraditional structures, processes, and policies as well as amplifies their best practices to the journalism industry at large. It includes tools such as a comprehensive database of nontraditional newsrooms; a guidebook for news startups on nontraditional newsroom models (such as worker-led nonprofits, worker-owned cooperatives, nonhierarchical structures, co-leadership, etc.); and a resource of innovative insights, lessons, and policies from nontraditional newsrooms that can be adopted by both nontraditional and traditional newsrooms to address operational gaps. Read more.

Nicole Lewis and Lam Vo built Audacity Media Lab, a resource to help local journalists boost civic engagement by developing and implementing a theory of change for their work. Through a theory of change, journalists will be better equipped to make decisions about who they most need to reach and how, in order to have the biggest impact. Read more.

Sarah Blesener and Jennifer Jacklin-Stratton created Enter/Exit: Trauma-Informed Praxis for Visual Journalism. It is designed to equip independent journalists and local newsrooms with tools and frameworks for ethical reporting on trauma’s aftermath and visually representing witness testimony with dignity, care, and collaboration. This resource centers survivors’ voices, promotes collaborative storytelling, and prioritizes the well-being of participants and journalists through inclusive strategies, educational materials, and innovative distribution methods. Read more.

Monica Williams built Grants for Journalists, a one-stop platform that helps U.S. newsrooms and journalists find money for reporting and journalism projects. The platform includes reporting funding opportunities for staff and freelance journalists, fellowships and retreats that give them space and time to boost their work, foundation grants for newsrooms and journalists, and articles and thought leadership that addresses these and related topics. The searchable and visually appealing platform includes a section with consultants and coaches for hire and has a corresponding LinkedIn page. Read more.

Claudia Yaujar-Amaro created Covering Immigration, a resource that provides journalists with ready-made materials for immediate use. These include story templates (how to structure an immigration story, best angles), infographics and explainer visuals (for use in news reports, digital media), ethical reporting checklists (before, during, and after covering immigration stories), interview guides (how to approach sensitive topics with migrants) and fact-checking resources (common myths vs. facts about immigration.) Read more.

Cara Kuhlman built A Tour Guide for journalists to help journalists and newsrooms engage in walking tours as a medium for local journalism. It includes a framework to help local publishers assess if tours are a good fit, the basics for getting started, and models for how to leverage tours for funding, audience engagement and impactful reporting. Read more.

Susan Stellin built the Covering Drugs media resource guide to strengthen reporting on these topics as coverage shifts from a drug war framing to a more health-centered approach grounded in research and evidence. This toolkit includes key surveys, reports, data sets, studies, research hubs, email newsletters, and other resources organized by category—such as drug use trends, behavioral therapies, and recovery research and services.