Press On Freedomways Reporting Fellowship 2026 ($8,000 stipend) – YOA

Deadline: December 1, 2025

Applications are open for the Press On Freedomways Reporting Fellowship 2026. Over eight months, from March to October 2026, six reporters and storytellers from the South will obtain assist from skilled mentors and take part in a digital program rooted within the ideas of motion journalism.

Press On is a Southern media collective that catalyzes change and advances justice by way of the follow of motion journalism. As such, Press On goals to assist fellows sort out one longform, investigative, or enterprise story, with desire given to journalists and storytellers focused on reporting on a few of the most urgent points going through the South, together with environmental justice, reproductive justice, trans liberation, and migrant justice.

Applicants that determine from the classes beneath are strongly inspired to apply:

• Community media: Those who work in or are affiliated with neighborhood, nonprofit, or rural media retailers, in addition to these working in much less conventional codecs, together with employee-owned publications/collectives and newsletters
• Storytellers: Experienced writers, essayists, and different inventive nonfiction writers who see their work as a contribution to social justice actions 
• Freelance journalists: Independent reporters who want to deepen their reporting on an area difficulty or neighborhood 
• Mid-career journalists: Reporters transitioning from legacy information organizations to unbiased media with an curiosity in neighborhood-pushed reporting 

Benefits

• For their participation in Freedomways, fellows will obtain mentorship, coaching, entry to useful investigative assets, and a month-to-month $1,000 stipend ($8,000 for the entire fellowship) with the flexibility to acquire further funds for challenge-associated bills.

Eligibility

• This is a program targeted on energy-constructing within the South. They will prioritize functions based mostly in: Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Puerto Rico.
• Those who don’t at the moment dwell within the South can nonetheless apply if they’re accountable to the South, which means they beforehand lived within the area or they plan to report on the South because of a robust connection or relationships within the area.
• As part of Press On’s purpose to strengthen journalism pushed by people who find themselves constructing energy inside marginalized and oppressed communities, they encourage candidates of all backgrounds to apply, together with BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, immigrant, and disabled reporters and storytellers, in addition to these residing in rural communities.

Fellowship Requirements

• Develop a narrative pitch and reporting plan tailor-made to the wants of and demanding points going through native communities
• Attend recurring check-ins with their mentor, and the Freedomways coordinator
• Participate in a mixture of obligatory and non-compulsory month-to-month trainings with main journalists, storytellers, thinkers, researchers, artists, and different specialists to advance their talents in pitching tales, crafting narratives, and discovering info for investigations, amongst different expertise
• Develop an engagement plan to assist deepen the affect of their reporting 
• Receive help to pitch their story to native, regional, or nationwide media companions that may publish their reporting  
• Publish one longform, investigative, or enterprise story throughout the course of the fellowship

Application

Click here to apply

For extra info, go to Freedomways Reporting Fellowship.