The Open Notebook Early-Career Fellowship Program 2024 ($6,000 stipend)

Applications are open for the Open Notebook Early-Career Fellowship Program 2024. The Open Notebook annually offers a paid, part-time fellowship program for early-career science journalists. During this fellowship, fellows work with a mentor to plan, report, and write articles for publication at The Open Notebook and become part of the TON editorial team.

This ten-month program offers fellows the opportunity to explore their career interests and passions and to sharpen their skills as part of a talented, supportive, diverse community of past and present fellows and mentors. This fellowship is made possible through the generous support of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, which has supported this program since 2012.

Fellowship Experience

During this fellowship, each fellow will pitch, report, and write four articles for publication at The Open Notebook—a mix of “story behind the story” interviews and reported features. They will have weekly phone or video meetings with a mentor who is an experienced science journalist and who will help them shape story ideas, provide reporting and writing guidance, edit fellows’ article drafts, and offer general craft and career-development advice and guidance. Typically, fellows’ articles go through several rounds of substantive editing. As each article nears completion, fellows are also responsible for annotating their articles for fact-checking and for collecting demographic data about their sources as part of our ongoing source-diversity tracking effort. Fellows and mentors also take part in a Slack discussion group composed of other current and former fellowship participants and TON editors.

During the fellowship, fellows will be responsible for participating in cohort-based activities in the fellowship Slack community. Membership in this community will continue after the fellowship ends. Note: Although it is part-time, this fellowship requires a significant weekly time commitment, and juggling the fellowship along with a full-time job can be challenging. Prospective fellows who have full-time jobs are welcome to apply but should consider carefully whether they will be able to devote sufficient time to completing articles as specified in the fellowship description. This includes making time for conducting phone or video interviews with sources, weekly meetings with mentors, multiple rounds of editing and revision for most stories, participating in conversations in the fellowship Slack community. The fellowship period is March 11—January 11. They are flexible about making schedule changes after fellowships begin to accommodate major professional and life events.

Requirements:

Open to early-career science journalists with fewer than three years of regular professional science writing experience.

• Internships and student work do not count toward this requirement.
• Exceptions to this requirement may be made for cases in which an applicant has more than three years of professional science writing experience but some or all of that experience is not in English.
• Some training and/or experience in writing for the general public is a requirement for this fellowship.
• International applicants are welcome. However, applications, including writing samples and letters of recommendation, must be in English. Materials translated into English from another language are acceptable.

Duration and Benefits

• A stipend of $6,000 is available.

How to Apply

Interested and qualified candidate should apply using the button below or click this link

Deadline: 31st October, 2023

The Open Notebook Early-Career Fellowship Program 2024 ($6,000 stipend)

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