ICFJ Truthbuzz Fellowship Opens, Calls for Entries

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Joyce Barnathan, President, ICFJ
Joyce Barnathan, President, ICFJ

The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), with the support of Craig Newmark Philanthropies, has launched the TruthBuzz Fellowship as part of an initiative designed to find new ways to help verified facts reach the widest possible audience.

TruthBuzz Fellowship will recruit five full-time Fellows to work in newsrooms in some of the most populous nations: Brazil, India, Indonesia, Nigeria and the United States. Modeled on ICFJ’s Knight Fellowship program, TruthBuzz will embed experts in these outlets to help reporters adopt compelling storytelling methods that improve the reach and impact of fact-checking and help inoculate audiences against false or misleading information.

The fellowship seeks to increase audience trust in news media by communicating fact-checked information in a compelling, sharable way. TruthBuzz Fellows will be change-makers who can drive the adoption of new ways of making facts go as viral. ICFJ will collaborate with First Draft, a project of the Shorenstein Center at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

The TruthBuzz Fellowship is open to applicants from Nigeria, Brazil, India, Indonesia and the United States who are media experts with a track record of success leading innovative projects in newsrooms; have sharp audience-engagement skills; Interested in deploying multimedia savvy to combat misinformation in their countries.

Fellows will be embedded with two to three partner media organizations in each of their countries to spur the production of compelling stories that fact-check and debunk misinformation. The six-month fellowship will start between June-August.

The selected applicants will first attend an orientation in Washington, followed by additional training in-country from First Draft News and ICFJ on the principles and techniques of fact-checking, verification and visual storytelling.

The fellowship will provide a monthly honorarium and professional allowance to supplement the fellows’ work with partner newsrooms.

Media organizations interested in combating misinformation can apply to partner with the initiative and work side-by-side with a fellow to make their fact-checking compelling.

Applications close on April 29, 2018

For more information, click: https://www.icfj.org/our-work/truthbuzz-fact-checking-makes-truth-go-viral-0