USC Data Fellowship Offers $2,000, Data Training and Mentorship

USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism: Troves of health stories are hidden in public datasets, accessible only to those who know how to analyze the numbers.

USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism can help you gain the skills to unlock those stories and support your dream data reporting project. Our call for applications for the 2022 Data Fellowship is open!

Our Data Fellowship offers journalists an opportunity to transform their reporting by training them to “interview the data” as if it were a human source. Whether you are new to data reporting or want to master more advanced techniques such as the “R” programming environment, our personalized program — with its three skills tracks — will provide you with tools and techniques to produce major investigative and explanatory health reporting projects.

Our Data Fellowship — to be held Oct 9-12 — equips journalists pursuing ambitious stories focused on health inequities with: a $2,000 stipend to defray reporting costs, a four-day in-person, hands-on training in beginner, intermediate or advanced Excel or R-Studio, and five months of professional mentorship, including skill-building workshops and ongoing learning.

You don’t need to be a health journalist to apply. Instead, many of our best Fellows want to explore how to cover their beats through a health or social welfare equity lens. Reporters who participate include veteran, award-winning journalists and promising data journalists at earlier stages of their careers.

The Center for Health Journalism helps reporters advance their skills in “impact reporting,” which combines powerful narratives, unassailable data and engagement. We embrace an expansive definition of health journalism based on the core idea that our health is shaped by conditions in homes, schools and communities – not just in health care settings.

Want to learn more? Fill out this form and a member of our team will get in touch with you with more information or to discuss your project idea.