Meet our 2023 P.O.W.E.R. Fellows
In partnership with Just Media and Scripps Howard Fund, The Real News Network has created a Pipeline of Working and Emerging Reporters (P.O.W.E.R.) to support local journalism from young reporters telling the stories of how policing and mass incarceration impact their communities.
P.O.W.E.R. is a paid, 3-month program for young journalists (18-25) that offers skill-building, mentorship, and the platform needed to cover vital criminal justice issues in Baltimore. Fellows have been participating in weekly sessions featuring intensive trainings and opportunities to engage with guest speakers working in the field of journalism. Later this summer, fellows’ stories will be published with TRNN.
We are thrilled to introduce you to our 2023 Baltimore P.O.W.E.R. fellows, a dynamic trio of innovative voices ready to take on the challenges of reporting criminal justice issues. This unique collaboration champions young journalists, offering them a launchpad to amplify their voices in the realm of justice reporting.
Congrats Ahmari, Ariyana, and Tinashe!
Ahmari Anthony (she/her), born in Pittsburgh and residing in Washington, DC, is a school social worker and freelance journalist with a background in Journalism, English, and macro social work from Howard University. As a P.O.W.E.R. fellow, Ahmari is committed to confronting the school-to-prison pipeline, advocating for restorative justice, and spotlighting the injustices and flaws of the criminal legal system. She also seeks to develop further her trauma reporting, writing, and editor communication skills.
Ariyana Griffin (she/her), originally from Inglewood, California, is pursuing a graduate degree in journalism at Morgan State University after graduating from Clark Atlanta University. While in the P.O.W.E.R. Fellowship, Ariyana looks forward to using her unique voice to bring attention to critical issues in Baltimore and other communities of color. Ariyana will work on expanding her skills in interviewing, source building, trauma reporting, writing, and story pitching, contributing to her passion for telling compelling narratives.
A writer deeply engaged with history, politics, culture, and identity, Tinashe Chingarande (she/her) is committed to analyzing the multifaceted impacts of the criminal justice system in our 21st-century society, aiming to reveal the complex dynamics of punishment and evasion within the system as she refines her reporting skills throughout her fellowship. As a P.O.W.E.R. Fellow, Tinashe is eager to bring to light stories about who faces punishment, who escapes it, and the reasons behind these realities. Her fellowship journey will include honing skills in interviewing, source building, trauma reporting, writing, and story pitching.
Your donation will help us support a cohort of emerging Baltimore journalists through a paid fellowship program with mentoring, networking, and opportunities for publication.
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The most compelling stories are told by people speaking authentically from their own lived experience, reflecting the experience of their communities. But it is precisely these vital narratives, crucial in shaping the ways people inside and outside of a community understand and interact with it, that are structurally least likely to appear in a media ecosystem designed around profit and privilege. Left unchallenged, racist, fear-mongering narratives about Baltimore and other majority-Black cities—perpetually weaponized by right-wing media, activists, and politicians—will continue damaging Baltimoreans, people of color, the working poor, other historically disenfranchised groups, and the future of our city.
Through the P.O.W.E.R. Fellowship, The Real News Network and Just Media will work to address this need by empowering emerging journalists of color through media training and sustained mentorship, to do critical investigative reporting that will amplify stories grounded in their communities, expose broken systems, and challenge existing narratives.
Your contribution matters. Thank you!
Just Media is a national hub telling a new story about justice—and supporting the next generation of storytellers. At the heart of our work, we ask: What if the story being told in the media matched the one being told in the streets? And what if young, directly impacted, movement-aligned writers were the ones to cover it? To that end, Just Media is building a network of writers and cultural organizers who represent communities at the center of prisons, policing, and criminal justice politics. Through our fellowship cohort model, we provide the training and mentorship needed for robust, ear-to-the-ground storytelling. Additionally, we provide media training to frontline organizers who are looking to take their stories to wider audiences.
The Real News Network is a Baltimore-based national nonprofit news network dedicated to amplifying the voices on the frontlines in the struggle for a more just and livable planet. Rigorous in our journalism and dedicated to the facts, we are unafraid to engage alongside movements for change because we believe that journalism and media-making has a critical role to play in mobilizing collective action. We create journalism that makes our audience feel the world can be changed, and that they can play a key role in making it happen. While TRNN relies on the internet to distribute our content globally, we are also a place-based institution with a responsibility to serve Baltimore, the city we call home. We know that the struggles of this majority-minority city (inequitable access to resources like education, clean air, and transportation, for example) are the same struggles people face all over the globe. Our local coverage helps keep our friends and neighbors abreast of what’s going on in our city, but we intend for these stories to inform and inspire people united in the struggle everywhere.
The Scripps Howard Fund is a public charity that supports philanthropic causes important to The E.W. Scripps Company and the communities it serves, with a special emphasis on journalism education, excellence in journalism and childhood literacy. At the crossroads of the classroom and the newsroom, the Fund is a leader in supporting journalism through scholarships, internships, minority recruitment and development and First Amendment causes. The Scripps Howard Awards stand as one of the industry’s top honors for outstanding journalism, and the Fund’s annual “If You Give a Child a Book …” childhood literacy campaign has distributed thousands of new books to children in need across the nation. In support of its mission to create a better-informed world, the Fund also partners with Scripps brands to create awareness of local issues and support organizations that help build thriving communities. The Scripps Howard Foundation, an affiliated organization with the Scripps Howard Fund, supports Scripps’ charitable efforts through its endowment, key projects and major donations.
Read our press release about the launch of this fellowship program here.
Want to learn more? Prefer to contribute by check? Please contact Director of Development Julianne Simitz at julianne@therealnews.com.