Five newly minted Craig Newmark Graduated School of Journalism at CUNY alumni have earned the J-School’s inaugural Equity Through Data Award, designated for recent graduates who show outstanding promise as data journalists.
The awards, $5,000 for each recipient, came via funds raised for the J-School’s Equity Through Data Project, whose mission includes training students from underrepresented backgrounds to become highly sought data reporters.
“We’re thrilled to offer this boost to some of our most talented graduates as they get out into the workplace,” said J-School Data Journalism Program Director Sandeep Junnarkar. “We can’t wait to see the high-impact work these journalists go on to produce.”
Junnarkar founded the project with Jere Hester, head of Editorial Partnerships and the Local Accountability Reporting Program for the J-School.
The initial Equity Through Data Award recipients include:
- Ashley Borja: A first-generation university graduate from Brooklyn, Borja has published work in several local outlets, including THE CITY, where she interned this past summer. Borja plans to use her data skills to report on investigations internationally.
- Genna Contino: She got her start in journalism covering housing and local government at newspapers in the Carolinas. Contino said she joined the J-School to “get better at following the money.” She’s planning to hone her coding skills in between graduation and employment “to build up more clips and experience and grow as a data journalist.”
- Tiana McGee: An actor-turned-journalist originally from Connecticut, McGee interned at Reuters — earning an LA Press Club award for her piece on presidential candidates’ choice of music at political conventions. She recently accepted a full time job at Reuters. She said she’s always working to develop new skills, and is “excited about the opportunity to learn more.”
- Mia Hollie: She recently finished up a data journalism internship at Chalkbeat, where she contributed analyses to stories about the proliferation of private school vouchers, the use of COVID-era funding at low-income schools and successes in curbing chronic absenteeism. Hollie is set to begin a one-year post-graduate fellowship at THE CITY, funded via the Equity Through Data Project. Hollie said her career goal is to “examine criminal justice, education and social services through data-driven reporting.”
- Noah Kolenda: Kolenda “fell head over heels” for data journalism at the J-School, and notched an internship at Open Secrets that included crunching campaign finance and election data. “Data journalism has given me a renewed passion for reporting,” Kolenda said.
Junnarkar and Hester launched the Equity Through Data Project last year after securing more than $600,000 in grants earmarked, in part, for supporting emerging journalists with scholarships, competitive paid internships, and post-graduate opportunities.
This year, the funding helped send some J-School students to Investigative Reporters & Editors’ NICAR data journalism conference in Baltimore. It also helped support The Du Bois Data Lab, a collaboration with Howard University’s Center for Journalism & Democracy that offers data journalism training for students from historically black colleges and universities.
Funds generously provided by the Charles H. Revson Foundation supported a series of summer and fall data journalism internships at local news outlets, as well as Hollie’s upcoming post-graduate fellowship. Additional Revson-funded internships and fellowships are on tap. Revson is also supporting data journalism training for newsrooms that are members of J-School’s Center for Community Media.
Revson is also supporting data journalism training for newsrooms that are members of J-School’s Center for Community Media.
Additional funding for the Equity Through Data Project is provided by The New York Community Trust-Reznick Family Giving Fund.
A longer-term goal is to establish the Equity Through Data Project as a student-powered data journalism hub that serves local newsrooms — making the Newmark J-School a model for data journalism education, training, and collaboration with news partners.