Dimapur, March 29 (MExN): The National Foundation for India (NFI) has announced the launch of the fourth round of its media fellowship programme. “In our fourth round, we are offering fellowships to another 35 Independent journalists,” NFI informed on Tuesday.
Ten fellowships are being offered for multimedia journalists to report in Nagamese. These are being offered in collaboration with The Morung Express.
Altogether 25 fellowships are being offered for independent journalists reporting in Urdu. Of these, 10 are for multimedia Urdu journalists in partnership with The Wire Urdu and another 15 fellowships are for Urdu text journalists.
The application process is open now and one can apply till Sunday, April 10, 2022 midnight.
Each fellow will be granted Rs 30,000 to publish one story of 1,000-1,500 words on a broad range of themes and issues of public interest, reported in depth over one month.
If required, NFI will connect the grantee to a senior journalist as a mentor to guide and help the grantee in reporting better. “We will aid the grantee in publishing the stories with different media organisations,” it stated.
An NFI-appointed jury of eminent journalists selects the grantees based on the detailed application. For the fellowships to report in Nagamese (Multimedia), the editorial leadership of The Morung Express and NFI will jointly select fellows.
For Urdu Multimedia stories, the editorial leadership of The Wire and NFI will jointly select and guide the fellows. NFI also stated that “Weightage is given to candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds.”
Fellowship grants are announced within 15 days of the application window closing. Successful candidates are informed by email and through announcement on the NFI website.
The media fellowships advisers include Anuradha Raman, Dhanya Rajendran, Krishna Prasad, Kumar Sambhav, P Sainath, Sanjay (Xonzoi) Barbora, Seema Chishti.
To know more about the fellowships, visit the NFI website (https://nfi.org.in/fellowships).
About the fellowship
To support credible journalism in India and support independent journalists across the country, the National Foundation for India launched the Media Fellowship Programme for Independent Journalists in November 2020.
Under the programme, several grants are made to independent journalists on a rolling-basis every quarter. NFI fellowship programme particularly favours independent journalists from difficult geographies and diverse social background, especially those who have been marginalised due to their socio-religious, gender and other locations. The fellowship is offered for journalists working with different Indian languages and English every quarter.
In the first round, NFI granted fellowships to 21 outstanding journalists from across the country. In this second round, 36 fellowships were granted to independent journalists reporting in English (26) and Malayalam (10). In the third round, 35 fellowships were granted to independent journalists reporting in Hindi, 25 Fellowships for text stories and 10 for Multimedia stories.
