Join our team!

Fellowship Overview

Duration: 24 weeks

Time Commitment: 10 hours per week

Stipend: $3,000, plus $500 transportation assistance

Our fellowship is a paid multimedia journalism training experience for emerging storytellers, age 18-25, in New Orleans. Program participants (Fellows) are paid to work alongside experienced journalists, photojournalists and video journalists to produce media. Fellows are paid a $3,000 stipend for a 24-week / 10-hour per week time commitment, including:

Twice-weekly team meetings; and

Independent and group-led fieldwork.

The Fall 2025 fellowship will involve two core projects:

Production of a multimedia journalism series exploring issues around affordable housing and how local communities are experiencing housing; AND

Production of a live, in-person multimedia storytelling event as a capstone to the fellowship’s reporting work.

Reporting Project

Fellows will work with their cohort to do multimedia reporting on stories and issues related to local housing, including solutions for increasing the availability of affordable, quality housing in and around New Orleans. Fellows will learn how to work with a team to develop an editorial project; get hands-on practice researching and interviewing; and practice storytelling in one of three mediums: writing, photography or video journalism. Fellowship applicants will be asked to select the medium track they are interested in pursuing, and the selected cohort will be broken up into teams based on their medium track.

The reporting theme of the Fall 2025 fellowship was chosen based on data from more than 70 surveys completed by community members from 2023 to 2025, and analyzed by Lede New Orleans staff.

Work for both projects will be completed by the end of the fellowship program, with project deadlines throughout the fellowship. The work will be published and distributed through Lede New Orleans platforms. We are also seeking a local media partner to publish the completed reporting package.

This is a unique opportunity to develop skills in a hands-on environment and to build connections in the New Orleans media community and the community at large. All participants are encouraged to think creatively about how to make media that serves and empowers a diverse and increasingly mobile audience.

Lede New Orleans is committed to building an inclusive and equitable local journalism community. Participants can expect to have a thoughtful dialogue about representation in media and how journalism and media can better serve and reflect the community.

Participating Fellows will leave the experience with work to add to their portfolio.