Applications call for MIT Technology Review Covid Inequality Fellowships 2021. This aims to support journalism focused on the skewed consequences of covid-19—and how to change them. To help explore these issues and help people’s stories get told, MIT has joined with the Heising Simons Foundation to create five MIT Technology Review Covid Inequality Fellowships.

To get there, MIT Technology Review is looking for people who are committed to telling stories with care and dedication while applying rigorous standards and maintaining journalistic integrity. You don’t have to have a long track record in healthcare or science reporting, but you do have to be determined, prepared to challenge preconceptions, and be comfortable asking for help and taking guidance.

These fellowships will not produce simplistic disaster narratives that underscore pre-existing tropes, and we don’t want parachute journalism from reporters who have no history with or insight into the communities they’re writing about. That doesn’t mean you have to identify as part of the community you’re proposing to cover, but it does mean you do have to show that you can report sensitively and thoroughly—and without further endangering them during the pandemic.

Focus Areas

MIT Technology Review is a publication about emerging technologies and the ways in which they are used, they are particularly interested in:

• The impact of vaccines and how they are distributed
• Contact tracing, exposure notification, and/or the use of health data
• How the pandemic is affecting the digital divide
• Workplace virus protocols and surveillance
• The impact of long covid on communities

Fellowship

• Freelancer fellowships: Apply for this if you’re an independent journalist who is not already attached to a specific publication. You may come from one of the affected communities you plan to report on, or you may know of an important story about a group you have gotten to know well.
• Newsroom fellows: Apply for this if you’re a staff journalist working with a specific outlet, who is looking for extra support to follow up on a story that is important to you and the readers you serve.

Funding and Benefits

Successful applicants will receive up to $7,500 to report and publish their stories. Work will be produced in conjunction with MIT Technology Review and published on our website—or co-published, in the case of Newsroom Fellowships.

Start your application