Chips Quinn Reporter Fellowship

The Chips Quinn Reporter Fellowship provides mentorship and training for early-career journalists with up to five years of full-time experience. Fellows receive mentorship, training and a $10,000 career stipend. The Chips Quinn Reporter Fellowship is an initiative founded by Freedom Forum and administered by Journalism Funding Partners.

Chips Quinn Reporters, Class of 2026-2027

Chips Quinn Reporter Fellowship Announces 2026-2027 Class

Journalism Funding Partners (JFP) has selected 12 early-career journalists from an exceptionally competitive pool of applicants, one of the strongest fields the fellowship has seen. Each fellow will receive a one-year, 1:1 mentorship from an experienced newsroom leader and Chips Quinn alumni, along with a $10,000 stipend.

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About

The Chips Quinn Reporter Fellowship, an initiative founded by Freedom Forum and administered by Journalism Funding Partners, provides mentorship and training for early-career journalists in the communities they serve. In a fast-paced and rapidly changing industry, more access to mentorship is essential to retaining talent. Experienced mentors can offer advice and guidance, along with providing a sounding board for ideas. Perhaps most important, a mentor can become a trusted confidant who encourages you to advocate for what you need to thrive professionally.

While many mentorship fellowships focus on teaching writing and reporting skills, this initiative is strategically focused on helping early-career journalists develop what are known as “power skills.” These include areas like communication, leadership, collaboration, personal development and productivity — all skills that help a young journalist thrive.

“Mentoring means I can pass on the knowledge I've acquired from my career to the up-and-coming storytellers in hopes that they'll be even better journalists than I could have imagined,” said Khristopher J. Brooks, a reporter for Homes.com and a 2006 Chips Quinn alum.

From 1991-2019, the initiative was focused on placing early-career journalists into newspaper internships within the communities they serve, addressing a critical need in journalism. Since 2020, the Chips Quinn Reporter Fellowship has been enlisting mentors from its pool of more than 1,500 alumni and pairing them with interns working in various Gannett newsrooms across the country.

In 2024, Freedom Forum partnered with Journalism Funding Partners to grow the fellowship under JFP’s administration, with funding from Freedom Forum. JFP serves to sustain and support local journalism by building and stewarding connections between funders and news organizations. The fellowship has evolved to include all early-career journalists from more news organizations.

The Chips Quinn Reporter Fellowship launched in 1991 as the Chips Quinn Scholars Program, with the mission to diversify the industry’s workforce pipeline. The program today continues to honor the late John C. “Chips” Quinn Jr., a newspaper editor who believed in the importance of diversity in newsrooms to better reflect the communities they serve.

Testimonials

Nolan D. McCaskill

“Shortly after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced she would step down from leadership after two decades atop the Democratic Caucus, I found myself in a room with the most powerful woman in American politics, her staff and only seven other reporters for an hourlong interview. My presence there would not have been possible without my transformative summer as a Chips Quinn Scholar, which, to my surprise, led to a career in political journalism, taking me to the halls of Congress, the White House and the presidential campaign trail.”

– Nolan D. McCaskill,  former politics reporter for The Dallas Morning News and 2014 Chips Quinn Scholar

Nolan D. McCaskill
Stu Woo

“I feel as if I've gained as much as I've given through the mentorship program. After 14 years of doing professional journalism, the job can feel like a grind. But when summer rolls around and I get paired with a Chips Quinn intern, the weekly chats reinvigorate me. These hungry students teach me about new ways to consume and gather news. In turn, I encourage them to treat me like a therapist. I feel that my role is to reassure them, to say that the anxiety is totally normal.”

– Stu Woo, reporter for The Wall Street Journal and 2007 Chips Quinn Scholar

Stu Woo
Eric Bailey

“The opportunity to serve as a mentor has been a perfect opportunity to give back to journalism and the Chips Quinn program, which has been a strong foundation for my 25-plus years as a sportswriter. Having the chance to help mold the next generation of journalists has been invigorating as I enter the ‘fourth quarter’ of my career. Seeing their excitement as they enter this important profession has shown me that we are in good hands looking toward the future.”

– Eric Bailey, Tulsa World sportswriter covering Oklahoma State University and 1996 Chips Quinn Scholar

Eric Bailey

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Alumni

More than 1,400 aspiring journalists have been named Chips Quinn participants since 1991.