"California Local News Fellowship, Reporting - School of Journalism"

Position overview

Position title: California Local News Fellow

Salary range: The UC academic salary scales set the minimum pay determined by step at appointment. See the following table for the current salary scale for this position: https://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/2025-26/represented-july-2025-scales/t24-b.pdf. Fellow salaries will start at either $60,000 or $65,000 depending on work and educational experience. All fellows will receive benefits from the University of California.

Percent time: Full-time

Anticipated start: September 2026

Position duration: The fellowship will start in early September 2026 and will run for two years, ending in August 2028.

Application Window

Open date: February 3, 2026

Next review date: Wednesday, Feb 18, 2026 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)
Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.

Final date: Thursday, Mar 5, 2026 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)
Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled.

Position description

The California Local News Fellowship program is a multi-year, state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting in California.

The fellowship is open to digital, print, audio, photo and multimedia journalists. We're looking for candidates with relevant experience as much as formal education. We welcome applications from graduates of two-year, four-year and graduate-level journalism programs, as well as people who have not attended journalism education programs but have a high school diploma or GED and at least three years of newsroom experience. Successful applicants will demonstrate core reporting skills, a commitment to a career in journalism, and interest in accountability reporting in underserved communities. The program will place approximately 33 fellows in partner newsrooms throughout the state for two-year, full-time reporting positions beginning in September 2026. Fellows will receive robust training and mentoring from the program to augment their newsroom experience.

The fellowship program partners with newsrooms throughout the state that are seeking to meet their communities' information needs with original local news coverage. We prioritize news organizations operating in underserved communities, including for-profit, nonprofit, public media, and community and media outlets. Once newsrooms and fellows are selected into the program, they are paired through a matching process that seeks to meet the needs of individual newsrooms and interests of fellows.

Newsrooms and fellows are selected through an equitable and transparent process, with input from the fellowship program staff and fellowship advisory board, which represents journalism education and newsroom leaders from around the state.

Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States at the time of hire. Visa sponsorship is not available for this position.

Program: https://fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows/

School: https://journalism.berkeley.edu/

Qualifications

Basic qualifications (required at time of application)
High school diploma or GED (or equivalent international degree)

Additional qualifications (required at time of start)
Fellows should have five or fewer years of professional journalism experience before joining the program.

Applicants must meet one of the following criteria to be considered:

• High school diploma or GED (or equivalent international degree) plus at least 3 years newsroom experience, OR
• 2-year associate's degree (or equivalent international degree) plus at least 1 year newsroom experience, OR
• BA or MA (or equivalent international degree) in journalism with experience in student publications, summer internships or equivalent, OR
• BA or MA (or equivalent international degree) in a subject other than journalism plus at least 1 year newsroom experience.

Preferred qualifications
Ideal candidates will have experience working in local news, either professionally or through a journalism education program, and will submit clips that illustrate a variety of reporting genres and skills. In certain cases, when matching fellows with newsrooms, the ability to report in a language other than English and/or proficiency in specialized journalistic skills (audio, video, data, etc.) will be preferred. California residents will be given preference.

Application Requirements

Document requirements

• Applicant's materials and any supporting files as part of the recruitment must be converted to PDF before they can be uploaded.
• Other acceptable media file types: zip, jpg, rar, tif, mov, bmp, 3gp, png, wmv, m4v, psd, swf, tiff, mp3, mp4.
• 50 MB is the maximum file size accepted.
• Do not upload any file that contains sensitive information (e.g. social security, drivers license, passport, or bank account numbers).

• Resume / CV - Please upload a PDF of your educational and work history, including your journalism experience. This can be a formal resume or a simple list with dates.
• Tell us about your journalism experience and fellowship preferences. - To complete your submission, you must also fill out the Supplemental Information Form . Once you've done so, upload a document here to confirm that you have completed the form. The document need only state, 'I have completed the Supplemental Information Form' along with your full name.
• Video Statement - Please upload a one-minute video, telling us: When did you know you wanted to be a journalist? Was there a particular moment or experience, or did your interest grow over time? Tell us your story in a one-minute video! Nothing fancy - you can take the video on your phone and we don't expect high production values. There is a 50 MB limit for video submissions.
• Work sample #1 - Please provide a sample of your work.
• Work sample #2 - Please provide a sample of your work.
• Work sample #3 - Please provide a sample of your work.
• Work sample #4 - Please provide a sample of your work.
• Work sample #5 - Please provide a sample of your work.
  Additionally, for this sample, provide a short description of the piece, including why you chose to highlight it and anything you might do differently if you could report the story again. If this piece was created with a team, indicate which areas you were directly responsible for. (For example, if you submit an interactive piece, were you responsible for data collection and photography, but not coding or mapping? If there was a reporting team on the story, which parts of the reporting did you lead?)

Reference requirements

• 3 required (contact information only)

Please share three references who can speak to your strengths, personality and work style. We are especially interested in hearing from anyone who has supervised your work in a newsroom, this can include a college newsroom.

Please alert them in advance to look for an email from the AP Recruit system with the subject line: 'You have received a request from [Your Name].' They will have one week after the March 5 deadline to respond. Completion should take no more than 10 minutes.