ProPublica Conference Mentorship
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ProPublica is proud to partner with Journalism Mentors to offer professional guidance to reporters who are either members of or attending conferences hosted by the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) or the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA). During these conferences, interested journalists may sign up for short one-time mentorship chats with participating ProPublica staff members. We’ll be offering guidance on storytelling, writing, crowdsourcing, data journalism, approaching stories with an investigative mindset, managing teams, career development and whatever else is useful to you.
A group of ProPublica staff members will also be available to review portfolios and provide feedback. If a portfolio review seems right for you, see whether the person you'd like to speak with has "Portfolio Review" written under their office hours link. Then, when scheduling a chat, please tell the person about your portfolio review preference via email or a note in your Calendly reservation and send your resume along with any clips of past work.
This partnership was developed by ProPublica’s diversity subcommittee on conferences. Our aim is to provide journalists from backgrounds underrepresented in the industry with more opportunities to learn about investigative journalism and additional support to get where they’d like to go in their careers.
ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit investigative newsroom that produces investigative journalism with a moral force. Keep track of our job listings by visiting propublica.org/jobs, where you can sign up to be notified of any openings. You can also learn more about our diversity initiatives by visiting this page.
DATA REPORTER
Agnel can mentor on the job hunt, career development, salary negotiations, data analysis and investigative reporting.
SENIOR EDITOR
Rui can coach on investigative reporting and editing, as well as offer advice on how to sharpen your project ideas.
REPORTER - SOUTH BUREAU
Max can offer advice on reporting in the health and sciences, writing longform narratives, and freelancing as an early-career journalist.
REPORTER
Topics I can mentor on include covering the environment/science, managing burnout and working with different/multiple editors.
TALENT DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR
Talia can coach on investigative reporting - including environment, policy and legal affairs reporting -- as well as career pathway development and hiring processes.
ENGAGEMENT REPORTING EDITOR
Ariana can coach on crowdsourcing methodology, including surveys and other callouts. She's also happy to talk about career development and managing a specialty investigative team.
VIDEO JOURNALIST
Katie is happy to discuss the challenges of video journalism and can coach on journalism ethics, strategies for lifelong skill development and how to stay healthy in the field.
ENGAGEMENT REPORTER
Maya can coach on community engagement strategies, ranging from trust-building to crowdsourcing medical records.
VISUALS EDITOR
Andrea can coach photojournalists, visuals editors, or anyone interested in visual journalism. She’s happy to share tips on pitching your stories to outlets, editing your portfolio and website, launching an editing career, or transitioning from photography to editing.
DATA REPORTER
Irena can chat about career switches, navigating the early career job search and what it's like to be a data journalist.
COMPUTATIONAL JOURNALIST
Jeff can coach on improving your technical reporting skills and using them for investigative journalism.
SENIOR EDITOR, LOCAL REPORTING NETWORK
Steve can review clips, advise students and young journalists on career paths, and discuss investigative and online journalism.
DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR
Scott can coach on editing interactive and data journalism, product development and strategy, managing teams with nontraditional skill-sets. He’s also happy to do portfolio reviews for interactive and data projects.
Portfolio Review — General Advice
REPORTER
Perla can offer advice on covering immigration and the environment, conducting sensitive interviews, as well as career development.
REPORTER
Duaa can talk about conducting sensitive interviews, FOIAs and approaching stories with an investigative mindset.
REPORTER
Annie can coach on obtaining data through records requests, analyzing data, organization systems for reporting projects, integrating data into reporting and/or narrative writing, fact checking stories, and education reporting topics.
NEWS APPS DEVELOPER
Andrea can coach on navigating work as a solo data journalist or news developer (or both!) in small newsrooms, and on developing technical skills in data and development.
DATA JOURNALIST
Ren can chat about combining data analysis with on-the-ground reporting, managing longterm projects, resumes + cover letters, and pivoting to journalism from other careers.
How was your mentoring session?
Good or bad, your feedback will help us continue to improve the program. Testimonials will help further the reach of this project, and may be used in future resources to help others make the most of their mentorship experience. Your comments will not be used anywhere on this site or social media without permission.
Interested in becoming a mentor? Apply Here.