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ProPublica will once again organize and host the Diversity Mentorship Program at the Online News Association conference in New Orleans in September. This is the fifth year of the program, which is designed to connect people from communities that are historically underrepresented in journalism with people at the top of the field.
Professional networks are crucial to advancing a journalist’s career. The goal of this event is to help promising journalists build these networks in order to make the industry more inclusive.
This event is geared specifically toward mid-career journalists looking to transition into more senior roles or management.
Past mentors have included newsroom leaders, startup founders, highly accomplished reporters, producers, designers, editors and more.
We pair mentees with mentors based on their backgrounds, challenges and interests in journalism. Mentees also have an opportunity to network with one another.
We’ll host a hot breakfast for 50 people at the ONA conference in New Orleans on Friday, Sept. 13. We stick to a 1-1 or 2-1 ratio of mentees to mentors for this event, which means we’ll accept about 33 mentees.
Anyone from an underrepresented group — including people of color, women, LGBTQ people and people with disabilities — is welcome to apply to be a mentee. Applicants must be attending ONA and must be available the morning of Friday, Sept. 13.
If you’re interested in being a mentee, apply via this form. The deadline to apply is Wednesday, Aug. 14 has been extended to Thursday, Aug. 22. We’ll let you know if you’ve been matched with a mentor by Wednesday, Aug. 28. We’ll do our best to match everyone with a mentor, but space is limited.
If you’re interested in being a mentor, you can apply via this form. Past mentors have found the experience easy and rewarding, and they have let us know they appreciate meeting and sharing their knowledge with ambitious journalists in the middle stages of their careers.
Questions? Email diversity@propublica.org. For more about ProPublica’s commitment to helping make our newsroom and journalism at large more inclusive, see some of the steps we’re taking.