Kern Scholarship for Innovation in Journalism broadens, strikes deadline
The Kern Scholarship for Innovation in Journalism is expanding to serve a wider pool of applicants.
The scholarship, gifted by Gerould and Jewell Kern in 2016, provides funding opportunities for student projects focused on new journalism concepts.
Gerould Kern, BAJ’71, said the deadline for applications was removed to allow for more flexibility, whenever a project idea came to mind. Now, application is ongoing.
“What we encourage is for people to look on the horizon of journalism, to look deeper into public service and see how they can be innovative,” Kern said.
Students can either create projects with a focus on public affairs reporting or conduct research on previous journalism related public affairs topics such as misinformation or fact-checking.
Emily Harrison, director of development and alumni relations for the Media School, said the committee aims to hand out three to four awards per year.
“We’re so excited to see what interesting and unique projects students come up with moving forward,” Harrison said.
To apply, Media School students must submit an abstract of their idea along with a proposal and budget.
Past scholarship recipients have created projects centered on the development of alternative media revenue with focuses varying from audience analysis in online journalism to how to use virtual reality to track audience engagement. The goal of these projects was to help develop solutions to the financial issues many local newsrooms are facing.
Harrison said the Kern Scholarship is looking for projects that can make an impact on the journalism world.