One of my best experiences as a student happened in grad school at the Missouri j-school. I was in the Washington Reporting Program, and the director at the time, Steve Weinberg, got a call from a freelancer who needed help from a student researcher. Steve recommended me. And for the next several weeks, I was hunched over records at the Federal Election Commission, helping the reporter (whose name I've long since forgotten) piece together the story of a crooked congressman and his pay-for-play relationship with the unions and industries that his powerful committee "regulated." I had gotten a fair bit of hands-on experience at Missouri, but there was something more valuable -- more real -- about doing legwork for a working journalist. Nearly 30 years later, I got a call last summer from a journalist working on a biography of a Supreme Court justice. He wondered if I could supply him with a student to help with research. The author, fortunately, had a budget to pay the student. I put him in touch with one of my students. And that got me thinking more about the value of student-professional collaboration. Which leads us to today: the start of the Carnegie/Newhouse School Legal Reporting Fellowships. Through the generosity of the Carnegie Corporation's Journalism Initiative, which paid to launch our overall program, we are creating a program that supports the work of freelance writers, producers, and authors on law-related projects. That support comes in two forms: a grant to subsidize their expenses, and a dedicated student researcher. We're supporting quality legal journalism in the public interest, and fulfilling the goals of this program to improve journalism education. We're even improving on the project from decades ago that inspired me -- by paying the students, and insisting that they get credit as a researcher in the final product. We'll award four fellowships this September. Each fellowship winner receives up to $3,000 to cover out-of-pocket costs such as travel and acquiring records and data. This could be for on an ongoing project that you haven't yet sold, or where the publisher will not cover such expenses. The student pay is separate from these funds. See the applicant guidelines for a full explanation. And here's the application form. It's due to me September 8. Bottom line: We want to help give birth to quality legal journalism while involving our students in the hands-on research or reporting, and we want to focus our support on independent journalists who lack the backing of a media employer. In addition to the expense-reimbursement funds, you'll get a paid student researcher able to provide an average of five hours of work per week throughout the school year, and an expense-paid trip to Syracuse to speak to students about how you conducted the project and what you accomplished, once it's over. The student involvement in your project is crucial -- it's what motivated us in the first place to support freelancers' work -- so be creative about how you might involve a student researcher in your work.You're eligible if you make your living primarily as a freelance journalist in the U.S., in any medium. The fellowships are geared to original, nonpartisan reporting on local or national legal stories. We'll look favorably on projects that expose problems, suggest solutions, and educate the public about the workings of their laws, lawyers, judges, and justice system. It's also a plus if you weave the tools that TRAC provides into your project. One of the fellowships, with additional support from Syracuse University's Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media, will go to a reporter focusing on a story involving questions of judicial independence. Why just freelancers? Because journalists on staff in news organizations often have the resources to invest in prospective stories. But freelancers are taking a personal financial risk when they invest in an early-stage story. With our help, they might be more willing to take that risk. Another reason: I was uncomfortable committing funds from a non-profit to aid for-profit businesses. A panel of Newhouse faculty (all of whom are current or former working journalists in newspapers, magazines, the Web, broadcasting, and books) will review applications and choose this year's four winners by September 29, 2008. The deadline for applications is September 8, 2008.Read this page for more details and application rules and forms. And contact me if you have questions or suggestions. Please forward a link to this post to your favorite freelancers.-- Mark Obbie
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