The New York Times: Introducing the 2023–24 Local Investigations Fellows

The inaugural class of the Local Investigations Fellowship hail from five states and will report from the communities where they live. Read more in this note from the Fellowship’s executive editor Dean Baquet, deputy editor Chris Davis and program and editorial director Sona Patel.

We are proud to announce the inaugural class of the Local Investigations Fellowship. The program, which is being led by Dean Baquet, the former executive editor of The New York Times, gives journalists the opportunity to produce signature investigative work focused on their state or region that will be published by The Times and made available for free for co-publication by local newsrooms.

“There was so much talent out there and so many good ideas. These were hard choices. But this is a remarkable group of reporters. And their work will have an impact on their communities,” said Mr. Baquet.

When the program launched in October 2022, editors on the fellowship team visited local newsrooms across the country to learn more about the challenges facing local news. In those conversations, Mississippi in particular emerged as a place that could benefit from more investigative reporting resources to supplement its strong mix of local news outlets. Three fellows are based in Mississippi, and are the first Times employees to be hired in the state. Additional fellows hail from Hawaii, Maine, Maryland and Wisconsin. All will report from the communities where they live.

“The hard and expensive work of investigative reporting at the local level is rarer and more needed than ever. We’re excited to play our part by helping these journalists tackle consequential questions in their communities and learn valuable new skills that will serve them for years to come,” said A.G. Sulzberger, chairman and publisher of The Times.

The fellows in our inaugural class are:

• Shalina Chatlani, a reporter for States Newsroom in New Orleans. Ms. Chatlani, who was raised in Mississippi, will live in Jackson for a year to examine the state’s health care system.
• Ilyssa Daly, a reporter for the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today. Ms. Daly will report on local law enforcement agencies throughout the state.
• Callie Ferguson, a reporter for the Bangor Daily News in Maine. Ms. Ferguson will write about the state’s juvenile justice system.
• Sarah Fowler, a freelance journalist based in Jackson, Miss. Ms. Fowler will investigate the ongoing water crisis in Jackson, where crumbling infrastructure has routinely left the capital city without drinkable water.
• Mario Koran, a reporter for Wisconsin Watch. Mr. Koran will examine the state’s Department of Corrections.
• Blaze Lovell, a reporter for Honolulu Civil Beat. Mr. Lovell will write about emergency and no-bid contracts awarded by the state.
• Alissa Zhu, a reporter for The Baltimore Banner. Ms. Zhu will report on the state’s opioid crisis.

The work produced by our inaugural fellows will be primarily edited by Mr. Baquet; Chris Davis, deputy for the Local Investigative Reporting Fellowship; Adam Playford, a data and investigations editor who has helped oversee multiple Pulitzer Prize-winning projects; and Rebecca Corbett, a senior investigative editor at The Times who has led some of the newsroom’s most ambitious and notable work, including allegations of sexual harassment against Harvey Weinstein and the secret surveillance of Americans by the N.S.A.

To support the data work of our fellows, Big Local News, a data-sharing journalism lab based at Stanford University, will be working with our fellows on obtaining and analyzing data for their projects and providing ongoing training on investigative data techniques.

The fellowship was introduced to help develop the next generation of reporters to produce accountability journalism at the local level. In addition to producing signature investigative work, fellows will be provided with frequent training opportunities to learn investigative reporting techniques and make trips to our New York offices for additional training and mentorship. Times editors will also visit fellows in their reporting regions.

Interested applicants can apply to the Local Investigations Fellowship here.