FRONTLINE (PBS) and American University’s Investigative Reporting Workshop launch new journalism fellowship
Thursday, November 16th, 2017
The PBS series FRONTLINE and the Investigative Reporting Workshop (IRW) at American University’s School of Communication are pleased to announce a new journalism fellowship.
The inaugural FRONTLINE/IRW Fellow, Kate McCormick, who is finishing her master’s degree at George Washington University, will work with writer-producer Rick Young and his FRONTLINE team based at AU. She also will write for FRONTLINE’s digital platforms, and will contribute to upcoming projects at the Workshop.
“We’re so proud of the investigations we’ve carried out with the team at the Workshop, and we’re pleased to expand both our collaboration — and our reporting capacity — in this way,” says FRONTLINE Executive Producer Raney Aronson-Rath.
As a previous IRW intern, McCormick was a researcher on the May 2017 FRONTLINE program, “Poverty, Politics and Profit,” about the nation's affordable housing crisis.
She also worked with The Washington Post's investigative team, traveling to Wichita, Kansas, to report for the Post's Fatal Force series on police shootings, and worked on a story on evictions in the District of Columbia that led to changes in the city’s eviction policies.
McCormick has previous experience in documentaries, narrative film, commercials and newspapers, most recently in rural Franklin County, Maine, for the Waterville Morning Sentinel, where she reported on local communities' attempts to revive their small towns in the face of paper-mill closures and migration to urban centers.
“We’re thrilled to have Kate join the team here at AU,” Young said, “and to deepen the ties between FRONTLINE, the Workshop and the next generation of investigative filmmakers."
Charles Lewis, IRW’s executive editor, said the new fellowship will allow the Workshop to expand its education mission and continue to grow its relationship with FRONTLINE. “This fellowship continues our efforts to train the next generation,” Lewis said. “Kate is outstanding. She proved herself as a summer intern, and we’re thrilled to bring her back.”
FRONTLINE, U.S. television’s longest running investigative documentary series, explores the issues of our times through powerful storytelling. FRONTLINE has won every major journalism and broadcasting award, including 89 Emmy Awards and 20 Peabody Awards. Visit pbs.org/frontline and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr and Google+ to learn more.
Founded in 1983, FRONTLINE is produced by WGBH Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Ford Foundation, the Park Foundation, the John and Helen Glessner Family Trust, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation.
Funding for the fellowship is provided in part from the Democracy Fund through a grant to IRW to support independent journalism.
