Case Study

How a New Mexico journalism fellowship increased investment in the local news ecosystem

August 19, 2025

This post is part of “Building a Thriving News Ecosystem,” a series from Knight Communities Network, a Lenfest Institute community of practice for local funders creating thriving news ecosystems.

As a journalist in New Mexico, I’d heard for years from college students that they felt like they were facing two choices at graduation: leave the state to find their first job in journalism or stay in their community but find a job in another field. That was on my mind in 2018 when I organized a series of focus groups with the statewide public policy organization New Mexico First. My goal was to identify potential interventions that would support local newsrooms and other non-traditional sources of news across the state.

Our first ecosystem report, Advancing Sustainable, Reliable Journalism in New Mexico, reflected similar concerns. Students in the focus groups said they wanted more experiential learning opportunities. Local newsroom leaders said they needed more reporters but recent graduates weren’t always ready to work independently in their newsrooms. Focus group participants also identified a long list of challenges and opportunities in journalism education across the state, from media literacy in K-12 schools to the need for more experiential learning opportunities for college students.

After reviewing the report, talking with local and national funders, and launching the New Mexico Local News Fund (NMLNF), I decided a paid fellowship could both create a new pathway for recent graduates and boost local reporting.

In 2019, the fellowship launched as a partnership between NMLNF and the University of New Mexico Department of Communication & Journalism. It has not only met the initial goal to help graduates start their careers in local newsrooms but also expanded through additional funding from the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions.

In 2019, the cohort was modest — three 3 fellows. The 2025 cohort included eight fellows and 11 interns from UNM and New Mexico State University (NMSU).

The New Mexico Local News Fellowship and Internship Program has not only served immediate needs in the local news ecosystem but it established NMLNF as a trusted convenor of journalists, funders, and partners.

Here’s how we did it:

The problem

Journalism students needed experiential learning opportunities and local jobs after graduation. Newsrooms needed a skilled pipeline of journalists to cover their communities. The New Mexico Local News Fund wanted to build a coalition around a high-impact program that could support the sustainability of local newsrooms and other non-traditional sources of news across the state.

What worked

Partnership with University of New Mexico
Reporters in communities where they have roots
Mutually beneficial relationships for newsrooms and fellows
Liveable salaries for fellows + an emergency fund
Diversified funding sources

The fellowship was the first and largest program for NMLNF, an organization that I founded in 2018 to bring together journalists, community members and philanthropic leaders to grow support for our local news ecosystem.

The program is housed in the Communication & Journalism Department at the University of New Mexico. The newsrooms that have hosted fellows and interns include a mix of nonprofit and for-profits that covered communities for print, digital, and broadcast. Originally, the program provided a stipend to newsrooms, but this was later removed and the funding was instead put toward raising pay for the fellows.

The partnership with UNM was critical because our small team at NMLNF, myself and now executive director Rashad Mahmood, could not manage a program on our own. Gwyneth Doland, a longtime local journalist who is now a Professor of Practice in journalism at the UNM, and Professor of Practice Michael Martcotte (now retired) set up a process for reviewing student applications alongside newsroom applications, carefully matching students with opportunities where they could thrive. “Having professors involved in selection and matching allows them to convey potential that doesn’t show up on the application,” said Doland.

Another key element of the program is building mutually beneficial relationships with newsrooms. “We’ve done internships funded by some local business, but it wasn’t structured in a way that we could build a journalist,” said Ctrl+ P publisher Pat Davis, who has hosted interns and currently has a fellow. “Having the university explain to us how they’re teaching journalism helps us frame how we give them assignments.”

The fellowship is now full-time for one year and paid, which is critical for students and recent graduates in New Mexico, where over half of students reported housing or food insecurity in 2023. “Our students have to work at one job or the other. If you want them to work in journalism, you have to buy them out of their job at the pizza place,” said Doland, who also created a small emergency fund to help students navigate financial challenges they may encounter as they prepare to start a fellowship.

Doland says another thing she has learned as the program evolved is that it makes sense to match students with outlets in communities where they already have a connection, whether it means going back to their hometown for the summer or moving to a place where they have family members. In addition to having a network of support, it gives them the advantage of having prior knowledge about that community, helping them do deeper stories that are relevant to local residents.

We launched the fellowship with support from philanthropy, including Democracy Fund and the Thornburg Foundation, which were both early supporters of NMLNF.

Like many states, New Mexico officials often talk about addressing a “brain drain” of promising potential workers who leave after graduation. Mahmood, executive director of NMLNF (we served as co-directors for two years before I left the fund at the end of 2022), saw that as an opportunity and started talking with elected officials about the possibility of securing workforce development funding to grow the fellowship and diversify our funding.

Mahmood found that there was bipartisan support for the program. Since 2022, the fellowship program has been funded by a mix of state funds and philanthropy, which could be a model for other states. “The fact that we’re a public private partnership is different,” said Mahmood, who says pursuing those partnerships might be easier than it seems. “Don’t be shy, reach out and try to talk to people.”

With additional state funding, the program has grown and added an internship track. Doland says the paid internships now create a strong pipeline that is showing impact just a few years later: Interns build their skills early and often return later as fellows. Many fellows have also received job offers in newsrooms where they were placed or other local newsrooms. Marcotte says the fellows have had a lasting impact on not just the newsrooms where they were placed, but the local news ecosystem at large. “Let the next generation find a way in and have some ownership in our news system,” he said.

The evolution of the fellowship into what it is today was only possible through the engagement of a variety of stakeholders, all working together to create opportunities for new journalists and support local news providers. We’re proud of this homegrown program and think other states could replicate this model.

Lessons for others

If you’re considering a fellowship program here are four tips to get started:

Start small: Even 2-4 fellows or interns can be the start of something bigger. The fellowship set a foundation for NMLNF to launch a Southern New Mexico Journalism Collaborative in 2022 with the Solutions Journalism Network. The fund is also now working with Journalism + Design at the New School to offer Community News Transformation Grants to support projects at community colleges across the state.

Leverage partnerships: Fellowships can tap into shared values in ways that make it an ideal way to start building a coalition. All communities want to see their young people succeed and using that shared value to bring people together, across political divides and the silos that exist between local nonprofits, can both build trust and create new opportunities for future programs.

Budget for administrative costs: Running an internship or fellowship takes a lot of time since it includes recruitment, selection, managing finances, and supporting interns or fellows while they are in a newsroom.

Diversify your funding: Lean into your existing relationships or shared values and pursue creative funding sources to grow your program.