KCRW is an award winning, multi-platform news, arts, and culture organization that has been serving Southern California for nearly four decades.
Representing Los Angeles means representing an expansive number of identities drawn along many lines, including those of race, class, gender, and sexuality. As an organization, KCRW has a serious commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Yet, like other public radio stations, when it’s time to hire journalists we often find ourselves seeking to fill positions with producers and editors who already have the skills and experience needed to hit the ground running. Often, we would dip into a small, homogeneous pool of the same experienced professionals who rotate between KPCC, American Public Media and NPR West.
In order to broaden our potential hiring pool, KCRW created the Report LA Fellowship program in 2019. This program offers two full-time, 18-month fellowship positions that pay a living-wage salary and benefits. KCRW staff provide rigorous training in digital recording and editing, show production, story planning, writing, and reporting. The goal is to graduate our Fellows with the skills to be hired as public radio or podcast professionals.
KCRW welcomed our first cohort of Report LA Fellows in September 2019. During their tenure, Angel Carreras and Danielle Chiraguayo worked across a broad spectrum of KCRW’s programming. They have produced content for “Press Play”, “Greater LA”, “Morning Edition”, “All Things Considered”, and KCRW’s digital and social platforms. KCRW’s Managing Editor and other staff have provided training and mentorship in various areas across the station.
As our first class of Fellows was about to graduate into a tough pandemic job market, we were very excited to extend their fellowships to last through August 2021.
Perhaps most exciting of all, both our Fellows are leaving the fellowship to take full-time media jobs. Angel Carreras had multiple job offers and accepted a position at a legacy media company in LA. We welcomed Danielle Chiriguayo as a digital news producer in the KCRW newsroom this past summer.
We are now in the process of hiring our second cohort of fellows, who will join KCRW this fall. The Report LA Fellowship has emphasized the immense power of representation in media, and we’re thrilled that this program has been so successful.