Bright Futures

Read the cover story from the latest project, where student interns identified a few key issues driving youth activism—climate change, immigration, LGBTQ rights and social justice—and sought out youth who have worked on these concerns. The 2021 cover story spotlights four activists ranging in ages from 11 to 28, working with and for local nonprofits Wise Fool New Mexico, the Santa Fe Dreamers Project, Youth United for Climate Crisis Action, Global Warming Express, as well as other initiatives.

While each activist has areas of specific focus, their overlapping motivations soon became clear. As Artemisio Romero y Carver, who works both as a climate change and social justice activist, says: "To know that there were wrong things in this world and to know that as a person, I have to do something to stop those wrong things from continuing."

The Association of Alternative Newsmedia named the project third place in the “Nonprofit Collaboration” category in its annual journalism awards, with the judge calling it “a strong local collaboration that benefited both the students who contributed and the local newsroom. This is an excellent example of journalists thinking about their role in their communities and how to engage in new ways.”

New Cohort Will Focus on Youth Activism

The New Mexico Fund for Public Interest Journalism welcomed a new cohort of fellows at the end of November for an upcoming six-week project focused on youth activism in Northern New Mexico. This will be the first training conducted virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Meet our new interns below!

Magnificent Farrell

Magnificent Farrell is a student at the Santa Fe Community College. They've aspired to be a writer for some time now, and since then have done works for various blogs and such. They have also done various projects with Wise Fool New Mexico, performing in many shows in the past four years. When Magnificent isn't writing, they find an interest in Forensic Science, and studying that field of work."

Kiera Ortiz

Kiera Ortiz is a junior in the International Baccalaureate program at Sandia High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is interested in pursuing a college education in journalism with a focus on International Relations. In her free time, she enjoys painting and drawing, caring for her many houseplants, and listening to podcasts about psychology.

Nicholas Romero

Nicholas Romero is a staff photographer and freelance reporter at the Daily Lobo. Nicholas is a senior at the University of New Mexico majoring in Mass Communication/Journalism and is on track to graduate in the spring of 2021. During his free time, Nicholas is found spending it with his two dogs, hiking, taking photographs, or playing sports. Nicholas has a passion for sports, animals, and culture with hopes of using his photography and writing to make a positive impact on those fronts. He has spent the last two years taking photographs of sports, culture and protests around the city of Albuquerque.

Urmi Vallassery

Urmi Vallassery is a senior at the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West in Montezuma. She moved to New Mexico a year ago, but is originally from Texas and India. From the time she was born, she moved across five different countries with her family and was exposed to a vast array of cultures. Because of this, she has always been interested in social justice, international relations, and activism. She hopes to continue her passions in these fields in college, but for now, she's enjoying the time she has left in Montezuma! While she's at home, she enjoys spending time with her family, playing with her dog, learning new knitting patterns and baking pastries.

Journo Fund Project Wins 1st Place National Award

The New Mexico Fund for Public Interest Journalism took first place in the nonprofit collaboration category of the 2020 Association of Alternative Newsmedia's competition for last year’s cover story "Roadmap for Resilience." The story was produced by students who were part of a 2019 internship cohort run by Julia Goldberg, who oversaw and edited the story. "Roadmap for Resilience" examined the sustainability programs at Santa Fe Community College and was produced in collaboration with the Trades and Advanced Technology Center and SFCC's Biofuels Center of Excellence Director Luke Spangenberg, who recently passed away. Last spring’s cohort included Olivia Abeyta and Max Looft from Santa Fe High School and Anna Girdner and James Taylor from SFCC.

Fall Interns Publish Story on Santa Fe Curators

Last fall, student journalists set out to profile some of Santa Fe’s curators and learn about what drives their work. The answer? Diversity, activism, collaboration and deep research, to start.

This week, The Santa Fe Reporter published the outcome of the recent cohort from the New Mexico Fund for Public Interest Journalism: curator profiles from SITE Santa Fe, Vital Spaces, the Museum of International Folk Art and form & concept gallery. That story, State of the Art, can be read here.

Interns Maya Aronson, Franco Romero, Tintawi Kaigziabiher and Tristan Van Cleave spent six weeks visiting galleries and museums for their stories, interviewing curators Brandee Caoba, Amber-Dawn Bear Robe, Felicia Katz-Harris and Jordan Eddy. They also worked with intern mentor Julia Goldberg on the fundamentals of interviewing, reporting and writing for publication.

Romero, Kaigziabiher and Van Cleave also appeared on KBAC’s The Big Show with Honey Harris on Jan. 8 to discuss their stories and experiences in the Journo fund program.

Student journalists receive on-the-job training, while also getting paid to learn and report. The Journo Fund will open for a new round of interns in the spring. Check nmjournalism.org for more information on this program or to make a donation to support it.

Fall 2019 Interns Will Focus on Curators

Four students chosen to participate in the fall 2019 cohort for the New Mexico Fund for Public Interest Journalism’s intern training program began meeting last month.

The students will be focusing on art curation in Santa Fe, visiting four different galleries and museums in order to write about the people behind the exhibitions. The six-week program runs each fall and spring and includes classroom training, field work and writing. Successful participants receive a certificate of completion, a $500 stipend and the opportunity for their work to appear in the Santa Fe Reporter. Last spring, student reported on sustainability programs at Santa Fe Community College. In fall 2018, students wrote about the artists and work in SITE Santa Fe’s biennial.

Meet the 2019 Fall Interns:

Maya Aronson is a junior in The Master Program at Santa Fe Community College. She has always had a deep passion for art, both learning about it and creating it. She is currently taking a History of Women Artists class, enjoyed working with experimental artists at Currents New Media exhibition this summer and intends to explore different mediums in her own creative practice. She is excited to get to work with art professionals and learn more about her local art community. She is also a strong believer in art as activism and hopes to one day combine her two passions, art and social justice, to help people all around the world.

Franco Romero graduated with a BFA in Creative Writing from the Santa Fe University of Art and Design in 2016. He aspires to write about issues such as class and ecology. He is a published author of short fiction and poetry as well.

Tintawi Kaigziabiher is a writer, potter, doula and crochet designer. She migrated to New Mexico from the NYC Metro area seven years ago. Tintawi is married to a scientist, and together they live in the high desert with their five children, five chickens, two doves, a kitten and a leopard gecko named Milo. As a woman of African descent she writes to give a voice to the African presence and experience in the Diaspora. She is currently a Creative Writing Major/Ceramics Minor at Santa Fe Community College.

Tristan Van Cleave is a bit of a would-be this, a would-be that, and a think-he-can writer. When he's not 'writing,' 'playing the piano,' studying creative writing at Santa Fe Community College, or playing the role of insufferable pseudo-philosopher, he can be found in his World Market armchair boring his loved ones in a number of other ways. Legend has it, he's still derailing conversations with unwanted advice to this day.

Second Cohort of Student Journos

The New Mexico Fund for Public Interest Journalism’s spring interns completed and published a cover story for the June 19 edition of The Santa Fe Reporter.

In "Roadmap to Resilience," local student journalists explored the vision from the Santa Fe Community College to imagine and bring about a future that's less destructive and more sustainable. The project was created in a collaboration with the school's Trades and Advanced Technology Center, and was partially funded through a grant from the City of Santa Fe's Children and Youth Commission's Innovation Fund. 

Over the last eight years, the community college program has established multiple degree and certificate programs in emergent fields such as biofuels, controlled environment agriculture and green building. Approximately 450 students are enrolled in the center's various programs, where instructors emphasize hands-on learning and ingenuity.

Student interns spend six weeks with veteran mentor and educator Julia Goldberg, learning journalism skills on the ground. The six-week training includes two weeks of classroom training consisting of two two-hour classes; two weeks of field work for reporting with the student working independently in the field for at least one week; and two weeks of writing and editing with the student working in consultation with the program’s mentor for planning and editing. 

Our third internship/mentorship project starts in the fall, and applications will open later in the summer.  Support the next group of students with a donation.

Meet Our Spring Interns

With help from our campaign sponsors and a grant from the City of Santa Fe’s Youth Commission Innovation Fund, we are pleased to welcome a new group of interns for Spring, 2019.

This season’s project will focus on environmental and sustainability reporting. The New Mexico Fund for Public Interest Journalism has partnered with Santa Fe Community College’s School of Trades, Technology and Sustainability, and will be working directly with Luke Spangenburg, director of biofuels, Center of Excellence and the Training Center Corporation.

And here are the interns for spring:

Olivia Abeyta

Olivia Abeyta is a sophomore at Santa Fe High School and is part of the school’s journalism class.  She enjoys writing about issues facing the next generation and how they will change the future. She also loves to draw and write her own stories.  She hopes to inspire others through her art and writing.

Anna Girdner

Anna Girdner is 19 and is a freshman at Santa Fe Community College. She has been writing creative pieces for many years, which helped her gain an interest in journalism. After taking several writing courses at SFCC, she finally felt that it was the right time to start pursuing journalism.

Max Looft

Max Looft is a junior at Santa Fe High, who is now in his second year of journalism. His articles are mostly centered around space and technology, and he has established his own column on the Demon Tattler for space news. His priorities lay in fictional writing, but journalism is a solid way to keep him writing and to further broaden his horizons on the topic of science. His lack of outgoingness and quick energy is made up for in his steady and thorough work, which may not help with being a bustling reporter, but instead a solid writer.

James Taylor

James Taylor is a grower, poet, and dog lover who lives in Cochiti Lake. He retired from research and grant writing. Then a couple of weeks later, he woke up one morning wondering how humankind is going to survive ignorance, pestilence, and hunger so he went back to college to find out. Now he is a senior student at SFCC, learning and writing about controlled environment agriculture and how it can help in the effort to feed everyone in Northern New Mexico.

Journo Fund Education Project Receives City Grant

The Journo Fund kicked off the new year with a new round of fundraising for training the next generation of journalists.

We are very pleased to announce that we applied for and were recently awarded $2,500 through the City of Santa Fe’s Children and Youth Commission‘s Innovation Fund.

This grant will be used to pay stipends to the second cohort of interns we bring on this spring for our journalism boot camp.

Last fall, we kicked off this program by working with four local high school and college students in partnership with SITE Santa Fe. The focus of the training was arts reporting and writing; the students ultimately produced a cover story examining SITE’s Casa Tomada biennial exhibition.

Spring interns will focus on environmental reporting in Northern New Mexico. The six-week training includes two weeks of classroom training consisting of two two-hour classes; two weeks of field work for reporting with the student working independently in the field for at least one week; and two weeks of writing and editing with the student working in consultation with the program’s mentor for planning and editing. Upon successful completion, the students will have their work published in the Santa Fe Reporter, receive a $500 stipend and a certificate of completion.

We are continuing to fund raise for the fund in order to lay a foundation for this program, as well as other projects we hope to accomplish in the coming year. As always, we welcome your suggestions and ideas, as well as any financial support you can offer.

Donors who make a contribution between now and Feb. 14 receive a pair of tickets to the CCA as our way of saying thanks.

Students Learn Journalism Skills in First NM Journo Fund Project

This week, the New Mexico Fund for Public Interest Journalism publishes its first project, which showcases arts reporting and writing by local students on SITE Santa Fe’s current biennial exhibit Casa tomada.

The project ran for six weeks and included a field trip and tour of the SITE show, along with weekly meetings and discussions on reporting and journalism. The students interviewed artists, curators and others involved with the show for their final pieces.

The final pieces published Nov. 21 in the Santa Fe Reporter:

Santa Fe Prep senior Ruby Woltring interviewed one of the show’s three curators, Candice Hopkins, for a discussion of how the curators found unifying themes in the show, and the way in which New Mexico’s history of conquest and displacement makes it a particularly appropriate setting for the works included.

University of New Mexico senior Celia Raney’s story investigates the challenges of presenting Indigenous art in museum settings through interviews with SITE’s Indigenous Outreach Coordinator Winoka Begay and Navajo artist Melissa Cody, whose work is part of the exhibit.

New Mexico School for the Arts senior Maya Forte writes about the compelling  photography of renowned Chilean photographer Paz Errázuriz, whose work mines subjects often overlooked in society.

Santa Fe Prep junior Bettina Broyles interviewed artist Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, whose sculptural installation is informed by Guatemalan history and serves as a meditation on the role of materialism in forging identity.

For this project, the Journo Fund worked with SITE’s robust education department, which already runs several youth programs, such as its Zine, Gallery Guide and Scholars program.

The Journo Fund is now fundraising for its next training program, which will focus on environmental reporting. To help us cultivate the next generation of journalists, please consider making a donation here.

Journo Fund Student Interns Report on SITE Santa Fe

Interns in the Journo Fund’s training program meet weekly to learn and practice journalism.

Students chosen for the first cohort of the New Mexico Fund for Public Interest Journalism’s training program are winding up their six-week intensive in arts and culture reporting and writing.

The students, who range from high school sophomores to college seniors, were chosen from a group of applicants earlier this fall. The four students have met weekly to learn and practice basic reporting skills—from interviewing to structuring stories, working with Journo Fund board member journalist Julia Goldberg.

Interns toured SITE Santa Fe’s Casa tomada exhibit and will be interviewing artists.

The group also has been working with SITE Santa Fe Director of Education and Curator of Public Practice Joanne LeFrak, who arranged a guided tour and helped connect the students with artists for interviews in connection with the museum’s biennial exhibit, Casa tomada. Upon completion, the students’ work will be published in the Santa Fe Reporter.

Meet the Journo Fund’s first cohort:

Bettina Broyles is a junior at Santa Fe Prep. She is interested in creative writing and arts, and wanted to explore journalism as another mode of creative expression. Bettina enjoys hiking with her dog, art and skiing.

Maya Forte is a senior in the New Mexico School for the Arts. She has lived in New Mexico for the past 12 years, and has been published in both the Taos News and NMpolitics.net. She is considering pursuing careers in environmental science, international relations or journalism.

Based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Celia Raney is a multimedia journalist, avid reader and coffee connoisseur. Rainy days, late night car jams and high-mountain hikes dominate her ever-seldom free time. She is a senior at the University of New Mexico, studying journalism and English. Her cat Opal regularly stars on her social media.

Ruby Woltring is an Alaskan born senior at Santa Fe Prep. She loves writing and reading, and is passionate about prison reform.

Fundraising is underway for the second cohort of interns, this time focusing on the environment.