The Ida B. Wells Society For Investigative Reporting
The Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting represents a new take on a familiar mission.
We are a news trade organization with a mission of increasing the ranks, retention and profile of reporters and editors of color in the field of investigative reporting.
Our latest news
Congratulations to Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting cofounder Nikole Hannah-Jones – a 2003 (M.A.) graduate and Park Fellow of the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media – who received the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Commentary for the The New York Times Magazine’s ‘The 1619 Project.’ Read more from the Hussman school.
She was recognized “for a sweeping, deeply reported and personal essay for the ground-breaking 1619 Project, which seeks to place the enslavement of Africans at the center of America’s story, prompting public conversation about the nation’s founding and evolution.”
The Pulitzer Prize Board posthumously awarded a Special Citation to Ida B. Wells “for her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African Americans during the era of lynching. The citation comes with a bequest by the Pulitzer Prize board of at least $50,000 in support of her mission. Recipients will be announced at a later date.”
Ongoing trainings
The Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting invites journalists of all skill levels to attend an 8-week virtual investigative reporting workshop and 5-day COVID 19 series. We have invited some of the most accomplished journalists in the field to share their expertise.
These skills-based workshops are free for Society members and will be led by Ida B. Wells Society founders, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Ron Nixon and Topher Sanders and some of the top reporters around the country.
Who we are
The Society seeks to raise the awareness of, and opportunities for, investigative reporting among journalists of color and to foster the desire for social justice journalism and accountability reporting about racial injustice.
Although there are journalism membership organizations that provide training and skills building for investigative reporting and others that serve as advocates for diversity in newsrooms and media organizations, none of these groups adequately serve journalists of color who are interested in opportunities in investigative reporting.
Today, even as ongoing racial inequality roils the national landscape, too few of the journalists doing investigative reporting come from the communities suffering the most. The ranks of investigative reporters in the nation’s newsrooms continue to be overwhelmingly white.
Our mission to is to do something about that
