2023 Ochberg Fellowship Guidelines and Application

January 26, 2023

Lisa Krantz, 2017 Ochberg Fellow, from "Evil Did Not Win

John Holcombe, with his children, Evelyn Hill, 8, and Philip Hill, 16, waters flowers and an olive tree planted for nine family members buried in Sutherland Springs, Texas on June 16, 2018. John and Evelyn survived the fifth largest mass shooting in the United States, at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs on November 5, 2017.

Applications are now open on Submittable through March 1, 2023 @ 11:59p ET

FELLOWSHIP GUIDELINES

The Dart Center Ochberg Fellowship is a unique seminar program for senior and mid-career journalists who wish to deepen their knowledge of emotional trauma and psychological injury, and improve reporting on violence, conflict and tragedy.

Reporting responsibly and credibly on traumatic events — on street crime and family violence, natural disasters and accidents, war and genocide, pandemic and social upheaval — is a major challenge. Since 1999 the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, a project of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, has brought together outstanding journalists from around the world to explore critical issues around news coverage of violence, trauma and tragedy.

Fellows attend an intensive weeklong program of seminars held at Columbia University in New York City. Program activities include briefings by prominent interdisciplinary experts in the trauma and mental health fields; conversations with journalist colleagues on issues of ethics, craft and practice, and a variety of other opportunities for intellectual engagement and peer learning.

The Fellowship is led by a core faculty of prominent journalists and mental health professionals from the Dart Center, along with visiting faculty. Past faculty have included:

Judith Lewis Herman, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School and author of Trauma and Recovery
Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., Psychiatrist, Researcher and Author of The Body Keeps Score
Jonathan Shay, M.D. Ph.D., Clinical Psychiatrist, MacArthur Fellow and author of Achilles in Vietnam and Odysseus in America.
Jelani Cobb, Ph.D., Dean of Columbia Journalism School, and Staff Writer, The New Yorker
Chicago “violence interrupter” Eddie Bocanegra with Alex Kotlowitz, producer of the documentary film “The Interrupters” and author, There Are No Children Here.
Karestan Koenen, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
Jessica Stern, author of Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill and Denial: A Memoir of Terror
Steven Southwick, M.D., Glenn H. Greenberg Professor of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine and co-author, Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life's Greatest Challenges

The Fellowship was established in 1999 by the Dart Center in partnership with the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. The fellowship is named in honor of Frank Ochberg, M.D., a pioneer in the study of trauma. The Ochberg Fellowship covers roundtrip travel, 7 nights of lodging, meals and expenses directly related to participation such as ground transportation and travel insurance. The program does not cover health insurance, additional nights of lodging beyond the Fellowship’s duration or ground transportation in fellows’ home cities.

The Fellowship program will be held July 21-27, 2023 at Columbia University in New York City. In the event that public health conditions require us to cancel the program, all selected fellows for 2023 will be deferred to 2024.

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ELIGIBILITY

The Ochberg Fellowships are open to outstanding journalists from any part of the world (with at least five years of professional journalism experience) working across all media. Past Fellows have ranged from small-town and regional general-assignment and crime reporters to war photographers and foreign correspondents for international news organizations. Both staff journalists and freelancers are welcome to apply. Applicants’ work must demonstrate journalistic excellence and a strong track record of covering trauma and its impact on individuals, families or communities.

The Fellowship is open to print, broadcast and digital reporters, photographers, editors and producers with at least five years of professional journalism experience. Approximately half of the Fellows will be based in North America, with the balance drawn from Latin America, Europe, the Asia Pacific region, Africa and the Middle East.

All fellowship seminars are conducted in English. Fellows must be fluent in spoken English to participate in the program.

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APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS

To apply for the Ochberg Fellowship, you must create a free account on Submittable. Please apply using Submittable here.

In order to submit a completed application, you will need:

Resume/CV
Letter of interest (Your letter should discuss your work as a journalist, your experiences covering violence and trauma, challenges you've encountered or particular events or experiences that have informed your outlook and/or professional trajectory, and what you hope to take away from the fellowship.) [No more than 2 pages]
Two relevant work samples (Work samples must have been published or broadcast within the last 24 months by a professional news outlet [no personal websites]. If your work samples are in a language other than English, please submit two sets – one in the original language and another in English translation. For non-English audio, video or multimedia, you may submit a translated transcript.)
Two letters of recommendation (You will be asked to provide an email address for each of your recommenders and they will be contacted directly by Submittable to submit their recommendation for your application. Recommendation letters can be submitted by March 8 the latest.)

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APPLICATION DEADLINE AND DETAILS

The application deadline is March 1, 2023 at 11:59pm EST.

The Fellowship program will be held July 21-27, 2023, at Columbia University in New York City. If public health conditions require us to cancel the program, all fellows selected for 2023 will be deferred to 2024.

All individuals selected for the 2023 Ochberg Fellowship will be required to be vaccinated and boosted. Please attest that if selected you fulfill this requirement.

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SELECTION CRITERIA

Applications are reviewed by a judging committee comprised of Dart Center staff, Fellowship faculty and past Fellows. Selection is not based on any single factor. Judges' consider a variety of factors, with an emphasis on whether applicants:

Demonstrate consistent and thoughtful journalistic engagement with issues of violence, conflict, tragedy and their aftermath;
Have demonstrated journalistic excellence and leadership in their journalism careers;
Will likely benefit personally and professionally from the Fellowship experience and contribute meaningfully to the program and fellows cohort.

Other considerations may include geographic and other diversity, and overall group composition.

The judging committee comprised of journalists, trauma clinicians and issue experts will review applications and select 12-14 fellows for 2023. Selected fellows will be notified by Submittable.

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ALUMNI TESTIMONIALS

Alumni of the program describe their Ochberg Fellowship experiences:

"The Ochberg Fellowship is one of the most meaningful experiences in my life as a journalist. It gave me great insight, not only about myself in the field but also about my interaction with my sources. Most significantly, it is has given me ideas about how to model journalism in relation to crisis and violence reporting, and God knows, there is a lot of that going on in the world."— Abubakar Ibrahim, 2018 fellow

"After years of covering narco-violence as an editor in Mexico and after being attacked by drug cartels for our coverage, I did not understand the concept of trauma and its effects until I participated in the Ochberg fellowship. As I began training other journalists on security issues, understanding trauma allowed me to develop psychological care as a key component of any safety protocol. The fellowship was one of the most enriching and stimulating experiences of my career. It was a week that challenged our intellects and liberated our emotions beyond anything I had ever experienced." — Javier Garza, 2013 fellow

"The fellowship really helped me change the way I approach all my storytelling and also gave me access to a whole new global tribe of people who care about the world and the journalism that we do. It's a gamechanger." — Dhruti Shah, 2015 fellow

"The Dart Center introduced me to a number of professionals and colleagues who led me to rethink the way I was interviewing and approaching trauma survivors, and how I was writing and editing news stories related to these issues. I learned new interviewing techniques and different approaches to avoid re-victimizing people, which changed completely the narrative I was using. When my team had to go out in pursuit of testimonies after the devastating impact of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, I ensured that they were aware of them in order to handle one of the most difficult pieces of coverage in the island's history." — Maria Arce, 2012 fellow

A list of all Fellows since 1999 can be found here.

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QUESTIONS

Please direct any queries to [email protected].

For any Submittable technical issues: https://www.submittable.com/help/submitter/

Dart Featured

Request Publications

Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character

Jonathan Shay is a Boston based psychiatrist caring for Vietnam combat veterans diagnosed with severe, chronic post-traumatic stress disorder. In this unique and revolutionary book, Dr. Shay examines the psychological devastation of war by comparing the soldiers of Homer’s Iliad with many of his patients, Vietnam veterans struggling with PTSD . Although the Iliad was written twenty-seven centuries ago, so much can be learned about combat trauma, especially when it is threaded through the compelling voices and experiences of Vietnam vets.

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Journalists under Fire: The Psychological Hazards of Covering War

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PTSD and Veterans: A Conversation with Dr. Frank Ochberg

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Mapping Trauma and Its Wake: Autobiographic Essays by Pioneer Trauma Scholars

Mapping Trauma and Its Wake is a compilation of autobiographic essays by seventeen of the field's pioneers, each of whom has been recognized for his or her contributions by the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. Each author discusses how he or she first got interested in the field, what each feels are his or her greatest achievements, and where the discipline might - and should - go from here. This impressive collection of essays by internationally-renowned specialists is destined to become a classic of traumatology literature. It is a text that will provide future mental health professionals with a window into the early years of this rapidly expanding field.

Post-Traumatic Therapy And Victims Of Violence (Psychosocial Stress Series)

Frank M. Ochberg, MD is adjunct professor of psychiatry, criminal justice and journalism at Michigan State University. He served in the cabinet of Governor William Milliken as Mental Health Director. His book, Post Traumatic Therapy and Victims of Violence, is widely acclaimed as one of the leading resources in the field.

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Witness to an Extreme Century: A Memoir

In this long-awaited memoir, Lifton charts the adventurous and surprising course of his fascinating life journey, one that took him from what he refers to as, "a Jewish Huck Finn childhood in Brooklyn, to deep and meaningful friendships with many of the most influential intellectuals, writers, and artists of our time—from Erik Erikson, David Riesman, and Margaret Mead, to Howard Zinn and Kurt Vonnegut, Stanley Kunitz, Kenzaburo Oe, and Norman Mailer. This work is more than a memoir, it is also a remarkable study of Hiroshima survivors. Lifton explored the human consequences of nuclear weapons, and then went on to uncover dangerous forms of attraction to their power in the spiritual disease he calls nuclearism. Lifton writing illuminates the reversal of healing and killing in ordinary physicians who had been socialized to Nazi evil. Written with the warmth of spirit—along with the humor and sense of absurdity—that have made Lifton a beloved friend and teacher to so many, Witness to an Extreme Century is a moving and deeply thought-provoking story of one man’s extraordinary commitment to looking into the abyss of evil in order to help others move past it.

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Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming

In this original psychological literary work, Dr. Jonathan Shay continues what he started in his book, Achilles in Vietnam. Uses the Odyssey, the story of a soldier's homecoming, Shay sheds light on the pitfalls that trap many veterans on the road to recovery, the return to civilian life. The combination of psychological insight and literary brilliance feels seamless. Shay makes an impassioned plea to renovate American military institutions and in doing so deepens the readers understanding of the veteran's experience.

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Trauma Journalism: On Deadline in Harm's Way

Trauma Journalism personalizes this movement with in-depth profiles of reporters, researchers and trauma experts engaged in an international effort to transform how the media work under the most difficult of conditions.Through biographical sketches concerning several significant traumatic events (Oklahoma City bombing, Columbine school tragedy, 9/11, Iraq War, the South Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina), students and working reporters will gain insights into the critical components of contemporary journalism practices.

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After the War Zone: A Practical Guide for Returning Troops and Their Families

Two experts from the VA National Center for PTSD come together in this work to provide an essential resource for service members, their spouses, families, and communities. They shed light on what troops really experience during deployment and once they return home. Pinpointing the most common after-effects of war and offering strategies for troop reintegration to daily life, Friedman and Slone cover the myths and realities of homecoming; reconnecting with spouse and family; anger and adrenaline; guilt and moral dilemmas; and PTSD and other mental-health concerns. With a wealth of community and government resources, tips, and suggestions, After the War Zone is a practical guide to helping troops and their families prevent war zone stresses from having a lasting negative impact.

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Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life's Greatest Challenges

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Trauma Therapy in Context: The Science and Craft of Evidence-based Practice

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Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence

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Sharing the Front Line and the Back Hills

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Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story

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2023 Ochberg Fellowship Guidelines and Application

Applications are now open on Submittable through March 1, 2023 @ 11:59p ET

FELLOWSHIP GUIDELINES

ELIGIBILITY

APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS

APPLICATION DEADLINE AND DETAILS

SELECTION CRITERIA

ALUMNI TESTIMONIALS

QUESTIONS

Request Publications

Tragedies & Journalists

Reporting War

News Media & Trauma

Covering Children & Trauma

Child Clinicians & the Media

Covering Columbine

Ethical Reporting on People Affected by Trauma

Peer Support for Journalists

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character

Journalists under Fire: The Psychological Hazards of Covering War

PTSD and Veterans: A Conversation with Dr. Frank Ochberg

Mapping Trauma and Its Wake: Autobiographic Essays by Pioneer Trauma Scholars

Post-Traumatic Therapy And Victims Of Violence (Psychosocial Stress Series)

Witness to an Extreme Century: A Memoir

Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming

Trauma Journalism: On Deadline in Harm's Way

After the War Zone: A Practical Guide for Returning Troops and Their Families

Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life's Greatest Challenges

Trauma Therapy in Context: The Science and Craft of Evidence-based Practice

Home from the War: Learning From Vietnam Veterans

The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence

Covering Violence: A Guide to Ethical Reporting About Victims & Trauma

Sharing the Front Line and the Back Hills

The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence

Parallel Justice for Victims of Crime

Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia

Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles

A Country Called Amreeka: U.S. History Retold through Arab-American Lives

Patriot Acts: Narratives of Post-9/11 Injustice

Unsettled/Desasosiego: Children in a World of Gangs/Los niños en un mundo de las pandillas

Legal Lynching: The Death Penalty and America's Future

War Photographer

Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda

Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur

The Troubles We've Seen

Ghosts by Daylight: Love, War, and Redemption

Echoes of Violence: Letters from a War Reporter (Human Rights and Crimes against Humanity)

It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War

Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story

Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide

Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values

Shoah

Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology

Carnage and the Media

Nostalgia for the Light

War Stories

The Secret Life of War: Journeys Through Modern Conflict

On Television

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness

Sleep: A Very Short Introduction

King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

The Universal Journalist

Fighting for the Rain Forest

Legends of People Myths of State: Violence, Intolerance, and Political Culture in Sri Lanka

Family Secrets: Shame and Privacy in Modern Britain

On the Natural History of Destruction

The Sewing Circles of Herat: A Personal Voyage Through Afghanistan

House of Stone: The True Story of a Family Divided in War-Torn Zimbabwe

Butcher & Bolt: Two Hundred Years of Foreign Failure in Afghanistan

Jerusalem 1913: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

They Fought for Each Other: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Hardest Hit Unit in Iraq

The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle against America's Veterans

Madame Dread: A Tale of Love, Vodou, and Civil Strife in Haiti

Columbine

Juvenile