EWA Announces ‘New to the Desk’ Cohort for Education Editors

The Education Writers Association is pleased to announce “New to the Desk,” a training opportunity for education editors looking to boost their skills, deepen their knowledge of key issues and topics, and expand and enrich their network of professional colleagues. 

The inaugural “New to the Desk” program will provide support and training for the next generation of education editors as they learn to lead P-12 and higher education reporting teams. Our goal is to ensure newly minted or early career editors get the training and support they need as they continue to move through the leadership and management pipelines. 

An estimated 10 education editors, each with fewer than five years of experience in the position, will be selected through a competitive application process. The selected editors will take part in virtual workshops from April to August, and they’re also eligible for scholarship support to attend EWA’s 78th National Seminar May 28-31 in St. Louis. 

Once selected, the cohort will participate in virtual training workshops examining key issues and building core skills for editors working on education coverage. 

Topics will reflect the selected cohort’s most-pressing needs but will likely include: 

• Planning education coverage on the local level; 
• Addressing newsroom challenges while producing both daily and investigative education coverage; 
• Education as a pathway for economic mobility within communities; and 
• Preparing nuanced education coverage that provides fair and contextualized coverage of political attacks on students, schools and curricula.

Education editors with fewer than five years experience in the position are welcome to apply. Participants must be EWA journalist members. 

The application deadline is Feb. 24. Applicants will be notified of their status by mid-March. The first cohort meeting will be in April.