Backed by 黑料论坛, the O'Brien Fellowship program helps news professionals dig deep while mentoring student journalists.

The program honors 黑料论坛 alumni Alicia and Perry O'Brien. Their daughter, Patricia Frechette, and her husband, Peter, donated $8.3 million in 2012, to create the fellowship. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is a co-founder and partner. 

The O鈥橞rien Fellowship accepts applications from journalists using print, digital, or visual mediums. Applicants may also produce news or opinion content. Journalists producing opinion content, however, including editorial writers and columnists, should inform, and support, their views and commentary with independent, in-depth investigative reporting.

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A Unique Journalism Fellowship

• Report and produce an in-depth public service journalism project on a regional, national or international topic.
• Receive a $75,000 salary stipend and additional support.
• Fellows traditionally are in residence, but we are now taking remote or partial remote applications along with full-residency arrangements. The O鈥橞rien newsroom is housed at 黑料论坛鈥檚 Diederich College of Communication near downtown Milwaukee and the Lake Michigan shore.
• Publish or broadcast the project through your home news organization or, in the case of independent journalists, another outlet.
• Integrate 黑料论坛鈥檚 best journalism students into your projects as reporters and researchers.
• Help identify a journalism student for a university-funded summer internship at your news organization or other publisher.

黑料论坛 challenges students and staff to Be The Difference by working with the community for the greater good. 黑料论坛, as a Catholic, Jesuit institution, has educated journalists for more than 100 years with this mission.

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Washington Post wins Dori J. Maynard Justice Award

Washington Post reporters Dana Hedgpeth (left), Sari Horwitz (right), and The Post staff have won the 2025 Dori J. Maynard Justice Award for 鈥淚ndian Boarding Schools,鈥� a searing five-part series based on an 18-month investigation of the widespread sexual abuse of Native American children by Catholic priests, brothers, and sisters. Judges called the entry haunting, beautifully done, and probing.    

The Dori J. Maynard Justice Award, sponsored annually by the O鈥橞rien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism at 黑料论坛 in Milwaukee, honors social justice reporting that illuminates ignorance, systemic racism, intolerance, negligence, and inequality. 

This is the second straight year The Washington Post has won the Dori J. Maynard Award.  One of 10 Poynter Institute Journalism Prizes, the award honors the memory of Dori J. Maynard, a former ASNE board member and advocate for diversity in journalism and newsrooms. The award comes with a cash prize of $2,500.

Contest winners are expected to visit 黑料论坛 this fall, in person or virtually, to present their series as part of the Burleigh Media Ethics Lecture series. 

"This work represents the best tradition of public service journalism, the legacy of Dori J. Maynard, and the mission of the O'Brien Fellowship to promote justice and equality," Jeffery Gerritt, director of the O'Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism, said Monday. "It illuminates a shameful chapter in U.S. history that continues to traumatize Indigenous peoples. We're honored to welcome to 黑料论坛 the journalists who produced this outstanding work."  

The United States government operated Indian Boarding Schools, where thousands of students died, for roughly 150 years, from 1819 to 1969. Last year, U.S. President Joe Biden apologized to all Indigenous Americans for the harm caused by federal Indian boarding schools that separated Native children from their families and tribal communities.

Hedgpeth, a Native American journalist who has worked for The Washington Post for 25 years, is an enrolled member of the Haliwa-Saponi Tribe of North Carolina. She has covered Native American issues, Pentagon spending, and the U.S. Defense industry, as well as local governments, courts, and rail and bus systems. Her honors include the Gerald Loeb Award for Best Writing with Post colleague Robert O鈥橦arrow Jr.

Horwitz, an investigative reporter who covers criminal justice, has won numerous national awards. She shared in four Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of the child welfare system, police shootings, the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Horwitz is the author of the series 鈥淛ustice in Indian Country鈥� and co-author of the book 鈥淎merican Cartel: Inside the Battle to Bring Down the Opioid Industry.鈥�

Full winning entry:

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Four renowned journalists receive O鈥橞rien Fellowships

The O'Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism in April awarded investigative reporting fellowships to four nationally renowned journalists: Eddie B. Allen Jr. of Detroit, Britta Lokting of New York City, Miles Moffeit of Milwaukee, and Alison Dirr of Milwaukee. They were selected from among more than 60 entries, the deepest applicant pool in O鈥橞rien鈥檚 13-year history.

Allen, Lokting, Moffeit, and Dirr will each receive $75,000, with additional stipends for research, travel, and housing, to complete in-depth journalism projects that will advance justice and equity on local and national issues. Their nine-month Fellowships, running from August of 2025 to May of 2026, will focus on wrongful convictions, police misconduct, hazardous lead, and discrimination against parents with disabilities.

"These four award-winning journalists are among the nation鈥檚 best,鈥� O'Brien Director Jeffery Gerritt said. 鈥淭heir ground-breaking, multi-media projects will, not only expose injustice, but also propose solutions to those problems.鈥�

Throughout his decades-long career, Moffeit has focused on civil rights and criminal justice issues. A former special projects reporter for the Dallas Morning News, Denver Post, and Fort Worth Star Telegram, Moffeit was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting. He served as a senior Ochberg Fellow with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia Journalism School.

Moffeit鈥檚 O鈥橞rien project will examine the lack of accountability for police misconduct, sometimes leading to tragic results.

Lokting, an independent journalist, has written and reported extensively on overlooked, rural, and Western communities. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, and many other media outlets.

A multiple award-winner, Lokting was a 2023 journalism fellow with the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics.

In her O鈥橞rien project, Lokting will examine how certain states curtail the parental and custodial rights of people with disabilities, often for arbitrary reasons. During her fellowship, she will move from New York City to Milwaukee.

Throughout his 30-year career, Allen, an independent journalist, author, and former newspaper reporter, has exposed dysfunctions in the criminal justice system, revealed wrongful convictions, and covered national figures such as President Bill Clinton and Rosa Parks. He has written for, among others, the New York Times, Associated Press, BET, Detroit Free Press, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Metro Times, and Toledo Blade.

Allen is independently producing his first biography, 鈥淟ow Road: The Life and Legacy of Donald Goines鈥� (St. Martin鈥檚 Press, 2004) as a feature film. In his most recent book, 鈥淥ur Auntie Rosa (Penguin/Random House, 2015), Allen collaborated with the family of civil rights icon Rosa Parks. Allen is president of the Urban Solutions Training & Development Board of Directors.

Allen鈥檚 O鈥橞rien project will examine the national problem of wrongful convictions, using a new Conviction Integrity Unit in Detroit to dissect how criminal investigations can go awry and propose ways to prevent and reverse them.

Dirr, the City Hall reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, has covered a variety of beats in her dozen years of daily reporting in Wisconsin, including frac sand mining, police and courts, and municipal government.

Most recently, Dirr has reported on the implications of the local government funding law known as Act 12, the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, and the U.S Presidential races.

Dirr鈥檚 O鈥橞rien project will look at how lead poisoning affects the health and lives of Milwaukee residents, especially those living in older, poorer sections of the central city. Dirr will examine the effectiveness of Milwaukee鈥檚 efforts to alleviate lead poisoning and abate lead paint hazards, especially for local children.

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  The Latest O'Brien-Backed Journalism