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2024 Freelance Journalism Conference
Purchase recordings of IIJ 2024 Freelance Journalism Conference to learn from freelancers and editors from AARP, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and more.
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![Hand with red pen marking journalism layoffs]()
Stand Up for Journalists!
Can you spare 5 minutes?
We’re taking a census of laid off journalists to understand the impact on our field. Please help by sharing our layoffs survey with colleagues - or take it yourself!
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IIJ Webinar Series
Check out the IIJ’s Freelance Webinar Series on Fridays from 12-1:15 PM ET, featuring panels on health & science journalism, travel & lifestyle writing, insurance for freelancers, and more! Learn from editors and writers for the Atlantic, Self, NY Times, Wash Post, Insider, Runner’s World, and more.
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Watch Our Webinars
Improve your pitching, refine your book proposal, learn the craft of long-form narrative, and land a fellowship in our free webinars for freelancers. (Watch recordings of past webinars on our YouTube channel).
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Meet The Team
Get to know the team behind the Institute for Independent Journalists! Learn about our mission and background. Maybe join us?
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Stay in Touch
Join our email list to be the first to read announcements and register for our events. We typically email weekly.
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Take the Survey!
Help us build the IIJ’s programs by contributing your thoughts in our freelance survey. Just 10 minutes of your time will improve our offerings. Thank you in advance!
About The IIJ
The Institute for Independent Journalists is an education, professional development, and mutual support organization for independent journalists, focusing on Black, Indigenous and people of color. Our mission is financial and emotional sustainability for independent journalists of color, through community learning, innovation and advocacy.
Principles of belonging
We are committed to serving all independent journalists by offering a diverse set of perspectives and featuring presenters who represent a variety of identities. We aim to prioritize racially diverse individuals and the most marginalized groups in our programs. Some events will be open to all; some will include only those who self-identify as BIPOC, which includes but isn’t limited to Black, Indigenous, Hispanic, Asian American, Middle Eastern and North African, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.
Our mission
To ensure financial and emotional sustainability for independent journalists of color, by:
Connecting freelancers for learning, collaboration and mutual support in a space that centers marginalized voices and facilitates authenticity and vulnerability.
Creating tools, services and shared wisdom for economic self-sufficiency and mental health, regardless of churn in journalism or who controls newsrooms.
Advocating for fair and equitable treatment of freelancers and best practices for ethical use of independent labor, throughout the media.
Leadership Team
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Katherine is a science journalist and author based in the Washington, D.C. area who writes about education, equity, mental health, parenting, and social justice for publications including The Atlantic, The New York Times, Parents and The Washington Post. Her 2018 book The Good News About Bad Behavior grew out of Mother Jones’ most-read article. A biracial journalist (Asian American and White), she previously worked as a national correspondent for Newhouse News Service and Bloomberg News.
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Ellen is an independent journalist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her writing has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Wirecutter, The Atlantic, Real Simple and the San Francisco Chronicle, where she was a business and technology reporter. She serves as the co-director of the Asian American Journalists Association Freelance Affinity Group and co-director of the AAJA Media Institute. She loves Broadway musicals, peppermint chocolate and sleep.
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Jamila Bey is the editorial director of WHYY News who before 2023 was a longtime freelancer and radio talk show host. Jamila has more than 20 years of experience at multiple news organizations, including NPR, Viacom/BET, and The Washington Post. She has worked as an editor, executive producer, reporter, host, and producer, and her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and NPR.
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Valeria is a Phoenix-based investigative journalist and managing editor of palabra., created by NAHJ to support freelancers. She has produced documentaries for Discovery Spanish, CNN Español, and PBS. Her work can be found in The Guardian, California Sunday Magazine, Latino USA and the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting. In 2018, she won the American Mosaic Journalism Prize for her freelance coverage of underrepresented communities. As a 2021 Nieman Visiting Fellow, Valeria created Comadres al Aire, a Spanish podcast on health.
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Erika is a writer based in Southern California. Her feature stories appear in The New York Times Magazine, Wired, The Atlantic, Marie Claire, MIT Technology Review, Slate, The New Republic, The Guardian, Newsweek, Time, Glamour, Foreign Policy, and others. Erika has been a Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellow and an Alicia Patterson Fellow, and she is interested in the intersections of identity, race, psychology, inequality, science, technology, history, and the human condition. She is a former national correspondent for the Los Angeles Time and currently teaches at the University of California, Irvine as a professor in the Literary Journalism Program.
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Jaeah is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine and a 2021-2022 Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellow. She has written for California Sunday, 1843 Magazine, Columbia Journalism Review, Topic Stories, Vice News, and Mother Jones. She is a recipient of the American Mosaic Journalism Prize for excellence in longform, narrative reporting on underrepresented groups in America. Jaeah was a contributing editor for PEN America’s The Sentences That Create Us (Haymarket, 2022), about the craft of writing for incarcerated people.
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Sylvia A. Harvey, also known as SAH, is an award-winning journalist, speaker, and author of The Shadow System: Mass Incarceration and the American Family. SAH's work on race, class, policy, and incarceration has appeared in The Nation, Elle, Politico, Vox, The Marshall Project, Colorlines, and more. NPR, WBAI, HuffPost Live, Cheddar News, and others, have featured her commentary on the criminal legal system. SAH’s work is being used in university coursework and has been cited by federal lawmakers calling for criminal justice reform. You can connect with her on social media as Ms_SAH.
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Sa’iyda is a writer and editor who lives in Los Angeles with her son, partner and too many pets (3) She writes about the intersections of parenting, race, sexuality, gender and socioeconomic status as well as lifestyle and pop culture. A former writer and editor at Scary Mommy, her work has also been published by The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Program Committee
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Meena is an editorial Swiss army knife embracing media entrepreneurship. She’s a freelance writer covering travel and business for publications including Travel+Leisure and Fortune and an audience development consultant specializing in helping publishers build high value audiences.
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Shernay spent more than a decade as a journalist for television, radio, and print outlets throughout the South and East Coast before serving as a business coach, running a content firm, and in 2020, launching The Black Mompreneur. Recently Shernay became host and producer of a digital series for TheGrio called "A Taste of Chocolate," where she visits notable Black-owned restaurants to learn the stories behind their food.
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Frances is an award-winning journalist, essayist, activist, scholar, and poet focused on issues of Asian America, race, justice, and the arts. Her writing has appeared at PBS NewsHour, NBCAsianAmerica, PRIGlobalNation, Center for Asian American Media, Cha Asian Literary Journal, and more. She co-created a multimedia artwork for Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, she is a Knight Arts Challenge Detroit artist and author of a book on the Vincent Chin case, and You Cannot Resist Me When My Hair Is in Braids, Wayne State University Press.
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Sarah Stirland is a writer/radio and podcast producer living in Silicon Valley. She co-teaches, produces, and edits San Francisco Bay Area high school student stories for KALW’s Summer Podcasting Institute. The Institute publishes an award-winning podcast called tbh.
IIJ Advisory Board
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Benét J. Wilson
Benét J. Wilson is director of the Poynter-Koch Media and Journalism Fellowship, a year-long program for early-career journalists. She was previously a senior editor and a travel/aviation writer for The Points Guy. She serves on the board of Mercer University’s Center for Collaborative Journalism and has served on the Online News Association and the National Association of Black Journalists boards. She is a strong advocate for media diversity, mentoring and career navigation.
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Doug Mitchell
Doug Mitchell is the Founder and Director of Next Generation Radio, an audio-focused multimedia program produced at various locations around the US. It is a five-day "sprint" where 5-6 applicants are selected, paired 1:1 with a professional journalist and those teams report a 3:30-4:00 minute, non-narrated audio piece with a concurrent multimedia package. As Next Gen begins its 24th year, it has more than 450 alumni, of which 80% identify as women and more than 70% are BIPOC.
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Deborah D. Douglas
Deborah D. Douglas is director of the newly created Midwest Solutions Journalism Hub and a senior lecturer at Northwestern University. She is a founding co-editor in chief of The Emancipator, a digital platform that reimagines abolitionist newspapers for a new day. She previously served as the Eugene S. Pulliam Distinguished Visiting Professor at DePauw University, senior leader with The OpEd Project, amplifying underrepresented expert voices, and founding managing editor of MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Douglas is author of the “U.S. Civil Rights Trail: A Traveler’s Guide to the People, Places, and Events That Made the Movement,” the first-ever travel guide to follow the official civil rights trail in the South.
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Paul Cheung
Paul Cheung is a mission-driven executive driving transformative change at the intersection of media and technology.
As the current CEO of The Center for Public Integrity, he spearheads initiatives that meld data analytics with grassroots journalism to influence policy changes. His previous role at the Knight Foundation focused on scaling AI, fostering business sustainability in media, and combating misinformation.
With a career spanning over two decades, Cheung has been a vanguard in the digital transformation of media, having initiated AI, VR/AR, and digital training programs. His leadership roles at prominent media outlets like NBC News Digital and The Wall Street Journal have been marked by his ability to lead diverse teams and innovate in the industry.
Currently, he contributes to the Reynolds Journalism Institute, advising on the utilization of AI tools in newsrooms with limited resources. Besides his professional commitments, Cheung is deeply engaged in philanthropic activities, holding positions on the boards and committees of several organizations including Center for Disaster Philanthropy and the Chronicle for Philanthropy.
Cheung is a graduate of the 2016 Punch Sulzberger Executive Leadership program at Columbia University and an alumnus of New York University.
The IIJ Team
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Operations Coordinator
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Mia Alexander is a graphic designer, video and audio producer, and digital content creator, interested in politics, international development, gender equity, and related topics.
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Editorial Assistant
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Grace Lee is a California-based writer whose work has appeared in Teen Vogue, Bustle, L.A. Times HSI, and more on culture, politics, and education. She currently studies English literature at Stanford University
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Newsletter Writer
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Aarohi Sheth is a poet and journalist from Houston. Her words cover love and relationships, justice and abolition, and queer South Asian spaces. Her work been featured in Teen Vogue, Scalawag Magazine, WIRED, Huffpost, and PBS, among others. She hopes to use her writing as a way to invest in underrepresented communities.
The Institute for Independent Journalists is growing! We’d love to hear from potential partners, collaborators or others who are interested in working with us to support financial and emotional sustainability for independent journalists.
We periodically add part-time staff to our team. Interested applicants should send their resume and a cover letter outlining their skills, experience and why you're interested in a role at the IIJ to Info@TheIIJ.com. Please put "applicant" in the subject line. We’ll respond when we have new projects to be completed!
FAQ
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Yes! All sessions will be recorded except for networking events. Register here and you'll receive access to the recordings until March 31. Look for an email on Tuesday, March 5 with instructions on how to view recorded sessions. It will come from the email address info@theiij.com
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The institute serves freelance writers, reporters, photographers, videographers, graphic designers, data journalists, and all other creators who use the tools of journalism to inform the public. We prioritize journalists of color but also include White journalists in many of our programs.
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There are so many amazing journalism nonprofits, professional associations, and membership organizations. We support and belong to many of them! However, there's no group that exclusively serves independent journalists (aka freelancers) and also centers racial diversity and the most marginalized voices. We aim to fill that role and collaborate with existing groups.
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We are funded by personal savings, philanthropic support, event registration, and sponsorships.
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The Institute for Independent Journalists , LLC is a Maryland limited-liability company operating as The IIJ Foundation, a project of Players Philanthropy Fund, a Maryland charitable trust recognized by IRS as a tax-exempt public charity under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (Federal Tax ID: 27-6601178, ppf.org/pp). Contributions to The IIJ Foundation qualify as tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law.
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The IIJ develops products, tools, and curricula for independent journalists and creators, including an annual conference. The IIJ Foundation is the nonprofit arm of the IIJ, offering free programming and community to support freelancers of color.
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We'd love to include you in our future programming! If you're a freelancer interested in volunteering, or if you'd like your institution to explore partnering, supporting or sponsoring the institute, email Info@theIIJ.com. And definitely sign up for our email list!
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We aim to keep the conference registration fee very low in order that as many people can attend as possible. The sooner you register, the lower your cost will be. Unfortunately, due to restrictions in our fiscal sponsorship arrangement, we will be unable to offer scholarships to the conference.
If you’d like to partner with us to help make the conference free for some attendees, email Katherine@theiij.com and perhaps we can make that happen!
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The IIJ's focus is to support journalists of color, including Alaska Native, American Indian, Asian American, Black, Indigenous, Latine, Middle Eastern, North African and Pacific Islander. White participants are welcome at our conference and webinars. We just ask people to please be aware of their positionality, let others speak, and stay out of affinity spaces. For example, if there is a breakout group for Black or Asian American or Latine participants, don't join that breakout room. If there's an opportunity limited to BIPOC journalists, don't seek that opportunity.
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We will honor requests for refunds received within three days of purchase. After that time, all purchases are nonrefundable because digital bonuses are delivered. Conference recordings will be available for one month after the event, so even if your plans change, you will be able to access the material.
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Membership is free with your registration to the IIJ conference.
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We will send instructions out in the newsletter on Tuesday, March 5 explaining how to access and view conference recordings and the resources for each session, including contact information for panelists who are willing to share it. We will provide edited chats as soon as possible, once sensitive or personal information is removed.
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To honor the labor of the organizers and participants in the IIJ 2024 conference, we are providing session recordings to view until March 31. Moreover, we believe there's so much value in these recordings that you won't want to wait! We all know how journalists are motivated by deadlines.
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We offered the conference at a tremendous discount, compared with similar online workshops and events for journalists. The recordings and resources from each session are available for a full month after the conference.