Machine Learning Reporting Grants

The Pulitzer Center's Machine Learning Reporting Grants support innovative proposals utilizing machine learning and natural language processing to address significant journalistic challenges. These grants aim to enhance data-driven storytelling and encourage collaboration among journalists globally. Successful projects have included using machine learning to investigate oil-well abandonment and gold mining in the Amazon. The Center emphasizes transparency, diverse perspectives, and partnerships to empower impactful reporting.

Note: This grant opportunity is now open, and applications will be reviewed on a first-come, rolling basis.
The Pulitzer Center encourages proposals that use advanced data mining techniques, such as machine learning and natural language processing, to solve a data or reporting problem related to a journalistic investigation.
Grant Overview
Recent grantees have used machine learning to reveal the true scope of oil-well abandonment in Texas; hold land banks accountable in Ohio; and map the proliferation of gold mines in the Amazon rainforest.
These projects harnessed machine learning to augment the reporters’ capacity to tackle big data and systemic issues. The reporters combined the use of machine learning with geospatial analysis, satellite imagery, and traditional shoe-leather reporting, among other approaches.
Another interesting characteristic of the projects we have supported so far is that they all involved collaborative work, whether across newsrooms or disciplines.
As you prepare your application, here are a few questions for you to think about:
Why are you using machine learning? Have other approaches been deemed insufficient?What data do you plan to use? What biases might this data contain, and how would reporters try to mitigate it? What is the size and complexity of the data you are dealing with?What is the machine learning model? Has the model been tested on a smaller-scale dataset? How accurate is the model?Can the model be used by others? Can the investigation be replicated with the model?

Eligibility

We will consider projects of any scope and size. Please choose a team leader to submit the proposal, and submit only one project per journalist, data team, or newsroom.This opportunity is open to U.S. residents and journalists around the world. We are open to proposals from freelance data journalists, staff journalists, or groups of newsrooms working in collaboration on a data project idea. We are open to supporting multiple projects each year. Our grants cover the hard costs of getting to the story and reporting it—airfare, hotels, meals, local ground transportation, records requests costs, data analysis/visualization costs, local reporting partners, or assistants, translators, etc. In some cases, we may consider stipends to cover a reporter's time, if provided in the budget with an explanation.It is OK to include costs of contractors, such as data researchers or data visualization/story designers in your proposal and budget.

Ineligibility

Please do not include stipends for journalists/team members who are in the employ of newsrooms or are being paid by a publisher.Editorial products or project expenses that the Pulitzer Center grants DON’T cover? Books (we can support a story that might become part of a book, as long as the story is published independently in a media outlet) Feature-length films (we do support short documentaries with ambitious distribution plans) Staff salaries Equipment purchases (equipment rentals are considered on a case-by-case basis) An outlet’s general expenses (for example rent, utilities, insurance) Seed money for start-upsRoutine breaking news and coverage Advocacy/marketing campaigns Data projects aimed solely at academic research. Data should be developed to enhance/support journalism.