S. E. Williams |
Black Voice News is proud to be selected as a host newsroom for one of CatchLight’s next five fellows as the organization continues its support of new models for Visual Journalism in local news.
CatchLight, a visual-first media organization, has selected five visual journalists as CatchLight Local Fellows, partially subsidizing their full time staff positions as they join California partner news organizations. They are part of a groundbreaking collaborative initiative to transform a local news landscape that has seen newsroom visual journalism staff nationwide sliced in half over the past decade.
The CatchLight Local Fellows will become part of the CatchLight Local Visual Desk in California, a new collaborative model for visual journalism that funds five to ten Visual Journalism Fellows, a Visual Editor, and CatchLight’s Editorial and Engagement Director for the next three years to help advance visual representation in local news in California.
“This is such an exciting time for CatchLight to be able to bring back the power of visual journalism in local newsrooms in California through long term staff positions,” said Elodie Mailliet Storm, CatchLight’s CEO. “Visuals have the unique ability to create empathy, establish common ground and effectively build trust in local news sources of information.”
In addition to those philanthropic organizations, Report for America is a partner, offering financial support to cover a portion of three of the journalists’ $60,000 salaries.
Black Voice News
On June 1, the CatchLight Local Fellows will join news organizations based in California’s Inland Empire, the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento as staff members for a minimum of one year (positions can be renewed for up to three years). Each Fellow, in addition to covering daily assignments, will undertake longform visual journalism features, as well as community engagement projects to further connect their newsroom to the local community. For most of the newsrooms, this will be the first time they have had a full-time visual journalist on staff and represents a significant development.
Joining the team at Black Voice News as a CatchLight/RFA corps member is photojournalist and digital artist Aryana Michelle Noroozi. Naroozi, who earned her master’s degree at The Columbia Graduate School of Journalism has been featured in the San Diego Union Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.
“In 2022, the Black Voice News is celebrating our 50th anniversary and this collaboration with CatchLight and Report for America is allowing us for the first time to employ a full-time visual journalist. We have long understood the power that images have in storytelling and are looking forward to being a Catchlight Local California Visual Desk newsroom to bring that power to our growing solutions-focused data reporting team,” said Paulette Brown-Hinds, Publisher, Black Voice News.
Other new CatchLight corps members include Harika Maddala Bay City News, Ximena Natera who will be part of the Berkeleyside team, Sree Sripathy is joining the India Currents newsroom and Larry Valenzuela is being welcomed by CalMatters.
“We believe deeply in the power of visual journalism to inform and unite communities. CatchLight is leading the way,” said Kevin Grant, Co-Founder and Chief Content Officer of The GroundTruth Project and Vice President at Report for America. “We are so proud to deepen our relationship with this phenomenal team.”
About 40,000 nomadic members of the Yumano-Cochimí linguistic family lived in the Baja California peninsula in Mexico. Today there are less than 2,000 natives from five nations and, according to official forecasts, in less than 20 years, they will have ceased to exist. Climate change, land occupation by settlers, and policies rooted in racism have pushed these groups to the brink of extinction. © Ximena Natera 
Ghee is poured into rice to create pindan, or rice balls, on the 13th day of a Vedic funeral ceremony. The rice balls will eventually be fed into the sacred fire, to symbolize the feeding of ancestors. © Sree Sripathy 
Stephanie Hatten, mother of Antwaune Burrise, looks at the bullet holes on her son’s car, parked outside her residence in Stockton, Calif., on July 7, 2021. Burrise was killed in the car by Stockton police officers on July 15, 2020. © Harika Maddala 
Wonderful Halos orange packing facility outside of Delano, CA, on Monday Nov. 15, 2021. Photo by Larry Valenzuela for CalMatters © Larry Valenzuela 
Famo Musa, 31, a refugee from Somalia, and her daughter Sadiya Musa, 7, picnic on their porch with lunches provided by San Diego Unified School District in December in City Heights. © Aryana Noroozi
The news organizations that will host the newly selected Fellows range widely in size and scope. CalMatters is nonpartisan, nonprofit journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s State Capitol works and why it matters; India Currents is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, multi-platform ethnic media organization focused on the Indian American community; Berkeleyside is a nonprofit news organization serving the city of Berkeley; Bay City News is a nonprofit news site that provides free, data-driven, public service journalism to the San Francisco Bay Area; and Black Voice News is an Inland Empire news site focusing on solutions-oriented and data-driven reporting.
“Changing the tide to focus on creating visual resources to better document stories affecting local communities has become more critical than ever for photojournalism work, allowing a better understanding of what solutions may emerge, a need at the heart of many communities today. CatchLight Fellows are doing just that through their impactful work in communities in California and beyond,” said Xin Liu, President of Enlight Foundation.
“As newspapers shed jobs, photo departments have been hit hard. Coverage in the SF Bay Area has suffered greatly. Communities previously flush with news coverage are now passed over for bigger news and issues. I am incredibly excited for the opportunity to work with CatchLight Local, visually documenting issues of overlooked Bay Area communities to identify their causes and explore possible solutions,” said Bay City News Photo Editor Ray Saint Germain.
This initiative was made possible with the support of five philanthropic organizations: the Enlight Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Hearst Foundations, in partnership with PhotoWings.
Black Voice News depends on the support of readers like you in our efforts to expand coverage of local stories important to this community. Please follow this link to support the work of Aryana Noroozi and the other members of the Black Voice Newsroom’s Report for America corps team.