The John Alexander Project

11/12/2025

Welcome Katerina Barton to The John Alexander Project! We are excited to announce our next NPR Above the Fray fellow is heading to Indonesia.

Katerina Barton is the 2025-2026 Above the Fray Fellow November 10, 20253:24 PM ET Katerina Barton hide caption toggle caption NPR and The John Alexander Project select Katerina Barton for esteemed international reporting fellowship November 10, 2025; Washington, D.C. – NPR and the John Alexander ...

11/12/2025

Katerina Barton is the 2025-2026 Above the Fray Fellow November 10, 20253:24 PM ET Katerina Barton hide caption toggle caption NPR and The John Alexander Project select Katerina Barton for esteemed international reporting fellowship November 10, 2025; Washington, D.C. – NPR and the John Alexander ...

10/30/2024

Valerie Kipnis fellow for NPR reporting is live! Her work. is stunning, evocative, and eerie. A must-see. Thank you NPR Extra Claire Harbage, Connie Hanzhang Jin and Daniel Wood. We are so proud to share this work.

The Aral Sea has nearly disappeared over the last 60 years. Now, its source rivers are depleting.

05/01/2023

Friends - It's our favorite time of year - application season!

We are so pleased to announce that our NPR fellowship application is open and we're back on the international beat!

Apply by July 1.
Photo credit: Emily Kwong

More details... https://www.thejohnalexanderproject.org/apply

The J.A. Project supports the next generation of foreign journalists through our keynote program, the Above the Fray fellowship at NPR.

06/01/2022

NPR and The John Alexander Project are pleased to announce Leah Donnella as the 11th recipient of our joint international reporting program, the Above the Fray Fellowship. Selected from a competitive pool of applicants, Donnella will spend 6 months reporting on the intersection of global migration and race in the American South. She will explore how American "Blackness" is being redefined by growing Black immigrant populations.

Selected from a competitive pool of applicants, Donnella will spend six months reporting on the intersection of global migration & race in the American South

01/03/2022

Application Extension Alert — Omicron is throwing a wrench in our plans (and yours), so we’re pushing the NPR Above the Fray application deadline back. Everyone gets another month to polish up those applications!

New Deadline: Feb 15

Important Dates 2021-2022Application Posted: November 15Application Deadline: Deadline Extended! January 15 February 15, 11:59 PM ETApplication Receipt Notification: February 20Semi-Finalist Notification: April 1Finalist Interviews: May EligibilityThe fellowship is targeted for journalists early in....

11/16/2021

The NPR Above the Fray fellowship is back, and the application is live!

The fellowship looks a little different this year. The 2021-2022 cycle has been re-engineered for the pandemic era, with changes to pitch criteria and eligibility.

Two major changes this year:

1️⃣ No international travel. We are asking applicants to pitch us an international story that can be told domestically, on one of two themes: (1) global public health -or- (2) international migration.

2️⃣ Eligible applicants should now have 5-7 years of professional work experience.

Start getting your pitch together. Apply on our website by January 15.

Important Dates 2021-2022Application Posted: November 15Application Deadline: January 15, 11:59 PM ETApplication Receipt Notification: January 20Semi-Finalist Notification: March 1Finalist Interviews: April EligibilityThe fellowship is targeted for journalists early in their careers. Those with at ...

09/13/2020

A year ago, Above the Fray fellow, Kat Lonsdorf, pitched us on a series out of Fukushima. Little did we know that a pandemic would coincide with her trip, making her stories particularly resonant as we all consider how to recover from disaster. Now you can listen to this special NPR series in its entirety here:

ENTER TEASER

09/13/2020

Run by a South Korean woman, the Cosmos Karaoke Bar in Namie, Japan, is a haven for residents who've come back to live in a town that was evacuated and fell into decay after the 2011 nuclear disaster.

09/12/2020

After losing trust in official information, the Japanese public took it upon themselves to learn to measure for radioactive matter. Nearly a decade after the nuclear disaster, they're still testing.

09/10/2020

After people evacuated their homes following a nuclear disaster in the Japanese prefecture, nature started to reclaim the space. The humans are trying to return, but it's an uneasy coexistence.

09/10/2020

The Fukushima nuclear disaster put much of Japan's nuclear power program on hold. Nearly a decade later, the energy-poor country is grappling with how to power one of the world's largest economies.