Reuters recently partnered with the National Association for Black Journalists to create a scholarship for the NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute’s Business and Economic Reporting graduate program.

The major media outlet is offering two specific scholarships — one for NYU’s BER graduate program and the other for Columbia’s graduate journalism program.

NYU’s Marjorie Deane Professor of Financial Journalism Stephen Solomon said that the graduate journalism program was chosen as one of two schools because university leaders pushed hard for this partnership.

“It goes back about six months to when we first starting talking to Reuters and they wanted to create a fellowship and we had a number of discussions with them about how to do it,” Solomon said. “In the end, we expressed very strong interest.”

The recipient of the scholarship will receive $40,000 in tuition and an opportunity to work for Reuters. Students must be members of NABJ to apply. Membership costs $45 a year for students to join.

Dan Burns, an editor at Reuters, said that the location of both schools was also a factor in the decision to create these scholarships.

“We chose NYU and Columbia to launch the NABJ scholarship program because they have excellent graduate journalism schools, and being located in New York allows us to offer additional benefits — like mentoring and training in our New York newsroom — beyond the scholarship funds,” Burns said.

Solomon also explained the goal of this scholarship is first and foremost to increase diversity among journalism students at NYU and Columbia. He believes increasing diversity in the classroom is the first step to widening diversity across the field of journalism.

“To get a full public understanding of all these complex issues out there, it’s important to have people who have different backgrounds, different interests, look at the world in different ways,” Solomon said. “We need to start the whole process by getting students into the field who are diverse and then they will eventually become working journalists and populate the newsrooms.”

According to Burns, increasing diversity is also a goal for Reuters.

“Newsroom diversity is a critical issue for the industry and for Reuters,” Burns said. “The scholarship program was created in order to promote diversity and offer Reuters resources like training and mentoring to help young journalists develop their journalism skills.”

NYU’s BER program was chosen specifically for this scholarship. Students applying for the scholarship will have to request admission to that program.

“Reuters covers an extensive range of news, but financial news is a large part of our business,” Burns said. “We decided to focus the NABJ scholarship on business journalism to foster diversity in this particular area that is so core to Reuters news coverage.”

CAS senior Chevaz Clarke said she is interested in the scholarship, as she is currently pursuing majors in journalism and economics.

“This scholarship would allow me to combine both my degrees and refine my journalism skills so that I can best present economic news to my audience,” Clarke said. “I would get a mentor from Reuters and the opportunity to undertake a paid summer internship at Reuters. The BER program would also give me the opportunity to take classes at the renowned Stern Business School as well as in the Journalism institute at NYU, where I’ve been taught by many great professors.”

Sylvan Solloway, the director of Career Services at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, said NYU’s graduate journalism program, which the scholarship will make more affordable, provides students with unprecedented internship and job opportunities.

“There are so many things that grad school can provide for a student and obviously if you have a really good scholarship like this it’s a no-brainer,” Solloway said. “You go, you soak it in and you enjoy it.”

CORRECTION Sept. 7: A previous version of this article attributed quotes to Abbe Serphos when it was Dan Burns, an editor at Thomson Reuters, who was interviewed for the article. In addition, the former version of this article said that Thomson Reuters is partnering with the National Association for Black Journalists, but the partnership is with Reuters — the news division of the larger company. Also, membership costs $45 a year for students to join when it was reported that the cost was a minimum of $90. 

Email Eugenia Cardinale at [email protected].