Tarbell Grant for original reporting on artificial intelligence and its impacts

Tarbell Grant offers awards of $1,000 – $15,000 to support journalism on AI and its impacts.

About the Tarbell Grant

As artificial intelligence grows more advanced, the technology and the people making it are increasingly consequential.​ We believe journalism will play a crucial role in helping the public understand AI — and in holding companies and policymakers to account.

Tarbell Grant offers awards of $1,000 – $15,000 to support journalism on AI and its impacts.

We seek to fund established journalists to pursue original reporting on current & future harms from frontier models, investigate the inner workings of leading AI companies, and scrutinise lobbying efforts shaping AI policy. We are also excited to support explanatory reporting that helps the public understand complicated topics in AI.

Pitches we would like to receive:

• Harms from AI: How artificial intelligence is harming people around the world today, and how it might harm them in future. e.g. pieces on deepfake CSAM, cybersecurity, racial bias, and biosecurity.
• Investigations into frontier AI companies: What is happening inside AI companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind and Meta. e.g. concerns workers have about their employers, or practices that are silencing them.
• AI policy: Stories on AI policy developments in key regions, such as the US, EU and China, and how lobbying efforts are trying to shape policy. e.g. reporting on AI regulatory agencies and the difficulties they are facing; AI companies’ lobbying efforts; and other efforts to influence AI regulation.
• Explainers: Pieces that help the public understand complex topics in artificial intelligence. e.g. the difficulties of AI evaluations, or an overview of AI interpretability.
• Anything else: ​​We also welcome pitches on topics not listed here.

Requirements

We are looking for:

• Experienced journalists. We expect most successful applicants to have a strong background in journalism, ideally in AI or technology reporting. Journalists with an investigative background are particularly encouraged to apply. We accept applications from both freelance and staff reporters.​​
• Neglected stories. We are keen to fund stories and investigations that will not otherwise be published.
• Readership. We hope grantees’ stories will be read widely, and by people with decision-making power. We encourage applicants to apply with a letter showing interest from an editor at an established publication.
• Impact. We care about stories that make a difference. We hope the stories we fund will lead to meaningful change in the world, whether that be raising awareness of an under-discussed harm, or catalysing policy change.​​​​

Please do not rule yourself out because of these criteria, though. If you have a strong story idea and believe you have what it takes to write it, please pitch us.

How to apply?

Please apply via our application form, which asks for basic information about you and your story.​​

Submissions will be accepted from all experienced journalists: both staff writers/editors and freelancers are welcome to apply for grants. (For staff writers, your publication must be able to accept donations.)

A background in reporting on AI and/or technology is desirable, but not essential.​

We encourage applicants to apply with a letter showing interest from an editor. If you do not have such a letter, we can consider your submission for publication on Transformer, or help you pitch it elsewhere.

Grants will be evaluated on a rolling basis. We aim to evaluate all grants within a month. If your story is time-sensitive, you can ask us to expedite the evaluation process. All shortlisted applications will be reviewed by at least two members of our judging panel.

We have a finite pool of funding for our first tranche of grants. As applications are evaluated on a rolling basis we encourage you to submit your proposals early.

If you have any questions about the application process, please contact shakeel@tarbellfellowship.org.

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