The O’Brien Fellowship is committed to providing experienced journalists with the tools to pursue ambitious long-term projects in service of the public interest. In this vein, each fellow is paired with a hand-selected team of student interns who provide quality reporting and production support over the course of the project.
Since 2013, O'Brien has matched more than 100 Marquette graduate and undergraduate students with journalists from around the country. They've reported on issues such as the environment, education, mental illness, health care, medical science, open government, criminal justice, and racial justice.
Our interns aren’t assigned busy work. They’re treated as entry-level reporters whose work and skills have a real impact on our fellows’ success. Many students even gain byline credit or go on to work in the fellow’s home newsroom in a university-sponsored summer internship. In this way, we strive to not only empower experienced journalists to do great work now, but also to train up-and-coming reporters to do great work in the future.
“I have gotten to see how the journalistic sausage is made. Getting a behind-the-scenes look at how long-term and short-term projects are created has been a great experience. It helps me appreciate the daily news that I read and watch much more."
"I’ve talked to so many professional journalists and [they] have said they never would have imagined having the experience that I have had as an undergraduate through O’Brien.”
"My O'Brien experience allowed me to build up the research and writing skills that I now use every day in my career."