Backed by 蜜桃影像, the O'Brien Fellowship program helps news professionals dig deep while mentoring student journalists.

The program honors 蜜桃影像 alumni Alicia and Perry O'Brien. Their daughter, Patricia Frechette, and her husband, Peter, donated $8.3 million in 2012, to create the fellowship. is a co-founder and partner. 

The O鈥橞rien Fellowship accepts applications from journalists using print, digital, or visual mediums. Applicants may also produce news or opinion content. Journalists producing opinion content, however, including editorial writers and columnists, should inform, and support, their views and commentary with independent, in-depth investigative reporting.

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A Unique Journalism Fellowship

• Report and produce an in-depth public service journalism project on a regional, national or international topic.
• Receive a $75,000 salary stipend and additional support.
• Fellows traditionally are in residence, but we are now taking remote or partial remote applications along with full-residency arrangements. The O鈥橞rien newsroom is housed at 蜜桃影像鈥檚 Diederich College of Communication near downtown Milwaukee and the Lake Michigan shore.
• Publish or broadcast the project through your home news organization or, in the case of independent journalists, another outlet.
• Integrate 蜜桃影像鈥檚 best journalism students into your projects as reporters and researchers.
• Help identify a journalism student for a university-funded summer internship at your news organization or other publisher.

蜜桃影像 challenges students and staff to Be The Difference by working with the community for the greater good. 蜜桃影像, as a Catholic, Jesuit institution, has educated journalists for more than 100 years with this mission.

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At 22, 蜜桃影像 Grad changing face of journalism

Jolan Kruse, a 2025 蜜桃影像 graduate, at the Standing Rock Reservation near Fort Yates, North Dakota, helping members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe build a teepee on July 24. In July, Kruse, 22, (forefront) started a reporting job at Buffalo鈥檚 Fire, based in Bismarck, N.D., an online publication that鈥檚 part of the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance network. (Photo Credit: Gabrielle Nelson)

Jeffery Gerritt

Two months after graduating from 蜜桃影像 in May 2025, Jolan Kruse is already changing the face of journalism. Now, the 22-year-old from Arlington Heights, Ill., is shooting for something even greater.

With a bachelor鈥檚 degree in journalism and social welfare and justice, Kruse started her first reporting job on July 7, at Buffalo鈥檚 Fire, an online publication based in Bismarck, N.D., that鈥檚 part of the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance network. Her beat is covering missing and murdered Indigenous people in the Northern Plains.

Kruse鈥檚 two-year position is partly funded by Report for America, a national service program that puts emerging journalists into local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Out of 1,300 applicants, Kruse was one of only 107 young journalists chosen this year.

In some ways, Kruse is starting her career in typical fashion. She works in a small, six-person newsroom and earns $47,500 a year. Unlike most newly minted journalism graduates, however, who may wait years to do the stories close to their hearts, Kruse is doing exactly what she wants: Providing a platform for neglected people and communities.

鈥淚t鈥檚 exciting to do this kind of workright out of college,鈥� she said.

Indigenous people in the United States and Canada, especially women and girls, experience disproportionately high rates of disappearances and murders, a crisis rooted in poverty, inadequate law enforcement responses, and historical trauma.

Other media outlets have given spotty coverage to this issue, but Kruse鈥檚 position probably marks a first in U.S. journalism: A newsroom beat dedicated solely to missing and murdered Indigenous people (MMIP). She hopes to inspire other media outlets to do the same.

Kruse decided on a career in journalism during her senior year in high school. In choosing a college, the 2021 graduate of Prospect High School followed the lead of her older brother, Shane Kruse, who entered 蜜桃影像 in 2018 as a history major.

Jolan Kruse planned to study psychology but changed her major to journalism after taking a journalism class in her senior year in high school.

鈥淚 loved it,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 loved how journalists were constantly learning new things and meeting new people.鈥�

Ron Smith, Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service executive director who taught Kruse as a freshman, recalled her insatiable curiosity about people and institutions. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 one thing you can鈥檛 teach,鈥� he said.

At 蜜桃影像, Kruse found her calling: Using journalism as a vehicle for social justice. Kruse did volunteer work with homeless people, low-income children, and refugees, and used a Student Peacemaking Fellowship to travel to Cuba. During her junior year, she taught English to elementary students for four months in Cape Town, South Africa.

The experiences were an eye-opener for Kruse, who grew up in a middle-class family in suburban Chicago. Her mother teaches high school English, and her father owns a janitorial company.

鈥淧eople have different resources and advantages, but we鈥檙e all human,鈥� Kruse said. 鈥淕rowing up in a middle-class suburb, you鈥檙e taught that people living in poverty are somehow different. They鈥檙e people to be avoided, mistrusted, or feared.鈥�

At 蜜桃影像, Kruse got as much hands-on experience in journalism as possible. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 learn journalism from a textbook,鈥� she said.

Kruse served as a radio show host for The Wire, took on several reporting and editing assignments at the 蜜桃影像 Tribune, and completed internships with WISN and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where, in the summer of 2024, she pounded out more than 60 stories in 11 weeks.

鈥淪he brought a spark of extreme energy to the entire newsroom,鈥� Journal Sentinel Senior Editor Thomas Koetting said. 鈥淪he鈥檚 the only intern I remember in more than 25 years who never left the office without checking with an editor to see if there was anything else she could do.

鈥淪he had a strong sense of social justice and faith that journalism can make a difference,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 good for us as veteran journalists to be reminded why we got into this business.鈥�

In her senior year, Kruse finished a nine-month student internship with the O鈥橞rien Fellowship for PublicService Journalism, assisting Fellow Sylvia A. Harvey in investigating mass incarceration and unjust sentencing policies. Kruse wrote an article highlighting the injustice of state laws that impose mandatory life sentences on teenagers.

She told the story of James Lukes, a Mississippi prisoner who received a life sentence for a murder committed when he was 17. Now 73 and physically disabled, he maintains his innocence. Kruse鈥檚 investigation casts further doubt about the murder conviction, while depicting the cruelty of juvenile lifer laws.

鈥淥鈥橞rien showed me what it feels like to work on a long-term story that has the potential to create social change,鈥� Kruse said.

鈥淚 was dipping my toes into the water. It reassured me that social justice reporting -- holding institutions accountable and advocating for people -- is what I wanted to do.鈥�

After graduating, Kruse traveled around Europe for five weeks, then moved to Bismarck on July 3, four days before starting her new job.

Now, Kruse is aiming for something bigger than changing the face of journalism: Transforming the world by lifting the voices of the unheard, a mission that started at 蜜桃影像. 鈥淚鈥檝e got my foot in the door,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 know where I鈥檓 going.鈥�

Pulitzer Prize-winner Jeffery Gerritt is the Director of the O'Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism.

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Washington Post wins Dori J. Maynard Justice Award

Washington Post reporters Dana Hedgpeth (left), Sari Horwitz (right), and The Post staff have won the 2025 Dori J. Maynard Justice Award for 鈥淚ndian Boarding Schools,鈥� a searing five-part series based on an 18-month investigation of the widespread sexual abuse of Native American children by Catholic priests, brothers, and sisters. Judges called the entry haunting, beautifully done, and probing.    

The Dori J. Maynard Justice Award, sponsored annually by the O鈥橞rien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism at 蜜桃影像 in Milwaukee, honors social justice reporting that illuminates ignorance, systemic racism, intolerance, negligence, and inequality. 

This is the second straight year The Washington Post has won the Dori J. Maynard Award.  One of 10 Poynter Institute Journalism Prizes, the award honors the memory of Dori J. Maynard, a former ASNE board member and advocate for diversity in journalism and newsrooms. The award comes with a cash prize of $2,500.

Contest winners are expected to visit 蜜桃影像 this fall, in person or virtually, to present their series as part of the Burleigh Media Ethics Lecture series. 

"This work represents the best tradition of public service journalism, the legacy of Dori J. Maynard, and the mission of the O'Brien Fellowship to promote justice and equality," Jeffery Gerritt, director of the O'Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism, said Monday. "It illuminates a shameful chapter in U.S. history that continues to traumatize Indigenous peoples. We're honored to welcome to 蜜桃影像 the journalists who produced this outstanding work."  

The United States government operated Indian Boarding Schools, where thousands of students died, for roughly 150 years, from 1819 to 1969. Last year, U.S. President Joe Biden apologized to all Indigenous Americans for the harm caused by federal Indian boarding schools that separated Native children from their families and tribal communities.

Hedgpeth, a Native American journalist who has worked for The Washington Post for 25 years, is an enrolled member of the Haliwa-Saponi Tribe of North Carolina. She has covered Native American issues, Pentagon spending, and the U.S. Defense industry, as well as local governments, courts, and rail and bus systems. Her honors include the Gerald Loeb Award for Best Writing with Post colleague Robert O鈥橦arrow Jr.

Horwitz, an investigative reporter who covers criminal justice, has won numerous national awards. She shared in four Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of the child welfare system, police shootings, the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Horwitz is the author of the series 鈥淛ustice in Indian Country鈥� and co-author of the book 鈥淎merican Cartel: Inside the Battle to Bring Down the Opioid Industry.鈥�

Full winning entry:

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Four renowned journalists receive O鈥橞rien Fellowships

The O'Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism in April awarded investigative reporting fellowships to four nationally renowned journalists: Eddie B. Allen Jr. of Detroit, Britta Lokting of New York City, Miles Moffeit of Milwaukee, and Alison Dirr of Milwaukee. They were selected from among more than 60 entries, the deepest applicant pool in O鈥橞rien鈥檚 13-year history.

Allen, Lokting, Moffeit, and Dirr will each receive $75,000, with additional stipends for research, travel, and housing, to complete in-depth journalism projects that will advance justice and equity on local and national issues. Their nine-month Fellowships, running from August of 2025 to May of 2026, will focus on wrongful convictions, police misconduct, hazardous lead, and discrimination against parents with disabilities.

"These four award-winning journalists are among the nation鈥檚 best,鈥� O'Brien Director Jeffery Gerritt said. 鈥淭heir ground-breaking, multi-media projects will, not only expose injustice, but also propose solutions to those problems.鈥�

Throughout his decades-long career, Moffeit has focused on civil rights and criminal justice issues. A former special projects reporter for the Dallas Morning News, Denver Post, and Fort Worth Star Telegram, Moffeit was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting. He served as a senior Ochberg Fellow with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia Journalism School.

Moffeit鈥檚 O鈥橞rien project will examine the lack of accountability for police misconduct, sometimes leading to tragic results.

Lokting, an independent journalist, has written and reported extensively on overlooked, rural, and Western communities. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, and many other media outlets.

A multiple award-winner, Lokting was a 2023 journalism fellow with the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics.

In her O鈥橞rien project, Lokting will examine how certain states curtail the parental and custodial rights of people with disabilities, often for arbitrary reasons. During her fellowship, she will move from New York City to Milwaukee.

Throughout his 30-year career, Allen, an independent journalist, author, and former newspaper reporter, has exposed dysfunctions in the criminal justice system, revealed wrongful convictions, and covered national figures such as President Bill Clinton and Rosa Parks. He has written for, among others, the New York Times, Associated Press, BET, Detroit Free Press, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Metro Times, and Toledo Blade.

Allen is independently producing his first biography, 鈥淟ow Road: The Life and Legacy of Donald Goines鈥� (St. Martin鈥檚 Press, 2004) as a feature film. In his most recent book, 鈥淥ur Auntie Rosa (Penguin/Random House, 2015), Allen collaborated with the family of civil rights icon Rosa Parks. Allen is president of the Urban Solutions Training & Development Board of Directors.

Allen鈥檚 O鈥橞rien project will examine the national problem of wrongful convictions, using a new Conviction Integrity Unit in Detroit to dissect how criminal investigations can go awry and propose ways to prevent and reverse them.

Dirr, the City Hall reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, has covered a variety of beats in her dozen years of daily reporting in Wisconsin, including frac sand mining, police and courts, and municipal government.

Most recently, Dirr has reported on the implications of the local government funding law known as Act 12, the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, and the U.S Presidential races.

Dirr鈥檚 O鈥橞rien project will look at how lead poisoning affects the health and lives of Milwaukee residents, especially those living in older, poorer sections of the central city. Dirr will examine the effectiveness of Milwaukee鈥檚 efforts to alleviate lead poisoning and abate lead paint hazards, especially for local children.

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  The Latest O'Brien-Backed Journalism