Program Director, Fellowship

Program Director, Fellowship Job Description

Compensation: $115,000 - $160,000+ in the US; £75,000 - £90,000+ in the UK

Location:

London / San Francisco (preferred);
New York or Washington DC possible.

Final date to receive applications:
Sunday, March 8, 2026. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis and may close early if a strong candidate is hired.

The Tarbell Fellowship is one of the most competitive journalism programs in the world. We select 20 fellows from 1,600+ applicants and provide fully-funded placements at Bloomberg, The Guardian, TIME, and MIT Technology Review. We're hiring a Fellowship Program Director to scale it during a critical period for AI reporting, leading the team that makes it happen.

In your first year, you'll grow the program from 15 to 30+ fellows annually, with ownership of a $3.5M+ budget. Strong performers will have a clear path to Chief Programs Officer within 18–24 months, overseeing all talent programs with a combined budget of $8M+.

This is a rare opportunity to build a global network of AI reporters with the knowledge and resources required to cover AI during a transformative period.

The Tarbell Center for AI Journalism supports journalism that helps society navigate the development and deployment of advanced AI. We provide funding and training to strengthen AI reporting at major news outlets.

Since 2023, we've raised ~$20M in funding and supported 50+ journalists through fellowships, grants, and residencies. We're now entering a period of rapid expansion as we scale from a $4M budget in 2025 to $14M by 2027.

Across our programs, we’ve supported a wide range of impactful reporting:

• Accountability reporting:
  Our journalists have broken corporate accountability stories about OpenAI’s legal tactics against nonprofits and xAI violating its own safety policies. A recent investigation about Character.
  
  AI's failure to protect minors on its platform contributed to the company banning under‑18s within a week of publication.

• AI policy coverage:
  Our reporters have produced expert policy analysis, revealed exclusive information about state‑level AI policy developments, and investigated AI policy lobbying.

• Impacts from AI:
  Coverage of the impacts from current systems, ranging from the climate impacts to mass discrimination, and the emerging risks from frontier models, such as sabotaging shutdown mechanisms or helping engineer pandemics.

• Sense making:
  We’ve supported explanatory journalism that helps the public make sense of the circular funding deals, advancements in automating AI R&D, military integration, and developments in China.

We believe journalism will be essential to helping society understand and respond to AI advancements in the coming years. By 2030, we aim to grow Tarbell into the leading institution supporting AI journalism globally – providing the funding and training needed to make that possible.

As Program Director, you'll lead the team behind our Tarbell Fellowship.

The fellowship is in a strong position – $6.5m in secured funding, 25+ newsroom partnerships, and 1,600+ applications this year. We’re now looking for an exceptional leader who can take this from 15 fellows to 30+ annually while maintaining the exceptionally high bar that has made the fellowship one of the most competitive journalism programs in the world.

You'll own the fellowship end-to-end. That means setting the strategy, selecting the fellows, shaping the curriculum, and managing the team that executes it all. The Executive Director will be a thought partner, but the program is yours to run.

• A program that’s achieved strong outcomes to date and is ready to scale 2x this year

• $6.5m in secured funding for the fellowship through 2027

• Marketing and recruitment processes that recently attracted 1,600+ applications

• A team of 2 with experience spanning journalism, AI policy, and computer science

• Strong relationships with 25+ newsroom partners, including Bloomberg, The Guardian, and many more

• A 3‑month training curriculum, covering AI and journalism fundamentals

• Ideas for how to expand the fellowship in 2027 and beyond (e.g. adding a podcasting…