Developing journalism leaders who can champion resilience and inclusion within news organizations to better serve community information needs

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About the API Leaders Fellowship

The API Leaders Fellowship for Inclusion & Impact is an upcoming program designed to meet the needs of healthy news organizations to build cultural competence and resilience that empowers effective community engagement in their journalism.

The fellowship is an evolution of the Emerging Leaders Institute for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion program that began at the News Leaders Association in 2012 and ran through 2021. After the News Leaders Association dissolved in 2024, the American Press Institute acquired the program in 2025 with plans to relaunch it as the API Leaders Fellowship in the near future.

Future cohorts

We look forward to launching the API Leaders Fellowship for Inclusion & Impact with a new cohort soon. The API Leaders Fellowship will continue our work of mentoring journalism leaders and fostering experiments that integrate diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in every aspect of their work.

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Program alumni

Before becoming the API Leaders Fellowship, the Emerging Leaders Institute program hosted 24 cohorts from 2012 through 2021. All program graduates are listed below according to their year of participation. Graduates have gone on to become chief strategy officers, news directors, managing editors, executive producers and more.

If you are an Emerging Leaders Institute alum and need a copy of your certificate of completion, please email hello@pressinstitute.org.

Program alumni by year

Select a year from the dropdown to view the participants by intitute.

*In 2020 the program was paused due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Culture & Inclusion Resources

Go beyond the survey and gather insights about how to integrate diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in every aspect of your work.