The Steve Pisinski Student Journalism Scholarship
Started in 2019 and named after The Georgetown Voice’s first editor-in-chief, the Steve Pisinski scholarship offers Georgetown students awards to support the costs of unpaid or underpaid journalism internships. Applications for the scholarship open in March and the grants will be allocated by a committee of Journalism program faculty members and professional journalists.
Mission of the scholarship
At the Voice, we work with smart, committed, revolutionary thinkers who believe in journalism as a calling. These young journalists already know they won’t be making six figure salaries if they take the plunge and become reporters, but they understand the need for accurate, empathetic storytelling no matter the reward. And their passion for journalism isn’t solely aspirational—they’re already writing award-winning commentaries, investigative features, and thoughtful reviews.
And, like most student journalists and interns, they’re not getting paid.
To be fair, journalism is not a lucrative career (the value of free press alone doesn’t pay), and declining papers don’t bode well for the industry’s future. But if journalism is to survive, and thrive, the industry needs a generation of committed, well-trained, and ethical journalists to assume leadership.
But that generation will never arrive if unpaid or underpaid internships obstruct students from securing the much-needed experience that entering this field requires.
Unpaid internships are ubiquitous in journalism, and a lynchpin: financial exclusivism actively obstructs low-income students—who, due to a larger national wealth gap, are disproportionately students of color—from the newsroom. There are serious consequences: when journalism is penned only by wealthy and white hands, the industry—and the public—suffers.
To break into journalism, a portfolio of articles—which are created through unpaid internships— is required. Without it, it’s nearly impossible to credibly demonstrate writing prowess. In a cycle of inaccessibility, only a privileged class of students can take on hours and hours of unpaid labor to build this portfolio.
But it is essential that the record of the world is told by reporters of all backgrounds. While social media has somewhat democratized the voice involved in public discourse, written journalism remains the most prominent shaper of public narratives.
And spending time gaining journalism experience in college has the same opportunity cost as unpaid internships: students aren’t paid for their serious time commitment, and, even if they break into journalism as a career, a steady income is far from guaranteed.
Even if a student gets one of those coveted, though economically disastrous, internships, journalism is never a nine-to-five job. Usually, they are tracking down that essential interview after regular hours. Breaking news coverage and production nights consistently run into the witching hours. Work-life imbalance is an occupational hazard, which makes it all the more unreasonable for news outlets not to pay their reporters just because they are students.
We need journalists who don’t just care about surface level injustices, but who prioritize empathetic, survivor-centric reporting that uplifts voices and tells contextualized stories, instead of perpetuating harmful assumptions. Pay them.
But because we realize institutional solutions to unpaid internships aren’t going to materialize overnight, the Voice wants to offer an, admittedly, stopgap solution: the Steve Pisinski Scholarship program. In 2019, we offered four students $2,500 stipends, and in 2022, we distributed $4,200 in stipends.
If you are a student who benefits from your financial background, please consider donating to support emerging journalists around you. And if you consider yourself a young journalist, regardless of experience level or what publication you contribute to on campus, consider applying. Despite the significant barriers, don’t be discouraged from journalism—it is an honorable, necessary, and a ridiculously rewarding profession.
The Voice can’t (yet) pay our editors, designers, and staffers for the all-nighters they pull, the bylines they accumulate, and the dozens of sources they interview. The Voice shouldn’t be responsible for making journalism internships affordable. But the journalism industry should.
Georgetown University, The Georgetown Voice, CC2392, PG002131
Memo line: Steve Pisinski scholarship donation
You can mail the check to us at: Attn: Steve Pisinski scholarship, Georgetown University, The Georgetown Voice, Box 571066, Washington, D.C. 20057
To make a donation greater than $5,000, or to discuss sponsoring or permanently funding the program, please contact us at thevoice@georgetown.edu.
Donations to the Steve Pisinski scholarship program are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law. All funds are processed by Georgetown University Advancement and held in the Voice’s general account for dispersal to the award winners.
Applications are open to all undergraduate students at Georgetown! The funds are allocated through a committee of faculty and professional journalists assembled by Georgetown’s Journalism Program, not the Voice. Keep an eye out for open applications beginning in March 2025.
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