IRE announces winners of Freelance Fellowship competition

• Maya Dukmasova, for her work on segregation and public housing in Chicago.
• Arthur Kane, for his work investigating the Affordable Care Act as well as marijuana legalization in Colorado.
• Lee van der Voo, for development of The Cold Justice Project, a mobile platform for reporting and distributing long-form investigative stories on cold case homicides.

Due to the generosity of an anonymous donor, this fellowship program has allowed IRE to award fellowships for the last seven years, giving freelance journalists a much-needed boost in the pursuit of their investigative work. IRE has assembled an online library of the winners of this fellowship since its inception and some highlights of the work they've done.

About the award:

These fellowships are for journalists who make their living primarily as freelance/independent journalists. Applications are scrutinized by three experienced freelance journalists; they are ineligible for the award while serving on the committee. Proposals are judged in part on the breadth, significance and potential impact of the investigative project. At the request of the donor, proposals dealing with whistleblowers, business ethics and/or privacy issues will receive priority; projects involving other topics will be given serious consideration by the committee as well. The freelance projects must be published or aired primarily in US outlets.

IRE is a non-profit educational and professional organization of more than 4,500 journalists working to foster excellence in journalism.  Founded in 1975, IRE also runs the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, a joint program of IRE and the Missouri School of Journalism, where IRE is housed.  The freelance fellowship is one of many awarded each year by IRE to continue its support of quality investigative journalism.