USC Annenberg announced this week that applications for the 11th annual USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program, which will operate as a 15-member pop-up newsroom in Los Angeles, are now being accepted.

The fellowship, which will be held Nov. 8-18, 2012, seeks to assemble an all-star team of arts journalists committed to using their skills to imagine and create new and innovative ways of reporting on arts and culture. Most costs are covered by the fellowship, including air travel, hotel, transportation within the city and most meals.

National and international arts journalists, web designers and developers are welcome to apply. Applications are due July 24, 2012.To apply, visit: http://annenberg.usc.edu/getty.

The USC Annenberg/Getty Fellowship will be built around creating next-generation reporting tools for arts journalism. The fellowship, which is funded by The Getty Foundation, plans to design, develop and build this new project over the course of 11 days in a pop-up newsroom called Engine30. The program is looking for fellows who fit into one or more of these categories:

• ARTS JOURNALISTS who are committed to finding and telling stories in new ways, thinking about journalism as a dynamic system and process rather than a product, as well as those who care about finding better ways to engage with audiences.
• DESIGNERS who are committed to thinking imaginatively about information architecture, user interaction, story-telling and visualization of multi-level data with design that is intuitive, simple and fun to use.
• DEVELOPERS who are committed to imaginatively finding, adapting and integrating existing tools into Engine30 with a focus on ideas/intent behind what is developed rather than specific ways to realize them.

Engine30 is the latest in a series of experimental arts journalism projects dedicated to rethinking the ways journalists report on the arts. Engine28 (www.Engine28.com) was a pop-up newsroom with 40 journalists who produced 100+ stories around two theater festivals in one week. Engine29 (www.Engine29.org) sent 28 arts journalists to explore gaming, crowd-sourcing, community engagement, slow journalism, meta-data, distributed storytelling, incremental journalism and social media as tools for covering the arts. Engine30 will build on the lessons of Engine28 and Engine29 and focus on creating a series of stories told in innovative ways.

“We have discovered that bringing groups of talented people together and having them work side-by-side inventing something new is tremendously creative and fulfilling,” said Sasha Anawalt, who will direct the 2012 USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program. “Each of the fellows chosen for Engine30 will bring some skill or way of thinking that will challenge and help the team. The sparks of these collaborations will expand our collective thinking about arts coverage.”

Joining Founding Director Anawalt will be Douglas McLennan, director of the newly created USC Annenberg Center for Arts, Media & Audience, and the project architect for Engine30. Also part of the programming team is Edward Lifson, a frequent NPR arts and culture reporter.
 
“We think of this project as ‘360-degree’ or ‘liquid’ journalism,” said McLennan. “How do you build stories that have context and depth and that engage people where they live? This is an opportunity to assemble a team that will go about creating stories in multi-dimensions.”

The only program of its kind in the United States, the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program underscores the importance of arts journalists covering the arts ecosystem as a whole. The fellowship emphasizes the societal value of arts coverage and strengthening a global arts journalism network while working collaboratively toward making the arts accessible to all.

“The Getty Foundation is delighted to once again collaborate with USC Annenberg and to support these special arts journalism fellowships. In a fast-changing world, it is critical that the fellowship program continues to evolve and seeks to establish a new standard of excellence in arts and cultural coverage,” said Getty Foundation Director Deborah Marrow.

The Getty Foundation fulfills the philanthropic mission of the Getty Trust by supporting individuals and institutions committed to advancing the understanding and preservation of the visual arts locally and throughout the world. Through strategic grants and programs, the Foundation strengthens art history as a global discipline, promotes the interdisciplinary practice of conservation, increases access to museum and archival collections, and develops current and future leaders in the visual arts. The Foundation carries out its work in collaboration with the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Research Institute, and the Getty Conservation Institute to ensure that the Getty programs achieve maximum impact. Additional information is available at www.getty.edu/foundation.