Three journalists win McGraw fellowships

Three experienced journalists have won grants of up to $15,000 as recipients of the fourth round of the McGraw Fellowships for Business Journalism.

The winning projects will explore the growing turmoil in the emerging markets, the increased role of corporate funding in university research, and the ever-larger influence of Silicon Valley culture elsewhere in American life.

The McGraw Fellowships, an initiative of the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Center for Business Journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, were created in 2014 to support ambitious coverage of critical issues related to the U.S. economy and business. The Fellowships, awarded twice a year, enable accomplished journalists to do the deep reporting needed to produce a distinguished investigative or enterprise business story. The first McGraw Fellows were named in July 2014.

Some 60 journalists working in nearly a dozen countries applied for the latest round of Fellowships. The winners were chosen following interviews and a thorough review of detailed proposals, work samples and references.

The new McGraw Fellows are:

• Mya Frazier: A freelance journalist based in Columbus, Ohio, Frazier will explore the increasing influence of Silicon Valley startup culture on religious and business life in the U.S. and the implications of this convergence on income inequality. Frazier’s work, covering the intersection of business, technology and religion, has appeared in Harper’s, NewYorker.com, Slate, The New Republic, Columbus Monthly, The Atlantic and Aeon. She is a former staff writer for The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Advertising Age and American City Business Journals.

• Bradley Keoun:  An Austin, Texas-based freelance journalist and senior writer at TheStreet.com, Keoun will examine the global risks stemming from the rapidly declining value of emerging market assets. A longtime reporter for Bloomberg News, he was a lead reporter for its investigation into the Federal Reserve’s secret emergency loans during the financial crisis as well as its coverage for the “London Whale” trading scandal in 2012. Both stories were finalists for a Loeb Award, the top prize in business journalism. He is a past recipient of the Investigative Reporters and Editors Freedom of Information Award and the Society of Professional Journalists Award for Public Service in Online Journalism. Prior to Bloomberg, Keoun was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune and the Gainesville (Fla.) Sun.
• Molly McCluskey: An independent journalist who divides her time between Washington D.C. and Europe, McCluskey’s Fellowship project will investigate the growing impact of corporate donations on academic research, where current transparency laws fall short, and whether the public good is being compromised. Her work has appeared in Al Jazeera English, US News & World Report, Middle East Eye, The Washington Post and National Geographic, among others. Previously, she was an investigative reporter for The Motley Fool, where she was a co-author of the award winning series, The Astonishing Collapse of MF Global. A 2014 recipient of an International Women’s Media Foundation reporting fellowship, McCluskey is a member of the Board of Governors of the National Press Club.

Each McGraw Fellow receives a stipend of $5,000 a month for up to three months. In addition to financial backing, the McGraw Center provides Fellows with editorial guidance and assistance in placing stories with media outlets.