The John Schofield Trust Fellows for 2023 are a more diverse cohort than ever before.

A very warm welcome to our 2023 Fellows! We have a hugely diverse range of apprentice and early-career journalists joining us this year, from right across the UK and – for the first time – the Republic of Ireland, and representing a broad range of news organisations and outlets.

Interests and specialisms in the cohort lie across news and current affairs, sports, tech, culture and the environment; and as well as broadcast journalism we have a record number of print journalists joining us in 2023.

Get to know this year’s Fellows here.

In terms of record-breaking, crunching the stats around this year’s Fellows has painted a very satisfying picture. Compared to 2022, the Trust has a greater number of journalists from ethnic minority backgrounds, and a higher percentage that identify as having a disability and as LGBTQ+. A greater proportion attended a non-selective state school compared to last year, and we have more this year that are the first in their family to attend university.

As well as breaking our own diversity records, the 2023 cohort trump the national average in every one of these categories. Of our Fellows:

For all sources see here.

These figures demonstrate to us that the Trust is on the right track in pursuing our mission of improving social mobility in newsrooms throughout the UK and the Republic of Ireland. As an industry, journalism is one of the least diverse, yet representation is so vital in enabling the voices of people across society to be heard. The Trust works to improve representation in newsrooms so they truly reflect people of all communities and backgrounds.

CEO David Stenhouse said, “In very respect the John Schofield Trust Fellows for 2023 represent the future of the industry. This is a record breaking year for the Trust; we received more applicants for our early career mentoring scheme than ever before. Applicants work for more media companies than ever before and they come from across the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

With the help of the Senior Fellows who volunteer to mentor for us, the Trust works hard to make the media more representative, more diverse, and more supportive and encouraging. We welcome our new Fellows with pleasure and with excitement to see what they do next.” 

We are delighted to support this new cohort of early-career journalists, to enable them to navigate the industry and establish robust careers so that they can go on to champion their own diverse stories and life experiences. We look forward to seeing what the year ahead has in store!

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