FUSION announces launch of “Rise Up: Be Heard” 2017, an award-winning program to engage diverse youth around reporting on health issues.
MIAMI – MARCH 21, 2017
FUSION today announced the launch of “Rise Up: Be Heard” 2017, the award-winning media training and mentorship program for young people from diverse backgrounds, and officially opened the online application process. The 2017 program aims to empower a new generation of journalists and community advocates living in California’s most underserved areas by providing them with journalism training, mentorship, and a platform to amplify stories about critical health issues affecting their local communities. The program is supported by a partnership with private health foundation, The California Endowment.
This spring FUSION will hire 10 young (18-24 years old), passionate individuals for an intensive summer training and reporting experience that will focus on video and multimedia journalism. Participants will hone their skills as producers, grow their awareness of community and public health issues, and publish articles and videos that give voice to their community. FUSION will be accepting applications until April 16.
As with the inaugural year of the program, each young reporter will pair up with a journalism mentor from Fusion Media Group (FMG) to advise them throughout the program, and will work closely with program editors and producers on story assignments. This year will place a heavy focus on using new media formats such as social media reporting, digital video, live-streaming, and 360 video to bring community voices and stories to a large audience. The young reporters will also join up with FUSION TV’s investigative team on a reporting project centered on health issues that will culminate in a television special to air on the network in late fall.
FUSION believes in the importance of increasing the number of diverse voices in media and the power of young people to create positive change in their communities, including their health and well-being. Through the innovative use of video and multimedia content “Rise Up: Be Heard” participants will have a platform to engage millions around key health and justice issues across FMG properties.
Launched in 2016, the “Rise Up: Be Heard” program trained 14 young people from underserved communities in California last year, helping them to publish dozens of stories that reached an audience of millions across FUSION’s digital media platforms. Their content also included a one-hour documentary, “The Naked Truth: Shadow Town,” produced in collaboration with FUSION TV’s award-winning investigative team. The documentary put a spotlight on Kern County – one of California’s most health challenged areas – and explored issues there ranging from police relations to water quality and the undocumented community’s inability to get quality health care.
The work of last year’s inaugural class of “Rise Up: Be Heard” fellows was recently recognized with a Cynopsis Social Good Award. A sampling of last year’s stories is available here.
About Rise Up
RISE UP is the dedicated social impact unit of Univision and the Fusion Media Group (FMG). RISE UP harnesses the power of media and storytelling to drive positive social change on issues that matter to Hispanic Americans, African Americans, and the increasingly diverse and progressive millennial generation. RISE UP works with like-minded organizations–including foundations, advocacy groups, experts, and government agencies–to develop and execute cross-platform content initiatives and campaign opportunities that tie to the most pressing issues facing the diverse communities of America.
About Fusion Media Group
Fusion Media Group, a division of Univision Communications Inc, serves young, diverse audiences with content that reflects their shared values and passions across platforms and languages. FMG’s English-language properties include two cable networks, FUSION TV and UCI’s interest in El Rey Network, as well as a collection of leading digital brands that span a range of categories: technology (Gizmodo), comedy and satire (The Onion, Clickhole), sports (Deadspin), pop culture (The AV Club), music (TrackRecord), lifestyle (Lifehacker), women’s interests (Jezebel), news and social justice (Fusion), African American news and culture (The Root), gaming (Kotaku) and car culture (Jalopnik). Other assets include Univision.com, the leading Spanish-language website for U.S. Hispanics; Univision Creator Network, a leading U.S. Hispanic focused network of YouTube channels; as well as Univision Story House, a content development and production unit, which produces original content for UCI’s portfolio of owned networks as well as third party networks and platforms. For the fourth quarter of 2016, when FMG included all these properties, FMG reached an average of over 65 million unduplicated unique visitors per month in 2016 across its owned digital properties and 90 million when including its network of partner sites.
