Announcement from Editorial Director, Diversity & Culture John Yearwood, Senior Managing Editor Anita Kumar, and Executive Editor Joe Schatz:

Hi all,

We’re delighted to announce our 2024 POLITICO Fellows, both of whom have distinguished themselves in reporting and editing in Washington and elsewhere.

The POLITICO Fellows Program, among the most prestigious in the industry, trains young journalists in the fundamentals of covering politics, policy and power. The journalists rotate among various teams in the newsroom for one year and are then offered permanent positions with POLITICO if they successfully complete the program.

Since its inception in 2020, fellows have had a major impact on POLITICO’s work. Their stories have been critical in our coverage of the war in Ukraine, the Covid pandemic, and mid-term and presidential elections, among others.

The program is part of POLITICO’s extensive commitment to train the next generation of journalists. In addition to fellows, POLITICO sponsons the POLITICO Journalism Institute and hires dozens of student interns annually.

“We’re exceedingly proud of these early-career programs,” said John Yearwood, editorial director for diversity and culture. “These young journalists have added so much to our organization over the years and they’ve been crucial as we intensify efforts to further diversify the newsroom – and the industry. We can’t wait for the 2024 fellows to join us.”

The new fellows are:

Samantha Latson, a breaking news reporter at the Kansas City Star, will join POLITICO in late January. Samantha interned at the Washington Post, where she covered the March for Our Lives protest against gun violence and wrote about local primary election candidates. She also interned on the Invasion of Faith Project and was a reporter/editor on the Unforgotten 51 Project, which produced award-winning reports on the untold stories of murdered Chicago women. She won first-place NABJ Salute to Excellence awards in 2021, 2022 and 2023. She earned her undergraduate degree in journalism from Roosevelt University in Chicago and her master’s, also in journalism, from Indiana University in Bloomington. She is eager to join POLITICO to sharpen her skills in politics and policy reporting.

Irie Sentner is no stranger to POLITICO. The Columbia University senior and editor-in-chief of the Columbia Daily Spectator interned with POLITICO’s transportation team last summer. Irie also is a former intern at NBC News and the New York Post. He serves as newsletter editor for Writers on the Range, an op-ed service, where he increased social media engagement by 81 percent, opens by 11 percent and total subscribers by 46 percent. He was selected in 2022 for the ProPublica Emerging Reporter year-long mentorship program and is a recipient of the SPJ Mark of Excellence award. He will return to POLITICO in the spring for a second internship – this time with the New York bureau – before beginning his fellowship in late June.

John
Anita
Joe