Religion News Service (RNS) and Interfaith America (IA) are pleased to announce that four journalists have been accepted to the 2024-2025 RNS/IA Religion Journalism Fellowship Program.
The 2024-25 fellows are Reinatou Coulibaly, Marissa Greene, Fiona Murphy, and Audrey Thibert.
The fellowship aims to develop future religion news journalists by deepening their understanding of religious expression in individual lives and diverse communities. Returning for its fourth year, the fellowship’s programming will span from September 2024 to May 2025. Throughout these nine months, fellows will develop skills specific to covering religion, belief, faith, and spirituality through mentorship, workshops, editorial meetings, and tutoring on critical religion resources.
“We are proud to support this talented cohort’s interest in religion reporting,” says Paul O’Donnell, editor-in-chief at Religion News Service. “We look forward to seeing how each fellow develops as a journalist and captures the critical role religion plays in the news and in our world.”
Meet the Fellows:
Reina Coulibaly
Reinatou Coulibay is a recent graduate of Princeton University, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in comparative religion with double minors in gender studies and American studies. She enjoys reporting stories with an emphasis on intersectionality in culture, faith, and politics. In her free time, you might find Reina crocheting plushies or listening to a sci-fi novel. She is from Silver Spring, MD, and is now based in Philadelphia, PA.
Marissa Greene
Marissa Greene covers faith for the Fort Worth Report through a partnership with Report for America. Her work highlights Fort Worth’s diverse spiritual practices and connects the dots in the intersection of faith with culture, politics, and community involvement. Previously, she was an audience fellow for The Texas Tribune and interned with Austin and Dallas NPR member stations. She got her start in journalism by spearheading a student media organization in community college before earning a journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
Fiona Murphy
Fiona Murphy is a multimedia journalist from Denver, Colorado. Earlier this year, her short documentary Les Femmes Fidèles (Faithful Women), about two young Muslim women living in Paris and navigating racial and political tension, was selected as a finalist at the RNA 75th Anniversary Conference. Since then, she graduated from a master’s program in French Studies at New York University and has been writing stories for Religion News Service. She also independently produces videos profiling unique and interesting people, like a 25-year-old priest and a Trump supporter from the South Bronx in New York City. Fiona is fascinated by young people and their relationship to faith and belief.
Audrey Thibert
Audrey Thibert is a journalist based in Wisconsin and was the 2023 University of Wisconsin Pulitzer Center Campus Consortium Reporting Fellow, through which she reported on migration in Tunisia and won a 2024 Overseas Press Club Scholar award. She is the recipient of the inaugural Anthony Shadid Memorial Scholarship for International Reporting. During the summer of 2024, Audrey reported for The Progressive from Algeria. She previously worked at Isthmus, a nonprofit paper in Madison, WI, as a reporting intern and served as the 2022-23 managing editor at The Badger Herald.
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In addition to fully paid trips to the Religion News Association Conference and a writing workshop in Chicago, the Religion Journalism Fellowship includes the chance to speak with some of the nation’s leading religion journalists. In previous years the program has invited speakers like Laurie Goodstein, Sarah Pulliam Bailey, Wajahat Ali, and Luis Andres Henao, and RNS’ Jack Jenkins, among others.
The fellows, who are awarded a $4,000 stipend, are expected to report and write at least one feature religion story per month, to be published on the RNS website and the Interfaith America Magazine and will receive a fellowship certificate upon completion.
About Interfaith America:
Interfaith America (formerly known as Interfaith Youth Core) is a national nonprofit that equips the next generation of citizens and professionals with the knowledge and skills needed for leadership in a religiously diverse world. Partnering with civic groups, higher education institutions, public health and business, Interfaith America is dedicated to making interfaith cooperation the norm and building Interfaith America in the 21st century.
About RNS:
Religion News Service (RNS) is an independent, nonprofit and award-winning source of global news on religion, spirituality, culture and ethics, reported by a staff of professional journalists. Founded in 1934, RNS seeks to inform readers with objective reporting and insightful commentary and is relied upon by secular and faith-based news organizations in a number of countries.
DEI Statement:
Interfaith America and Religion News Service are committed to supporting work at the intersection of racial equity and interfaith cooperation. We believe in the essential contributions of countless religious and secular traditions that affirm dignity and justice for every human being. We recognize and celebrate that movements for a better world—including the anti-Apartheid movement, and Civil Rights movement—have been fueled by interfaith cooperation. All of our programs and projects incorporate a lens of equity and inclusion.
