Application deadline: Friday May 2, 2025
I – Program Overview
Raven Radio’s News Residency is a one-year program for early-career journalists looking to further develop their skills in a supportive, small newsroom environment in Sitka, Alaska, with a proven track record for training the next generation of exceptional audio journalists.
The Sarah Hughes News Residency offers a journalist the opportunity to…
- Gain substantial expertise in a professional newsroom.
- Refine live broadcast and production skills.
- Experiment with and develop multi-media production skills.
- Explore complex news issues in a diverse community, region, and state.
- Write, edit, and produce sound-rich, in-depth stories for local, state, and national distribution.
- Establish professional connections to NPR, the Alaska Public Radio Network, National Native News, and other affiliates.
The Residency is modeled on Raven Radio’s long running internship and fellowship programs for journalism graduate students and early-career reporters. Both programs took talented students from a demanding academic culture, dropped them into a fertile news environment, and added mentoring and structure (deadlines!). Those programs were shorter (30 weeks and 10 weeks, respectively) and fellows and interns were compensated with a stipend. We created the residency as a one-year salaried position for someone who is interested in spending a full year in Alaska, looking to develop or further hone their radio chops and make connections before launching to a full-time radio job in the region, or in a larger market in the lower 48.
II – Criteria
A candidate for the Residency has completed an undergraduate or graduate degree program in Journalism or a related field of study, and has acquired competency in news writing and broadcast journalism (or multi-media production) at the academic level. Someone with an M.A. in Journalism looking to create a professional portfolio and to establish contacts within public broadcasting is a candidate; a college graduate with 1-2 years of experience as a working journalist is a candidate; a recent graduate with no prior experience who may be thinking about going into journalism is not. On the other hand, an established print reporter hoping to transition into broadcast would be considered for the Residency.
III – Work expectations
The News Resident, after an initial training period, quickly becomes our colleague in the news department, and should hit the ground ready to pitch and report. We work a 40-hour week, often in the evenings and sometimes in the early morning. We share news hosting duties on five 12-minute newscasts each weekday. We file stories as often as we can, and post to our state and regional networks, the KCAW website and our KCAW app. The News Resident– like all members of the news department – observes the ethical standards of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). In a small community like Sitka, protecting the station’s reputation for fair, open-handed reporting is paramount.
IV – Salary, Duration, and Lodging
The Resident will receive a $50,000 salary plus benefits for a one-year period from June 1, 2025 – May 31, 2026.
Raven Radio will provide airfare, housing, and per diem for the Resident to attend the annual meeting of the Alaska Press Club in April 2026.
V – Application deadline
Applicants must submit a letter of interest, resume with references, and three links to your best journalistic work by Friday May 2, 2025. We will be reviewing applications on a rolling basis so we encourage you to apply early. Submit applications by email to Katherine Rose at applications@kcaw.org
VI – Station and Community
KCAW-FM is a dynamic community radio station located in Sitka, Alaska – a small ~8,000 person island community in Southeast Alaska. Since signing on the air in 1982, KCAW has broadcast a diverse and vibrant program schedule to Sitka, and the seven neighboring remote communities who host KCAW translators (Angoon, Elfin Cove, Kake, Pelican, Port Alexander, Tenakee Springs and Yakutat), as well as a wide expanse of the coastal fishing grounds. KCAW is an equal opportunity employer. Learn more about Sitka and KCAW here.
KCAW’s News Residency was created in memory of Sarah Evangeline Hughes, who served as Raven Radio’s news director from 1999 to 2001. A vibrant, passionate reporter, she understood the importance of journalism: Without it, democracy dies. Sarah dedicated her life to public service, which included working to ensure all people—no matter their socioeconomic status—have access to a good education. Often, the best education is learning while doing, and Sarah knew that when it comes to journalism, there is no better training ground than Raven Radio in Sitka.
To honor Sarah’s legacy and further her values, her family and friends are working with Raven Radio to establish the Sarah Evangeline Hughes News Residency to educate the next generation of public radio journalists as they develop their reporting and radio-storytelling skills under the mentorship of seasoned KCAW staff.
