At the Islanders Write midwinter session, where authors, essayists, and journalists gathered around the proud legacy of writers on the Island, The Martha’s Vineyard Times announced an expansion of our initiative to support a new generation of Island journalists at our news organization.
The news of several significant pledges totaling more than $300,000 over the next three years was made Saturday at the second annual midwinter gathering at Featherstone Center for the Arts in Oak Bluffs. These generous donations help establish a growing pool of funding that allows The Times to sustain annual salaries and paid internships for emerging writers from the Island. These writers will focus on critical beats such as housing, education, health, and other important social issues that can bring us all together.
“We are humbled by the generosity, and so grateful for this opportunity to deepen the public service of journalism here on the Island. We believe there is both power and poetry in having journalists who work at the The Times who hail from the Island, and we are working hard to do outreach and create more opportunities for the next generation of Islanders to join us and be part of telling the story of their own Island,” said Charles Sennott, publisher and editor of The Times, who launched the effort last year.
Two new $150,000 commitments will be made over the next three years by two prominent families who are longtime summer residents on the Island: Jim and Susan Swartz of Egartown, and David and Nina Fialkow of West Tisbury.
A separate $10,000 gift was made to fund a paid summer internship for rising seniors at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School as part of The Times’ long-standing partnership with the school paper, “The High School View.” This gift was made by the journalist and novelist Geraldine Brooks, who serves on the The Times’ board of editorial advisors, and who won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It will carry the name of her late husband and journalist, Tony Horwitz, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for his reporting at the Wall Street Journal on working conditions of low-wage jobs in America. Applications for the Tony Horwitz Internship are open for applications, and we plan to announce the winner next month.
These three generous donations were all made specifically to Islanders Write, which serves as the nonprofit arm of The MV Times News Corp., and which works in partnership with M.V. Community Foundation for this mission-driven initiative dedicated to serving the Island through creating opportunities for local Islanders to hone their craft as writers and bring their voice to the news organization. The M.V. Community Foundation serves as the fiscal sponsor of the nonprofit initiative, which is carried out in accordance with federal requirements for a tax-deductible gift.
A separate inaugural gift, which totaled $150,000 over three years, was made last year at the midwinter Islanders Write gathering by John and Michelle Battelle of East Chop. They both had illustrious careers in journalism, including prominent roles in the founding of WIRED magazine, before coming to live full-time on the Island six years ago after raising their three grown children in California and New York, including their daughter Beatrix, who has worked at The Times as an intern.
“We need young reporters to be able to step up,” Michelle Battelle said last year when the initiative launched with their $150,000 gift. “The world is changing rapidly, and we need good reporters to do good, in-depth investigative reporting to shine a light on what’s going on in the world.”
The staff reporters who will be part of this initiative are given the title “Island Writer,” and they are assigned to specific beats for coverage that speaks directly to the public service role of community journalism. Our inaugural “Island Writer,” Sarah Shaw Dawson, was named last year.
As a staff reporter, Dawson focuses her coverage on housing and education, work for which she was recognized twice last week by the New England News and Press Association, along with several other colleagues and together garnered more than 11 awards. Dawson is also a talented musician who performed at the Islanders Write midwinter session.
“The grant from John and Michelle Battelle was incredibly generous, and has given me a platform to do something I’ve always wanted to do: write. I grew up on the Island and being able to report on the community I care about has been eye-opening and meaningful in many ways,” Dawson said.
Kate Feiffer is a columnist for The Times and the founding director of the legendary Islanders Write summer gathering. She is proud to see that the mission to support Island writers remains the same, even as the vision grows to include a new generation who will learn the craft of reporting and writing for their community as a form of public service.
“It has been a thrill to witness Sarah develop as an intrepid and empathetic reporter covering prickly and complicated issues,” Feiffer said. “This program is not only a natural extension to the events we’ve been hosting since 2014, it is a necessary one. We want to encourage other young Vineyarders, or even mid-career Islanders looking for a new beat on life, who are interested in covering this community with sensitivity, yet fearlessly, and in depth to apply for the next Island Writer position.”
We will soon be announcing the opening of applications for the “Island Writer” positions, and we would love to hear from the community about what you think of this initiative and what issues you think are the best way for us to focus our efforts. Some of the themes we are pondering are expanding our coverage of the environment, immigration, education and sports. We look forward to hearing your thoughts and you can share them with the publisher here: publisher@mvtimes.com.