The Center for Just Journalism is accepting applications for its Building a Better Breaking News Beat cohort until July 18th, 2026. At a time when newsrooms are shrinking but the news cycle is not, breaking news is no longer a specialty — it's something almost every journalist will have to cover. And nowhere is the gap between what breaking news coverage does and what it should do more consequential than on the public safety beat. Shootings, arrests, protests, police use of force, court proceedings — these are the stories that move fastest and matter most, and they are the stories where inaccurate, sensationalized, or police-dependent coverage causes the most lasting harm.
Building a Better Breaking News Beat is a training and mentorship program for journalists who cover urgent and unfolding events involving crime, public safety, and the criminal legal system. The program focuses on the skills that matter most under pressure: vetting official statements before laundering them as fact, sourcing beyond law enforcement, using language and imagery that humanizes rather than harms, and understanding enough about how the criminal legal system actually works to know when the official story doesn't add up.
