Laura Anaya-Morga, who has been working to develop a new Spanish language platform for the Long Beach Post, was today named a recipient of the prestigious MJ Bear Fellowship.
The yearlong fellowship includes support for early-career journalists under 30 who are innovating to improve news coverage.
Anaya-Morga is one of six fellows named from across the country.
Anaya-Morga has worked for the last several months with a team of journalism students from the University of Missouri to relaunch the Long Beach Post en Español coverage, including conducting surveys, tabling at local events and talking with community leaders and residents about what kind of coverage they want.
The goal of this work is to better understand the information needs of the Spanish-speaking population of Long Beach, where 43.2% of residents are Latino.
The fellowship is offered through the Online News Association, and includes travel to the organization’s annual convention this August.
The fellowship is financially supported by the MJ Bear Estate, friends of MJ Bear—whose wide-ranging career took her to pivotal roles at Microsoft’s MSN Portals and MSN International, NPR and American University—and ONA, MSN International and Microsoft.