NEW YORK – Today Reuters, the world’s largest international multimedia news provider, announced six Reuters-National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) Fellows. The program honors rising reporters, recent graduates or business professionals who demonstrate a clear commitment to a career in journalism and an ability to generate story ideas relevant for a Reuters audience, with a focus on multimedia, using text, video and/or graphics.

The paid fellowship program, in its first year, offers up to nine months of hands-on, real-world experience in a Reuters bureau. The fellowship, open to members of the NABJ, is part of the Reuters News Trainee Program, during which participants gain a deep grounding in financial and/or general news reporting, work on fast-paced news stories and develop skills in enterprise journalism.

“We are proud to welcome these bright journalists in their early careers to the Reuters family and to offer them this exciting opportunity through our partnership with the NABJ,” said Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen J. Adler. “The work the NABJ organization does in expanding diversity in journalism is critical and we’re committed to collaborating with them and others to increase diversity and inclusion at Reuters.”

“The Reuters-NABJ Fellowship is an awesome opportunity for both emerging and veteran journalists to work inside one of the world's most influential media companies,” said NABJ President Sarah Glover. “From Dakar to Chicago, these fellows will be contributing to a cutting edge news operation, shooting video and reporting the big stories happening across the globe. This NABJ and Reuters partnership will produce great journalism online, in print and on-air. I'm ecstatic about the possibilities for NABJ members at Reuters.”

This year’s Reuters-NABJ Fellows are:

Makini Brice (@makinibrice) will continue with Reuters in the Dakar bureau, where she has been an Overseas Press Club fellow with Reuters since the beginning of June, as the recipient of the club’s Flora Lewis Award. She won the prize by submitting a portion of her reporting on children who had migrated to the country alone, primarily from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. She is also part of a team of journalists who were nominated earlier this year for an Emmy for a story about Senegalese schoolchildren who beg for food and tuition money for certain Koranic schools. Makini has a joint M.A. from New York University in Global Journalism and French Studies, and a B.F.A. from the University of Southern California in Writing for Screen and Television.

Gina Cherelus (@jeanuh_) is taking on a breaking news post with a social media focus in New York for Reuters. After interning for ELLE magazine and The Miami Herald, Gina worked for Forbes Travel Guide in Atlanta. She was born in Fort. Lauderdale, Fla. and spent most of her life growing up in the South Florida area. She relocated to Tallahassee to attend college at Florida A&M University where she received a Bachelor’s of Science in journalism. At FAMU's School of Journalism & Graphic Communications, she was editor-in-chief of the university's award-winning magazine, Journey. Throughout her personal and professional career, she's grown an interest in stories relating to women's issues, politics, technology, race issues, film and environmental issues. 

Bethel Habte (@bethel_habte) is a reporter and audio producer based in the Washington D.C. metro area who will join the Reuters digital team in New York. She just completed an M.S. in multimedia journalism at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern, specializing in business, audio and interactive reporting. Bethel is a Texas-born, Virginia-raised, Eritrean-American who's semi-fluent in Spanish. She has traveled to Eritrea, Ecuador, Peru and Nicaragua, and has worked on and managed news teams starting in high school and into college.

Marcus E. Howard (@MarcusEHoward) will join the Reuters markets desk in New York. He has worked primarily as a government reporter for several years, writing for the Los Angeles Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune and daily newspapers in his home state of Georgia. He has earned two professional awards for his work, a 2014 Georgia Press Association Better Newspaper Contest award with two colleagues for community service reporting on the use of taxpayer money and a 2013 Georgia Associated Press Media Editors award for business writing on the public impact of construction of an outlet mall. He completed a bachelor’s in political science from Boston College and master’s in journalism from Columbia University.

Justin Madden (@IAmJustinMadden) will join the Chicago bureau for Reuters, where he will focus on the agriculture commodities markets. He is currently the Digital Breaking News Reporter at the Lexington Herald-Leader newspaper in Kentucky, covering cops and courts, and everything in between. Justin won a Kentucky Press Association Award for a hotel explosion in 2014 and anchored a team of reporter’s that won a McClatchy President’s Award for their aggressive coverage of the NCAA Championship celebrations that showed fans burning couches, fighting and police shooting rubber bullets. Justin has worked with WKYT-TV, the newspaper’s reporting partner, on stories focused on suicide, heroin and babies born addicted. Justin has interned at Black Entertainment Television (BET), Columbia Broadcasting Systems (CBS) on the hit show ‘Criminal Minds.’ A native of Los Angeles, Justin graduated from Grambling State University, where he served as editor-in-chief for The Gramblinite newspaper, 2012-2013. Justin was also the Vice President of Print and President of Grambling’s NABJ chapter.

Clarece Polke will join the Washington bureau at Reuters in February. She is currently an education and night cops reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She has held multimedia reporting and production internships with Scripps-Howard, Gannett and MSNBC. She also reported live from several matches during the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa and spent seven months studying abroad in southern China. A native of Archer, Fla., and a 2013 graduate of Florida A&M University's School of Journalism and Graphic Communication, Clarece is an avid dancer and flag football/yoga enthusiast.

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