The Freedom Forum, a Washington-based nonprofit focused on promoting First Amendment awareness, on Wednesday announced its 2023 class of fellows for the Chips Quinn Scholars Program for Diversity in Journalism, an annual initiative that provides mentorship and training for early career journalists.

Cheyenne McNeill — a former reporter for EdNC, and currently a fellow and contributor while she attends graduate school for a masters in fine arts at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute — is among the 13 journalists selected for this prestigious fellowship. McNeill was nominated by NPR’s Next Generation Radio.

Founded in 1991, the Chips Quinn program pairs a group of early career journalists from underrepresented communities with veteran journalists who are alumni of the Chips Quinn program. McNeill will be paired with Nereida Moreno, who was in the CQS class of 2015.

Through in-person gatherings, individual meetings with their mentors, as well as panels and training sessions provided by the Freedom Forum, each fellow gets hands-on career education to improve their “power skills,” including communication, leadership, collaboration, work/life sustainability, personal development, inclusivity, and allyship.

Since its inception, the Chips Quinn Scholars program has trained more than 1,400 alumni.

The Chips Quinn Scholars Program for Diversity in Journalism was founded by John C. Quinn and his wife, Loie, in 1991 as a memorial to their eldest son John C. “Chips” Quinn Jr. Chips Quinn was the editor of The Poughkeepsie Journal when he died in 1990 at age 34. The elder Quinn was the founding editor of USA TODAY, a former president of Gannett News Service and deputy chairman of the Freedom Forum. Quinn died in 2017 in Rhode Island. He was 91.

Cheyenne, from all of us at EdNC, we are so proud of you!