Feet in 2 Worlds (Fi2W) is a nonprofit newsroom and journalism training organization that has spent more than two decades empowering immigrant journalists and reshaping the U.S. media landscape to be more inclusive, representative, and community-driven. Through fellowships, editorial partnerships, and hands-on mentorship, Fi2W helps immigrant reporters and editors build careers, develop leadership skills, and tell stories that reflect the realities of communities often overlooked in mainstream news coverage.
Fi2W’s commitment to fostering belonging and inclusion in digital journalism begins with its approach to training. Rather than imposing a top-down editorial agenda, the organization empowers fellows to shape the stories they want to tell — stories rooted in lived experience from the communities where they live. For example, in 2023, Fi2W published Home, Interrupted, a limited podcast series on climate change and immigrant communities. Home, Interrupted was edited by fellow Iggy Monda, a second-generation Italian Jamaican New Yorker, and it featured reporters who are all immigrants or children of immigrants. The series offered deeply reported, personal stories that explored how climate change intersects with labor, migration, and identity. Fi2W’s team supported these reporters not only with technical training, but with ongoing conversations about ethics, framing, and accountability to the communities they covered.
In 2024, Fi2W launched its first-ever investigative reporting fellowship to examine misinformation on Spanish-language radio. The resulting series, Frequency of Deception, was a collaborative, bilingual reporting project involving multiple newsrooms, including WNYC’s Notes from America, palabra by NAHJ, and Puente News Collaborative. Beyond the reporting itself, the fellowship provided participants with editorial mentorship and built a supportive cohort of journalists investigating a high-stakes and underreported issue.
Fi2W’s model prioritizes care, collaboration, and long-term investment in people. The organization recognizes that for immigrant journalists, especially those from historically marginalized communities, access to the journalism industry is not just about opportunity but about feeling seen, heard, and valued. Many alumni go on to leadership roles at national outlets, launch their own media organizations, or become mentors themselves. What sets Fi2W apart is its insistence that inclusion isn’t just a goal — it’s the foundation for everything it does.
Fi2W also brings this ethos to its partnerships. By collaborating with ethnic media outlets and mainstream platforms, the organization makes space for immigrant-centered journalism in public discourse while building bridges across communities. Its stories appear on WNYC, NAHJ’s palabra, The Guardian, and in city-based ethnic publications around the country.
In a moment when both journalism and democracy are under threat, Fi2W offers a powerful example of what it means to build a more equitable media system — one grounded in mentorship, and a deep belief in the value of immigrant voices.
For over two decades, Fi2W has nurtured the voices of immigrant storytellers who have gone on to shape local and national newsrooms, bringing depth, nuance, and authenticity to coverage across the industry. The selection committee was deeply impressed by the lasting impact of Fi2W’s mission and agreed that, at a time when immigrant perspectives are increasingly marginalized, Fi2W’s work is more vital than ever.
