In a new partnership with prominent national fellowship programs, Stocktonia will soon be delivering the community more visual journalism.
The CatchLight Local Fellowship and Report for America this week announced that it would award Stockton’s nonprofit news source support for a multi-year staff photojournalist.
Stocktonia is one of 14 local newsrooms nationwide to win a fellowship.
Photojournalist Annie Barker, 25, is set to join Stocktonia’s newsroom this summer. A freelance photojournalist and Michigan State University graduate with two bachelor’s degrees in journalism and creative advertising, she has been a staff photographer at The Everett Herald in Washington State and a photo intern at Detroit Free Press, Grand Rapids Press, and Deseret News in Utah, as well as a photo fellow with Boyd’s Station, a nonprofit journalism and arts residency program in Kentucky.
Barker said she is looking forward to her assignment in San Joaquin County.
“It comes down to wanting to do community journalism, and I’m really impressed by what Stocktonia brings to the table,” Barker said. “I’m excited to be a part of that.”
Stocktonia was founded in 2022 with the mission to provide rigorous ethical and factual journalism to Stockton and San Joaquin County. In 2024, Stocktonia became a part of NEWSWELL, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting the future of local news.
Read more: Stocktonia wins five statewide journalism awards
This is the first time Stocktonia has been awarded a CatchLight Fellowship.
“We are honored and thrilled to have such a prestigious fellow in our newsroom,” said Scott Linesburgh, executive editor of Stocktonia. “Annie Barker is a wonderful journalist, and we look forward to working with her as she helps us tell the stories of our community.”
This year’s 14-person cohort represents the largest group of visual journalists ever recruited by CatchLight and Report for America. The groups’ initiative is part of a strategy to counter a broader decline in visual journalism jobs.
“This marks a significant expansion in CatchLight’s efforts to support local and regional newsrooms that want to engage their audiences with images that truly reflect and represent their daily realities,” Elodie Mailliet Storm, CEO of CatchLight, said in an announcement. “The veracity of public information is being questioned more than ever before. This is why the work of visual journalists, which at its very core is deeply rooted in building trust with communities, is so critical for civic life in the United States.”
Since the program’s inception in 2019, CatchLight Local Fellows and their newsrooms have produced visual reporting that has informed public policy, advanced civic dialogue, and cultivated trust with local audiences.