Slavic Sacramento is participating in the ambitious California Local News Fellowship program at the University of California, Berkeley.
In 2023, UC Berkeley launched the California Local News Fellowship, a multi-year state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting in California, with a focus on underserved communities.
“At the end of the day, this is about serving communities and making sure that communities are informed,” said Vitaly Ataev Troshin, the fellow selected to work at Slavic Sacramento. “This is what I really care about. I want to get people excited about journalism again.”
Ataev Troshin, born in the Moscow area during the final years of the Soviet Union, spent summers with his grandmother in central Ukraine. Early on, he developed a strong interest in activism and journalism, writing critical pieces directed at local authorities. By age 14, his articles were published in Moscow newspapers. In 2014, he established two media outlets in the city aimed at engaging active citizens. In 2016, given an increasingly repressive environment for independent journalists in Russia, Ataev Troshin left Russia for California.
The fellowship places up to 40 early-career journalists in newsrooms throughout California for two-year, full-time reporting positions. The fellows also receive a number of trainings at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, where they are provided with resources, peer learning experiences, training from veteran journalists, direct communication with state officials, and much more. California Senator Steve Glazer, who represents California Senate District 7, spearheaded the state funding for the program.
Ekene Okobi, the fellowship’s cohort manager, said in an interview with Slavic Sacramento that the program offers more than a stable job in local journalism. “On top of that, we provide a lot of training, so people are able to upscale even as a job, and learn a little more about this job. It also provides mentorship,” said Okobi, who has worked with Marketplace Radio, PRX’s The World and WAMU.
“For a journalist, the key is to be interested in truth,” said fellow program manager Katharine Mieszkowski, who previously worked as a reporter and producer at Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, where she played a key role in award-winning investigations about Amazon and Tesla. “This is the people of California saying we want more local news, we want better information about what is going on in our communities,” she said.
Mieszkowski also offered advice for newer journalists: “You want to be able to speak to the widest number of people possible. And you may have your own assumptions about a certain thing or idea, but you have to essentially report against those and try to talk to the people who maybe the most violently disagree with you.”
Slavic Sacramento is the only Russian-language media outlet in California participating in this initiative, alongside newspapers like The Fresno Bee, The Sacramento Observer and The Los Angeles Times, alongside youth media, and public media outlets.
The 2021 Census showed that about 5 million immigrants from post-Soviet countries live in the United States. Many speak or understand Russian or Ukrainian and consume news content in these languages, which are the languages Slavic Sacramento publishes most of its news in. In California, about 1 million people are from this diaspora and, as the war in Ukraine continues, their numbers increase daily.
Ataev Troshin is the program’s only Russian-language fellow. “I want the Russian word to be heard in California and throughout America,” he said.
Ataev Troshin said that he also sees the fellowship program as crucial in his fight against Russian propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation, which thrives in the United States. “Yet my mission is not limited to Russian propaganda,” Ataev Troshin said. “More importantly, it also focuses on life and news relevant to our people residing in the Golden State.”
“We are extremely grateful to the California Local News Fellowship program, which makes it possible for California’s ethnic media to continue their crucial work for the state’s non-English-speaking residents, especially during a time of global disinformation,” said Ruslan Gurzhiy, the editor-in-chief of Slavic Sacramento. “Additionally, the mentorship provided by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism plays a crucial role in upholding the high quality of our content.”
Gurzhiy also highlighted that during the year of the fellowship program’s operation, while many Kremlin-controlled Russian-language outlets were leaving the U.S. media market, Slavic Sacramento’s audience has significantly grown, as the diaspora seeks alternatives to Russian propaganda and efforts to debunk false narratives.
Vitaly Ataev Troshin, California Local News Fellowship
Ruslan Gurzhiy, SlavicSac.com
