Type Media Center is pleased to announce Helen Ouyang and Jessica Valenti as the inaugural Ernst Abelin and Pamela Bevier fellows. Valenti and Ouyang join Type thanks to the generous support of Pamela Bevier. Their fellowships honor the memory of Bevier’s late husband, Ernst Abelin, a passionate supporter of independent journalism who believed in the vital role that investigative reporters can play in creating a more informed public and exposing injustice and inequality. As fellows, Valenti and Ouyang will join the vibrant community of emerging and established writers who make up Type’s Fellowship Program.
“It seems more urgent now than ever to support talented writers who can identify problems in our world today, describe them in a compelling way, and offer potential solutions,” said Pamela Bevier. “The Abelin-Bevier Fellowship is intended to help experienced journalists pursue their important work.”
Ouyang and Valenti will join the Type Fellowship Program, of which award-winning author and journalist Eyal Press serves as the director. Press is a senior fellow at Type Media Center, as well as a contributing writer at The New Yorker, and the author of “Dirty Work” (2021), “Beautiful Souls” (2012), and “Absolute Convictions” (2006).
“These two journalists clearly show us who is hurt by our healthcare system and how politics harms so many people in dire need of care,” said Taya McCormick-Grobow, Executive Director and CEO of Type Media Center. “It is our deepest privilege to support their work and we are so grateful to Pamela Bevier for the creation of these two critical fellowships.”
Helen Ouyang, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and an emergency medicine physician and associate professor at Columbia University, specializes in writing about people whom our healthcare system too often fails: children with terminal illnesses whose families cannot access adequate pediatric hospice care; adults living in poverty grappling with a tuberculosis outbreak in rural Alabama. She has also written about her own experiences as an emergency physician on the frontlines of the COVID pandemic and as a foreigner working in a small hospital in rural Liberia. As a Type fellow, she intends to expand her coverage of global health and to continue to produce incisive long-form journalism on neglected medical issues.
Jessica Valenti, a feminist columnist and author, is the founder of the daily newsletter Abortion, Every Day, an urgent synthesis of the political and real-life consequences of abortion bans. From anti-choice legislation, to battles in state courts, to the stories of women denied access to care, Valenti’s newsletter has become an indispensable source of news and explanatory journalism on the rollback of abortion rights in post-Dobbs America. Jessica has also authored seven books on feminism, with her most recent book, “Sex Object: A Memoir”, being named a New York Times bestseller. With support from Type, she intends to further expand her newsletter’s reach and to deepen its investigations and continue to bring attention to smaller stories from undercovered and rural areas.
About Type Media Center
Type Media Center is a non-profit home for independent journalists and truth-tellers at all stages of their careers. Our mission is to produce high-impact journalism and literary nonfiction that addresses injustice and inequality, catalyzes change, informs and uplifts social movements, while transforming and diversifying the fields of journalism and publishing.