October 20, 2026 — Chauncey Bailey would have turned 77 today. Nineteen years after he was killed while reporting an investigative story in Oakland, Ca., IRE is marking his birthday for the first time by announcing the newest class of the fellowship that bears his name, a choice meant to keep his work and legacy alive.
Daisy Zavala Magaña at RANGE Media in Spokane, Washington; Miguel Torres of Caló News in Phoenix, Arizona and Nushrat Rahman of the Detroit Free Press/BridgeDetroit in Detroit, Michigan have been selected for IRE’s Chauncey Bailey Journalist of Color Investigative Reporting Fellowship class of 2027.
The prestigious year-long fellowship is designed to increase the range of backgrounds, experiences and interests within the field of investigative journalism, where diverse perspectives are critically important. Fellows receive IRE training, mentorship and support to produce an investigative reporting project benefiting their newsrooms and communities.
Daisy Zavala Magaña is an award-winning reporter with RANGE Media, a worker-owned journalism cooperative based in Spokane, Washington. She’s extensively covered farmworkers and labor across the state, where she has led efforts to provide Spanish language news access.
One of her investigations prompted the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries to relook at a closed claim, resulting in an undocumented worker receiving money he was owed. She also covered the U.S.- Mexico border community of Ambos Nogales under both the Biden and Trump administrations as a reporter at the Nogales International. Zavala Magaña also reported on local politics, including a closed-door meeting between city leaders and representatives of a mining giant looking to extract critical minerals like zinc and manganese from the Patagonia Mountains in Arizona. After her reporting, some council members self-reported to the Attorney General who later found that meeting to be in violation of several elements of the state’s Open Meeting Law meant to afford transparency in local government. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Washington State University, where she also studied political science.
Zavala Magaña’s project will focus on farmworker exposure to toxic pesticides, gaps in care and the ways Washington state has failed to mitigate or prevent exposure.
Miguel Torres is a Phoenix-based independent journalist and illustrator working with Caló News. He digs through documents, talks to people and stresses out over editing. He got into reporting after filling in as a cameraman at a fighting tournament in 2016 and became bona fide in 2022 through earning a bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Torres spent five years reporting in Phoenix for The Arizona Republic, azcentral and the USA TODAY Network. His work has taken him through courtrooms, police departments, prisons, natural and unnatural disasters, public records and plenty of places where paperwork and people tell different stories. That work included coverage of the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil-rights investigation into Phoenix police, reporting on Spanish-speaking communities affected by Hurricane Helene and reporting on major court cases in Arizona, including the first major lawsuit against Uber in the state. He also draws — sometimes courtroom sketches (featured in his reporting with azcentral), sometimes illustrations for short stories and sometimes whatever dumb idea comes to mind.
His project will focus on increasing harm caused by fraudulent immigration-service providers in Arizona.
Nushrat Rahman is a reporter for the Detroit Free Press and BridgeDetroit, covering issues related to economic mobility, including housing, affordability and inequities that prevent low-income families from achieving financial stability, with a laser focus on Detroit. Her stories zoom into community concerns, from homelessness and evictions to home repair and water affordability, and aim to get to the bottom of questions residents have.
Rahman is 2024 National Press Foundation Widening the Pipeline fellow and completed the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism data fellowship, reporting on a fast growing cash aid program for moms and babies in Michigan. She has received first place awards from the Detroit chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for feature writing, engagement-driven reporting and collaborative coverage. Rahman, a born and raised Detroiter, came to the Free Press through Report for America and graduated from Columbia Journalism School and Wayne State University.
Her project will focus on conditions of Detroit’s rental properties in a city where a third of the population lives below the federal poverty level and where homelessness has been rising.
Zavala Magaña, Torres and Rahman will pursue these projects while receiving a suite of IRE resources and support throughout the course of the fellowship. These include training at an IRE Data Journalism Bootcamp and both annual conferences. Most importantly, they will each receive a mentor network of IRE members who will guide them through their yearlong projects.
Established in 2019, IRE’s Journalist of Color Investigative Reporting Fellowship began with generous donations from IRE members Meghan Hoyer, Megan Luther, Mike Tahani and Mike Gruss. Over the years, the program has grown thanks to continued contributions from members and news organizations including ABC News, CNN, ESPN, Gray Television and Hearst Foundations. In 2023, the fellowship was renamed in honor of late journalist Chauncey Bailey.
Applications for the 2028 IRE Chauncey Bailey Journalist of Color Investigative Reporting Fellowship will be available in May 2027.
Make a contribution to the Chauncey Bailey Journalist of Color Investigative Reporting Fellowship here. If you are interested in participating in IRE training events and need financial assistance to attend, check out our fellowships and scholarships.
