Katy Reckdahl is one of 31 recipients of the Katrina Media Fellowships, announced Thursday by the Open Society Institute. The grants were created "to promote a national conversation on racism and inequality in America." The recipients will split $950,000; special consideration was given to applicants who were displaced from or residents of the Gulf Region. Reckdahl, a staff writer for Gambit Weekly at the time of the storm, will use her fellowship "to write about the daily life in New Orleans' Tremé and Irish Channel neighborhoods, focusing on people living in poverty and the challenges they face in terms of jobs, housing, health care, and indigent defense."