Bruno Garcez is helping Brazil’s top media outlets to include multimedia reports from citizen journalists on important issues such as land reform and pollution prior to presidential and general elections in October.

Garcez is partnering with ABRAJI, the leading investigative journalism association, and the daily Folha de Sao Paulo to incorporate reports produced by trained citizen journalists. Already, 20 citizen reporters in Sao Paolo are producing stories and posting them on a common blog, Mural Brasil.

At a pivotal time for the Middle East, Knight International Journalism Fellow Amr El-Kahky is launching teams of investigative reporters at news organizations across the region. His efforts have helped journalists gain more access to government documents than ever before, particularly in Jordan and the West Bank. His investigative unit in Jordan uncovered a vote-buying scheme ahead of the November 2010 parliamentary elections. Jordanian reporters also tackled the issue of childhood alcohol addiction—a controversial topic never covered in the past.

Knight International has paired veteran Arabic-speaking journalists to mentor young colleagues in investigative journalism. Ten seasoned news professionals coached the junior reporters as they developed stories on everything from Egypt's Jewish communities to food safety to medical waste. Knight Fellow Roderick Craig started the program.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Visited Amman, Jordan, for hands-on training and to create networks with counterparts there.
• Best stories received awards.
• Linked Egyptian investigative journalists with journalists and media organizations in the region.

Knight Fellow Ana Arana worked with reporters and editors at the daily El Universal and the magazines Gatopardo and Expansión. She helped them build a new joint investigative unit and databases to produce exposes such as a story on illegal land transfers.

HIGHLIGHTS

<

ul>

Knight International developed a comprehensive database and guide for journalists to investigate and expose corruption in the Balkans and Eastern Europe.

Kannaiah Venkatesh's new association, Journalists for eGovernance and Transparency, helps reporters and freedom-of-information activists use the 2005 Right to Information (RTI) Act to produce investigative stories. The association protects the identity of journalists and activists seeking information by submitting RTI requests on their behalf, critically important in the region.

In the Philippines, Knight International helped journalists investigate the effectiveness of government programs designed to reduce poverty. With officials up for reelection in 2010, Knight Fellow Alex Tizon worked with The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) to determine whether the government delivered on promises to improve conditions. Tizon introduced new digital techniques that will enable major media outlets to gather better information from the poorest provinces.

Marquita Smith is a Knight International Journalism Fellow who helped launch the Judicial Reporters Network in Liberia. Smith formed this association and trained its members to cover the country’s fledgling legal system. Inspired by Smith, Ora Garway, a journalist in the association, launched a newspaper called The Punch that focuses on legal reporting. Garway was the country’s first woman managing editor. Smith returned to Liberia in June 2010 to help Garway develop a business plan for the new newspaper and create a website featuring coverage of the justice system.

Haitian journalists work in a makeshift newsroom at Le Nouvelliste. Their old building was destroyed in the January 2010 earthquake.

Knight International Journalism Fellow Klarreich established an investigative team at Le Nouvelliste, Haiti’s leading newspaper, which regularly produces stories on the misuse of aid sent to Haiti after the catastrophic January 2010 earthquake. The team has broken stories about a land dispute that stopped work at a critically important sanitation plant near a refugee camp. After reading these reports, Haitian President Michel Joseph Martelly intervened and construction resumed.