Leading U.S. journalists and digital media experts to speak
Washington, D.C. – The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and the University of Guadalajara (UdeG) in Mexico will bring together leaders in journalism and digital media from around the world to the university's Third International Conference of Journalists, "Digital Media: New Ways to Do Journalism," November 30 to December 2.
Watch a video of ICFJ President Joyce Barnathan's speech at the Google headquarters in San Francisco
in August. Her speech, "Global Digital Journalism: A Transformative Moment," was broadcast to five other Google offices across the nation.
Gates Foundation to Sponsor Health Journalism Fellows in Africa
Washington – The best defense of press freedom is journalism that improves the lives of citizens. The Knight International Journalism Fellowships program, administered by the International Center for Journalists, does just that. For more than 14 years, the program has helped 30,000 journalists and media managers make a difference around the world.
Washington, D.C. – The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) announced on Oct. 22 the latest class of seven Knight International Journalism Fellows. In keeping with the program’s commitment to selecting the best international journalists, the group includes the first Egyptian, Indonesian and African Fellows, as well as Fellows from Britain and the United States. They will address key societal issues through hands-on media projects in eight countries.
The Fellows will spend a year working with local-partner organizations to transform media in their host countries and their regions. In India, a Knight Fellow will partner with the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the environmental group that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore.
As a result of new Fellowship requirements, each Fellow is conversant in the language of the host country and has at least 10 years of experience in journalism or media management. Fellows now focus on working with local journalists to improve specific areas of coverage, including the environment, digital media and politics.
From left to right: Basil Okoor, Christopher Gumunyu, Evangelina Hernandez, Malkhas Gagua, Joseph Raj and Joyce Barnathan.
By Michelle Mathew
October 11, 2007, marked a year since the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) first presented an event to discuss newsworthy events at the National Press Club in downtown Washington. ICFJ celebrated that anniversary with the latest in what has since become a series of events at the Press Club, offering a panel discussion titled “Perceptions of America: Just How Bad?”
The panelists were all international journalists – five of the participants in ICFJ’s longest-running program, the International Journalism Exchange. They were Malkhaz Gagua of Georgia, Christopher Gumunyu of Zimbabwe, Evangelina Hernandez Duarte of Mexico, Basil Okoor of Jordan, and Joseph Raj of Malaysia.
Washington, D.C. – The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) announced on Oct. 2 the 2007 participants in the International Journalism Exchange. The leading editors from 12 countries, including Zimbabwe, will spend time at U.S. publications such as the Los Angeles Times, the Houston Chronicle,Science magazine, and The Detroit News, among others.
Administered by ICFJ and the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE), the group of 12 is sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Hearst Corporation, the Paul Klebnikov Fund, the Daniel Pearl Foundation, the Scripps Howard Foundation and the World Editors Forum.
A group of IJE fellows will also be featured in a panel discussion at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on October 11. The event, Perceptions of America: Just How Bad? is co-sponsored by the International Correspondents Committee at the National Press Club.
A second Klebnikov Fellowship administered by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) will go to Belarusian environmental journalist Vitali Lipik
Washington D.C. – Anton Kazarin, editor-in-chief of the business news magazine group Delovoy Kvartal, has been named winner of the 2007 Paul Klebnikov Fund Prize for Excellence in Journalism. Kazarin will be honored at ICFJ’s Annual Awards Dinner at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C., on November 13. Read the September 24 release
Vjollca Shtylla Named ICFJ Vice President
(Washington, DC) ICFJ President Joyce Barnathan announced September 19 that Vjollca Shtylla will assume the post of Vice President, Development. In this position, she will oversee both new program development and all fundraising efforts, including the annual dinner. She also will continue to manage our groundbreaking program in China, an initiative she helped create.
Shtylla has served in a variety of positions at ICFJ over the past ten years, from deputy director of the Knight International program to senior program director. Originally from Albania and educated in China, she has deep experience running programs in Eastern Europe and Asia. “Vjollca has worked tirelessly and effectively at ICFJ,” said Barnathan. “She is innovative, intelligent and entrepreneurial, a perfect fit for this job.”
Before coming to ICFJ, she was the regional director of the Solon Foundation in Albania. Prior to that, she was a Humphrey Fellow in Mass Communication at Boston University. She has a B.A. in Chinese from the Beijing Institute of Foreign Languages.
After participating in an ICFJ program on personal finance, sponsored by The McGraw-Hill Companies, José Melendrez launched a unique Web site to help his community understand an essential topic.
As a Peruvian journalist living in the United States, Jose Melendrez knows what it feels like to make hard financial decisions without a lot of resources. A former business editor for the newspaper Hoy , Melendrez launched an innovative Web site August 1 focused on personal finance, specifically for Latinos. Read more>
Former Knight International Journalism Fellow Nailene Chou Wiest named co-director
Washington, D.C. – Three leading journalists with long experience in business journalism will join the international faculty of China’s first Global Business Journalism Program at Beijing’s Tsinghua University. They include Robert J. Dowling, former managing editor of BusinessWeek International; Ann M. Morrison, former editor of Time Europe; and Nailene Chou Wiest, who was a Knight International Journalism Fellow in China and had worked for Reuters there. Wiest also will serve as the program’s co-director. Read more>
Wael Abbas is the first blogger to receive this prestigious award.
Along with Tom Brokaw, they will be honored at the International Center for Journalists Awards Dinner on Nov. 13
Washington DC – The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) has named Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas and Burmese investigative reporter May Thingyan Hein as the 2007 Knight International Journalism Award winners.
They will be honored along with Founders Award recipient Tom Brokaw at the 10th annual ICFJ Awards Dinner at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, DC, on November 13. The dinner also will feature Keynote Speaker Bob Woodruff and Master of Ceremonies George Stephanopoulos.
ICFJ Board Member Named Associate Dean At Stony Brook Journalism School
ICFJ Board member Marcy McGinnis, an Emmy Award-winning former senior executive at CBS News and leading broadcast journalist, has been named Associate Dean at Stony Brook University's School of Journalism. She will also continue as Director of the Broadcast Journalism program.
In her new post, McGinnis will oversee development of the video curriculum, recruitment of faculty, fundraising, student recruitment, strategic planning, and development of satellite campuses for the journalism program. She joined Stony Brook’s faculty last year after spending three decades at CBS.
At CBS McGinnis held a variety of top posts including Senior Vice President, News Coverage, from June 2001 through December 2005. She led the network’s coverage of such important events as 9/11, the war in Afghanistan and Hurricane Katrina. She also helped produce CBS News' award-winning coverage of the war in Iraq. She also served as Vice President, Europe and London Bureau Chief for CBS News, running day-to-day coverage in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
The 2007 ICFJ Awards Dinner
on November 13 brought in a record crowd and featured George Stephanopoulos (left) and Bob Woodruff. In addition, Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas, Burmese reporter May Thingyan Hein, Russian business magazine editor Anton Kazarin and NBC's Tom Brokaw were all honored with awards at the gala dinner.
This interactive training module is intended as a basic introduction to the new online world of Web logs or "blogs."
We all have news and stories to tell. But the Internet lets us tell our stories to the world. If you want to tell something important to others, this guide will help you. It's a basic outline that will help you build the machinery that runs your blog: your words and images. Other guides are technological. This guide tells you how to gather information and how to tell it –and tell it accurately. Click here>
Fellow wins Emmy award!
Warren Cohen, supervising producer of VH1's "Rock Doc: DMC: My Adoption Journey", recently won an Emmy award for Outstanding Arts and Cultural Programming. Congrats Warren!
Immigration Participant Awarded NAHJ Journalism Award
Isabel C. Morales
was awarded the Print – Breaking News award in the 2007 NAHJ Journalism Awards for her entry “Immigration Protest”.
Isabel will be recognized on Thursday, October 4, 2007 at the 22nd Annual Noche de Triunfos Journalism Awards Gala at the Capitol Hilton in Washington, DC.
Congrats Isabel!
Former Scripps Fellow Awarded Fulbright
Former Scripps Ethics program participant Paúl Mena wins Fulbright Fellowship to study at the University of South Florida, where he plans to do research on journalism ethics and training for journalists.
"As I said in the essay for the (Fulbright) application form, the ethics course I took at ICFJ in 2003 changed the way I was doing my profession," Paúl says.
In a candid video which was recently featured as YouTube's Editor's Pick for News and Politics, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting asks members of the World Affairs Fellowship Program what they think does- or doesn't- qualify as news. Watch the video here
Congratulations to the group of Serbian editors who recently completed ICFJ's U.S.- based Media Program. 100% of participants said that the program met their professional expectations and helped improve their professional skills and knowledge. "Your program was one of the best I have ever participated in!" wrote one participant. "I always come back with so many new ideas and a better understanding of other nations, news or other matters," said another.
Venezuelan journalist that hosted Knight Fellow honored
Andre Cañizales, a former host of Knight Fellow Roger Atwood in Venezuela and former participant in the McCormick Freedom of Expression project, is the inaugural recipient of the Tal Cual Freedom of Expession Chair at the Andres Bello Catholic University (UCAB) in Venezuela. The Chair, the first of its kind in Venezuela, was created after the daily newspaper Tal Cual was forced to pay a libel fine for addressing an op-ed to the president's daughter. Tal Cual received thousands of dollars from citizens to help pay the fine, then used the remainder to create the Chair.
Gates Foundation to Sponsor Health Journalism Fellows in Africa
A second Klebnikov Fellowship administered by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) will go to Belarusian environmental journalist Vitali Lipik 
(Washington, DC) ICFJ President Joyce Barnathan announced September 19 that Vjollca Shtylla will assume the post of Vice President, Development. In this position, she will oversee both new program development and all fundraising efforts, including the annual dinner. She also will continue to manage our groundbreaking program in China, an initiative she helped create. 
After participating in an ICFJ program on personal finance, sponsored by The McGraw-Hill Companies, José Melendrez launched a unique Web site to help his community understand an essential topic.
ICFJ Board member Marcy McGinnis, an Emmy Award-winning former senior executive at CBS News and leading broadcast journalist, has been named Associate Dean at Stony Brook University's School of Journalism. She will also continue as Director of the Broadcast Journalism program.
