News

German Reporting Exchange Program Hits a 30-Year Milestone

CNN Senior International Correspondent Fred Pleitgen has crisscrossed the world covering breaking news for the network. Looking back, he credits the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship, a reporting exchange program for German, U.S. and Canadian journalists, with launching his path.

“The fellowship made my subsequent career," said Pleitgen, who was placed at CNN's headquarters in Atlanta as a Burns Fellow in 2005.

Newsroom Exchange Gives Brazilian and U.S. Journalists a Crash Course in Shared Challenges, Political Melodrama

BRASÍLIA — Protesters gathered outside the National Congress as I made my way inside to visit the lower chamber. Hours later, the demonstrators, angry over a pension reform plan, would be met with pepper spray as they tried to enter the chamber.

As a journalist who has covered Texas government and politics for years, I’m used to political protests, but the vibe here seemed different.

ICFJ Chairman Michael Golden Named President of Global News Publishers’ Association

ICFJ board Chairman Michael Golden became president of WAN-IFRA Thursday at the organization's convention in Durban, South Africa, promising to help media organizations around the world deal with growing political and economic challenges.

Golden said that WAN-IFRA, or the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, would increase its commitment to fighting the growing attacks on journalists and media organizations around the world.

World Editors Forum Calls on Turkey to Free Jailed Journalists

ICFJ Board Member David Callaway called on Turkey to free all journalists imprisoned for their work as he presented the Golden Pen of Freedom award to exiled Turkish editor Can Dundar at the World News Media Congress Wednesday in Durban, South Africa.

Award-Winning Kenyan Reporter says Africans Should Decide their News Agenda

African journalists committed to shedding light on poverty, corruption and other key issues should set the standard for coverage of their continent, said Mercy Juma, a Kenyan broadcaster who received a prestigious new award in honor of celebrated editor and philanthropist Michael Elliott.

“I receive this award at a time when one of Africa's biggest problems is that it is not allowed to tell its own stories, said Mercy Juma, who has covered sensitive topics such as teen pregnancy and birth control in remote Muslim communities.

FT Editor Says Journalists Must Step Up When “There are no Accepted Facts”

Financial Times Editor Lionel Barber says journalists must place a greater emphasis on the verification of information at a time when “there are no accepted facts.”

“Journalism must fulfill with renewed vigor an old task: that of aggregating and verifying sources,” he said. “It must endeavor to put the imprimatur on those sources, assessing them for reliability, quality and context before passing them onto readers,” he said as the keynote speaker at a special event held by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), attended by 100 media leaders and ICFJ supporters.

Repressive Laws and Violence Restrict Latin American Free Expression, Women Journalists Say

Increasingly restrictive media regulations and the “law of terror and violence” are the greatest threats to freedom of expression in Latin America, members of a panel of women journalists said at a recent Connectas-ICFJ conference in Medellín, Colombia.

2017 Knight International Award Winners Chronicle the Human Toll of Extremism

Journalists from Pakistan and Syria whose work exposed extremism and inhumanity in their countries are winners of the 2017 Knight International Journalism Award, the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) announced.

The New Arms Race: Can Quality News Defeat the Misinformation Onslaught?

We are engaged in an information “arms race,” as misinformation challenges quality news in astonishing ways, according to an ICFJ panel in Boston on The Case for Global Media Collaboration in a Fragmenting World.

New ICFJ Knight Fellows Aim to Reinvent Health, Gender and Development Storytelling in India

How do you use the latest digital technologies to improve storytelling on health, gender and development issues? Just ask ICFJ’s four new Knight Fellows, who are leading the charge. They will offer their storytelling expertise, multimedia assistance and data skills to help journalists at two of the country’s most widely read news organizations.