Posted on December 15, 2009

Knight Foundation Awards $6 Million to Extend Journalism Fellowship Program

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has announced a three-year, $6 million grant to continue the high-impact Knight International Journalism Fellowships program run by the International Center for Journalists.

The Knight Fellows at the center work on targeted projects designed to create lasting, visible change in the quality and free flow of news in the public interest around the world.

In the coming year, fellows will launch new investigative units at leading news organizations in the Middle East, a Web site that maps citizen reports on corruption in Panama, and a new online association in India dedicated to improving transparency, making government data easily available to journalists for the first time. In addition, the grant will provide funds enabling the International Journalists' Network to add Chinese to its existing offerings in Arabic, English, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

"Knight Fellows have helped local journalists produce stories that have brought at least twenty changes in laws, policies, and government spending in the past two years alone," said ICFJ president Joyce Barnathan. "Imagine the potential for change over the next three years."