Journalistic Training In Emerging Democracies p. 20

By: Editorial Staff

$3 million grant launches Knight Press Fellowship program
THE JOHN S. and James L. Knight Foundation has provided a $3 million grant for technical assistance and journalistic training in emerging democratic nations.
The Knight International Press Fellowship program will enable media professionals to spend one- to nine-month consulting and training missions at developing news organizations, training centers and universities.
The program initially will concentrate on Eastern Europe and Russia but later will be expanded to include Latin America, South Africa and other regions and countries.
"This is a major initiative for us and one that addresses a cornerstone of our foundation's mission ? the defense of a free press at home and worldwide," Knight Foundation chairman Lee Hills said in a release.
The program builds on the efforts of four international press organizations: the World Press Freedom Committee, the Inter American Press Association, the Center for Foreign Journalists and the Independent Journalism Foundation, formerly known as the Independent Journalists Initiative.
The Knight Foundation has granted nearly $5.5 million to these organizations over the last 40 years. (In 1954, the foundation made its first journalism grant to IAPA.) The four groups presently receive requests for assistance from media in those regions that will be served by the new Knight fellowship program.
"There is a tremendous thirst for help, not only from journalists but from newspaper executives on the business side," said Knight Foundation and chief executive officer Creed Black. "We are not intruding; we have been invited."
The Reston, Va.-based Center for Foreign Journalists will administer the program, working with an advisory committee of experts in international free press matters.
The committee will play a critical role in helping the foundation and the center structure the new program and to select fellows, the foundation said.
Twenty or more fellows are expected to be assigned to missions each year. They will be paid professional stipends and allowances for travel and living expenses. When the fellows return to the United States, they will prepare written reports.
The Knight Foundation, established in 1950, makes grants in journalism, education and the arts and culture.
It also supports organizations in communities where the Knight brothers were involved in newspaper publishing ventures, although the foundation is separate from and independent of those papers.
Last year, the foundation awarded more than $29 million in grants.
Current assets are approximately $750 million.