John S. Knight Fellowships for Professional Journalists

U.S. Knight Journalism Fellows Named at Stanford

Twelve U.S. journalists have been awarded John S. Knight Fellowships to study at Stanford during the 2009-10 academic year.

This will be the first group of Knight Fellows selected based on the program's new focus on journalism innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership. During their stay at Stanford, the Knight Fellows pursue independent courses of study, participate in special seminars and work on individual journalism projects. The 2009-10 program marks the 44th year that Stanford has offered fellowships for professional journalists.

The 12 U.S. Fellows will join eight from other countries who were announced in April. Financial support for the U.S. fellows comes primarily from an endowment provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Following are the 2009-10 U.S. Fellows and their study proposals:

  • Veronica Anderson, editor in chief, Catalyst Chicago.
    Anderson plans to work towards a sustainable publishing platform that leverages social entrepreneurship principles with search engine mechanics to deliver useful public school information to urban audiences.
  • Krissy Clark, contributing producer, American RadioWorks, American Public Media, San Francisco.
    Clark will focus on geographically aware journalism, especially by creating and sharing tools that journalists can use to harness geospatial mapping technology to provide a greater sense of place.
  • John Duncan, senior consultant and head of predesign, Garcia Interactive, Tampa, Florida.
    Duncan will focus on creating a distribution platform for serious on-demand audio news that users will pay for.
  • Maureen Fan, Beijing bureau chief, Washington Post.
    Fan will study the challenges facing foreign correspondents today and explore partnerships between news organizations as a model to improve and support such journalism in the future.
  • Andrew Finlayson, director of digital content and business development, Fox Television Stations, Chicago.
    Finlayson will explore how to apply entrepreneurial tools to evaluate the reliability of content and foster sustainable innovation in journalism.
  • Teru Kuwayama, freelance photographer, New York.
    Kuwayama will focus on creating a South Asia reporting web site that incorporates social networking technology, to promote information sharing among journalists, policy makers, military personnel, aid workers, academic experts, and others.
  • Christine Larson, freelance writer, Sacramento, California.
    Larson will focus on creating networks and other tools to help independent freelance journalists navigate the media landscape and succeed in leveraging new technologies.
  • Peter Lewis, freelance editor and writer, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
    Lewis will seek to identify sustainable, scalable business models that can support quality journalism in the digital age.
  • Geoffrey McGhee, multimedia editor, Le Monde Interactif, Paris, France.
    McGhee will research and develop data visualization tools for online journalists, and create a data visualization how-to guide and toolkit that small, medium and independent news operations could use without extensive training.
  • Andrew Purvis, former Berlin bureau chief, Time Magazine.
    Purvis will develop a prototype web site to link editors and writers around the world to enhance foreign news coverage.
  • Susanne Rust, reporter, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
    Rust will focus on the array of technologies available today to enhance journalistic data mining and investigative reporting to help transform the way reporters discover and deliver investigative stories.
  • Gabriel Sama, senior consultant, Innovation International Media Consulting Group, San Antonio, Texas.
    Sama plans to explore digital journalism projects using multi-platform publication: the web, cell phones, billboards, videos and audio.

The program received 166 applications for the U.S. fellowships and 132 applications for the International fellowships.

The U.S. fellows were chosen by the Knight Fellowships Program Committee: James Bettinger, director, Knight Fellowships; Eavan Boland, Stanford professor of English and director of the Creative Writing Program; Theodore Glasser, Stanford professor of communication; Bruno Lopez, vice president and general manager, Univision Interactive Media; James Mallory, managing editor, initiatives and operations, Atlanta Journal-Constitution; Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford; Margaret A. Neale, professor, Stanford Graduate School of Business; Cathy Panagoulias, deputy managing editor, Wall Street Journal, and Rita Williams, reporter, KTVU-TV, Oakland.

The 2009-10 International Knight Fellows who were announced earlier are:

  • Justin Arenstein, publisher and CEO, African Eye News Service (AENS) and HomeGrown Magazines, Nelspruit, South Africa.
    Arenstein will explore strategies for independent grassroots media in southern Africa to exploit the mobile web, including the potential for joint ventures with mobile networks and other industry stakeholders around aggregation of content, location-based advertising, geospatial-tagging, data visualization / augmented reality, and mobile social networking.
  • Alfonso Cuellar, editor-in-chief, Semana magazine, Bogotá, Colombia.
    Cuellar will study how the journalists in other post-conflict countries make the transition from covering national crises to "everyday" news.
  • Marcus Herbert, executive producer, Factual Programmes, British Broadcasting Corp., Glasgow, United Kingdom.
    Herbert will explore the cultural, intellectual and business aspects involved in developing a better mainstream science journalism approach in the UK.
  • Kim Mikyung, senior reporter, Seoul Shinmun Daily, Seoul, South Korea (Shinyoung Journalism Fellow).
    Kim will explore if and how the Six-Party Talks aimed at resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis can be evolved into a northeast Asia peace and security mechanism.
  • Lydia Lim, senior political correspondent, The Straits Times, Singapore.
    Lim will study the effects of self-censorship for journalists in authoritarian countries and look for ways to help journalists overcome self-imposed constraints in a new media landscape.
  • Martin Pallares, political editor, Diario El Comercio, Quito, Ecuador (Knight Latin American Fellow).
    Pallares will study ways to develop a multi-media site that incorporates radio and mobile devices in order to offer more in-depth analysis and debate on economic and political issues.
  • Paul Radu, freelance reporter and projects coordinator, the Romanian Center for Investigative Journalism, Bucharest, Romania (Lyle and Corrine Nelson International Fellow).
    Radu will explore ways to create new, and enhance existing, cross-border networks of Balkan investigative journalists.
  • Nadia Trinidad, senior correspondent, ABS-CBN Broadcasting Company, Manila, Philippines (Yahoo! International Fellow).
    Trinidad plans to study the psychological and sociological aspects of corruption in the media and design a manual to help news organizations mitigate the problem.

Financial support for the International Fellows comes from sources that include the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Lyle and Corrine Nelson International Journalism Fund, the Shinyoung Journalism Fund and Yahoo! Inc.