John S. Knight Fellowships for Professional Journalists

Changes to the Knight Fellowships Program

It's not the same old story, not in journalism and not at the Knight Fellowships program. Beginning with the 2009-10 fellowship year, the program will put a new emphasis on journalistic innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership.

The program is transforming itself in order to serve the needs of journalism and journalists as much in the years ahead as it has in the past. The dizzying landscape of layoffs and consolidation, Internet media sites, citizen journalism and bloggers make journalism a chaotic and exciting proposition today. We are making bold changes to meet these new realities.

More on what's changing

Q&A: Changes in the Knight Fellowships Program

Knight Reunion and Conference, Jul 10 2009


A video discussion with Jim Bettinger and Dawn Garcia

Changes like the ones in the Knight Fellowships have a way of raising lots of questions, particularly during the rollout period. Even if most of those questions were dealt with during the planning process, they might not have been directly answered in the announcements.

So Director Jim Bettinger and Deputy Director Dawn Garcia wanted to share their thinking in a series of brief videotaped discussions on specific questions that have come up. We hope that they will clarify what we're up to and what we hope to accomplish.

Why We're Making Changes

One basic question is why we did this in the first place. We had an excellent program that brought accomplished mid-career journalists to Stanford to spend a year studying whatever they wanted, with no expectation that they produce anything at the end except great journalism. The program wasn't broken, so why fix it? Jim Bettinger discusses how the cataclysmic changes in journalism spurred the program to change, and why he thinks it is necessary.

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An Enhanced Fellowships Experience

How will the program be different from what it has been in the past? Will it build on the current model, or change completely? Will fellows be able to take classes and use the great resources of Stanford? Dawn Garcia talks about how she sees the program as enhancing the fellowship experience.

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Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Leadership

If you've read anything about the changes in the program, you've seen the buzzwords of journalistic innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership. They're just fuzzy enough to leave you wondering what we mean. Can you be entrepreneurial if you work for a daily newspaper? And what does the program expect fellows to produce? Bettinger talks about why we chose these areas, how they play to Stanford's strengths, and why the directors are being deliberately vague about the expectation that fellows have something to show for their fellowship at the end.

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Casting a Wider Net

Now, the program says it is opening the fellowship to more people, expanding beyond the mid-career journalists it has targeted for years. Which independent journalists will be eligible? How about those in mainstream news organizations – are they passé? Is anyone too young for a Knight Fellowship? Too old? Garcia discusses some of the ways the program will cast a wider net.

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International Fellows

Finally, what about journalists from other countries? Will they still be eligible for Knight Fellowships? What does the increased emphasis on people "who can have a direct impact on the development of a free press and flow of information in their countries" really mean? Bettinger elaborates on the kind of journalist we're looking for and the impact we want them to have.

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Questions?

Still have questions? Of course you do! Best way to get them answered is to post them to Jim Bettinger's blog, http://knightline.stanford.edu. If you'd like them answered privately, email Jim at jimb@stanford.edu or Dawn at degarcia@stanford.edu.