September 7, 2009

International Reporting Project Fellows selected for 2009

Ten U.S. journalists have been awarded International Reporting Project Fellowships at Johns Hopkins SAIS for the 2009 program, including four journalists focusing on global environmental topics and three on stories dealing with loose nuclear materials.

The nine-week fellowships, which provide mid-career U.S. journalists with opportunities to do in-depth overseas reporting projects, began in late August.

The IRP Fellows, their affiliations and the countries from which they will report are Perry Beeman, environment reporter for The Des Moines Register, Rwanda; Theresa Bradley, freelance journalist, Brazil; Joanna Kakissis, freelance journalist, Bangladesh; Miranda Kennedy, freelance journalist, India; Julia Lyon, reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune, Thailand; Tara McKelvey, senior editor of The American Prospect, Russia; Amna Nawaz, producer for NBC News, Pakistan; Jessica Silver-Greenberg, staff editor of BusinessWeek, Kenya; Joby Warrick, national staff reporter at The Washington Post, Middle East; and Sharon Weinberger, freelance journalist, Georgia.

“Global environmental coverage has been a major focus of our program for years,” said John Schidlovsky, IRP director. “With the global climate change conference in Copenhagen coming up this December, we’re delighted that we’ll be underwriting so many timely stories on international environment-related issues.”

Judges for this year’s competition were David Lamb, contributing writer for Smithsonian and a 2001 IRP Journalist in Residence; Tyler Marshall, a former Los Angeles Times foreign correspondent; Katie Thomas, a reporter with The New York Times and 2006 IRP Fellow; Louise Lief, deputy director of the IRP; and Schidlovsky. The competition attracted a record number of nearly 200 applications.

Since its founding in 1998, the International Reporting Project has enabled more than 300 U.S. journalists to pursue reporting projects from more than 90 countries. Hundreds of their prize-winning stories have appeared online, on TV and radio, and in newspapers and magazines.

The next deadline for applications for IRP Fellowships is April 1, 2010, for the program to be conducted in fall 2010. For more information, call 202-663-7761, e-mail irp@jhu .edu or go to www.internationalreporting project.org.