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Photo: Spring 2003 IRP Fellow Shayla Harris

Video: Another Country
by Shayla Harris
Spring 2003 IRP Fellow

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Video: 2004 Gatekeepers visit Middle East by Travis Fox Fall 2002 IRP Fellow
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Video: From Idaho to Iran
by Marcia Franklin
Fall 2003 IRP Fellow

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Video: Gesar of Ling
by Rob Schmitz
Fall 2002 IRP Fellow

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Video: Cartoneros of Buenos Aires
by Antrim Caskey
Fall 2003 IRP Fellow

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Video: Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone
by Jessie Deeter
Fall 2003 IRP Fellow

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Video: The Gypsies of Vaulx-En-Velin
by Travis Fox
Fall 2002 IRP Fellow
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Gatekeepers' Fact-Finding Trip to Turkey
September 14-25, 2008

 

The International Reporting Project (IRP) is pleased to announce a 10-day Gatekeeper Editors Trip to Turkey September 14-25, 2008, for U.S. editors and senior producers interested in learning more about this key country.

Gatekeepers are any senior journalists – executive editors, managing editors, broadcast producers, wire editors, editorial page editors, business editors, op-ed page editors and others – who help select editorial content. more »




Invisible Nation: How the Kurds' Quest for Statehood is Shaping Iraq and the Middle East Q&A with Quil Lawrence

 

On April 24, Quil Lawrence, Middle East correspondent for the BBC/PRI's "The World," came to Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) to discuss his new book "Invisible Nation: How the Kurds' Quest for Statehood is Shaping Iraq and the Middle East."

The talk was sponsored by the IRP and the SAIS Middle East studies program. Afterwards Lawrence discussed the Kurds, what led him to write this book, and the war in Iraq. more »



Former IRP Fellow's Documentary Film Debuts in Nashville

  Left to right: Barry Simmons, Kelly McEvers, John
Schidlovsky and Anna Panoka at Nashville
world premiere

More than 1,800 people attended the world premiere on March 27, 2008, of former IRP Fellow Barry Simmons' new film, “Sons of Lwala,” a project he began work on during his trip to Kenya as a spring 2006 IRP Fellow. Simmons, a Nashville-based TV reporter, was honored at the gala event at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center (TPAC) in Nashville, which was emceed by former Tennessee Senator Bill Frist and also featured performances by the musical group Jars of Clay.more »


12 Editors Selected for IRP's Gatekeeper Trip to Uganda

 

The International Reporting Project (IRP) has chosen 12 senior editors and producers from across the United States to participate in a 10-day visit to Uganda this May as part of the IRP’s annual “Gatekeeper Editors” fellowships.

The Uganda trip, which will have a strong focus on health, agriculture, development and environmental/climate change issues, is the ninth Gatekeepers trip since the program began in 2000. Previous IRP Gatekeeper editors have traveled to Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa, Lebanon/Syria, India, Egypt, Nigeria and Korea.

“This is the fourth time in our nine Gatekeeper trips that we’ve taken editors to Africa,” said John Schidlovsky, director of the IRP. “Africa is consistently under-covered in the U.S. media, and our aim is to open editors’ eyes to the wide variety of important stories there.”

Editors selected for the Uganda trip, scheduled for May 3-15, are:

Curtis Anderson, news editor, Rocky Mountain News
Michelle Burford, contributing features writer, Oprah Magazine
Andrew Chang, senior producer/editor, Yahoo!
Nancy Conway, editor, Salt Lake Tribune
Jennifer Goren, planning editor, BBC/PRI “The World”
Fred Guterl, assistant managing editor, Newsweek International
Paul Hendrie, department editor, Congressional Quarterly
Donald MacGillis, assistant editorial page editor, Boston Globe
Davan Maharaj, business editor, Los Angeles Times
Nuala McGovern, executive producer, WNYC New York Public Radio
Barbara Paulsen, assistant executive editor, National Geographic
David Rocks, senior editor, BusinessWeek

The Gatekeepers will meet with a wide range of Uganda leaders in fields such as politics, business, academia, humanitarian aid, media, religion, edicine and health, environment, conservation and science, arts and culture and other areas.

Each year, the IRP conducts two separate Gatekeeper Editors trips. The program gives senior U.S. editors an opportunity to learn about important but under-covered global issues so they can improve their news organizations’ international coverage.

 


International Reporting Project Visits North Korea on Gatekeepers' Trip
Rare 2-day journey to the North a highlight of 10-day trip

IRP Video 2007 Korea

Twelve senior U.S. editors and producers visited North Korea in November as part of the 10-day IRP Gatekeeper Editors trip to the Korean peninsula. more »

Click to listenClick here to view a video of the trip.



Inside North Korea

 

January 23, 2008

MOUNT KUMKANG, North Korea -- It was the end of the evening; our group of American editors had finished a traditional North Korean dinner of cold buckwheat-noodle soup and sliced wild boar that was barbecued at the table. As the waitresses cleared the dishes and prepared the restaurant for the next day's meals, the formality eased. The last customers of the night, we struck up conversations with the young servers as they cleaned the tables and ushered us into the adjacent bar for nightcaps. Some of them spoke a little English; we asked where they were from -- some said local villages, some the capital, Pyongyang -- and we shared wallet photos of spouses or children. more »


Climate Change Fueling Malaria in Kenya, Experts Say

Photo by Fall 2007 IRP Fellow Eliza Barclay
 

January 9, 2008

Tumutumu, Kenya - Esther Njoki lay on a slender cot in the women's ward of Tumutumu Hospital, lucid for the first time in days after being ambushed by fever and delirium. The emaciated 80-year-old had survived a bout of malaria, but her doctor said it nearly killed her.

Malaria has long been endemic to Kenya's humid coast and swampy lowland regions, but it has only rarely reached Njoki's village on the slopes of Mount Kenya (see Kenya map).

In recent decades, however, scientists have noted an increase in epidemics in the region, as well as in sporadic cases like Njoki's. more »


Iceland's Geothermal University

Photo by Fall 2007 IRP Fellow Libby Casey
 

December 28, 2007

Iceland is a leader when it comes to tapping the energy potential of underground hot springs and steam. The United Nations wants other to learn how it's done. So it's set up a research center in Iceland for experts from developing nations to study geothermal energy.

Libby Casey from member station KUAC reports. more »


Coal Mine Mixed Blessing for Indians
Venezuelan natives get schools, roads, libraries and environmental damage

Photo by Fall 2007 IRP Fellow Krista Kapralos
 

December 16, 2007

Five years ago, students at the Jesus Carrera Bolivarian elementary school dragged desks past their playground to a dusty road used by trucks laden with coal from a nearby state-owned mine.

"We wanted to tell the coal company that we needed a school building," recalled Yacelis Hernandez, a teacher at the school, who pointed to her former classroom - a palm-thatched gazebo a few hundred yards away.

The coal company, Carbones de la Guajira, a subsidiary of the state-owned oil company, PDVSA, soon agreed to build the school's concrete building for 150 students, most of whom are Wayuu Indians living in the remote Guajira Peninsula near the Colombian border. "Carbones de la Guajira has been good to us," said Hernandez. more »


IRP Fellows To Be Selected for Fall 2008 Program

Photo courtesy of Stella Bogdanić.
 

The International Reporting Project (IRP) is pleased to announce that applications are being reviewed for the Fall 2008 IRP Fellowships program. The IRP Fellowships program will run September 1 – October 25, 2008.

This year we are offering two types of IRP Fellowships for the fall program.

1. IRP FELLOWSHIPS IN INTERNATIONAL JOURNALISM

The International Reporting Project will offer up to four IRP Fellowships to U.S. journalists to carry out a project reporting from any country in the world outside of the United States. One of these Fellowships will be the “IRP/FRONTLINE World Fellowship” for video journalists, which will offer additional support through the PBS program FRONTLINE/World and a chance for the Fellow’s story to appear on that program’s web site and broadcast.

2. IRP/STANLEY FOUNDATION FELLOWSHIPS

The International Reporting Project will award up to four additional “IRP/Stanley Foundation Fellowships” that will run concurrently with the other fellowships from September 1 through October 25. These fellowships will be awarded to U.S. journalists of every level – including senior and highly experienced journalists – whose proposals focus on reporting projects in one of the following areas: South Africa, Russia, Japan, the European Union or any member country of the EU. more »

 

 

 

 

 

 

The International Reporting Project is grateful for support from
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation,
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund,
Carnegie Corporation of New York, McCormick Tribune Foundation,
The New York Times Company Foundation,
Philip L. Graham Fund, The Stanley Foundation and others.

The International Reporting Project is based at The Johns Hopkins
University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)
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Copyright © 2007 International Reporting Project. All Rights Reserved.