Program Information

The 2010 Belz International Media Fellowship
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For 2010, the institute is offering 10 fellowship stipends of $2,500 to attend the annual convention of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (June 23-26, Denver, Colorado) or the annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists (July 28 - August 1, San Diego, California).

The 2010 Belz International Media Fellows
The fellowship stipend is open to journalists from Africa or Latin America.

Guidelines
The selection of journalists is highly competitive and limited. Applicants must be fluent in writing and speaking English. WJI will only consider complete applications which include all supplementary materials.

World Journalism Institute Responsibilities
WJI will reimburse travel, housing and convention registration expenses up to $2,500. Original receipts must be submitted to the WJI office.

Journalist’s Responsibilities
1) Participating journalists will be responsible for their own arrangements and costs involved in obtaining a visa to travel to the United States.

2) Meals and any other expenses beyond the $2,500 scholarship (e.g., telephone, internet, etc.) will be the responsibility of the individual journalist.

3) Each participating journalist will be responsible to attend all the NABJ or NAHJ plenary sessions.

4) Each participating journalist will be responsible for writing a 750-word article on the convention for distribution on the institute web newspaper, The Times Observer.


The Belz International Media Fellowship Program
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Joel Belz
The fellowships are named for Joel Belz, pioneering journalist, editor and publisher who continues to have a worldwide vision for influencing the human culture through competent and truthful communication.



The Belz International Media Fellowship Program
WJI has seen a great need for a journalism training program for Christian journalists around the world. Freedom of speech curtailment, harassment and danger confront the Christian journalist wherever he/she labors to report the news factually and verifiably. We have begun a program of equipping Christian journalists around the world, beginning in Africa. Once we have conducted a successful journalism workshop in Africa, we propose to take the program to Europe, South America and Asia.

To see the 2009 fellows, click here.

Current Journalism Environment in Africa
The journalism environment in Africa can be described with several key trends:

1) There is a lack of journalism training available for the average working African journalist, Christian or not. We know of only one journalism program which is purposefully Christian on the continent of Africa and that is at the Uganda Christian University (www.ucu.ac.ug), which is an Anglican institution.

2) There is a lack of money to train African Christian journalists. These journalists apply to come to the United States for training at WJI conferences and courses but the expense is prohibitive.

3) There is tension between the Christian parts of Africa and the Muslim and animistic parts, creating a hostile environment for the Christian journalist.

4) There is lack of rigorous theological education to equip the African Christian journalist to be better trained to engage the very pluralistic and at times hostile environment in which they report the activities of a holy God and a sinful Man.

Current Need for the African Workshop
The institute receives more inquiries from African Christian journalists than from any other part of the world outside of the United States. These African journalists are presumably left without solid training in the intersection of their Christian faith and the calling of journalism. Consequently, there is a great need for a non-traditional and rigorous school of journalism to provide training for the many placebound Christian journalists working in news organizations in Africa. By taking the WJI training to them, we can facilitate their growth in reporting and writing from a Christian worldview.

The first step in creating a critical number of interested African journalists is to identify them and help them network with each other.

The second step would be to bring key journalists to the United States for a conference or convention in order to meet them.

Finally, the third step would be to take a WJI workshop to Africa for up to two weeks to instruct and mentor African journalists. The workshop will be conducted in English (not French or Portuguese). The instructors will stay in campus housing along with the students and all will eat on campus together. The curriculum will consist of instruction in the morning and reporting assignments in the afternoon, with evenings given over to editing and consultation. There will be a nice closing dinner with an invited speaker. Follow-up will be undertaken by the institute using one of the teachers from the workshop. We have been working with a couple of African colleges and universities in Uganda to host the workshop, perhaps as early as 2011.