International news case study: International Reporting Project

The International Reporting Project (IRP) has been around for a while, having been launched in 1998 to help U.S. journalists report on underreported stories overseas. It describes itself as a pioneer of the type of nonprofit journalism that seeks to counterbalance the decline in international news coverage in much of the mainstream media. But the changes in the news industry are bringing about some changes in the approach of the IRP.

“We started off very much trying to provide opportunities for early career journalists who had not had chances to do international work and were interested in doing foreign coverage and then making a career of it,” said John Schidlovsky, former foreign correspondent and founding director of the IRP (J. Schidlovsky, personal communication, September 22, 2009).

The program was designed to train the next generation of foreign correspondents, Schidlovsky said, and at the time he started the IRP, U.S. news outlets still had many foreign bureaus, the expected destinations for many of the journalists who participated. The IRP fellows, chosen through a competitive selection process, spent six weeks with the IRP in Washington, D.C., at The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of The Johns Hopkins University, preparing for their international project. They then spent five weeks conducting their reporting abroad, followed by two weeks back in D.C.

“Well now, of course, so many of those bureaus have closed and those jobs no longer exist,” Schidlovsky said. “So we began refining our program to accommodate the new realities.”

IRP has expanded the pool of applicants for its fellowship program, encouraging experienced, well-established journalists to apply alongside colleagues early in their careers. “It’s not a matter of grooming rising stars and giving opportunities to early career journalists, although we still like to do that because they deserve opportunities,” Schidlovsky said. “Right now we see ourselves as stepping into the void of foreign coverage by providing stories no matter who they are by, the emphasis much more on the quality of the story no matter who does it.” Applicants have to have at least three years of professional journalistic experience, however.

The program has also shortened the time commitment for fellows, dropping it to two weeks in D.C. before the going overseas, five weeks working overseas on the project, and two weeks in D.C. upon returning from their reporting. Journalists like the shortened timeframe, especially compared to typical academic fellowships, according to Schidlovsky. “People can’t afford to do that anymore. They don’t want to leave their news organizations for that long because their job may disappear, or they feel like they’re out of sync with the business,” he said.

Fellows receive a free round-trip air ticket to their destination plus a $4,500 stipend for the expenses of their overseas reporting, plus a $1,500 stipend and hotel accommodations for the two weeks in D.C. before leaving for their project for fellows not living in the D.C. area, and another $1,500 stipend and hotel accommodations for the two weeks back in D.C. after the reporting project is completed, also to cover expenses for non-D.C. residents. Fellows can be employed by a media organization, or they can be independent journalists. A fellow’s employer may use the work generated by their employee during the fellowship; freelancers may determine how their reporting will be used, and IRP staff make themselves available to help get projects published. Excerpts from the projects also get posted on the IRP Web site, as do blog entries from the fellows while they’re overseas.

Schidlovsky said IRP helped start the movement whereby organizations are taking a nonprofit approach to producing quality journalism, using grants and foundation funding to create stories that otherwise would not get done, as ProPublica is doing with investigative reporting. “I think we sort of started it 12 years ago, perhaps not even being fully conscious of what we were beginning, but it’s clearly morphed into that kind of a program now, where we are actually creating more foreign coverage each year through our own efforts than The Boston Globe, The Baltimore Sun, The Miami Herald combined,” Schidlovsky said. “We never sort of dreamed that would be possible, but that’s the new reality of the business.”

IRP fellows have included journalists working in every medium of the news industry, including multimedia journalists. It also operates what it calls “Gatekeeper Trips,” group tours of under-covered but newsworthy countries for editors at news organizations who make decisions about which news items will be published or broadcast.

There were nearly 200 applicants for the program this year, which makes IRP the most applied-for journalism fellowship program based at a university in the United States, Schidlovsky said. Nonetheless, the demand for the program is growing, and Schidlovsky would like to be able to extend fellowships to more journalists. “We could easily have sent out 80 to 90 tremendously talented journalists to do stories if we had the funding,” he said of this year’s applicants. “The need is there; the demand is there; all that’s missing to grow the program is more money.”