The World Press Institute (WPI) has chosen 10 journalists from Algeria, Belarus, Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary, India, Romania, South Africa, Uganda and Uruguay to be fellows in its 2019 international journalism program.
The fellows will spend nine weeks in the United States beginning Aug. 19 examining the free press and media innovations and learning about America’s social and cultural diversity and the political system. They will spend three weeks in the Twin Cities, based at St. Thomas, and visit Ely in the northern part of the state and Tracy in southwestern Minnesota. The fellows will then travel around the U.S. for five weeks, meeting with journalists, political, business and community leaders and policy experts. They will visit New York City, Washington D.C., Miami, Austin (Texas), Chicago, and San Francisco, among other places, before returning to Minnesota for the final week of the program.
The themes of this year’s program include nuclear threats and security, journalism in the era of President Trump, the Presidential election and the role of social media in politics and journalism.
The 2019 World Press Institute Fellows are:
Algeria: Mr. Mohamed Baala, reporter for HuffPost Algeria and host of “Offshore,” a politics show on Radio M in Algiers.
Belarus: Ms. Hanna Liubakova, freelance journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Belsat TV and other media outlets in Minsk.
Bulgaria: Mr. Rosen Tsvetkov, investigative journalist, news reporter and producer of documentaries for bTV in Sofia.
Finland: Ms. Saara Koho, reporter and columnist for Talouselama, a weekly business magazine in Helsinki.
Hungary: Mr. Gergő Plankó, journalist, video reporter and editor at 444.hu, an online digital platform in Budapest.
India: Mr. Irfan Hakeem, investigative reporter and principal correspondent in Kashmir for The Economic Times newspaper in Srinagar.
Romania Ms. Sorana Stanescu, managing editor and coordinator of editorial beat covering rural development for DoR (Decat o Revista), a nonprofit media organization in Bucharest.
South Africa: Ms. Kate Bartlett, correspondent for Southern and East Africa for Deutsche Presse Agentur (Dpa) in Johannesburg.
Uganda: Mr. Martin Kibaba, editorial manager, reporter and talk-show host at LifeFm radio in Kampala.
Uruguay: Ms. María Luján Scarpinelli, editor and multimedia journalist for Latin America at Agence France-Presse (AFP), in Montevideo.
For photos and background on the 2019 fellows:
https://worldpressinstitute.org/fellows/2019-wpi-fellows/
Founded in 1961, the World Press Institute has been the premier organization in the United States providing international journalists with the opportunity to broadly investigate the country — its values, traditions of a free press, institutions, customs, regions and peoples. WPI now has nearly 600 alumni from almost 100 different countries around the globe.
