Beyond giving fellows an opportunity to pursue interests that would enrich their personal and professional development, the program now has the added expectation that they create something that can be used by other working journalists.
“In the past, fellows would come with a study plan designed to turbo-charge their work,” said James Bettinger, director of the Knight Fellowships program. “We still want that. But we want to use the fellows to help solve problems. We want their proposals to be of use to other journalists.”
Beginning with last year’s fellows, the program has sought a broader and deeper pool of applicants. No longer open exclusively to traditional newspeople, the program accepts consultants, new media innovators and more technologically savvy journalists.
It’s nice to see another article about the changes in the Knight Fellowship. After all, if it weren’t for the changes, I wouldn’t be in it. Not as a lowly consultant. However, every article of this type is another reminder that we have a deadline (241 days from today!) and the pressure is on to produce something of tangible value. I’ll write soon about where my project stands. Today, I’m doing what we d. school grads call “flairing” — the diverging phase of idea generation.