Courage Awards: Judy Woodruff Fellowship

Established in 1996 in recognition of the enormous contributions Judy Woodruff has made to help women in the field of journalism, The Judy Woodruff Fellowship adds a new dimension to the IWMF’s Courage in Journalism Awards.

The fellowship offers a Courage awardee the opportunity to enhance her journalism skills, research new stories and reach an understanding of how journalists work in the United States. It also offers the awardee a chance to share the story of her own struggle for a free press with an audience beyond those who attend the Courage programs.

Sandra Nyaira of The Daily News in Harare, Zimbabwe, studied investigative journalism, political reporting and computer-assisted reporting techniques in Washington, DC. After completing the fellowship, Nyaira said that the resources available to U.S. journalists allowed them to “operate in sheer opulence, in terms of the number of journalists in some news organizations. Some have 200 journalists,” she said. “I was thinking of my newspaper, with a circulation of some 1 million people, and with 20 or fewer reporters. We operate under very stringent conditions and we don’t have many resources.”

Carmen Gurruchaga of Spain used her 2001 fellowship to learn how investigative journalism is done in the United States. She said that journalists in the United States seem to have more time to conduct investigations. She was also surprised to learn that U.S. editors can change a story after a reporter has written it. In Spain, reporters are completely responsible for their own stories. Gurruchaga also found television journalism in the United States less formal than in Spain.

Agnes Nindorera was awarded the Judy Woodruff Fellowship for 2000. A journalist and producer with independent Studio Ijambo in Burundi, she used her extended stay in the United States to learn more about digital technology.

In 1999, Courage in Journalism awardee Aferdita Kelmendi took on the fellowship to examine options for rebuilding the media infrastructure in Kosovo.

Bina Bektiati, a political and economic reporter the Indonesian newsweekly D&R Magazine, was the first recipient of the Judy Woodruff Fellowship.

Through her fellowship, Bektiati focused on how publications similar to hers work in the United States. For two weeks, she stayed in Washington, DC, and visited major news outlets. She met with editors and reporters, attended their editorial staff meetings and saw firsthand how stories are selected, and how publications are produced by traditional methods and with online technology. Bektiati also had an opportunity to share her story of the struggles journalists face in Indonesia.

"I was pleased to learn how journalists from a free country view other people’s problems – what they understood and what their viewpoint is of Third World issues. By sharing the story about working conditions for journalists in my country, my colleagues and I may get the moral support we need to keep fighting for an independent press."