Columbia Journalism Review Announces First Ever “Encore” Fellowship for Journalists

NEW YORK, Oct. 15, 2009 – The Columbia Journalism Review has selected four leading journalists as the first group of CJR Encore Fellows, a new initiative – the first of its kind in the news industry – that will provide downsized professionals with a writing position as well as support to help them choose how best to use their experience in the years ahead. Their work will be featured in the magazine and on CJR.org over a nine-month period beginning in late October.

CJR’s Encore program will benefit journalism by bringing the expertise and insights of the fellows to CJR, the nation’s leading magazine and Web site of media criticism, housed at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Partners of the project are The Poynter Institute, based in St. Petersburg, Florida, one of the nation’s top journalism training centers, which will provide digital media and other educational opportunities tailored to the fellows’ needs; and Civic Ventures, a San Francisco-based think tank that developed the Encore concept and has created a pilot program for experienced Silicon Valley executives transitioning to the nonprofit sector.

CJR’s Encore Fellows were drawn from the senior reporting ranks of those who have recently left their jobs because of the industry’s economic condition, but who are not ready for traditional retirement. Thanks to a grant from The Atlantic Philanthropies, they will receive stipends on par with other important journalism fellowships. The Columbia Journalism Review hopes that new donors will help launch an expanded Fellowship Program for 2010.

The inaugural 2009 CJR Encore Fellows are:

Lisa Anderson
Lisa Anderson was the New York bureau chief and a national correspondent for The Chicago Tribune until December 2008. She directed the bureau, which at its peak had four national correspondents, and also reported on major domestic and international stories, from the battle over evolution to presidential campaigns from 1992 to 2008 to the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. Her international stories included the conflicts in Kosovo and Afghanistan, the rise of conservative Islam in Egypt, and the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka. She was a features correspondent for the Tribune before that, profiling people from Brad Pitt to Nancy Reagan. Prior to the Tribune she worked for Women’s Wear Daily, W Magazine, and WCBS-TV News.

Jill Drew
Jill Drew was an associate editor at The Washington Post until August 2009. For nine of her 14 years at the newspaper, she was assistant managing editor for financial news. She also served as the paper’s A-1 weekend editor, Manhattan-based Wall Street correspondent, and Beijing-based China correspondent. Before joining The Post, she worked for seven years as an editor and reporter for New York Newsday.

Terry McDermott
Terry McDermott’s career spans 30 years at eight newspapers, most recently at the Los Angeles Times, where he covered more than two dozen countries on diverse subjects: the 9/11 plot, building skyscrapers, rare blood molecules, Japanese trade restrictions, the California dream and the Alzheimer’s epidemic. He is the author of Perfect Soldiers: The Hijackers – Who They Were, Why They Did It and the upcoming 101 Theory Drive: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for Memory.

Don Terry
Don Terry holds a master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and has been a reporter since 1980. Terry has worked at the Chicago Defender, the Chicago Tribune, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the St. Paul Dispatch, and The New York Times, where he was part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for the series “How Race is Lived in America.” Terry’s memoir about growing up biracial in Chicago, one of the most segregated big cities in the country, was the last piece in the series. Currently, Terry writes a weekly column for the Chicago Sun-Times.

“CJR is thrilled to be able to play a critical role not only in assisting these distinguished journalists, but our hope is that they will inspire downsized journalists across the county, who will benefit from the examples set by this inaugural class of fellows in developing their encore careers,” said Victor Navasky, chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review.

The CJR Encore Fellowship comes at a time when the news industry is suffering from the ravages of the recession and problems with the business model that has long sustained serious reporting. According to some estimates, 16,000 journalists lost their jobs in 2008, as advertising revenues plummeted. In the first half of 2009, print and online ad sales were off $6.5 billion for newspapers alone, and, according to the industry trade group, the Newspaper Association of America, advertising losses declined in each of the last twelve quarters. As a result, many papers experienced round after round of budget cuts, layoffs and buyouts.

Copyright © 1995-2009 The Poynter Institute