The Coordinator of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ), Motunrayo Alaka, has joined other journalists and media practitioners for the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford University in California, United States.
Motunrayo Alaka was one of the seven fellows from Africa, Europe and South America named in April for the 2019- 2020 class of the 10 months fellowship, which started Friday last week.
Motunrayo alongside others selected for the JSK Class of 2019-2020 will spend 10 months at Stanford strengthening their leadership skills while working on projects that address some of the most urgent issues in journalism. As part of the activities, she is currently attending with other journalists from around the world, the Online News Association Conference in New Orleans (#ONA2019) aimed at pushing the frontiers of reporting in a digital world
Aside Motunrayo Alaka, the six other non-U.S. fellows are Omri Assenheim, investigative journalist and author; Divine Dube, editor-in-chief, The Citizen Bulletin, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe; Anna Gielewska, journalist and Vice President, Reporters Foundation, Warsaw. Others are Alastair Leithead, Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya; Natália Mazotte, Executive Director, Open Knowledge Foundation, São Paulo, Brazil and Joseph Poliszuk, Editor and Co-founder, Armando.info, Caracas, Venezuela. They are joined by an additional 12 fellows who live in the United States.
A statement by the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships had stated that beginning in September, “They (fellows) and their spouses and partners will have the opportunity to sit in on Stanford classes and to access a diverse range of interdisciplinary experts and events at Stanford and across Silicon Valley.”
“The fellows will test ideas and perform experiments aligned with the primary objectives of the JSK Fellowships: challenging misinformation and disinformation; holding the powerful accountable; strengthening local news; and fighting bias, intolerance and injustice.”
Tweeting on her first week on the fellowship, Motunrayo said “It’s only the first week into the @JSKstanford Fellowship and I am already sure it is going to be a life-changing 10 months. A class of change-making journalists and journalism innovators and an amazing staff team led by the inspiring Dawn Garcia is just the right combination.”
The Class of 2019-2020 will be joining a thriving JSK community, which has more than 1,000 fellows from over 80 countries since it was founded in 1966.
