International non-profit news site and journalism training organization The Media Project (a partner of MPJI) is pleased to announce the 15 international journalists chosen to receive a 2017 Coaching & Leadership Fellowship.             

The Coaching & Leadership Fellows program is sponsored and organized by TMP. The program begins with a week-long workshop this week (Oct. 7-14) at The Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., where the Fellows participate in a series of interactive sessions on leadership principles they can use in their newsrooms. Poynter senior faculty such as Roy Peter Clark and Al Tompkins will also teach sessions for the group in areas such as strategic thinking, global fact-checking, social media, coaching writers, using feedback, resolving conflict, and improving newsroom collaboration.

“The Poynter Institute is a gold standard for journalistic ethics and leadership,” said Media Project Executive Director Paul D. Glader. “These hard-working journalists from the far corners of the world will pick up insights they can take back to the newsrooms in their home countries."

The core training sessions will be led by Jill Geisler, who holds the Bill Plante Chair in Leadership and Media Integrity at Loyola University Chicago. Geisler, whose leadership mantra is “helping others succeed,” is the author of “Work Happy: What Great Bosses Know.” For 16 years, Geisler guided the leadership and management programs of The Poynter Institute. “This is my sixth opportunity to work with these journalists who have been carefully selected by The Media Project. Each year I marvel at their passion, wisdom, and resilience,” Geisler said.

TMP Fellows will also explore the intersection of journalism and faith with nationally syndicated “On Religion” columnist Terry Mattingly, a senior fellow in media and religion at The King’s College in New York City and an ex officio board member of The Media Project. The Fellows will also hear from Glader, who was a veteran Wall Street Journal reporter and is now a magazine journalist in addition to serving as an associate professor at The King’s College in New York City and executive director of The Media Project and The McCandlish Phillips Journalism Institute.

"We know this program will help journalists from around the world tell their story in the way only those who are living it every day can,” said Roberta Ahmanson, a writer, philanthropist and chair of the board of The Media Project. The Fellowship requires participants to make a year-long commitment to implement their new coaching and leadership skills. Fellows agree to mentor two journalists working in their home country.

Meet the 2017 Fellows:

·       Leticia Pautasio (Argentina) is Editor in Chief of TeleSemana.com.

·       Ernest Chi Cho (Cameroon) is Communications Officer at the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa in Ethiopia.

·       Petr Vizina (Czech Republic) is a Presenter and head of the culture desk at Czech National Television.

·       Juan Carlos Gonzales (Ecuador) is Director / Presenter at Radio Centro Group.

·       Maria Teresa Ramon (Ecuador is Editor / Supervisor at INEVAL.

·       Emmanuel Bamfo-Agyei (Ghana) is Editor at Central Press newspaper.

·       Dominic Thomas (India) is Program Executive at Air World Service of All India Radio.

·       Sanjiv Baruah (India) is a broadcaster and web officer for All India Radio.

·       Zaffar Iqbal Sheikh (India) is bureau chief of Srinagar-Jammu and Kashmir for NDTV.

·       Tom Osanjo (Kenya) is editor of The Big Issue and a sports columnist.

·       Cecilia Maundu (Kenya) is Assistant News Producer at Kenya Broadcasting Corporation.

·       Evelyn Osagie (Nigeria) is senior correspondent for The Nation.

·       Marek Miller (Poland) is a consultant at eM-Media.

·       Tracy Lewis (Trinidad & Tobago) is a digital media manager at Catholic Media Services.

·       Helen Stojilkowicz (Venezuela) is director of HKS Media and Marketing.

About The Media Project

The Media Project is a non-profit network of mainstream journalists who are Christians pursuing accurate, thorough and intellectually rigorous reporting of all aspects of culture, particularly the role of religion in public life. The organization conducts education, training and professional development programs with working journalists and journalism students around the world, particularly in the global South. The Media Project is based in New York City at The McCandlish Phillips Journalism Institute at The King’s College.

About The Poynter Institute

The Poynter Institute for Media Studies is a global leader in journalism education and a strategy center that stands for uncompromising excellence in journalism, media and 21st century public discourse. Poynter faculty teach seminars and workshops at the Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., and at conferences and organizational sites around the world. Its e-learning division, News University, www.newsu.org, offers the world’s largest online journalism curriculum in 7 languages, with more than 400 interactive courses and 330,000 registered users in more than 200 countries. The Institute’s website, www.poynter.org, produces 24-hour coverage of news about media, ethics, technology, the business of news and the trends that currently define and redefine journalism news reporting. The world’s top journalists and media innovators come to Poynter to learn and teach new generations of reporters, storytellers, media inventors, designers, visual journalists, documentarians and broadcast producers, and to build public awareness about journalism, media, the First Amendment and protected discourse that serves democracy and the public good.

Poynter Contact:

Tina Dyakon; Director of Advertising and Marketing; The Poynter Institute; Tdyakon@poynter.org
727-553-4343

TMP Contacts:

Paul Glader; Executive Director of The Media Project;  paul@themediaproject.org, 212-659-0742

Melissa Harrison; Managing Director of The Media Project; Melissa@TheMediaProject.org