Independent Journalism Training Initiatives:
Their Impact on Journalists and Journalism Education
By
Lee B. Becker and Wilson Lowrey
Abstract
Charitable foundations, media organizations, government agencies and various nongovernmental organizations have invested extensively in the last 10 years in training programs aimed at emerging democracies in an effort to create a journalistic workforce that is independent, welleducated, and well-trained . Despite this growth in training activity, there has been relatively little written about it. Largely unexplored, for example, is the impact these ad hoc training initiative might have on older, more established training institutions and what the future might be in terms of the ways in which journalists are educated in these countries. This paper explores these issues within the context of an evaluation of one particular journalism training program, the Knight International Press Fellowship Program, which has operated since 1994 and has sent American journalists to serve as trainers all over the world. The paper documents structural change, particularly in the area of journalism education, resulting from the training initiative.
