Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship
The Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship provides academic and professional opportunities to advance the reporting skills of women journalists who focus on human rights and social justice. The Fellowship was created in memory of The Boston Globe correspondent and IWMF Courage in Journalism Award (1998) winner Elizabeth Neuffer, who died while reporting in Iraq on May 9, 2003. In collaboration with Neuffer’s family and friends, the IWMF started this program to honour Neuffer’s legacy while advancing her work in the fields of human rights and social justice.
The Neuffer Fellowship is designed for affiliated or freelance women journalists with at least three years of professional experience in journalism working in print, broadcast, or digital media. All nationalities are welcome to apply but non-native English speakers must have excellent written and verbal English skills in order to fully participate in and benefit from the program. The Fellow will complete research and coursework at MIT’s Center for International Studies and journalism internships at The Boston Globe and The New York Times. The flexible structure of the program will provide the fellow with opportunities to pursue academic research and hone her reporting skills. Past fellows have taken advantage of opportunities to publish work under their byline through various media outlets.
ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS:
The Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship is open to women journalists worldwide whose work focuses on human rights and social justice issues. Journalists working in print, broadcast and/or Internet-based media, including freelancers, are eligible to apply. Applicants must have a minimum of three years professional experience working full-time in news media. Internships do not count toward professional experience. Non-native English speakers must have excellent written and verbal English skills in order to fully participate in and benefit from the program.
HOW TO APPLY:
Submit a complete online application form with the following information:
- Current resume or CV
- Statement of Interest with Fellowship Goals
- Two work samples (links preferred)
- Two letters of recommendation
WHERE WILL THE FELLOWSHIP TAKE PLACE?
The fellow will be based at the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts as a research associate during the first several months of the fellowship. Working with the IWMF, the fellow will design a program that will enable her to pursue academic research while improving her ability to cover human rights and social justice issues. She will complete internships at The Boston Globe in the Fall semester and The New York Times in the Spring semester.
HOW WILL THE FELLOWS BE SELECTED?
The fellow will be selected by a committee made up of family and friends of Elizabeth Neuffer and IWMF Advisory Council members. Consideration of candidates will be based on their complete applications, the calibre and promise of their reporting on human rights and social justice issues, and their personal statements explaining how the fellowship would be a transformative experience for their careers. Finalists for the fellowship may be interviewed by the IWMF and the Fellowship selection committee.
WHAT IS THE TIMELINE FOR THE NEUFFER FELLOWSHIP?
The seven-month program begins in the Fall and concludes in the Spring every year. The program will include both an orientation session at the start of the fellowship and a wrap-up at the end. The fellow must complete the entire seven-month program.
About Elizabeth Neuffer
IWMF Courage in Journalism Award winner Elizabeth Neuffer (1956-2003) believed passionately that writing and reporting could bring the world together, providing justice for victims of atrocities and pricking the conscience of powerful decision makers.
Growing up in a house beside an apple orchard in the Connecticut of the 1960s and 1970s, she spent many afternoons reading of faraway lands and yearning to embrace the world in all its variety. After her happy childhood, Elizabeth confronted losses beyond her control. They sparked a determination to give voice to those around the world whose suffering attracted little attention. “We owe it to our sources to tell their stories,” she said repeatedly, as she sought out the ordinary people that many journalists never met.
Her 13-year career as a foreign correspondent for The Boston Globe gave her a unique vantage point on the world’s most important events. She drove through burning oil fields to be one of the first American reporters to witness the uprising of post-Gulf War Iraq in 1991. She was in Moscow that frigid winter in 1991 for the collapse of the Soviet Union. Soon after, she took the helm of the Globe’s European bureau in newly unified Berlin.
Her coverage of the Balkan wars of the ’90s was vivid and intense. And when a tentative peace finally came to Bosnia, she risked her life to track down those responsible for genocide as they returned to civilian life. Her dispatches, sent to members of Congress by human rights groups, helped persuade the U.S. government to make the arrest and prosecution of war criminals a top priority.
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