Endowment Effort for Knight-Wallace Middle East Fellows
Here's an extremely important announcement:
The Knight-Wallace Fellows in Journalism at the University of Michigan is opening an endowment drive to benefit journalists from the Middle East. Knight-Wallace is one of America’s most prestigious programs in the field. Each year it attracts a dozen of the best journalists in America for a sabbatical year of custom-designed study in any field, or combination of them. The position for Middle East journalists can be named for the donor(s) and will require an endowment of $2 million. For details on the program, go to www.KWFellows.org.
The Knight-Wallace Journalism program at the University of Michigan is among the more important pieces of public diplomacy in higher education in the United States, and the possibility of having a dedicated endowment specifically to bring Middle Eastern journalists to Ann Arbor for a year is highly praiseworthy. It has gotten harder (or at least far more of a hassle and a humiliation) for Middle Eastern students to come to the US for college, and it is important that we continue to reach out to and bring here opinion leaders. Any of my readers who wants a worthy cause to which to contribute, here is one.
posted by Juan Cole @ 4/04/2006 12:35:00 AM
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2 Comments:
I'm a former Michigan Journalism Fellow ('95-'96). After four years in Tokyo and east Asia as the Chicago Tribune's chief Asia correspondent, I was privileged to spend the year with some very interesting fellow fellows from overseas, including from South Korea, Nepal, Romania and Brazil. Charles Eisendrath, who runs the program, has always struggled to make foreign journalists a key part of the program, and this new effort deserves all of our support. Congrats Charles, and thank you Mr. Cole for letting me know about it. I spread the word by linking to your blog and the MJFellows.org site on my own website (www.gooznews.com).
Noble plan. Best wishes. But beware.
The cultural experience of the Middle East visitors might be more successful if they are part of a multinational group, rather than alone as a cadre of Believers in the wilderness. Why not include East Asians, Sub-Sahara Africans, or Latin Americans in the group? Foreign visitors often learn more from each other than from their hosts. It also softens the linear "us versus them" aspect.
Visa approval will still be problematic. The most probable candidates will be pro-West (fluent in English and / or well-connected), making public diplomacy an exercise in "preaching to the choir" or elite back-scratching. The more impecunious may find life (and salaries) quite attractive and not want to return. Others will return alienated or turn viper. Remember Sayyid Qutb (education) and Atta (urban studies). Finally, journalism candidates from the most restrictive (or anti-US) societies may find themselves chaperoned or gum-shoed during and after their stints.
Khalil Shikaki got a Columbia PhD, tried to establish objective polling in Palestine, and found himself attacked by all sides. Journalists are also polsters of a sort. Could it be that journalists--not just in the MidEast but here too--survive only by towing the line of the hand that feeds?
Might it not be more cost-effective and informative to sponsor a touring seminar by US journalism professors to Mideast cities to sow and reap information about mass media? After all, maybe Americans need to learn too. Has any Arabic-fluent US professor published an authoritative study of journalism and media in the region?
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