10 JOURNALISTS SELECTED FOR RACIAL JUSTICE FELLOWSHIPS
IJJ Conference Will Enhance Their Expertise in Civil Rights and Equity Issues

Ten U.S. journalists will meet with national experts in January to explore some of the latest topics involving racial issues in America at a fellowship program sponsored by USC Annenberg’s Institute for Justice and Journalism.

Selected by IJJ from applicants nationwide, the 2007 Racial Justice Fellows will take part in a weeklong conference on “Covering the Complexities of Civil Rights, Equity and Opportunity,” starting Jan. 14 in Los Angeles.

Sessions will include scholars, advocates and other experts presenting on issues about civil rights, equity and opportunity. Among subjects to be analyzed are the November ballot proposition on affirmative action in Michigan and the two U.S. Supreme Court cases involving the assignment of public school students. Other discussions will focus on racial and ethnic disparities in health care and the influence of race and class in immigration and criminal justice.

The Fellows will publish or broadcast projects on racial issues as part of the fellowship and their editors or news directors will join them at a follow-up conference to review their individual work. That conference will be held April 10-14 at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Fla.

The Fellows are from newspapers, radio, magazines and a television consortium. They are Barbara Belejack, editor, The Texas Observer; Ann Bennett, freelance producer and writer, National Black Programming Consortium; Leslie Fulbright, staff writer, San Francisco Chronicle; Leoneda Inge, reporter, North Carolina Public Radio – WUNC; Jeff Kelly Lowenstein, reporter, The Chicago Reporter; Jon Lowenstein, freelance photojournalist; M. Elizabeth Roman, reporter, Worcester (Mass.) Telegram & Gazette; Tram Nguyen, executive editor, Colorlines magazine; Anna Sale, reporter, West Virginia Public Broadcasting, and Rebecca Trounson, staff writer, Los Angeles Times.

IJJ is directed by Steve Montiel. The racial justice fellowship program will be led by Victor Merina, an IJJ Senior Fellow and writer previously with the Los Angeles Times, and IJJ Associate Director Frank O. Sotomayor, a former Los Angeles Times editor.

Among the speakers in January is the journalist and author Ellis Cose, a Newsweek columnist and contributing editor whose special report — “Killing Affirmative Action: Would ending it really result in a better, more perfect Union?”— was published by IJJ in October.

Created with Ford Foundation funding, the Institute for Justice and Journalism was established in 2000 at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication to strengthen journalism about justice and injustice. Through Justice and Journalism Fellowships, the institute supports journalists committed to covering complex, often polarizing issues with context and depth.
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