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Pulitzer Center Update March 5, 2020

Pulitzer Center and Chicago Council Partner on Longworth Media Fellowships

The Longworth Media Fellowships

Update: Because of ongoing travel restrictions related to COVID-19, we are extending the deadline for the Longworth Media Fellowships until July 15, 2020

The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs are pleased to announce the Longworth Media Fellowships, a program to fund and promote foreign reporting by Chicago and Midwestern journalists.

The program was established by a grant from The Clinton Family Fund to honor Richard C. Longworth, a former foreign correspondent and now Distinguished Fellow at the Chicago Council. The grant will fund at least two foreign reporting assignments per year for the next two years, with recipients focusing on global issues that affect Chicago and Midwestern readers and viewers. Recipients can come from either print or broadcast media.

The program will be administered by the Pulitzer Center in Washington, D.C., which has deep experience in this area. The Pulitzer Center already provides direct support for quality journalism, domestic and foreign, leading to hundreds of stories each year.

"Bringing global stories home is a vital part of our mission," said Pulitzer Center Executive Director Jon Sawyer. "We are so grateful to Dick, the Chicago Council and The Clinton Family Fund for this opportunity to build on the commitments we've already made to journalism and education in the Chicago region."

Longworth was a foreign correspondent for 20 years with the Chicago Tribune and United Press International. He was the Tribune's chief European correspondent, won two Overseas Press Club awards, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for foreign reporting. 

"Financial pressures have hit Chicago and Midwestern media, especially newspapers, hard," Longworth said. "One result has been the virtual abandonment of foreign reporting, at a time when foreign events—in China, Latin America, the Midwest, Russia—have an increasing impact on our lives.

"Once, correspondents told local readers and viewers what the news from abroad meant to them," he said. "Now, not one newspaper or other outlet in our region has even one foreign correspondent on its staff, and so this local tie is lost. Our democracy depends on an informed electorate, which fails when nobody is doing the informing.

"I am very grateful to Bruce Clinton and The Clinton Family Fund for giving the Council a chance to improve this situation."

The Fund's grant provides $25,000 per year, which is expected to fund at least two foreign assignments. Besides producing stories, the grantees will speak on their work to Council audiences and to local schools and universities.

The Pulitzer Center is currently accepting applications for the Longworth Media Fellowships. Applications are due by July 15, 2020. Find out more on the Center website

About the Pulitzer Center

The Pulitzer Center, founded in 2006 and based in Washington, DC, has become a major source of support for enterprise reporting on global issues—and an innovative leader in working with schools and universities to bring those issues into classrooms everywhere.

The Center now supports over 150 reporting projects a year. Its work with the Associated Press covering the war in Yemen won a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. The Center's projects have been among the winners each of the past three years at the RFK Awards and the Overseas Press Club; the Center itself has been recognized for best online reporting by the National Press Foundation, the National Press Club, and the Society of Professional Journalists.

About the Chicago Council

The Chicago Council is an independent, non-partisan organization that provides insight and information on critical global issues, advances policy solutions, and fosters dialogue about what is happening in the world and why it matters to people in Chicago. It believes that an informed public helps to ensure effective American engagement with the world.