47th Annual Competition 2012 Fellowship Winners

47th ANNUAL ALICIA PATTERSON JOURNALISM FELLOWSHIPS ANNOUNCED

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Six journalists will pursue topics ranging from the impact of budget cuts on civil justice to an elephants’ rebellion in India, as the newest recipients of an Alicia Patterson Foundation grant, American journalism’s oldest writing fellowship.

The foundation announced the winners of the annual fellowships today, which are designed to foster independent in-depth reporting on national and international affairs. The Alicia Patterson Foundation fellowship program for journalists was established in 1965 in memory of Alicia Patterson, who was editor and publisher of Newsday for nearly twenty-three years before her death in 1963.

The Fellows are awarded $40,000 for a 12-month grant and $20,000 for a six-month grant.

The six new Fellows will spend their fellowship months traveling, researching, and writing articles on their projects for the APF REPORTER, a quarterly web magazine published by the Foundation. Every year, the Fellows’ articles and photo essays are widely distributed through newspapers, news services, magazines, and websites worldwide.

The winners were selected through a highly competitive process of screening by two panels of judges, as well as submitting detailed proposals, examples of past work, and references.

More than 293 reporters, editors, and photographers have won Alicia Patterson fellowships since the foundation was established in 1965 to honor the former publisher of Newsday.

The trustees of the foundation named one Fellow in honor of Josephine Patterson Albright, who was a major benefactor of the foundation. The Josephine Patterson Albright fellow is Nadja Drost, a correspondent for the Global Post, in Bogota, Colombia.

The foundation’s fellows for 2012, and their research topics, include:

Kat Aaron – editor, Investigative Reporting Workshop, Washington, D.C. – “The Impact of Budget Cuts on Civil Justice in America.”
Richard Conniff – freelance writer, Old Lyme, CT. –“Pigged Out: Our Love Affair with All Things Oink, the World’s Leading Meat Source.”
Nadja Drost – freelance writer and correspondent for Global Post, Bogotå, Colombia – “Gold is the New Cocaine.”
Rowan Jacobsen – freelance writer, Calais, VT. – “Northeast India: Creatures and Cultures in Collision.”
Alexis Okeowo – assistant editor, The New Yorker, New York, N.Y. –“Africa’s Battle over Homosexuality.”
Hillary Rosner – freelance writer, Boulder, CO – “The Evolution Fix: Saving Nature in the DNA Era.”

Judges for the 47th annual competition were:

Anne Albright, attorney, APF Foundation treasurer
Sandy Close, founder, New America Media
Patrick Hoge, technology reporter, San Francisco Business Times and APF Foundation board member
Robert Lee Hotz, science columnist, The Wall Street Journal, and APF Foundation board president
Kristal Brent Zook, associate professor and chair of the graduate school of journalism, Hofstra University, and APF fellow ’05.

For program information and applications for the 48th annual competition, contact Alicia Patterson Foundation, 1090 Vermont Ave. NW Suite 1000, Washington, DC 20005. Phone: (202) 393-5995 or e-mail: info@aliciapatterson.org. Application materials may be downloaded at: www.aliciapatterson.org.

Applications must be submitted by October 1, 2012.