USC Annenberg Announces 2012 Knight Luce Fellowship for Reporting on Global Religion

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism announced this week that applications are now being accepted for the 2012 Knight Luce Fellowship for Reporting on Global Religion.

The fellowship, sponsored by the Knight Chair in Media and Religion and funded by a grant from the Henry R. Luce Initiative on Religion and International Affairs, offers stipends for American journalists to report and write stories that illuminate how religion, religious institutions, and religious people (1) affect change in on-the-ground social, political, and economic conditions; (2) circulate ideas and ideologies among home and diaspora communities; and (3) promote or inhibit religious and political coexistence and cooperation. Stories must be reported outside the U.S., although they may include an American context for contrast or comparison.

Staff reporters, affiliated freelancers and self-employed web journalists, working in the States or abroad, who cover politics, social and cultural issues as well as generalists and religion specialists and who are American citizens are encouraged to apply. Previous Knight Luce fellows are not eligible. Successful applicants will be awarded stipends from $5,000 to $25,000 to subsidize travel, living and miscellaneous costs. Early career journalists are invited to consider submitting proposals under $10,000 that may be experimental in nature. Proposals over $10,000 will be evaluated on the applicant's expertise and publication plans.

Applications are due by December 19, 2011. Awards will be made in March 2012. Projects will be complete by December 2012. For more information about the Knight Luce Fellowship and to apply, visit: http://annenberg.usc.edu/Knight-Luce.aspx.

"2011 has been a great year for reporting on global religion. Worldwide protest movements, electoral politics and strategies for social change have all had religious dimensions," said Diane Winston, Knight Chair in Media and Religion at USC Annenberg. "We're looking for reporting that takes on issues like these and that focuses on places that may not get as much coverage as Europe and the Middle East."

Among the stories covered by the 2011 Knight Luce fellows were Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia, the burgeoning U.S. evangelical adoption movement in Rwanda and Liberia, advancing LBGT rights in Argentina, and Hazara immigrants in Pakistan and Greece.

The Henry Luce Foundation was established in 1936 by Henry R. Luce, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Time Inc., to honor his parents who were missionary educators in China. The Foundation builds upon the vision and values of four generations of the Luce family: broadening knowledge and encouraging the highest standards of service and leadership. The Henry Luce Foundation seeks to bring important ideas to the center of American life, strengthen international understanding, and foster innovation and leadership in academic, policy, religious and art communities. The Luce Foundation pursues its mission today through a variety of grant-making programs; among these is the Henry R. Luce Initiative on Religion and International Affairs.

The Knight Chair in Media and Religion, established in 2002 by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, participates in a wide range of activities, including the organization of conferences for working journalists and the sponsorship of events for the local community. Dr. Winston addresses a host of issues surrounding religion and media through her writing and public speaking, as well as her development of coursework and symposiums. Through these outreach activities, USC Annenberg has begun to emerge as a hub for re-visioning how the press - and society itself - thinks about and reports on religion.

About the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism
Located in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California, the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism (annenberg.usc.edu) is a national leader in education and scholarship in the fields of communication, journalism, public diplomacy and public relations. With an enrollment of more than 2,200 students, USC Annenberg offers doctoral, master's and bachelor's degree programs, as well as continuing development programs for working professionals, across a broad scope of academic inquiry. The school's comprehensive curriculum emphasizes the core skills of leadership, innovation, service and entrepreneurship and draws upon the resources of a networked university located in the media capital of the world.

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SOURCE University of Southern California