McCormick Foundation Approves Grant to IJJ
Funding Will Support Fellowships on Urban Environmental Justice
Contact info:
Institute for Justice and Journalism
USC Annenberg School for Communication
300 South Grand Avenue, Suite 3950
Los Angeles, California 90071
213 437 4410 / ijj@usc.edu
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LOS ANGELES, October 28, 2008
The McCormick Foundation has awarded a $120,000 grant to USC Annenberg’s Institute for Justice and Journalism (IJJ) for a two-part fellowship program for ethnic media journalists, focusing on news coverage of urban environmental justice.
The fellowships will explore the intersections between economic equity and environmental justice and
help participating journalists dig deeper into a variety of issues, including health effects, jobs and
economic development, said IJJ Director Steve Montiel.
As with previous IJJ fellowships, the 10 selected Fellows will complete an in-depth reporting project that
will draw from the program experience. The completed work, which will be featured on IJJ’s Web site
(www.justicejournalism.org), will help inform both policymakers and the public about significant issues
relating to environmental justice, Montiel said.
An announcement about the application process, open to ethnic media journalists in the United States,
will be made in November.
The opening program, in March 2009, will bring 20 journalists to Los Angeles – 10 Fellows and their
editors or news directors – for a week of in-depth discussions with experts. Workshop sessions will be
conducted at the USC Annenberg School for Communication on computer-assisted reporting skills and
multimedia techniques. Varied field reporting experiences will give the journalists an on-the-ground
perspective about issues in Los Angeles, and reporting and analytical tools will help them assess
conditions in their own cities.
They also will participate in a one-day Justice and Journalism “immersion” conference on the
intersections between economic and environmental justice. The conference will be open to other
journalists and the public.
The program’s second part is scheduled for May 2009 in Chicago, with up to 10 Chicago journalists
joining the ethnic media Fellows. The participants will take part in reviews of the Fellows’ projects, as
well as field reporting, professional development workshops and in-depth discussions with experts.
The fellowship program design will draw heavily from IJJ’s 2008 Ethnic Media Fellowship program on
immigration. That program also was funded by the McCormick Foundation.
IJJ, created with Ford Foundation funding, was established at the University of Southern California's
Annenberg School for Communication in 2000 to strengthen journalism about issues involving justice
and injustice.