KipProgram

02/14/2025

Our next fellow to introduce is David Kirichenko is a war correspondent for Frontsight Media.
He has reported from the front lines of Ukraine, covering key battles such as the Russian siege of Bakhmut and the fight for Chasiv Yar, where he embedded with drone units.
His work and reporting on modern warfare has been featured in leading publications, including the Atlantic Council, the Center for European Policy Analysis, and The Economist.

02/13/2025

We've made it to the halfway point with fellow introductions. This time, welcome our VOA investigative journalism from Washington, D.C.

Kasim Kashgar is a Uygur journalist at Voice of America, specializing in human rights, minority issues, and China’s transnational repression.
He was the central figure and key contributor to VOA’s award-winning documentary From Fear to Freedom: A Uyghur’s Journey, which won Gold at the 2024 New York Festivals.
Fluent in Uyghur, Mandarin, and English, Kasim has led investigative reporting on the human rights crisis in Xinjiang and played a pivotal role in launching VOA’s first-ever Uygur-language program.

02/10/2025

Welcome the second member of our Columbus "crew" to attend this year's Kiplinger Fellowship.

Eric Halperin is a multimedia journalist at NBC4 in Columbus, OH. He's been reporting there for a bit more than five years. Prior to joining the NBC4 team, Eric reported for WPRI in Rhode Island and WOWK in Charleston, WV. He recently traveled with Honor Flight Columbus and shared stories from that trip as the nonprofit marked taking 10,000 veterans to Washington D.C. to see their memorials.
He won the 2023 Ohio Associated Press Media Editors best Feature Reporting Award. His stories highlighted an author and filmmaker's efforts on a documentary about the liberation of a train during the Holocaust.
Eric grew up in Massachusetts and is a graduate of Elon University in North Carolina.

02/07/2025

Meet our Kiplinger Fellow from Russia who is working in exile in Lithuania.

Oleg Grigorenko was born in Voronezh, Russia. He graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at Voronezh State University in 2002. During his studies, he began working as a sports correspondent and a journalist covering social issues for local newspapers.
Between 2002 and 2005, he served as a news and production editor at the socio-political newspaper Voronezhskiy Kurier (Voronezh Courier). From 2005 to 2008, he worked as a political and crime correspondent for the regional bureau of Kommersant, a leading Russian newspaper and online media outlet known in the 2000s for its professionalism and influence.
In 2008, Grigorenko founded and became editor-in-chief of Futbol Chernozemya (Football of the Chernozem Region), a sports publication that covered football competitions across six regions in Central Russia’s Black Earth Belt.
From 2009 to 2013, he worked in the press office of the Voronezh Regional Duma, the region's legislative body. In 2013, he joined the Regional News Agency Voronezh, the largest online media outlet in the area, where he rose from special projects editor to editor-in-chief within two years. In early 2016, he left the publication following a conflict with its founder—the Department of Mass Communications of the Voronezh Region—after attempts were made to interfere with the outlet's editorial independence.
From 2016 to 2017, Oleg launched and led the regional bureau of RBC, one of Russia's foremost business media outlets. From 2017 to 2018, he headed Vremya Voronezha (Time of Voronezh), a local publication focused on regional politics.
Since 2018, he has been part of 7x7 Horizontal Russia, an online magazine (which became a multiplatform media outlet in 2022) dedicated to human rights and civil society issues in Russia's smaller regions.
He became editor-in-chief in 2020.
In March 2022, he left Russia in protest against the country’s aggressive war on Ukraine. He relocated to Vilnius, Lithuania, where he continues his journalistic work, ensuring that 7x7 remains a platform free from censorship.

02/06/2025

We continue to introduce our 2025 Kiplinger Fellows.

Faras Ghani is a digital news editor at Al Jazeera English and media trainer at Al Jazeera Media Institute. His writing and reporting focuses on human rights, migration and the impact of sports on society.
He is also author of the book 'Champions, again.'

02/03/2025

Welcome to another member of the Kiplinger Fellowship Class of 2025.

Mion Edwards is an award-winning freelance producer and digital storyteller. Mion is skilled in producing docu-style features and enhancing stories for digital and social audiences. In her prior role as a researcher and associate
producer for NBC News she produced and co-produced original lifestyle stories for the TODAY All Day stream and TODAY Show broadcast. Mion has also published in CNN Style, VICE Garage, and Washingtonian Magazine.

01/31/2025

Welcome to Nebraska journalist and another of our 2025 Kiplinger Fellows.

With more than 25 years of experience working in local journalism, Gina Dvorak has witnessed vast shifts in how newsrooms operate, helping hers retain their competitive edge as they evolve.

Dvorak has strong roots in Nebraska, growing up in a multigenerational farm family and earning her journalism degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1998. She has been the Digital Director at First Alert 6 (WOWT-TV) in Omaha for the past six years.

The veteran journalist started out as a newspaper page designer and copy editor for a small daily in Indiana before moving to Southern California, where she spent the bulk of her career. Before making her jump to digital in 2010, Dvorak earned a Society for News Design award for her front-page design on a San Bernardino Sun special report covering a spate of juvenile homicides that sparked community outreach in the city in the years that followed. She was also selected to give a presentation at the Poynter Institute's Big Ideas conference in 2009.

She went on to help build the first consolidated copy desk in the country, developing workflows that allowed for centralized page design and editing for six — and eventually nine — daily newspapers across the Los Angeles metro area.

A few years later, Dvorak moved into a digital leadership role with the Los Angeles News Group, helping to manage staff covering breaking and real-time news online for those same newsrooms. Bringing her eye for design into the digital-sphere, she also managed LANG data projects, building out interactives and other sorts of visualizations and presentations to augment online reports. Gina then turned her attention to building digital strategies for 27 social media accounts and nine mobile platforms for those newsrooms.

While working for LANG, she also received a grant from its parent company, Digital First Media, to pursue a partnership with Esri, a global leader in GIS technology.

In 2014, the pull to return home to Nebraska led her to step outside journalism and work for a nonprofit music school in Omaha. After a couple years there, she couldn't resist an offer to get back into journalism, joining the KMTV newsroom in Omaha before getting recruited to WOWT about a year later.

01/29/2025

We continue with another of the 2025 Kiplinger Fellows coming to Ohio University in March to train in artificial intelligence.

Len Clark, Ph.D., is an entrepreneurial media professional who integrates storytelling and technology to transform the coverage of Notre Dame athletics.
Recognized as Indiana’s first mobile journalist, Len uses emerging media tools to engage audiences and to explore their potential.
With a diverse background in higher education, media, and sports, he blends academic expertise with hands-on experience to empower and mentor the next generation of storytellers.

01/27/2025

Welcome another member of the 2025 Kiplinger Fellowship.

Swasti Chatterjee is the News Editor (East) at BOOMLive where she leads the organization’s international fact-checking newsrooms in Myanmar and Bangladesh.
She has a specialization in debunking cross-border and communal disinformation in crisis-driven contexts. Prior to joining BOOMLive, she worked with prominent mainstream media such as The Times of India, The Indian Express, covering a range of topics including films, education and civic issues.
Swasti's deep experience in investigative journalism and fact-checking drives her commitment to promoting accurate and responsible reporting in a rapidly evolving media landscape.

01/24/2025

Welcome to our first ever journalist from the country of Malta, as we continue to feature our fellowship class of 2025.

Rosemarie is a full-time senior lecturer II at MCAST, Institute of the Creative Arts in Mosta, Malta. She holds a bachelor’s degree in communications with psychology (Hons) from the University of Malta and a Master’s in media management, film, and media studies from the University of Stirling, Scotland.
At the moment she is reading for her Ph.D. in conflict resolution under the supervision of Prof. Gordon Sammut at the University of Malta. Her research focuses on affective polarisation, identification and partisan media.
Her accomplishments include being awarded the Harold Scorey Scholarship in Broadcast Journalism in 2009, which enabled her to intern with the HARDtalk team at BBC in London. The following year, she won the National Prize for the European Parliament Journalism Award for Print Journalism and secured second place in the EU Journalist Award "For Discrimination Against Diversity."
In 2018, she was selected by the U.S. Embassy for the SUSI (Study of the United States Institutes) program in Journalism and Media at Ohio University, USA. In 2022 she was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship in Journalism, where she was a visiting scholar at Ohio State University, USA.

01/23/2025

We continue with our 2025 Kiplinger Fellowship introductions.

Courtney Bublé is the Congress reporter for Law360, which entails spending her days chasing lawmakers, attending hearings and tracking legislation and nominations.
Previously, she spent four years as a reporter for Government Executivecovering oversight of the federal government with a focus on the pandemic response, federal prisons government watchdogs and the Trump/Biden transition. Courtney started her career at NBC News.

01/22/2025

Meet another 2025 Kiplinger Fellow in AI.

Brandon Bounds is an award-winning digital journalist based in Columbus, Ohio. I currently work at WBNS-TV as a digital content producer where I help create and execute strategies for content, audience and community engagement and streaming. I am a second-time Kiplinger fellow and was a part of the team that won a 2024 Edward R. Murrow National Award for breaking news coverage.

01/17/2025

We continue introducing our 2025 Kiplinger Fellows ahead of their March 23-28 fellowship at Ohio University.

Thomas Boni is the digital content danager at WKRG-TV, a Nexstar Media Group station in Mobile, Alabama.
He has directed content for almost 20 years, first serving as the editor-in-chief of various community newspapers in Alabama and Florida from 2006-2018.
For five years, he led the digital department at Today's Homeowner Media, which produced a nationally syndicated TV show and native content for companies including The Home Depot, 3M, and Quikrete. In 2023, Boni returned to news, signing on to lead WKRG's Digital Department. This includes managing the station's website and social media platforms, and overseeing its thrice-daily digital newscast, "News 5 Now."
Boni has won over 20 national, state and regional journalism awards (from GateHouse Media, the Alabama Press Association and the Florida Press Association).
He has managed websites that reach over 3 million monthly visitors and social media platforms that get millions of visitors per month.

01/13/2025

The Kiplinger Fellowship 2025 will welcome nearly 30 journalists from around the world to the Ohio University campus when it convenes March 22-28.
In the weeks leading up to the fellowship focusing on artificial intelligence and journalism, let us introduce you to this year's class.

Suhail Bhat is an assistant data editor at USA TODAY, where he edits data-driven stories and serves as a data reporter on long-term investigations.
Previously, Bhat worked as a data reporter at THE CITY, a local newsroom in New York City; at Louisville Public Media, an NPR affiliate in Louisville, Kentucky; and as a sector specialist at Reuters News.
Bhat is an engineer-turned-journalist and a graduate of Columbia Journalism School.

12/19/2024

Congratulations and welcome to the 2025 Kiplinger Fellowship class. There will be 28 global journalists on campus come March to learn about AI and its impact on journalism. These 28 represent some of the best journalists active today within some of the world's largest newsrooms as well as small outlets in the U.S.

Our press release:

The Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism at Ohio University will welcome its largest fellowship class in more than a decade when 28 journalists from around the globe come to campus in March for a week of education in artificial intelligence.

The 19 U.S. journalists and nine internationals represent some of the most prestigious news outlets in the world. Global services such as the BBC, Agence France-Presse, Voice of American, Al Jazeera and The Associated Press will be represented as well as news outlets Wall Street Journal, Deutsche Welle, the Boston Globe, USA Today and CNN.

U.S. journalists from Ohio will join those from regional outlets in Indiana, Washington, Alaska, New York, Nebraska, Massachusetts, Alabama, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. International journalists will represent nine nations, including Sweden, Germany, Poland, Pakistan, Malta, Lithuania, Qatar, Mexico and India. This is the first time journalists from Malta, Qatar and Lithuania have been selected.

The professional journalists will be on campus March 24-28 and have residence at the Ohio University Inn while attending workshops in Schoonover Center and Alden Library.

“This fellowship in AI produced a record number of applications for Kiplinger since coming to OU in 2019. We had more than 450 professional journalists apply, which is a statement as to how AI is impacting journalism on a global scale,” Kiplinger Executive Director Kevin Z. Smith said. “These 28 fellows come from varied background, platforms and cultures, but face the same challenges of understanding how to integrate AI into their work.”

For the first time, Kiplinger is allowing college faculty to attend. Three journalism professors from Ohio, New York and Malta will be on hand to take part in training.

“Looking at the rapid progression of AI, it’s understandable that journalism faculty should be on the technological cutting edge for the benefit of the next generation of journalists,” Smith said. “It seemed appropriate to allow academics who applied to have this opportunity.”

While at OU, the fellows will participate in workshops on writing and editing in AI, AI and audio, fake spotting AI generated content, AI’s use in data journalism as well as the legal and ethical bounds of AI use.

Fellows will also take part in the Scripps College’s Dean’s Advisory Council spring gathering and meet with journalism and communication students while on campus. Receptions with the fellows are being planned for two of the days they will be on campus.

U.S. fellows selected, include:

Suhail Bhat, USA Today; New York, New York
Thomas Boni, WKRG-TV; Mobile, Alabama
Brandon Bounds, WBNS-TV, Columbus, Ohio
Courtney Bublé, Law360; Washington, D.C.
Len Clark, LTC Media; Portage, Indiana
Gina Dvorak, WOWT-TV, Omaha, Nebraska
Mion Edwards, freelancer; Washington, D.C.
Eric Halperin, NBC4; Columbus, Ohio
Kasim Kashgar, Voice of America; Washington, D.C.
David Kirichenko, Frontsight Media; Seattle, Washington
Hanna Krueger, The Boston Globe; Boston, Massachusetts
Kendra Langlinais, CNN, Dillion, Colorado
Hagit Limor, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio
Aaron Mok, freelancer; Queens, New York
Thomas Reintjes, freelancer; Brooklyn, New York
Sage Smiley, KYUK Radio; Bethel, Alaska
Giovanny Vega, El Vocero; San Juan, Puerto Rico
Dustin Volz, Wall Street Journal; Washington, D.C.
Mehrunnisa Wani, City University of New York; New York City

International fellows include:

Rosemarie Calleja, Institute of The Creative Arts; Mosta, Malta
Swasti Chatterjee, BoomLIVE; Kolkata, India
Faras Ghani, Al Jazeera, Doha, Qatar
Oreg Grigorenko, 7x7 Horizontal; Vilnius, Lithuania
Carl Fridh Kleberg, SVT-TV; Stockholm, Sweden
Rashid Ali Panhwer, The Associated Press; Karachi, Pakistan
Roxana Romero, Agence France-Presse; Mexico City, Mexico
Aleksandra Stefanowicz, BBC; Warsaw, Poland
Kathrin Wesolowski, Deutsche Welle; Berlin, Germany

The Kiplinger Fellowship is the flagship event for the Kiplinger Program in Public A;air Journalism, founded in 1972 through a donation to Ohio State University by the Kiplinger Foundation. The first fellowship was held in Columbus in 1973. The program moved to Ohio University into the Scripps College of Communication and E.W. Scripps School of Journalism in 2019. Since coming to OU, each year Kiplinger selects a critical reporting theme to focus its fellowship. Past fellowships have explored reporting on climate change, political discourse and immigration and migration. Kiplinger also travels abroad and is active in training groups of international journalists, visiting 12 counties in the past 10 years.

09/30/2024

What are you waiting for?

Applications are open for the 2025 Kiplinger Fellowship. This year's theme is Artificial Intelligence and its impact on journalism.

We will gather for a week amid the spring beauty that comes to Ohio University's campus, March 23-28. Kiplinger covers all of your training costs, lodging, most meals and a large portion of your travel expenses.

We will train you on fakespotting AI, how to use AI in your writing and editing, the ethics of AI in journalism, AI and audio journalism, as well as how AI will change the newsrooms of the future.Plus, much more.
U.S. and international journalists with at least five years of experience are welcome to apply. This week could propel you to being the most advance thinking member of your newsroom. You don't want to miss this opportunity.

Kiplinger Fellowship applications will open soonApplications for the 2025 Kiplinger Fellowship is OPEN and will remain open to eligible journalists globally until midnight, November 1. (U.S. Eastern Time Zone).

09/16/2024

Applications for the 2025 Kiplinger Fellowship are now open to professional journalists worldwide. The March 23-28 fellowship will focus on AI and its impact on journalism.
The fellowship will take place in Columbus, Ohio and on the Ohio University campus in Athens.
We will explore AI use in journalism and introduce you to some of the ways it can help the profession while keeping an eye on the ethics of application.
The short application can be found on the Kiplinger Program website here:

Kiplinger Fellowship applications will open soonApplications for the 2025 Kiplinger Fellowship is OPEN and will remain open to eligible journalists globally until midnight, November 1. (U.S. Eastern Time Zone).

05/03/2024

Kiplinger salutes our many Fellows and fellow journalists around the world as we celebrate World Press Freedom Day.

It's during WPFD we highlight the significant role played by the press, journalism, the free access and dissemination of facts to ensure and secure a sustainable, reliable information system.

This year WPFD brings awareness of all aspects of the global environmental crisis and its consequences essential to building democratic societies. Journalistic work is indispensable for this purpose.

Moving forward Kiplinger's mission of 51 years will continue being the training and education of professional journalists globally to face critical reporting challenges in climate, political, immigration coverage and all issues requiring our persistent attention.