Deadlines and other pressures keep journalists from pursuing passion topics in depth. Fellowships, grants, writers-in-residence programs, retreats and other opportunities can be a remedy. Whether spending a semester at a major research university taking classes and looking at topics of interest in depth, or applying for grants to pursue investigative work or complete a book, to other forms of retreats for writers, a variety of opportunities abound for journalists to take a break from the pressure of deadlines. These methods of stepping back can help a writer go forward, leaving time to plan out a book, enter a new area of journalism or find ways to combine journalism with academia. These are the advantages; what are the pitfalls of time away from work or strain on family and partners?
Speakers: Michael Bolden, Michael Luongo
MICHAEL D. BOLDEN is the managing director, editorial and operations, for the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford University, an international program focused on entrepreneurship, innovation and leadership in journalism. Previously, Bolden served as the editorial director for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. For 13 years, he worked at The Washington Post, where he led the transportation and development reporting team and worked as an editor for The Washington Post Magazine, Style and Sunday Arts sections. In prior roles, Bolden worked for the Miami Herald, the Northwest Florida Daily News and The Times-Picayune. He is a Master of Liberal Arts student at Stanford University, was a fellow in the Maynard Media Academy’s entrepreneurial leadership and media management program at Harvard University and earned a bachelor of arts from the University of Alabama. Bolden serves on the board of directors for the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation, the philanthropy that supports the educational mission of the Society of Professional Journalists.
MICHAEL LUONGO’s travels from Buenos Aires to Baghdad have been a source of juicy gossip for the New York Post’s Page Six. He chairs the NLGJA Travel Writers Caucus and has written for publications as varied as The New York Times, National Geographic Traveler, Out Traveler, Gay City News, the Forward, the Christian Science Monitor and many others. He is the author or editor of 16 books, mostly on travel, from Frommers “Buenos Aires” to Routledge’s “Gay Travels in the Muslim World.” He was the 2013 NLGJA Journalist of the Year, the 2011 NLGJA Sarah Pettit Memorial Award Recipient and twice the Grand Prize Winner in Travel Journalism for the North American Travel Journalists Association, in 2010 and 2014. He has been to 100 countries and all seven continents, specializing in Latin America and the Middle East. Luongo was a 2016 University of Michigan Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow researching the role of travel media in tourism rebuilding in conflict zones and urban areas in transition, and has taught at the University of Michigan, New York University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and will be a writer-in-residence at Hong Kong’s Lingnan University in fall 2018.