Partnered with the Missouri School of Journalism
Meet the 2018 Fellowship Class
Farah Ajlouni
A news anchor and correspondent for Jordan TV’s daily English news program, Farah Ajlouni was raised in France, Chile and Italy as an ambassador’s daughter but went against her family’s wishes to become a journalist. She has reported on issues ranging from the Syrian refugee crisis to farmers facing irrigation problems.
Samarth Bansal
A data journalist with Hindustan Times in New Delhi, Samarth Bansal is dedicated to forceful investigative and data-driven reporting. He is also part of a tight-knit group of data journalists and programmers who are using innovative interactive data visualizations to improve how they tell stories online. His stories include an investigation of a fraudulent job placement network in Delhi and the creation of a Women Empowerment Index.
Juan Luis Garcia
Working in the most unsafe country to do journalism in North America, Juan Luis Garcia’s coverage has focused on crime and security — including the spread of the drug cartels, local government agencies linked to crime organizations and federal government corruption.
Anna Yakutenko
As a reporter at the Kyiv Post, Anna Yakutenko has primarily covered social problems throughout Ukraine. She was a lead reporter for a Journalism of Tolerance project that highlighted challenges faced by sexual, ethnic and other minorities in the country, as well as people with physical disabilities and those living in poverty. She also covered social changes in war-damaged areas of Eastern Ukraine.
Gulam Jeelani
From a modest upbringing in the Kashmir Valley, Gulam Jeelani has distinguished himself in his work as a Special Correspondent for Hindustan Times in New Delhi. As a member of the newspaper’s national affairs team, he has covered state elections in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Gujarat, and politics under the ruling party. He has also coordinated teams of reporters, editors and photojournalists for the newspaper and is passionate about development and socio-economic issues in New Delhi.
Ankur Paliwal
Ankur has written investigative articles on science, health and environmental issues throughout the country, including the death of children to mysterious fever and the government’s mishandling of critically polluted areas. He also won the Next Generation of Science Journalists Award in 2017 at the World Health Summit in Berlin. Paliwal will be pioneering a new specialization in our fellowship focusing on food security issues.
Aleksandra Denkovska Gocevska
Gocevska was a reporter for a daily newspaper and then a news service before joining NOVA TV. Gocevska says her “real love for journalism” came during an investigative reporting training session when she heard a talk by Paul Radu, a former Alfred Friendly Fellow and a co-founder of Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a consortium operating in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia and Central America.
Danche Azmanova
Azmanova, 25, has worked as a journalist for NOVA TV for four years. She hopes to eventually become an editor-in-chief and, in the long-term, an arbiter of media freedom for Macedonia.She said Macedonia is known as “the bad boy of the Balkans,” and she fears conditions are getting worse. With declining press freedom and revelations of government wiretapping of journalists, Azmanova said she wants to help drive the change to secure a free press for her country.
Ivan Kuzmanovski
Kuzmanovski, 30, has worked as a journalist for more than 10 years, reporting from throughout the Balkan region and Europe. He has covered a range of breaking news events, from some of the worst natural catastrophes in the country to the largest migration crises in Europe.
Krenar Sadiku
Sadiku, 32, founder and journalist at VFV Media, the house of the digital media sites, medial.mk and post.mk. He believes Macedonia is on the verge of a journalistic transformation and wants to be part of the movement for high-quality and ethical journalism in this new era.
Nikola Krstikj
The breadth of Krstikj’s coverage ranges from simple reporting on foreign investments to investigating the government subsidies they get, and from straightforward writing about the national budget to analyzing its impact on the overall economy and on the individual citizen.