Photo: Michael Dames
By Jane Reilly
It’s nearly that time of year again. On Dec. 1, the OPC Foundation will begin accepting applications for 2017 scholar awards. Graduate and undergraduate students studying at American colleges and universities or Americans studying abroad who aspire to become foreign correspondents are invited to apply for one of 15 scholarships or fellowships to be awarded by the foundation. Please help us spread the word to potential applicants and send eligible candidates to our application page for more information.
Alizeh Kohari, recipient of the 2016 Walter and Betsy Cronkite Scholarship, went to Mexico City this summer to serve at the Reuters bureau on an OPC Foundation fellowship. When she returned, she wrote me a warm letter of thanks. Her message sums up so much of what the OPC Foundation is about.
Dear Jane,
I hope you’ve been well. I just returned from Mexico City and thought I’d write you a quick update on my summer with Reuters. I was there for just under ten weeks: wrote a story about Uber drivers facilitating illegal migration, one on dying butterflies, another on a priest helping young gang members through his ‘Gang of Christ’, covered a hurricane (the rather anticlimactic Earl), and helped with an (ongoing) data project investigating irregular spending by the Mexican finance ministry. I also contributed to a ‘Top News’ story on bogus bomb/drug detectors and am now independently investigating the status of Mexicans sent to prison based on evidence procured from these discredited devices. There’s a chance I might return in the winter to continue investigating this, depending on what information/documents I’m able to procure through the national transparency portal in the meantime. Simon Gardner, the bureau chief, seems excited about the story and has invited me back in Dec/Jan, and has also encouraged me to continue probing it from afar, while school is in session. I’m excited too. Fingers crossed.
Either way, it has already been a fantastic learning experience, both in terms of old-school investigative reporting and as an insight into a notoriously flawed criminal justice system. My Spanish is also significantly better; and I hope to continue working on it before my return to Mexico. These few months have opened up an entire continent for me to work in and report from, and have also gotten me thinking about how to better report on my own country, Pakistan – I can’t think of a summer better spent. I’m so grateful to you and Bill Holstein and the entire OPC family for making it happen. Thank you so much. – Best wishes, Alizeh