About us

The John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships supports diverse journalists from around the world who are creating solutions to journalism’s most urgent problems. We focus on helping these journalism leaders succeed as effective change agents, improving the access to information people need to create and sustain democratic communities.

Our core fellowship is a 9-month residential program on the Stanford University campus that allows journalists to step away from professional obligations to develop the leadership resilience needed for our times. Through individual coaching, access to Stanford experts and resources, tailored workshops and peer-to-peer learning, the JSK Fellowships helps fellows identify the tools and mindsets needed to effectively lead and navigate change.

We are part of a multidisciplinary Stanford community that has launched some of the leading initiatives in journalism and media, including Big Local News, the Virtual Human Interaction Lab and the Brown Institute for Media Innovation.

We have also built and nurtured relationships with the university’s leading research institutes including the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence institute, innovative centers of hands-on learning such as the d.school, plus many faculty and scholars who welcome opportunities to interact with JSK Fellows.

Journalism fellowships at Stanford started in 1966 to give journalists broad access to a great university, which would pay off in smarter journalists, and better leadership in the field. We grew through the next decades, and in 1984, with an endowment grant from the Knight Foundation, we renamed the program for John S. Knight (JSK), who, with his brother, James L. Knight, once operated Knight-Ridder, a company that became the largest newspaper chain in the United States.

Faced with the accelerated disruption of the news media ecosystem, the program’s leadership in 2008 took the initiative to transform the fellowship from a sabbatical model to one in which fellows are actively engaged in exploring and testing ideas for meeting journalism’s challenges. And we have been evolving to meet the changing needs of journalism and journalists ever since. 

We are increasingly convinced that the future of journalism depends, fundamentally, on having resilient, creative and inclusive leadership. We help our fellows identify and adopt mindsets and tools needed to become a more resilient leader and change agent. Their 9-month fellowship is the beginning of our investment in their success. 

Today we have built a global community of journalism leaders who learn from, collaborate with and support each other. JSK alumni are creating or leading some of the most innovative new journalism initiatives and organizations in the world. 

Since our program began, more than 1,000 journalists from more than 80 countries have become fellows.

Here is a sampling of some recent alumni who are leading and creating transformative journalism: