WASHINGTON, D.C. — Top journalists will pursue topics ranging from the resilience of Syria’s autocratic regime to the environmental losses from American overbuilding as the newest recipients of an Alicia Patterson Foundation grant. The foundation, in its fifth decade, funds American journalism’s oldest writing fellowships.

The annual fellowships are designed to foster independent in-depth reporting on local, national and international affairs. The Alicia Patterson Foundation fellowship program for journalists was established in 1965 in memory of Alicia Patterson, who was editor and publisher of Newsday for nearly twenty-three years before her death in 1963.

The Fellows are awarded $40,000 for a 12-month grant and $20,000 for a six-month grant.

The new Fellows will spend their fellowship months traveling, researching, and writing articles on their projects for the APF REPORTER, a web magazine published by the Foundation. Every year, the Fellows’ articles and photo essays are widely distributed through newspapers, news services, magazines, and websites worldwide. Fellows’ work often is published jointly with outside news outlets and has resulted in many national awards.

The winners were selected through a highly competitive process of screening by panels of judges, as well as submitting detailed proposals, examples of past work, and references.

More than 352 reporters, editors, and photographers have won Alicia Patterson fellowships since the foundation was established in 1965.

This is the third year a fellow will be named for Cissy Patterson, who was Alicia’s aunt and editor of the Washington Times-Herald. The fellowship is given to a journalist pursuing a topic in science or the environment. Erika Hayasaki, a journalist in Los Angeles, was chosen for the honor. She will be examining the field of epigenetics – understanding how genes respond to environmental influences.

The trustees of the foundation named one fellow in honor of Josephine Patterson Albright, a former Newsday columnist, sister of Alicia Patterson and a major benefactor of the foundation. The Josephine Patterson Albright fellow is Yereth Rosen, a freelance journalist in Anchorage who is examining the environmental and social changes from Alaska’s tumultuous oil economy.

Judges for the 53rd Annual Competition:
Sandy Close – founder, Pacific News Service and New America Media
Ellen Warren – columnist, The Chicago Tribune
Kristal Brent Zook – APF Fellow ‘2005 and Hofstra University journalism professor

For program information and applications for the 54th annual competition, contact:

Alicia Patterson Foundation
1100 Vermont Ave. NW, 9th Floor
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: (202) 393-5995
Email: info@aliciapatterson.org
Applications may be downloaded at: www.aliciapatterson.org

Applications must be submitted by October 1, 2018.

Mustafah Abdulaziz, Freelance journalist, New York, NY. “Water: The Gulf”
Nancy Andrews, Freelance journalist, Pittsburgh, PA. “Necessity or Threat: The Pipeline-Building Boom in Appalachia”
Alex Cuadros Freelance journalist Brooklyn, NY. “Diamonds and Inequality in the Amazon”
Beth Dunlop, Freelance journalist, Miami Beach, FL. “The New Silent Spring: The Untallied Consequences of Overbuilding”
Charles Glass, Freelance journalist, Aix-en-Provence, France “The Syrian Regime”
Erika Hayasaki, Freelance journalist, U. of California Irvine journalism professor Los Angeles, CA. “Nature, Nurture and Epigenetics”
Melinda Wenner Moyer, Freelance journalist, Cold Spring, NY. “Vaccines for the 21st Century”
Yereth Rosen, Freelance journalist, Anchorage, AK. “Alaska After Oil”
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