2025 Fellowship Announced

The Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism at Ohio University will welcome its largest fellowship class in more than a decade when 28 journalists from around the globe come to campus in March for a week of education in artificial intelligence.

The 19 U.S. journalists and nine internationals represent some of the most prestigious news outlets in the world. Global services such as the BBC, Agence France-Presse, Voice of American, Al Jazeera and The Associated Press will be represented as well as news outlets Wall Street Journal, Deutsche Welle, the Boston Globe, USA Today and CNN.

U.S. journalists from Ohio will join those from regional outlets in Indiana, Washington, Alaska, New York, Nebraska, Massachusetts, Alabama, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. International journalists will represent nine nations, including Sweden, Germany, Poland, Pakistan, Malta, Lithuania, Qatar, Mexico and India. This is the first time journalists from Malta, Qatar and Lithuania have been selected.

The professional journalists will be on campus March 24-28 and have residence at the Ohio University Inn while attending workshops in Schoonover Center and Alden Library.

“This fellowship in AI produced a record number of applications for Kiplinger since coming to OU in 2019. We had more than 450 professional journalists apply, which is a statement as to how AI is impacting journalism on a global scale,” Kiplinger Executive Director Kevin Z. Smith said. “These 28 fellows come from varied background, platforms and cultures, but face the same challenges of understanding how to integrate AI into their work.”

For the first time, Kiplinger is allowing college faculty to attend. Three journalism professors from Ohio, New York and Malta will be on hand to take part in training.

“Looking at the rapid progression of AI, it’s understandable that journalism faculty should be on the technological cutting edge for the benefit of the next generation of journalists,” Smith said. “It seemed appropriate to allow academics who applied to have this opportunity.”

While at OU, the fellows will participate in workshops on writing and editing in AI, AI and audio, fake spotting AI generated content, AI’s use in data journalism as well as the legal and ethical bounds of AI use.

Fellows will also take part in the Scripps College’s Dean’s Advisory Council spring gathering and meet with journalism and communication students while on campus. Receptions with the fellows are being planned for two of the days they will be on campus.

U.S. fellows selected, include:

Suhail Bhat, USA Today; New York, New York
Thomas Boni, WKRG-TV; Mobile, Alabama
Brandon Bounds, WBNS-TV, Columbus, Ohio
Courtney Bublé, Law360; Washington, D.C.
Len Clark, LTC Media; Portage, Indiana
Gina Dvorak, WOWT-TV, Omaha, Nebraska
Mion Edwards, freelancer; Washington, D.C.
Eric Halperin, NBC4; Columbus, Ohio
Kasim Kashgar, Voice of America; Washington, D.C.
David Kirichenko, Frontsight Media; Seattle, Washington
Hanna Krueger, The Boston Globe; Boston, Massachusetts
Kendra Langlinais, CNN, Dillion, Colorado 
Hagit Limor, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio
Aaron Mok, freelancer; Queens, New York
Thomas Reintjes, freelancer; Brooklyn, New York
Sage Smiley, KYUK Radio; Bethel, Alaska
Giovanny Vega, El Vocero; San Juan, Puerto Rico
Dustin Volz, Wall Street Journal; Washington, D.C.
Mehrunnisa Wani, City University of New York; New York City

International fellows include:

Rosemarie Calleja, Institute of The Creative Arts; Mosta, Malta
Swasti Chatterjee, BoomLIVE; Kolkata, India
Faras Ghani, Al Jazeera, Doha, Qatar
Oreg Grigorenko, 7x7 Horizontal; Vilnius, Lithuania
Carl Fridh Kleberg, SVT-TV; Stockholm, Sweden
Rashid Ali Panhwer, The Associated Press; Karachi, Pakistan
Roxana Romero, Agence France-Presse; Mexico City, Mexico
Aleksandra Stefanowicz, BBC; Warsaw, Poland
Kathrin Wesolowski, Deutsche Welle; Berlin, Germany

The Kiplinger Fellowship is the flagship event for the Kiplinger Program in Public A;air Journalism, founded in 1972 through a donation to Ohio State University by the Kiplinger Foundation. The first fellowship was held in Columbus in 1973. The program moved to Ohio University into the Scripps College of Communication and E.W. Scripps School of Journalism in 2019. Since coming to OU, each year Kiplinger selects a critical reporting theme to focus its fellowship. Past fellowships have explored reporting on climate change, political discourse and immigration and migration. Kiplinger also travels abroad and is active in training groups of international journalists, visiting 12 counties in the past 10 years.