Alfred Friendly Foundation

Alfred Friendly Foundation

The Alfred Friendly Press Fellowships is an American non-profit foundation that gives journalists from nations in the developing world which meet basic standards of a free press the opportunity to work as reporters in American newsrooms. The program is offered annually to approximately ten professional print journalists between the ages of 25 and 35, giving them a six-month, in-depth, practical introduction to the professional and ethical standards of the U.S. print media.

Created in 1984 by Alfred Friendly, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and former managing editor of The Washington Post, the fellowship is one of the most successful and admired programs in international education for journalists. It is the only program to offer foreign journalists non-academic, long-term, hands-on experience in a single news organization. Convinced that healthy democracies need strong, free media, Friendly conceived a fellowship program that would both impart American journalistic traditions and respond to worldwide interest in the dissemination of fair and accurate news.

The Daniel Pearl Foundation joined with AFPF in 2003 to offer special fellowships to honor the life and work of journalist Daniel Pearl. Daniel Pearl Fellows have been placed with the Washington, DC bureau of The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and The Berkshire Eagle and North Adams Transcript. Applicants for the Daniel Pearl Fellowships must come from areas where Daniel Pearl worked as a journalist – South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.