|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 10, 2005
|
For more information:
Kathleen Currie, (202) 496-1992
E-mail: kcurrie@iwmf.org
|
Freelance Journalist Catherine Elton is First International Women’s Media Foundation Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow
Boston, Massachusetts – The International Women’s Media Foundation today announced that Catherine Elton, a freelance journalist from the United States based in Guatemala, is the first recipient of the Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship. The fellowship gives a woman journalist working in print, broadcast or online media the opportunity to focus exclusively on human rights journalism and social justice issues.
Elton will spend the nine-month fellowship as a research associate in residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for International Studies. She will also have access to the Boston Globe and New York Times.
“The opportunity that this fellowship creates for a woman journalist to pursue an interest in social justice and human rights is a fitting memorial for Elizabeth Neuffer, whose passion as a reporter drove her to document the lives of the victims of the world’s conflicts,” said IWMF Co-Chair Larry Olmstead.
Elizabeth Neuffer was a Boston Globe reporter and the winner of a 1998 IWMF Courage in Journalism Award. Her life mission was to promote international understanding of human rights and social justice. She was killed while on assignment in Iraq in 2003.
Catherine Elton has been a freelance reporter in Latin America for seven years, the last four of them based in Guatemala. From 1997 – 2000, she was based in Lima, Peru. She reports on human rights, labor issues, trade and migration, among other subjects. Her work regularly appears in the Miami Herald and Houston Chronicle and has also appeared in Time, the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor and Washington Post. Her reports from the region have aired on National Public Radio, CBS News, Radio Pacifica and Voice of America.
The Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship is a project of the Elizabeth Neuffer IWMF Fund, which also supports the Elizabeth Neuffer Forum on Human Rights and Journalism. The first Elizabeth Neuffer Forum was held on May 10 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. The announcement that Catherine Elton had won the first fellowship was made at the forum. The Elizabeth Neuffer Fund is generously supported by Peter Canellos, Mark Neuffer, Carolyn Lee, the Boston Globe, the Correspondents Fund, MIT Center for International Studies, United Nations Foundation and numerous friends of Elizabeth Neuffer. The Elizabeth Neuffer Forum was presented with the support of The Boston Globe and was co-sponsored by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.
The IWMF was launched in 1990 with a mission to strengthen the role of women in the news media worldwide, based on the belief that no press is truly free unless women share an equal voice. The IWMF network includes more than 1,500 women and men in the media in more than 130 countries worldwide. The IWMF is celebrating its Fifteenth Anniversary Year in 2005.
For further information, visit the programs section of the IWMF website, or e-mail neuffer@iwmf.org.
For Catherine Elton’s biography, go to http://iwmf.org/press/bios.php.
###
]