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MARCH 5, 2020
CHICAGO, IL

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs announced today the Longworth Media Fellowships, a program to fund and promote foreign reporting by Chicago and Midwestern journalists.  

The program was established by a grant from The Clinton Family Fund to honor Richard C. Longworth, a former foreign correspondent and now Distinguished Fellow at the Council. The grant will fund at least two foreign reporting assignments per year for the next two years, with recipients focusing on global issues that affect Chicago and Midwestern readers and viewers. Recipients can come from either print or broadcast media.   

“Dick Longworth was a gifted writer dealing with important subjects,” Bruce Clinton, the retired Chairman and CEO of The Clinton Companies, said. “This grant will enable journalists to emulate the work that he did and make it available to new generations. This is a great thing.”   

The program will be administered by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in Washington, D.C., which has deep experience in this area.  The Pulitzer Center already provides direct support for quality journalism, domestic and foreign, leading to hundreds of stories each year.  

Longworth was a foreign correspondent for twenty years with the Chicago Tribune and United Press International, was the Tribune’s chief European correspondent, won two Overseas Press Club awards, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for foreign reporting.  

“Financial pressures have hit Chicago and Midwestern media, especially newspapers, hard,” Longworth said. “One result has been the virtual abandonment of foreign reporting, at a time when foreign events – in China, Latin America, the Midwest, Russia – have an increasing impact on our lives.  

“Once, correspondents told local readers and viewers what the news from abroad meant to them,” he said. “Now, not one newspaper or other outlet in our region has even one foreign correspondent on its staff, and so this local tie is lost. Our democracy depends on an informed electorate, which fails when nobody is doing the informing.  

“I am very grateful to Bruce Clinton and The Clinton Family Fund for giving the Council a chance to improve this situation.”  

The Fund’s grant provides $25,000 per year, which is expected to fund at least two foreign assignments. Besides producing stories, the grantees will speak on their work to Council audiences and to local schools and universities. The Pulitzer Center is currently accepting applications for the Longworth Media Fellowships on the Council’s behalf. Learn more and apply.   

This $50,000 grant from The Clinton Family Fund contributes to the Chicago Council’s Second Century Campaign, commemorating the Council’s centenary in 2022, by providing insights on critical global issues by Chicago and Midwestern journalists.  

The Chicago Council is an independent, non-partisan organization that provides insight and information on critical global issues, advances policy solutions, and fosters dialogue about what is happening in the world and why it matters to people in Chicago. It believes that an informed public helps to ensure effective American engagement with the world.