JournalismPakistan.com
November 15, 2017

KARACHI - The Pakistan Press Foundation has awarded 19 journalists from across Pakistan fellowships to pursue investigative stories on a range of social, political and economic issues.

A PPF media release issued Wednesday said the fellows were selected from a pool of over 150 applicants in a rigorous selection process conducted by a panel of 17 reporters and editors who evaluated their pitches.

The fellows come from all four provinces of Pakistan as well as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir.

The group will be working with a coordinating editor and will participate in training workshops while producing their stories. The fellows have a minimum experience of three years working for print, television, radio and online media. The reports they produce will be published or broadcast by their own organizations.

The aim of the fellowship is to give mid-career journalists a chance to conduct an in-depth exploration of a topic of their choice and in the process improve their investigative skills with more experienced mentors. This is the second cycle or batch of fellows in a three-year program that started in 2017.

The PPF is implementing the fellowship in collaboration with Free Press Unlimited, a foundation based in the Netherlands that pursues media projects in 39 countries with the objective of supporting journalists to help people gain access to concrete, trustworthy and impartial news information. 

For almost 50 years, PPF has worked for the improvement of professional skills, and in helping to raise journalists’ awareness on professional, social, political and human-rights issues. PPF is actively involved in promoting freedom of expression and ethical standards in Pakistani media. It was established in 1967 as a non-profit organization committed to the promotion of independent media in Pakistan.

The fellows for the second PPF Investigative Journalism Fellowships are: Abdur Razzaq (Khyber News, Peshawar), Akhtar Hafeez (Sindh Express, Hyderabad), Amel Ghani (The News on Sunday, Lahore), Asad Khan Betini (The Frontier Post and Aaj TV, Quetta), Fawad Hasan (The Express Tribune, Karachi), Imran Mangi (Dunya TV, Quetta), Izhar Ullah (The Express Tribune, Peshawar), Junaid Nazeer (Jang, Bahawalpur), Manzoor Ali (Dawn, Peshawar), Mubashar Naqvi (The Financial Daily, Muzaffarabad), Nisar Ali (Kay2, Ghanche), Rafiullah Mandokhail, (Pakistan Observer, Zhob), Raja Kamran (Neo News, Karachi), Rehmat Ullah Khan (News Lens Pakistan, Islamabad), Rizwana Naqvi (Dawn, Karachi),  Shah Khalid (Tribal News Network, Bajaur Agency, Fata), Shakila Ibrar (Voice of Pakistan, Islamabad), Shiraz Hasnat (DawnNews, Lahore) and Yousuf Abid (Dunya, Multan).