Go Global Religion Journalism!

It’s not often that journalism, especially the kind that deals with global religious issues, gets a stimulus plan. But last year, the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism announced the Knight Luce Fellowship for Reporting on Global Religion. Today, Diane Winston, Knight Chair in Media and Religion at USC Annenberg, announced the 2011 inaugural fellows. We’re delighted to see two Buddha-killers among the seven American journalists who were chosen to receive stipends from between $5,000 to $25,000 to report on religion around the world.

Kathryn Joyce will investigate the burgeoning U.S. evangelical adoption movement and “orphan theology,” reporting on international adoption in Rwanda and Liberia. Joyce, who has published in Mother Jones, Salon and Newsweek, is a three-time recipient of reporting support from the Nation Institute Fund for Investigative Journalism. She is also the author of Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement (2009). We ran an excerpt, “Victory Through Daughters“, here.

Reporting from Argentina, which became the first Latin American nation to legalize same-sex marriage in July 2010, Nicole Greenfield will examine the complex relationship among religion, politics and LGBT rights in the diverse city of Buenos Aires. She’s also a contributing editor over with our good friends at the Revealer.

Within the six-month period of their fellowship, fellows will report and develop stories for delivery on multiple platforms. At the completion of their projects, several fellows will spend three days in residence at USC to present their work, hold master classes for journalism students, and give public lectures for the USC community.

Funding comes from the The Henry Luce Foundation, which aims to bring important ideas to the center of American life, strengthen international understanding, and foster innovation and leadership in academic, policy, religious and art communities. The Knight Chair in Media and Religion was established by the Knight Foundation, which is helping keep journalism aloft across the country and world. Under the direction of Diane Winston, USC Annenberg has begun to emerge as a hub for re-visioning how the press—and society itself—thinks about and reports on religion.

Read more about this exciting new fellowship and the other recipients here.