Renowned Kenyan journalist John-Allan Namu has been selected in the most recent cohort of the prestigious John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University in the United States.
Namu will be part of 16 journalists drawn from all over the world. The fellowship is set to start in September through to May 2026.
At Stanford, the award-winning Namu and the other journalists are expected to pursue individual projects as well as explore opportunities for collective action that respond to accelerating threats to freedom of news and information.
The prestigious fellowship will see Namu have access to several benefits, key among them a $130,000 (Ksh16.8 million) stipend for the nine-month fellowship period. This stipend is provided to each fellow individually and is intended to support them during their full-time commitment to the programme.
In addition to the stipend, the fellowship covers Stanford tuition for fellows and Stanford health insurance for fellows, spouses, and children.
The fellows will document their work publicly throughout the year, highlighting insights gained through the JSK programme’s explore, experiment and refine learning framework.
Fellows will also receive individual coaching from the JSK programme directors, participate in leadership workshops, sit in on Stanford classes and have access to the university’s world-class faculty and research institutes.
Namu becomes the second Kenyan to be part of the fellowship, following Dickens Olewe, a journalist from Nairobi, who was selected as a JSK Fellow for the 2014–2015 cohort. At the time, he served as the website coordinator for The Star newspaper in Kenya. During his fellowship, Olewe focused on innovative journalism approaches, including the use of drones in African reporting.
More than 1,000 people from over 80 countries have participated in journalism fellowships at Stanford since the programme first began in 1966.
Each year, up to 20 fellows from around the world are selected to spend an academic year at Stanford, engaging in personal and professional development, collaborative learning, and exploration of innovative solutions to the challenges facing journalism.
As per Stanford, the JSK Fellowship aims to empower journalists who believe in the press as a cornerstone of democracy, are determined to confront challenges such as misinformation, inequity, injustice, polarisation, and the rise of anti-democratic forces and are ready to lead with courage and innovation.
It also seeks to enrich journalists who value diversity and collaboration and are restless and dissatisfied with the status quo, eager to shake things up to become better journalists and leaders.
