Deadline Today: Local Reporters, Editors, Producers Encouraged to Apply for NEFAI 2018 Fellowships

Capital Gazette’s Terence Smith Joins Institute Faculty; Stephanie McCrummen of Washington Post to Deliver Keynote Address

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT Justin Silverman | 774.244.2365 | justin@nefac.org

Fellowship applications for the eighth annual New England First Amendment Institute are due today.

The New England First Amendment Coalition offers the three-day institute each year at no cost to 25 New England journalists. The institute is from Sept. 16-18 at Northeastern University in Boston.

Application materials can be obtained here.

The Washington Post’s Stephanie McCrummen, a lead member of the team that won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting, will deliver the keynote address at the institute. Joining McCrummen as featured speakers are David Cuillier, an associate professor at the University of Arizona School of Journalism, and Terence Smith of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md.

Smith is an award-winning journalist who has been a political reporter, foreign correspondent, editor and television analyst over the course of a four-decade career. He began his career covering local politics at the Stamford Advocate in Connecticut before working at The New York Herald Tribune and The New York Times.

Smith spent 20 years with The Times, covering four wars, peace negotiations and the day-to-day lives of people in more than 40 countries. Smith’s coverage earned two Pulitzer Prize nominations and numerous other awards.

In 1985, Smith joined CBS News in Washington, covering the Reagan White House and for nine years, reporting the cover stories for CBS Sunday Morning. In 1998, Smith turned to public television, founding and leading the media unit at The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

A Maryland resident, Smith now writes for the Capital Gazette, a daily newspaper that lost five staff members in a June 28 shooting.

The tragedy, Smith wrote, “vividly illustrated the extraordinary bond that exists between a community and its newspaper that, in the case of The Capital and Annapolis, has been built up in good times and bad over nearly three centuries.”

Other institute speakers include Cheryl W. Thompson of The Washington Post; Cindy Galli of ABC News; Mike Beaudet of WCVB-Boston and Northeastern University; Todd Wallack of The Boston Globe; and Jenifer McKim of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting. A full list of speakers, with more to be announced, can be viewed here.

This year’s institute is made possible by the generosity of the Providence Journal Charitable Legacy Fund, Northeastern University, the New England Newspaper & Press Association, Boston University College of Communication and the Academy of New England Journalists.

Other supporters of NEFAC this year include the Barr Foundation, The Boston Globe and WBUR-Boston.

More information about NEFAI 2018 can be read here. Information on previous institutes can be found here.


NEFAC was formed in 2006 to advance and protect the Five Freedoms of the First Amendment, including the principle of the public’s right to know. We’re a broad-based organization of people who believe in the power of an informed democratic society. Our members include lawyers, journalists, historians, academics and private citizens.

Our coalition is funded through contributions made by those who value the First Amendment and who strive to keep government accountable. Please make a donation here.

Major Supporters of NEFAC include the Barr Foundation, The Providence Journal Charitable Legacy Fund, The Robertson Foundation, The Boston Globe, WBUR and Boston University.