Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Michael Vitez says that being a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan taught him storytelling skills, which he used to write a series of articles on end-of-life issues that won a Pulitzer Prize.

Knight-Wallace Fellows spend eight months living and studying in Michigan. Director Charles Eisendrath leads the group and helps them build skills to advance their careers. Some fellows find new jobs after their time at Michigan by starting new programs. At least one fellow has launched his own company: Chris Carey was a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and now runs shareslueth.com, a for-profit investigative news site about stock fraud.

The University of Michigan, Stanford University and MIT host many of Knight Foundation’s fellowships for professional journalists. Knight has endowed a Batten professorship at Davidson College, Latin American fellows as part of the the Nieman Fellowship program at Harvard University, and Knight Chairs at journalism schools throughout the country. The foundation also supports the fellowship program’run by’both the International Center for Journalists and the Carnegie-Knight Initiative‘s News21‘project.

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