Six journalists selected as Western Enterprise Reporting Fellows

Six print and broadcast journalists from North America and Europe have been selected from 32 applicants to be the inaugural Western Enterprise Reporting Fellows at the Bill Lane Center for the Study of the North American West. During the 2006-07 academic year, each fellow will spend two weeks on campus developing articles and broadcast pieces on the environment, politics and culture of the Western United States, Western Canada and Northern Mexico.

Fellows will have access to faculty, library and archival resources and support services to develop story ideas. Participants will discuss their work at special colloquia for faculty, students and community members. The resulting work will be published or broadcast in a variety of media, from national and regional newspapers to public radio and foreign newspapers and newsmagazines, said Margaret O'Mara, deputy director of the center.

The fellows and their reporting projects are listed as follows, in order of the likely dates of their visits to campus:

Matt Jenkins, West Coast correspondent, High Country News; the All-American Canal and managing Western water resources (October 2006)

Gabriela Olivares Torres, editor, ZETA; poverty on the U.S.-Mexico border (October-November 2006)

Ray Ring, Northern Rockies editor, High Country News; property-rights, legal groups and law firms in the American West (November 2006)

Kat Snow, producer, KQED-FM; climate change and the California water supply (January-February 2007)

Artur Domoslawski, columnist and opinion writer, Gazeta Wyborcza; the immigrants' rights movement (February 2007)

Juliet Eilperin, national environmental reporter, Washington Post; pesticides in the West, conservation and the Farm Bill (March 2007)

The Bill Lane Center, founded in 2002, is an interdisciplinary institute dedicated to improving the study and public understanding of the North American West. Through research programs, teaching, public events and conferences, the center brings together scholars, journalists, policymakers and public intellectuals to address the central issues shaping the past, present and future of the region, O'Mara said.

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