From Health Reporter in Kenya to Knight Fellow at MIT

Date Posted : Thursday, 07 Jun 2012

John Muchangi, Knight Fellow at MIT

“The day I got an email informing me that I was one of 12 journalists from across the world that had been selected for the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT, was the highlight of my journalism career”.

John Muchangi, a health journalist at The Star newspaper in Kenya, knows the Fellowship, which kicks off in August in Massachusetts in the US in August, is a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity.

“But I also know that there have been other people instrumental in getting me to this position”, says the shy but determined Muchangi.

“Without Internews in Kenya this moment might not have come to pass.  Indeed, some of the stories that I submitted with my application for the fellowship were done through Internews travel grants, as part of training and mentoring commitments or after attending the organization’s roundtables”, says Muchangi.

Over a period of months, the Kenyan reporter participated in online, print and training-of-trainers workshops in health journalism at Internews. Some of the stories produced as part of the training included assistance and mentorship on in-depth articles on women and birth control, male sex workers in Nairobi and alarm over medical waste. 

“Internews has contributed greatly to my advancement in health journalism, specifically on HIV reporting. It is from these training that I mastered the language and even courage to explore the strongly taboo subjects in Kenya like men who have sex with men. I hope more journalists will continue to benefit from the same training”, concluded Muchangi.

Read Muchangi’s articles and The Knight Science Fellowship:

http://www.the-star.co.ke/lifestyle/128-lifestyle/52011-inside-the-life-of-nairobi-male-sex-workers

http://www.the-star.co.ke/lifestyle/128-lifestyle/52664-birth-control-garissa-women-say-not-yet-time

http://www.internewskenya.org/summaries.php?id=3522

http://web.mit.edu/knight-science/fellows/current.html

(For more information about John Muchangi’s entries for the Knight Fellowship – as well as the Internews health journalism project which lead to the award – Click Here)