Long-time foreign correspondent Michael Petrou has been awarded the 2017 R. James Travers Foreign Corresponding Fellowship, which was announced on Parliament Hill this afternoon.
Petrou will use the the $25,000 award, administered by Carleton University’s School of Journalism, to tell the stories of displaced Syrians — with an emphasis on those who remain in the Middle East, iPolitics reports. His work will appear in the National Post and Postmedia.
The R. James Travers Foreign Corresponding Fellowship was established to make an annual award of $25,000 to cover travel, reporting and research expenses and a stipend for a journalist. It is administered by Carleton University through its School of Journalism and Communication in the Faculty of Public Affairs.
The fellowship commemorates the career and ideals of Jim Travers – reporter, foreign correspondent, general manager for Southam News, editor of The Ottawa Citizen, executive managing editor of the Toronto Star and national columnist for the Star at the time of his death on March 3, 2011.
Friends and colleagues of Jim Travers established the fellowship fund to finance significant foreign reporting projects by Canadian journalists — staffers, freelancers or students — working in any medium. The Travers family enthusiastically supports the fellowship and is actively involved in its development.
The award reflects the importance that Jim Travers attached to his six years reporting from Africa and the Middle East. He believed Canadians deserve first-hand, in-depth coverage of important stories outside our borders. He argued passionately that it is crucial for Canadian reporters to “bear witness” — because in our interconnected world, “foreign” news is local news.
