Michigan Journalism Fellow

The Knight-Wallace Fellowship (previously known as the NEH Journalism Fellowship and the Michigan Journalism Fellowship) is an award given to mid-career journalists at the University of Michigan. Knight-Wallace Fellowships are awarded to reporters, editors, photographers, producers, editorial writers and cartoonists, with at least five years of full-time, professional experience in the news media.

The fellows attend mandatory seminars twice weekly, and each fellow pursues an independent study plan which involves auditing University of Michigan classes and working with a faculty advisor. International travel is an important part of the fellowship, with annual trips to Argentina, Brazil, and Turkey.

Fellows are given a stipend of $70,000, paid in monthly installments from September to April. The fellowship home is at the Wallace House in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The Michigan Journalism Fellows program, funded by National Endowment for the Humanities and modeled on Harvard's Nieman Fellowship, was established in 1973. The founding director was Ben L. Yablonky (1910–1991), a labor activist and University of Michigan journalism professor (as well as a former Nieman Fellow). The fellowship program was initially run out of the University of Michigan journalism department. In 1979, the journalism department was disbanded, and the fellowship was moved to the auspices of the university's Literature, Science and Art department. At this point, the program was known as Journalists in Residence.

In 1980, Graham B. Hovey (1916–2010), a former New York Times journalist, succeeded Jablonky as program director, serving until 1986. (The program hosts an annual lecture named in Hovey's honor and delivered by a former fellow; 2015 was the 30th Graham Hovey Lecture.) From 1984–2001, the program was again known as the Michigan Journalism Fellowship.

Charles R. Eisendrath, a former fellowship recipient (1974–1975) and Time magazine staff writer, had joined the University of Michigan's faculty after his fellowship, directing its master’s program in journalism. In 1981 he became founding director of the Livingston Awards, also run out of the University of Michigan. In 1984, Eisendrath joined a committee (led by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation) to increase the program's endowment, which was gradually losing its NEH support under the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Eisendrath took over as program director in 1986 upon Hovey's retirement. At that point the program's endowment was down to $30,000.The Washington Post's publisher, Katharine Graham, was an early donor, as was the Knight Foundation. Eisendrath also recruited the assistance of renowned journalist (and University of Michigan alumnus) Mike Wallace, who became an active proponent of and financial donor to the program. In 1992, Wallace and his wife Mary donated the Arts and Crafts-era Wallace House to the program, which became its headquarters, and in 1995, Wallace gave the program $1 million. Wallace made regular appearances at Wallace House, giving seminars and meeting with fellows, until shortly before his death in 2012. By this time, the fellowship was being administered by the University's Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies.