Join us at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 8 for a reception, dinner and discussions

Karen DeYoung, Washington Post

Highlights of our annual event marking the end of the fellowship year include comments by Russian journalist and Alfred Friendly alumna Yevgenia M. Albats, a conversation with Washington Post senior national security correspondent Karen DeYoung and remarks by members of the Class of 2017.

The Fellows — from Malaysia, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Kenya, Ukraine and Cuba — have spent six months gaining hands-on experience and leadership skills they’ll need to become more effective journalists and to make a profound impact in their home newsrooms.

The event celebrating this year’s Fellows will take place on Friday, Sept. 8 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.. The program,, sponsored by Frank Islam and Debbie Driesman, begins with a reception at 6 p.m.  (Click here to see your invitation to the event)

DeYoung,an associate editor at the Post,  has won numerous awards for national and international reporting and is the author of “Soldier,” a biography of Colin Powell. She shared a Pulitzer Prize with several Washington Post colleagues for national coverage of the war on terrorism. She will be interviewed by Tim Carrington, a former international journalist with The Wall Street Journal and a Friendly foundation board member.

Albats will receive the Susan Talalay Award for Outstanding Journalism for her work and bravery in exposing corruption in Russia. Jacqueline Combs Nelson will receive the Ellen Soeteber Award for mentorship.

Jackie (left) and Yevgenia in Moscow

Albats is the editor-in-chief of The New Times, an independent political weekly, and an anchor for the Echo Moskva radio station. Echo of Moscow is often referred to as “the last bastion of free speech in Russia.”
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She’s written four books, including The State Within A State: KGB and Its Hold on Russia. Past, Present and Future.  She was an Alfred Friendly Fellow in 1990 and worked at the Chicago Tribune. 
Combs Nelson, a Tribune news editor at the time, was her mentor at the newspaper.
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The two reunited last year in Moscow while Combs Nelson was on her “Alfred Friendly World Tour,”  in which she visited former Fellows, including many she mentored and housed. Combs Nelson also participated this year in the orientation session at the Missouri School of Journalism, where the Fellows get a crash course in U.S. culture and tips on how to successfully navigate their new environment.