Abebe Gellaw, the 2008-09 Yahoo! International Fellow at Stanford this year, is an example of how one person with a great idea can make a difference.

Abebe is an Ethiopian journalist, but the regime in his home country is too repressive to allow true journalism, so he is in exile. He had been in London for years before coming to the U.S. as the Yahoo! International Journalism Fellow at Stanford.

The Yahoo! fellowship was specifically established for people like Abebe, journalists from countries where there are strong challenges to a free press. Yahoo! and the Knight Fellowships agreed that supporting journalists who were directly or indirectly under attack should be at the top of the to-do list, and so we created the Yahoo! Fellowship in 2006, with a generous gift from Yahoo!.

Abebe is the third Yahoo! Fellow, following Imtiaz Ali, from Pakistan, and Violet Gonda, of Zimbabwe. Like Abebe, Violet was in exile, too. Abebe’s great idea is Addis Voice, a London-based website devoted to independent news about Ethiopia. It has become a trusted source of news and commentary for the Ethiopian diaspora. Here’s an interview with Abebe:

Abebe’s fellowship is ending, and we are ready to welcome Nadia Trinidad of the Philippines, one of the deadliest countries for journalists in the world. Nadia is a senior correspondent for ABS-CBN Brooadcasting Company in Manila. She will study the psychological and sociological aspects of corruption in the media. She will arrive in August.

Journalists are under attack around the world, and organizations like the Committee To Protect Journalists make sure that those attacks are brought to light. It makes me feel proud that the Knight Fellowships and Yahoo! have teamed up to provide a fellowship at Stanford every year for someone who is bearing the brunt of those attacks.

Jim Bettinger
Director, John S. Knight Fellowship for Professional Journalists
Stanford University

Filmed and edited by Bart Bishoff, Yahoo! Broadcast Bureau

I respect lots of journalists. But I’m in awe of Violet Gonda, who was the 2007-08 Yahoo! International Fellow at Stanford last year. Why? Because she defies an oppressive regime in Zimbabwe that wants to shut her up. She walks the walk of speaking truth to power.

The Yahoo! International Journalism Fellowship at Stanford was established for people like Violet, journalists from countries where there are strong challenges to a free press. Yahoo! and the Knight Fellowships agreed that we needed to support journalists who were directly or indirectly under attack, and so we created the fellowship in 2006, with a generous gift from Yahoo!. (The Knight Fellowships itself has been around since 1966. A young Jerry Yang first met with the Knight Fellows in the spring of 1995.)

The first Yahoo! Fellow was Imtiaz Ali, from Pakistan, where journalism is a deadly occupation. But there could hardly be country that fits our definition better than Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe’s regime has systematically and brutally cracked down on anyone who disagreed with it — opposition politicians, the press, human rights activists and others. Violet Gonda has been banned from the country (actually, the justice minister said the country would welcome her back — but only in prison) so she works in exile, at a small radio station, SW Radio Africa, in London. This station broadcasts uncensored news about Zimbabwe back into the country by any means possible, including text messaging. (Want to get a taste of her work? Listen to these two interviews, one with a Mugabe spokesman and the other with Desmond Tutu.) We were proud to have her for the year at Stanford, where she studied the development of news media in emerging democracies. Now she is back in London. If there’s a God in heaven, someday she will someday be able to return to her homeland.

And as she leaves, we are ready to welcome Abebe Gellaw, of Ethiopia, who will be the 2008-09 Yahoo! International Fellow. Like Violet, Abebe is in exile. He left after the Ethiopian government started rounding up and arresting journalists in November 2005. He is editor-in chief of Addis Voice, a London-based website devoted independent news about Ethiopia. He will arrive in August for his year.

Journalists are under attack around the world, and organizations like the Committee To Protect Journalists make sure that those attacks are brought to light. It makes me feel proud that the Knight Fellowships and Yahoo! have teamed up to provide a fellowship at Stanford every year for someone who is bearing the brunt of those attacks.

Jim Bettinger
Director, John S. Knight Fellowship for Professional Journalists
Stanford University