Freeman editor leaves for US on scholarship grant

Noel Pangilinan, Editor-in-Chief of the Cebu-based daily, The Freeman was awarded a journalism scholarship by the Columbia University in New York City, USA.

Pangilinan, who was awarded the Jack R. Howard Fellowship by the University’s Graduate School of Journalism, will attend the 10-month Master in Science in Journalism course at Columbia starting Aug. 1.

Robert MacDonald, Columbia University’s director of admissions, said the Jack Howard Fellowship is the most prestigious scholarship the university gives to a foreign journalist or student. Columbia University’s journalism school is considered the best journalism program in the US. The Jack R. Howard Fellowship is funded by the Scripps Howard Foundation, which was set up by the Scripps Howard Co., a media corporation with interests in newspapers, broadcast television stations, cable television networks and other media-related enterprise.

Pangilinan will leave for New York on July 15 together with his family, lawyer-wife Cristina Godinez, and children Rosa Hiraya and Rosa Marikit. Pangilinan is the editor-in-chief of The Freeman since 1995. He has also been teaching journalism at the University of the Philippines in Cebu since 1996.

Early last year, Pangilinan was also invited by the United States’ State Department to participate in an international print journalism program under its International Visitor Program.