2025 Press Fellows arrive at Wolfson

2025 Derek Ingram Press Fellows Kaiser Andrabi (left) and Joseph “Msanii” Kimani (right)

The Wolfson Press Fellowship programme, directed by Professor John Naughton, enables established journalists to study at Cambridge for a period of ten weeks. During their time in Cambridge, each Press Fellow investigates a subject of their choice under light academic supervision. The programme has been running since 1982 and has to date welcomed over 350 journalists from around the world.

This year, three journalists from Malaysia have arrived to take up the Fellowship:

Ameerul bin Azizi is a News Editor/Producer on Radio Televisyen Malaysia. He's here to investigate the willingness of publics to trust news that has been 'fact-checked' by AI systems as well as identifying issues related to non-human sources.

Seet Wei Niam is an Assistant Editor on the Economic Desk of the Malaysian National News Agency, and she's in Cambridge to investigate media coverage (or lack thereof) of the apparent tensions between the Malaysian government's ambitious plans to expand domestic adoption of electric vehicles and the country's role as an exporter of fossil fuels.

Reena Raj Telkeras is Vice-President of Corporate Communications at Khazanah, the Malaysian Sovereign Wealth Fund. Her research will cover crisis communication in the era of social media, and in particular the impact of the 24-hour news cycle on the mental health of those who work in corporate communications.

The Derek Ingram Press Fellowship, run in association with the Commonwealth Journalists Association (CJA), is open to established journalists from any Commonwealth country.

Those selected as Derek Ingram Press Fellows have all their costs and fees covered by the Press Fellowship programme. This year, Wolfson and the CJA have awarded an unprecedented two places to journalists.

“I was overwhelmed with joy when I learned about my selection as a Derek Ingram Fellow,” says Kaiser Andrabi, an independent Indian journalist who has reported regularly on the disruptive impact of misinformation and online hate on India's secular social fabric.

“Coming from a small hamlet in Kashmir, where life is often filled with challenges and uneventful, the opportunity to study at a prestigious institution like the University of Cambridge is nothing short of euphoric. This is the chance I have been seeking for quite some time, and I am deeply grateful to Wolfson and the CJA for granting me this incredible opportunity and for believing in my proposal."

"It will enhance my knowledge and research skills, helping me develop a more nuanced understanding to produce work of quality and impact, and the mentorship I will receive will be instrumental in shaping this research proposal. After acquiring skills and richer insights in an international competitive environment, my chances to avail of new opportunities in my homeland will increase.”

Kaiser’s work has been published in the South China Morning Post, TRT World, Swedish Radio, The Daily Beast and other outlets, and the project he’ll be working on at Wolfson is about the erosion of Press Freedom in India and its impact on the country's democracy.

The second Derek Ingram Fellow this year is Joseph “Msanii” Kimani, who works as a cartoonist and arts journalist in Kenya. Kim, as he prefers to be known, is Founder and Curator-in-Chief of *REVEAL! Comics ConversationsEA*, a platform aimed at creating a vibrant community and a sustainable ecosystem for comics and graphic novels in East Africa. He's here to study the role of political cartoons in protecting and advancing democratic governance in his country.

“My motivation to apply was tied to the Press Fellowship’s noble intentions of giving ‘journalists a chance to stand back from their daily work…. to allow them to concentrate on undertaking a project of study or in more depth than would be possible under the pressure of normal work’,” says Kim.

“As an arts journalist, who is also a freelance one, God knows how much an opportunity like this is needed. To make ends meet, we find ourselves covering different art genres— music, literature, film etc. and this has a way of pushing one to be a ‘generalist’. Between pitching story ideas with editors, researching, writing, revising and delivering articles, one can hardly muster enough time to pick an area that you can build your expertise on and become a subject matter expert.

I have been on the path to break away from this and I have identified the art genre that I would like to work on. This Fellowship will help me to write about a pet subject— editorial cartoons and comic in general, which is an area that has not been adequately addressed in Kenya and the region.

As we age in the profession, finding and becoming a subject matter expert in area is an important development because it doesn’t just help redefine and reinvent a writer, it opens up a new world of possibilities and contributions. I am on this path and this is what I am hoping the Fellowship will help me to achieve.”

We wish all our new Press Fellows the best, and please do say hello if you see them around College!