Journalists who want to improve their health reporting by deepening their expertise have a new opportunity available. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has granted US$1.19 million to the Nieman Foundation for a new fellowship program at Harvard University in Boston. The Nieman Fellowships in Global Health Reporting will begin in the 2006-2007 academic year. Application deadline: January 31. Each year, the program will accept three journalists, one from the United States, one from Europe, and one from any developing country. The fellows will spend one academic year at Harvard, followed by four months of field work in developing countries. Organizers said the fellowships are based on the idea that journalists have a key role to play in informing the public about diseases, prevention and treatment. "The emergence of worldwide health threats such as bird flu has driven home the point that this is a small world indeed, and what happens in Africa and Asia can affect us all," said Jay Winsten, associate dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, in the Harvard Crimson newspaper. For more information, contact the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at nieman_applications@harvard.edu or visit http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/