The program's early founding made it a pioneer in the “non-profit journalism” movement that seeks to fill the gap left by much of the mainstream media's reduction of international news.
In a highly competitive process, journalists submit project proposals to the IRP for grants that enable them to spend an average of five weeks overseas reporting on important international issues.
Among the journalists who have received IRP Fellowships are Steve Inskeep, co-host of NPR's “Morning Edition”; Raney Aronson-Rath, executive producer at PBS Frontline; Joby Warrick, national security reporter at The Washington Post; Kathryn Schulz, staff writer for The New Yorker, Anne Barnard, Beirut bureau chief at The New York Times, and many others.
The IRP has taken groups to Indonesia (twice), Brazil (twice), South Africa (twice), Lebanon/Syria, India (twice), Egypt, Nigeria, Korea (including the North), Uganda, Zambia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Kenya (twice), Tanzania, Peru, China, Liberia, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Ecuador, Lesotho, Saudi Arabia, Mozambique and Nepal.
Recent participants have included writer/reporters such as Irin Carmon, Zoe Fox, Sarika Bansal, Tom Murphy, Jill Filipovic, Azmat Khan, Lauren Bohn, Azad Essa and many others.
[2] Occasionally, the IRP also offers the "Journalist-in-Residence" fellowship, enabling senior journalists, in many cases, veteran foreign correspondents, to spend anywhere from one to eight months in Washington, D.C. to work on a book or other project about international affairs.