John Schidlovsky is the founding director of the International Reporting Project.

He created the program in 1998 with the goal of encouraging more international coverage in the U.S. media. Previously he spent four years as the first director of The Freedom Forum's Asian Center in Hong Kong. He also was the curator of the Jefferson Fellowships program for journalists at the East-West Center in Honolulu. Schidlovsky was a reporter for nearly 20 years, including 13 years with The Baltimore Sun. He was The Sun's Beijing bureau chief from 1987 to the end of 1989, and closely covered the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and aftermath. Earlier he served as The Sun's New Delhi bureau chief and covered events in the Indian Subcontinent and throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Before joining The Sun, he was a freelance reporter in Cairo and Beirut, covering the region for NBC, ABC and Newsday.