Dogged reporting in Azerbaijan landed a U.S.-trained journalist in prison

The U.S. government spends millions each year on programs to improve the skills of foreign reporters, but rarely have its efforts helped produce such a media superstar as Khadija Ismayilova in Azerbaijan.

Ismayilova was 27 when she enrolled in her first U.S.-funded investigative workshop in Baku in 2003. At 30, she moved to Washington to work for the government’s Voice of America, which trained her in broadcasting. Two years later, she returned home as bureau chief of the U.S.-funded Rad ........