Editor and author James Geary, a 2012 Nieman Fellow, has been selected as the deputy curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism. In this position he will serve as editor of Nieman Reports, oversee other Nieman print and online publications and manage a range of duties related to the Nieman Fellowship program and the foundation’s journalism outreach efforts.
Responding to his new appointment, he said, “I am thrilled to be returning to the Nieman Foundation as deputy curator. This is an exciting — and tumultuous — time to be a journalist. The Nieman Foundation and Harvard are uniquely placed to explore and expand our ideas about what journalism can and should be, and I look forward with tremendous enthusiasm to being part of that effort.”
Nieman Foundation curator Ann Marie Lipinski added, “James is a sophisticated writer, editor and thinker who will bring tremendous range and skill to Nieman. His work writing and editing complex stories, his deep publishing experience, and his time spent leading both established and start-up journalism operations will be a great asset to us. In addition, his time as a Nieman Fellow gave him a deep appreciation and understanding of the possibilities for journalists who come to Harvard for study. We are happy to welcome him back in this leadership role.”
Geary has been living and working in Europe for the past 23 years. After finishing his Nieman Fellowship at Harvard this past summer, he returned to London where he was the founding editor-in-chief of The World Weekly, a new international print news magazine made up of original journalism and syndicated content from publications around the world. He was also a contributing editor for The European Daily, a new website devoted to covering the news from a distinctly European perspective.
Geary is also the former editor of the European edition of Time as well as Ode, a U.S.-Dutch magazine about positive change. During his tenure as editor of Ode, the publication won three Gold Eddies and one silver Eddie, given out by Folio Magazine, and three Maggie Awards, awarded by the Western Publishers Association. His story for Popular Science on the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, “The First Assassination of the 21st Century,” was selected for inclusion in the “Best American Science and Nature Writing 2007” anthology.
Geary is the author of four books, the most recent of which is “I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World.” His history of the aphorism, “The World in a Phrase,” was a New York Times bestseller.