Journalist Sally Buzbee will join the Nieman Foundation as a Visiting Nieman Fellow for two months this fall, beginning in mid-September.
Former executive editor of both The Washington Post and The Associated Press, Buzbee will spend the weeks preceding and following the 2024 U.S. presidential election in discussions with Nieman Fellows, students, faculty and others on the Harvard University campus examining this historic political moment. She will also research nonprofit journalism business models and women’s leadership in news.
Buzbee served most recently as executive editor of The Washington Post, the first woman to be the newspaper’s top editor. During her tenure, the Post won numerous Pulitzer Prizes including a public service medal for its in-depth examination of the Jan. 6, 2021, post-election insurrection and the 2024 national reporting award for examinations of the role of the AR-15 in U.S. mass slayings. She expanded climate and wellness coverage, deepened the Post’s international investigative work and its domestic and international visual investigative work, and oversaw the creation of new pre-election and election-night analytical features to help readers and viewers understand elections more clearly.
“Sally is an experienced and respected journalism leader with special insights into election coverage,” said Nieman curator Ann Marie Lipinski. “We are fortunate that she will be with us on campus through the remainder of this unusual campaign, on election night, and in the immediate aftermath. We are also happy to support her research on nonprofit news organizations and women’s leadership.”
The Nieman Foundation’s Visiting Fellowship program brings journalists and other individuals to Harvard for short-term research projects designed to advance journalism.
A career in journalism leadership
Before joining the Post in 2021, Buzbee was executive editor of The Associated Press for five years, overseeing one of the world’s largest global newsrooms. She expanded the news cooperative’s investigative work and forged new partnerships with news organizations and foundations to strengthen coverage. She was closely involved in journalism security and free press issues. Buzbee also played a hands-on oversight role in the news cooperative’s race calling, election analysis and exit poll work and coverage of Joe Biden’s election to the White House.
Before that, as bureau chief for the AP in Washington, she helped lay the research groundwork to create AP’s VoteCast, an alternative to traditional exit polls, and expanded the bureau’s investigative work. She oversaw coverage of two presidential elections including Donald Trump’s 2016 election.
Buzbee previously served as Middle East regional editor for the AP based in Cairo from 2006 to 2010, overseeing its coverage of the U.S.-led Iraq war, Israel-Hamas war, Israel-Hezbollah war, Darfur crisis and Iran nuclear crises.
She started her career as a reporter in Kansas, Los Angeles, San Diego and Washington, D.C., covering state legislatures, immigration fights and national politics.
She serves on the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists and as a judge for the Livingston and Loeb journalism awards. She has a journalism degree from the University of Kansas and an MBA from Georgetown University.
The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard educates leaders in journalism, promotes innovation and elevates the standards of the profession. In addition to its fellowship program, the foundation publishes Nieman Reports, a website and print magazine covering thought leadership in journalism; Nieman Journalism Lab, a website reporting on the future of news, innovation and best practices in the digital media age; and Nieman Storyboard, a website showcasing exceptional narrative journalism and nonfiction storytelling.
