The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University is pleased to welcome journalists Edward Wong and Jason Rezaian as members of the Nieman Advisory Board. The board, comprised of leading journalists, academics and media innovators, counsels Nieman leadership on a wide variety of issues related to Nieman’s fellowships, publications and programming.
Nieman Foundation Curator Ann Marie Lipinski said, “Edward and Jason bring deeply valuable experience to Nieman, as journalists who have reported from abroad and who have also reported from the U.S. on the domestic and international conditions impacting journalism. Their understanding of the risks and complexities journalists face worldwide is knowledge Nieman will draw on in shaping both its fellowships and publications. We are fortunate to work with them.”
Jason Rezaian is the director of press freedom initiatives at The Washington Post and chair of the advisory board for the Press Freedom Center at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. He previously wrote for the Post’s Global Opinions section and from 2012 to 2016, he served as the paper’s correspondent in Tehran.
In July 2014, he was arrested by Iranian authorities and imprisoned until his release in January 2016. Rezaian’s memoir, “Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison,” was published in 2019 and he adapted the book as a nine-episode podcast. He currently serves as the co-executive director of the Commission on Hostage Taking and Wrongful Detention at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
He was a CNN global affairs contributor and has appeared regularly on television and radio to offer analysis of Iran, threats to press freedom and the rise in state hostage taking. He was a Nieman Fellow in the class of 2017 and in 2023, was a fellow at Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School. He received his bachelor’s degree from The New School.
Edward Wong, is a diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times and author of “At the Edge of Empire: A Family’s Reckoning with China,” named by The Washington Post as a top nonfiction book of 2024 and by The Atlantic as a top summer read.
He has reported for the Times for more than 25 years, working for 13 of those as a correspondent and bureau chief in China and Iraq. Wong has been a visiting professor at Princeton University and U.C. Berkeley.
He was a 2018 Nieman Fellow and had fellowships at the Wilson Center in Washington and at the Belfer Center at Harvard Kennedy School. Wong was awarded the Livingston Prize for his reporting on the Iraq War and was on a team of finalists for a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the war. He received the Edward Weintal Prize from Georgetown University for diplomatic reporting.
Wong graduated from the University of Virginia with a bachelor’s degree in English literature. He also has joint master’s degrees in journalism and international studies from U.C. Berkeley. He received an honorary doctorate from Middlebury Language Schools.
