Nieman Foundation curator Bob Giles retired at the end of June after 11 years on the job. During his tenure, he found new ways to strengthen the Nieman Fellowship program and expand the foundation’s critical role in discussions about the future of serious journalism. Giles recently reflected on his time at Harvard and began by describing what it has been like to lead the Nieman Foundation for more than a decade. Read more
Two Latin American journalists will receive Nieman Fellowships to help them discover new ways to inform and engage their communities and foster a free press in their own countries, thanks to a new grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to the Nieman Foundation. The funding expands the scope of the long-established Knight Latin American Nieman Fellowship by supporting new experimental fieldwork projects for the journalists at the end of the academic year, with a new grant of almost $200,000. Read more
The Nieman Foundation has selected 24 journalists from the United States and abroad to become the 74th class of Nieman Fellows. Announcing the class, Nieman Foundation curator Bob Giles said “The class of 2012 includes journalists who have reported from around the globe on an extraordinarily wide range of topics and, in many cases, under dangerous circumstances. They will bring diverse interests and experiences that will enrich one another and the Harvard community. This new class of fellows holds great promise for leadership and advancing the practice of serious journalism in difficult times.” Read more
The Nieman Journalism Lab has created a new digital encyclopedia that includes entries on all the key players and issues affecting the future of news today. Encyclo is an online resource for those interested in learning more about the organizations shaping journalism’s rapid, sometimes tumultuous evolution. Read more
To Whom It May Concern: The staff at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University is deeply concerned about the safety and well-being of journalist Dorothy Parvaz, who is reported to be in Iranian custody. Read more
The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard is calling for information and assistance in obtaining the release of journalist Dorothy Parvaz, a 2009 Nieman Fellow, who is being held in Syria. Parvaz, who works for Al Jazeera, hasn’t been heard from since she landed in Damascus on assignment on Friday, April 29. Syrian officials have informed the news organization that they are holding her. Read more
William Osgood Taylor II, a longtime friend and supporter of the Nieman Foundation, has died in Boston after a lengthy illness. Taylor was the fourth member of his family to run The Boston Globe and oversaw the sale of the paper to The New York Times Co. in 1993. Read more
Ann Marie Lipinski, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former editor of the Chicago Tribune, has been named curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. Read more
Nieman curator Bob Giles writes about “The Value of the Nieman Fellows’ Experience” in the Spring 2011 issue of Nieman Reports. His comments about the 50th anniversary of the South African Nieman Fellowship prompted R.C. Smith, NF ’61, to reflect on his own Nieman year. Read more
Nieman curator Bob Giles writes about the difficulties Chinese blogger Michael Anti is having publishing under his preferred name. Anti, a 2008 Nieman Fellow whose government-recorded name is Zhao Jing, has used his pen name professionally for years. That changed quickly in January however, when Facebook cancelled his account without warning and deleted all his contacts, due to a “real name policy.” The Committee to Protect Journalists describes the move as complicit with “China’s growing attempt to stifle the free flow of news and opinion.” Read more
