Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa, King of Bahrain, came to the throne in 1999. Since then, he has expanded the rights of women, modernized his country, and established Bahrain as a financial center in the region. Two years ago, on February 14, 2011, several thousand demonstrators gathered in the Bahraini capital, Manama, to demand more popular political participation and reform. To many Western commentators and journalists, it was a sign that the Arab Spring was spreading to the Gulf countries. Read more
Two Nieman fellows have been selected as finalists for the 2012 Pulitzer Prizes. Judges recognized Tony Bartelme, NF’11, and Alexandra Garcia, NF'13. Read more
Brian McGrory was named editor of The Boston Globe just four months before the Boston Marathon bombings captured the world’s attention. Ten days into that coverage, McGrory spoke with David L. Marcus, NF ’96, the Globe’s former diplomatic correspondent, who worked with McGrory in the Globe’s Washington bureau in the 1990s. Read more
Twitter coverage of the manhunt in Watertown marks a wake-up call to journalists everywhere. Even more remarkable are the implications for ordinary citizens who, without a press pass, intentionally plant themselves on the scene to witness and tweet what they see in real time. For the latter group of news gatherers, this event instills a newfound sense of power and responsibility in how they verify and disseminate news; i.e., gain credibility and authority as a news source. Read more
As part of his Nieman Fellowship, Boston Globe reporter David Abel is taking a class on how to make documentary films. Yesterday he was working on his final project, about Juli Windsor, the first dwarf to run the Boston Marathon. He woke up at 5 o'clock in the morning and went to film Windsor getting ready, then took the bus with her to Hopkinton, where the race starts. He was standing on the finish line, shooting footage of all the runners coming across and waiting for Windsor to come in when the bombs went off. Read more
The explosions at the Boston Marathon made front-page news around the world, with Líberation in Paris, El País in Madrid, and The Jerusalem Post in Israel carrying coverage from 2013 Nieman Fellows Ludovic Blecher, Borja Echevarria, and Yaakov Katz, respectively. Read more
Investigative reporter David Jackson, NF ’11, is part of the Chicago Tribune team that that has won the 2012 Investigative Reporters & Editors’ FOI Award for “Empty-Desk Epidemic.” The series exposed a devastating pattern of student absenteeism in the Chicago school system and the indifference of city officials who ignored the problem.
NPR’s Howard Berkes, a 1998 Nieman Fellow, was among the finalists for the in multiplatform /large category for “As Mine Protections Fail, Black Lung Cases Surge,” co-produced by NPR, the Center for Public Integrity and The Charleston Gazette. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's John Diedrich, an affiliate from the Class of 2012, was a finalist with colleagues in two categories: the FOI Award for “Police Problems,” and the Investigations Triggered by Breaking News Award for “Spa Shooting.” Read more
Robert P. “Bob” Clark, a retired top editor of The Courier-Journal and The Louisville Times, died recently in Ohio. He was 91. Under his leadership, the newspapers won three Pulitzer Prizes. Clark also served as president of the Associated Press Managing Editors Association and of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Read more
Anthony Lewis, a former New York Times reporter and columnist, author, and longtime advocate for free speech and justice, has died at the age of 85. A Nieman Fellow in the class of 1957, Lewis was a constitutional law expert whose groundbreaking coverage of the Supreme Court changed the way complex legal matters are reported in the United States. Read more
Grady Clay, NF ’49, a journalist and a leading national authority on urban design who wrote for The Courier-Journal and edited Landscape Architecture Quarterly, died Sunday, March 17, at 96. Architect and friend Steve Wiser called Clay “one of the nation’s leading urban design thinkers.” Read more
