Year in Review

2016 tested journalism in startling and unprecedented ways. In the run-up to the U.S. presidential election, a number of reporters were physically threatened at campaign rallies. Others were bullied online. Access to candidates declined as fake news stories proliferated through social media, and the press increasingly came under attack.

Harsh criticism of coverage followed in the days after the November election. Many, both in and outside the news industry, questioned how journalists had so often missed the biggest stories of the campaign, a reproach that echoed complaints by critics in Britain after the surprise Brexit vote in June.

spring2016coverThe Nieman Foundation was quick to respond. Nieman Reports launched the ongoing series “Election ’16: Lessons for Journalism,” which features essays from reporters, academics, media analysts and others who offer insights and suggestions on how to move forward. Earlier in the year, Nieman Reports ran a prescient cover package examining many of the relevant issues in “Covering the Campaign.”

Nieman Lab also has been following campaign developments as they relate to journalists, posting “The forces that drove this election’s media failure are likely to get worse” the day after Donald Trump was elected president.

As 2017 approaches, Nieman plans to continue to take a leading role in defining why journalism matters more than ever today.

A Century of Prize-Winning Work

pulitzer-thumb

In stark contrast to the post-election malaise, Nieman in September hosted the capstone marquee event of a yearlong centennial celebration of the Pulitzer Prizes. Pulitzer-winning journalists, composers, authors, poets and playwrights gathered at Harvard to explore the theme “Power: Abuse and Accountability” through talks, conversations, performances and concerts.

Robert Caro, NF '66

Robert Caro, NF '66

The two-day event highlighted the very best in journalism and the arts, beginning with Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust’s introduction of world-renowned jazz pioneer and Pulitzer winner Wynton Marsalis and ending with a moving performance of “On the Transmigration of Souls,” by composer John Adams, the musical ode to the victims of 9/11, on the 15th anniversary of the attacks. In between, during sessions on power in the home, power in the nation and power in the world, we heard from Pulitzer-winning speakers ranging from Bob Woodward and Laura Poitras to Sacha Pfeiffer, Robert Caro and Annette Gordon-Reed.

Foundation Updates

Juan Manuel Santos, NF '88, with Nieman curator Ann Marie Lipinski, NF '90

Juan Manuel Santos, NF '88, with Nieman curator Ann Marie Lipinski, NF '90

In October, we also saw the first Nieman win the Nobel Peace Prize when Juan Manuel Santos, president of Colombia and a 1988 Nieman Fellow, was recognized for his efforts to bring peace to his country after more than 50 years of civil war.

Nieman Lab continued to spotlight changes in digital journalism and media innovations, while Nieman Storyboard showcased the best narrative journalism and introduced new features under the leadership of new editor Kari Howard. Nieman Reports also did important work on covering the often-misunderstood transgender community and published a special Pulitzer Prize issue.

Gabriel Dance

Gabriel Dance

Throughout the year, we invited a wide variety of speakers to Lippmann House for seminars, shop talks, master classes and more informal conversations. We heard behind-the-scene insights from people like Per Wästberg, chairman of the Nobel Prize Committee on Literature, as well as cutting-edge media practitioners like The Marshall Project’s managing editor Gabriel Dance (now deputy investigations editor at The New York Times) and Guardian US editor Lee Glendinning. Seminar speakers shared research and opinions, including former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson; sociologist Matthew Desmond, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Social Sciences at Harvard and author of the award-winning book “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City”; and Democratic presidential candidate Lawrence Lessig, the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.

Jill Lepore

Jill Lepore

Shop talks featured headliners like author and New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean, NF ’04, and a discussion about race with Wesley Lowery, a national reporter at The Washington Post, and Michele Norris, former host of NPR’s “All Things Considered” and curator of The Race Card Project. We also heard from strategic thinkers like Nicco Mele, director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, and Jay Lauf, president and publisher of Quartz, as well as great talents like Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore and author Jamaica Kincaid.

Fellows also invited a range of guests to Lippmann House, including Jon Williams, managing editor for international news at ABC News; Mary Norris, copy editor at The New Yorker and author of “Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen”; and Salvadoran journalist Carlos Dada, founder of El Faro, an award-winning news site that investigates violence, organized crime, war crimes and corruption in Central America.

Michael Rezendes

Michael Rezendes

In the spring we expanded the reach of the Christopher J. Georges Conference on College Journalism, inviting students to participate from schools that previously had not attended, including editors and reporters from The University Daily Kansan at the University of Kansas and the Columbia Missourian at the University of Missouri. During two days of programming students heard from keynote speaker Jackie Calmes, national correspondent for The New York Times in Washington, D.C., and Michael Rezendes, Pulitzer-winning investigative reporter and political writer at The Boston Globe, along with other journalists and a number of current and former Nieman Fellows. The students also shared information about how they themselves are reporting at colleges and universities across the United States.

As we continued to bring journalism innovators to campus through our Knight Visiting Nieman Fellowship program, we also expanded in-house training for fellows to include a new digital storytelling course.

Kathleen Carroll

Kathleen Carroll

We continued to reward excellence in journalism through our awards, which shine a light on some of the best journalism produced each year. AP’s executive editor Kathleen Carroll delivered the 35th annual Joe Alex Morris Jr. Lecture on foreign reporting, reminding us just how difficult international coverage is:

“Last year was the deadliest on record for journalists. This year, journalists are being jailed on trumped up charges in record numbers. Autocratic leaders demand fawning coverage and if they don’t get it, the price is prison. Not a very pretty picture, is it? The work is dangerous. The risks are high. The market is shrinking and the audiences subject to boredom and ennui. So, then is international coverage worth it? Of course it is. Now more than ever. Our lives are too interconnected to turn our backs on the world. And we know from history the dangers of the rest of the world turning inward, too. Journalism is what can make the difference.”

Yang Jisheng

Yang Jisheng

Her words reminded us of the powerful speech Lyons Award winner Yang Jisheng prepared when he was chosen for Lyons in the spring. Yang was banned from traveling to Cambridge to accept the award, but he sent comments that were read at the award ceremony by Stacy Mosher, the translator of his book “Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine 1958-1962.” Yang wrote, in part:

“Fact is a powerful bomb that blasts lies to smithereens. Fact is a beacon in the night that lights the road of progress. Fact is the touchstone of truth; there can be no truth without facts.

Journalists are the recorders, excavators and defenders of truth…I would like to join with all of you in this prayer for the journalistic profession: May the sunlight of conscience and integrity shine upon the desks of all journalists and writers. May more works be published that awaken the conscience of humanity and allow the light of justice to shine on every corner of the earth.”

 

2016 Seminar Speakers

The Nieman Foundation hosts dozens of events each year that bring media industry leaders, scholars and award-winning journalists to campus for shop talks and seminars that are often shared with the wider journalism community through Nieman Foundation reports, videos and audio recordings.

  • Michael Sandel, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government, Harvard University
  • Annette Gordon-Reed, Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History, Harvard Law School
  • Matthew Desmond, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Social Sciences, Harvard University, and co-director of the Justice and Poverty Project
  • Daniel Gilbert, Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology, Harvard University
  • Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Emily Hargroves Fisher Professor of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Lawrence Lessig

Lawrence Lessig

  • Lawrence Lessig, Roy L. Furman Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
  • Jill Lepore, David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History, Harvard University, staff writer at The New Yorker
  • Karim Lakhani, professor of business administration, Harvard Business School
  • Steve Jarding, lecturer in public policy, Harvard Kennedy School
  • David Gergen, professor of public service and co-director of the Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School
  • Jonathan Walton, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, Harvard University, and Pusey Minister in Harvard’s Memorial Church
  • Nicco Mele, director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Leah Wright-Rigueur

Leah Wright-Rigueur

  • Leah Wright-Rigueur, assistant professor of public policy, Harvard Kennedy School
  • Noam Chomsky, professor emeritus in the linguistics department at MIT, author and activist
  • Gary King, Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor, Harvard University, and director of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science
  • Jill Abramson, former executive editor of The New York Times and senior lecturer in Harvard’s English department
Jonathan Zittrain

Jonathan Zittrain

  • Jonathan Zittrain, George Bemis Professor of International Law, Harvard Law School, and co-founder and director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society
  • Alvaro Pascual-Leone, professor of neurology and an associate dean for clinical and translational research, Harvard Medical School, and director of the Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
  • Marshall Ganz, senior lecturer in public policy, Harvard Kennedy School
  • Jamaica Kincaid, novelist and essayist, professor of African and African American Studies in residence, Harvard’s English department

2016 Shop Talk Speakers and Instructors

Ryan McCarthy

Ryan McCarthy

In addition to Nieman seminars, the foundation hosts a series of shop talks, master classes and workshops throughout the year. Guests discuss newsroom innovation, business models, audience engagement, analytics, social media best practices, storytelling techniques for digital platforms and much more.

  • Wesley Lowery, national reporter at The Washington Post, together with Michele Norris, former host of NPR’s “All Things Considered” and curator of The Race Card Project
  • Jay Lauf, president and publisher of Quartz
  • Jonathan Munro, head of newsgathering for the BBC
  • Raney Aronson, executive producer of Frontline
  • Visit to Google’s Cambridge office
  • Visit to The Christian Science Monitor newsroom for a meeting with top editors
  • Susan Orlean, NF ’04, author and New Yorker staff writer
  • Amy Webb, 2016 Knight Visiting Nieman Fellow, digital media futurist and founder of Webbmedia Group, now known as the Future Today Institute
  • Ryan McCarthy, editor-in-chief of Vice News
  • Gabriel Dance, managing editor of The Marshall Project (now deputy investigations editor at The New York Times)
  • Julie Shapiro, executive producer of Radiotopia from PRX
  • Lee Glendinning, Jon Swaine and Oliver Laughland from Guardian US
  • Sree Sreenivasan, chief digital officer for New York City
  • Stacy Martinet, chief marketing officer, Mashable
  • Laura Amico, NF ’13, digital editor, The Boston Globe
Tamar Charney

Tamar Charney

Nieman Fellows and staff also hosted a number of casual talks with leading thinkers visiting Harvard and organized short workshops, including:

  • Jon Williams, managing editor for international news, ABC News
  • A screening of a documentary about a kidnapping by ISIS by Paul Wood, a Joan Shorenstein Fellow and BBC world affairs correspondent, followed by Q&A
  • Mary Norris, copy editor at The New Yorker
  • John Barth, chief content officer at PRX
  • Carlos Dada, Salvadoran journalist and founder of the El Faro investigative journalism website
  • David Finkel, author and Pulitzer-winning staff writer, The Washington Post
  • David Plotz, host of Slate’s Political Gabfest podcast and CEO of Atlas Obscura
  • Tamar Charney, managing editor, NPR One

Collaborations

Each year, the Nieman Foundation collaborates with a number of local centers and groups – including the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, the Harvard Writers at Work lecture series, Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, the MIT Center for Civic Media and the MIT Media Lab – to co-sponsor events and share ideas.

As part of the Herbert C. Kelman Seminars on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution, in September 2016 Nieman Fellow Christa Case Bryant, the politics editor for The Christian Science Monitor, spoke about “Finding Humanity Amid Conflict.”

Nkem Ifejika, NF '17

Nkem Ifejika, NF '17

In October, the foundation hosted fellows from MIT and Harvard for a quick round of “Ignite” talks. They shared thoughts on specific ideas and projects of interest to the group. Nkem Ifejika, a 2017 Nieman Fellow, and Derrick Jackson, NF ’84, a 2016 Shorenstein Fellow, represented the foundation.