CELEBRATING - Nieman Foundation - Harvard University

WE L C O M E
The Nieman Foundation staff and I extend the warmest of welcomes to all Nieman
Fellows and their affiliates who have traveled to Cambridge to help us celebrate
70 years of Nieman Fellowships.
Looking back over seven decades of a program that began with the cautious
endorsement of a university president who thought the idea “frankly experimental,”
it is remarkable that the mission set forth by Agnes Wahl Nieman was more
visionary than anyone could have imagined at the time.
The program’s core purpose of providing a year of study at Harvard for working journalists has not changed.
But Mrs. Nieman’s mandate “to promote and elevate the standards of journalism” has enabled a succession of
curators to enlarge the work of the foundation: engaging in creative ways with the changing methods of news
gathering; helping international fellows find an independent voice and, on occasion, refuge; growing a
network of Nieman Fellows worldwide; finding new ways to help fellows perfect their craft.
Even in this time of shrinking news staffs and the unsettling challenge of change, Nieman Fellows continue to
arrive at Harvard with an untarnished commitment to the guiding principles of journalism. They understand
what sets journalism apart. They recognize that the privilege of being a fellow also carries the expectation to
be a guardian of journalism’s core values.
From the beginning, the Nieman year has been a gift of time: time to read, to reflect, to savor the discovery of
yet another unexpected surprise at Harvard and time to establish and nurture friendships within the class that
often endure for a lifetime. Curator Howard Simons caught the spirit of this when he famously urged one of
his early classes to “scratch where it doesn’t itch.”
Any measure of the Nieman program begins with the fellows. In great stories reported, in moments of courage,
in leading innovation, in taking charge, in prizes won, Nieman Fellows have established the relevance of the
program and reaffirmed it over and over through the excellence of their work. Their example has inspired
other journalists of an independent frame of mind to apply for Nieman Fellowships.
Harvard’s remarkable stewardship of our endowment has enabled the Nieman program to grow both in its
service to the fellows and its outreach to other journalists. Among the things we celebrate over these 70 years
is an extraordinary relationship with a university that has so generously welcomed journalists to its classrooms
and lecture halls and provided an oasis for learning in the midst of one’s career. Our special place in this
world-class university has helped guarantee that a Nieman Fellowship is a prize beyond measure.
We look forward to the challenge of helping to educate new generations of Nieman Fellows for a dynamic,
if uncertain, future in the firm belief that journalism matters.
Bob Giles
Nieman Foundation Curator, 1966 Nieman Fellow
3