Maggie Jones

About Maggie Jones

Maggie Jones

Maggie Jones, NF ’12, is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine

Mother of Invention

By 75th Anniversary November 5, 2013

As she lay dying, the widow of a Milwaukee newspaper editor made a gift that has now invigorated journalism for 75 years. Agnes Wahl Nieman, a well-educated woman with a fondness for bicycling, willed money to Harvard to “promote and elevate the standards of journalism.” That $1.4 million bequest (worth about $23 million in today’s dollars) funded the Nieman Fellowship program that has brought 1,442 journalists from around the world to Harvard for a year of study. To celebrate the Nieman Foundation for Journalism’s 75th anniversary, Nieman Reports tells the stories of 75 Nieman Fellows, among them pioneers in biography, documentary filmmaking, and investigative journalism. Read more