Niemans @ Work

Sound Business: Mary Meehan, NF ’16, masters the art of storytelling on radio after a long career in print

In Powell County, Kentucky,  a nurse, a preacher, and a physician assistant challenged deep religious beliefs to save their community. In the process they also taught me both the importance…
May 19, 2017
Mary Meehan
A Winning Turnaround: Betsy O’Donovan, NF ’13, is leading the charge to reverse the deficit at a college newspaper

A Winning Turnaround: Betsy O’Donovan, NF ’13, is leading the charge to reverse the deficit at a college newspaper

I became executive director at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s Daily Tar Heel in August 2016, at a make-or-break moment for our nonprofit newspaper. We’d lost $272,000 in the…
May 18, 2017
Betsy O'Donovan
Border Patrol: Panama Papers veteran Wahyu Dhyatmika, NF ’15, finds a way forward with another cross-border investigative story

Border Patrol: Panama Papers veteran Wahyu Dhyatmika, NF ’15, finds a way forward with another cross-border investigative story

Being an investigative reporter used to be a lonely job. You rarely talk about your story to colleagues in your newsroom, let alone a journalist from another publication. You guard…
May 15, 2017
Wahyu Dhyatmika
Paul McNally, a 2016 Knight Visiting Nieman Fellow, is working to bring community radio in South Africa to a wider audience

Paul McNally, a 2016 Knight Visiting Nieman Fellow, is working to bring community radio in South Africa to a wider audience

A laptop was cracked across the reception desk. A hole was put through the red painted wall. And a 2015 award for best radio documentary, hanging high, was pulled down…
February 28, 2017
Paul McNally
Facing Rubble, Not Relief: Lucinda Fleeson, NF ’85, coordinates journalists in Nepal to analyze delays in rebuilding homes destroyed in 2015 earthquake

Facing Rubble, Not Relief: Lucinda Fleeson, NF ’85, coordinates journalists in Nepal to analyze delays in rebuilding homes destroyed in 2015 earthquake

The seven reporters rode motorbikes and jeeps into Nepal’s mountainous districts to find some of the 15,000-plus men, women, and children struggling through a second winter in emergency tents or…
February 21, 2017
Lucinda Fleeson

Bill Church, NF ’16, seeks to join core values and new approaches as he guides newsrooms toward reinvention

What should newsrooms look like in the future?No one knows the answer.But there is energy in uncertainty. And the best way to find an answer is start an adventure. Even…
December 14, 2016
Bill Church
Floyd McKay, NF ’68, draws on his daily reporting for a book about an era that transformed the state of Oregon

Floyd McKay, NF ’68, draws on his daily reporting for a book about an era that transformed the state of Oregon

When journalism becomes work—as opposed to adventure—it’s time to move on; that’s what I did after three decades as a reporter and commentator in print and television, at the Oregon…
December 14, 2016
Floyd McKay
Andrea McCarren, NF ’07, finds a four-legged friend is an asset for her reporting

Andrea McCarren, NF ’07, finds a four-legged friend is an asset for her reporting

Over decades of reporting, my toolbox has evolved: from a pen and notebook to a smartphone, and for the last year, a 75-pound English Labrador retriever named Bunce.He’s named for…
December 14, 2016
Andrea McCarren
"For Every Truth There Is a Source": Vladimir Radomirovic, NF ’15, brings whistleblowers and journalists together at a conference in Belgrade

“For Every Truth There Is a Source”: Vladimir Radomirovic, NF ’15, brings whistleblowers and journalists together at a conference in Belgrade

Whistleblowers from Serbia, Bosnia, Switzerland, and the Netherlands had just shared intensely emotional stories with an international audience of journalists, activists, prosecutors, and judges. We almost lost English translation to…
November 30, 2016
Vladimir Radomirovic
Finbarr O'Reilly, NF '13, collaborates with a Marine to drive conversation about war's aftermath

Finbarr O’Reilly, NF ’13, collaborates with a Marine to drive conversation about war’s aftermath

When I met Sgt. Thomas James Brennan at a remote combat outpost in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province in 2010, I was an embedded Reuters photographer and he was the leader of…
February 5, 2016
Finbarr O'Reilly