ISSUE

Summer 2014

Where Are the Women?

Despite making up half the population and receiving the majority of communication degrees, women currently lead only three of the nation’s top 25 newspapers. What’s lost when women aren’t leading? What can be done to increase their ranks at the top?

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Articles

Discovering His Voice
Nieman Notes

Discovering His Voice

Television reporter and anchor Norman Robinson retired in June, ending a 42-year career in journalism. He spent the past 23 years at WDSU in New Orleans, where he was anchor…
Norman Robinson
September 30, 2014
Scott Stossel on Taking Ideas Journalism Online at The Atlantic (Complete Transcript)
Journalist’s Trade

Scott Stossel on Taking Ideas Journalism Online at The Atlantic (Complete Transcript)

Atlantic editor Scott Stossel on keeping one of America’s oldest print magazines relevant
Scott Stossel
September 29, 2014
Where Are the Women?
Diversity

Where Are the Women?

Why we need more female newsroom leaders
Anna Griffin
September 11, 2014
Plus ça change...
Features

Plus ça change…

Ousted editors, newsroom revolts, and government subsidies—welcome to French journalism’s battle for survival
Peter Gumbel
September 11, 2014
From the Curator

Ensuring Women Have A Seat at the Leadership Table

The lunch for the summer interns was held at the editor’s swanky men’s club. The other interns and I had arrived ahead of the brass and I took my seat…
Ann Marie Lipinski
September 11, 2014
Crusader and Mentor
Nieman Notes

Crusader and Mentor

John Seigenthaler, NF ’59, who died July 11 at age 86, was a throwback to the crusading newspaper editor of legend. During his 39 years at The (Nashville) Tennessean—as reporter,…
James D. Squires
September 11, 2014
Making Us Believers
Nieman Notes

Making Us Believers

Margot Adler, NF ’82, a longtime correspondent for NPR, died of cancer at her home in New York on July 28. She was 68. Adler joined NPR in 1979 as…
Alex S. Jones
September 11, 2014
“The Sense of Being Somewhere Else”
Nieman Notes

“The Sense of Being Somewhere Else”

Robert Drew, NF ’55, whose 1960 documentary about John F. Kennedy, “Primary,” is regarded as the start of American cinéma vérité, died July 30 at his home in Sharon, Connecticut.…
Robert Drew
September 11, 2014
It’s Good to Talk
Features

It’s Good to Talk

Members of Cuba’s mass media, which is completely in the hands of the state, cover only what’s convenient for the government. Because of that, in February of 2009, a group…
Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez
September 11, 2014
Ready for the Big One: Making the Case for Disaster Preparedness Reporting
Watchdog

Ready for the Big One: Making the Case for Disaster Preparedness Reporting

Extreme weather may be changing attitudes about disaster reporting, making editors and the public more receptive to stories questioning preparedness
John Dyer
September 11, 2014
Sounding

Doing My Own Thing

Iwas 5 or 6 years old when my mother, a great lover of Nigerian folklore, told me a story from one of the oldest tribes in my country. In my…
Ameto Akpe
September 11, 2014
Behind the Data Curtain
Niemans @ Work

Behind the Data Curtain

In my first reporting job out of college, I traveled across Communist Eastern Europe and wrote travel guidebooks. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, I obtained my secret police…
Adam Tanner
September 11, 2014
Caught in the Crossfire
Niemans @ Work

Caught in the Crossfire

Over the past year, Holly Williams, NF ’08, a correspondent for CBS News, has covered conflicts in Iraq and Ukraine. Earlier this summer she made her first trip to Gaza:On…
Holly Williams
September 11, 2014
"Thick Files and a Long Memory"
Features

“Thick Files and a Long Memory”

Cuba may be opening up economically, but being a journalist in the country is still a risky business
Juan O. Tamayo
September 11, 2014
Like Father, Like Daughter
Books

Like Father, Like Daughter

Second-generation reporter Allison Steele reflects on the Inquirer newsroom, now and then
Allison Steele
September 11, 2014
Scott Stossel on Taking Ideas Journalism Online at The Atlantic
Live @ Lippmann

Scott Stossel on Taking Ideas Journalism Online at The Atlantic

Scott Stossel, editor of The Atlantic, has reason to be nervous. That’s partly because of his personality—detailed in “My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace…
Scott Stossel
September 11, 2014
Niemans @ Work

Film as Long-form

There should be a recovery group for what I am: an author of nonfiction books, born in the 1970s. Yet I received shared Emmy and National Magazine Award nominations in…
Alissa Quart
September 11, 2014
Island in the Storm
Features

Island in the Storm

How Cuba’s network of independent and citizen journalists keeps the country informed
Yoani Sánchez
September 11, 2014
Facts, Not Opinions
Features

Facts, Not Opinions

As recently as 2008, it was illegal for Cubans to own a cell phone and impossible for them to buy a computer. No independent journalist had a mobile device, and…
Hugo A. Landa
September 11, 2014
Diversity

Sharing Their Stories

Women in leadership explain how they got there, and how others can follow
September 11, 2014
Looking Up
Books

Looking Up

To accompany an excerpt from Will Steacy’s “Deadline,” Nieman Reports asked longtime Philadelphia Inquirer staffer Dan Biddle, a 1990 Nieman Fellow, to summarize the paper’s recent history and its current…
Dan Biddle
September 11, 2014
Coming Home
Nieman Notes

Coming Home

Almost 50 years after Nat Nakasa, NF ’65, died and was buried 
in a New York cemetery, 
his remains have been brought back to South Africa. The repatriation fulfills not…
Mathatha Tsedu
September 9, 2014