75th Anniversary Issue
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.
After his Nieman year, Tucek returned to work at Mlada fronta Dnes in Prague, creating the paper’s first science section
The Nieman Fellowship changed me in so many ways; it’s hard to tell it all. I learned how my colleagues work, in the U.S. as well as in many other countries. It was both revealing and relieving to talk, for example, to [Mathatha Tsedu] the Fellow from South Africa. We had both grown up under dictatorships, both grown up with censorship. It was breathtaking to comprehend all the different solutions creative people find to overcome or fight censorship. I got an international perspective on just about everything, and I continue to apply it to every subject that crosses my desk. I came home excited and fueled by the strong belief that even though the world, and particularly science, is a complex and difficult creature, it can be explained.
From an interview with Stefanie Friedhoff, NF ’01, in 2004
The Nieman Fellowship changed me in so many ways; it’s hard to tell it all. I learned how my colleagues work, in the U.S. as well as in many other countries. It was both revealing and relieving to talk, for example, to [Mathatha Tsedu] the Fellow from South Africa. We had both grown up under dictatorships, both grown up with censorship. It was breathtaking to comprehend all the different solutions creative people find to overcome or fight censorship. I got an international perspective on just about everything, and I continue to apply it to every subject that crosses my desk. I came home excited and fueled by the strong belief that even though the world, and particularly science, is a complex and difficult creature, it can be explained.From an interview with Stefanie Friedhoff, NF ’01, in 2004
