A reunion of the alumni of Harvard University’s prestigious Nieman Fellowship program is normally a love feast. It is filled with nostalgia, seminar panels of leading Harvard experts discussing important national and international issues, visits with colleagues, debate over current events, and good vibes. But not this time.
This past weekend, at the most recent reunion, a simmering debate over what some Nieman alumni see as a redefinition of the Foundation’s basic mission exploded into a firestorm over a plan by Nieman curator Bob Giles to host a group of 40 Chinese officials next month to help them deal with the media covering the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
“We will try to educate them in the way the press works,” Giles said.
The unexpected disclosure by Giles — a figure of controversy from the time he was appointed curator in 2000 — sent shock waves through the crowded room where 150 to 200 journalists were gathered for the final reunion event. We were at Nieman headquarters, in the elegant and recently expanded Walter Lippmann House, located near Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The weather outside was cold and wet. The mood inside was tense.
What started as a routine briefing about the program suddenly turned into a contentious face-off with many Nieman alumni expressing alarm and dismay and Giles standing calm and firm. It was unlike any other Nieman reunion that I have attended since I won a Nieman Fellowships in 1977 and joined the class of 1978.
This session, billed as a “Conversation with the Curator,” felt like a family feud, with the current Nieman Class passionately backing the man who approved their selection for the program and a sizeable portion of the Nieman alumni passionately opposing the curator, especially his plan to help the Chinese with their press relations.
Explained Howard Berkes, a correspondent for National Public Radio and a 1998 Nieman: “I’ve covered five Olympics games in some open and some not-so-open countries. The interest of the host country is to manage the press. Do we want to put the Nieman brand on that?”
Many Niemans applauded Berkes for his comments. There was more applause when Washington-based journalist Peggy Simpson, a 1979 Nieman, said that she was “horrified’ that the Nieman Foundation would be involved in “handholding” the Chinese government. “This crosses a fundamental line,” she said.
Juntao Wang, a 1996 Chinese Nieman, made an eloquent argument against the Giles proposal on the grounds that it is an inappropriate role for the Nieman Foundation. “The Chinese know that democracy is their enemy…they want to know how to deal with the press…they want to know how to lie to the press,” he said. Wang is now working on his Ph.D. at Columbia University.
Giles, who has a low-key style, appeared unruffled by the questions. “If we can make some contribution, it will be worth doing,” he told the Niemans.
Giles said people “obviously are welcome to criticize” his plan to work with the Chinese. “But I believe very strongly that we need to engage and we need to help journalism globally,” he said. “One of the important elements of our program is the international program and this is in the spirit of helping international journalism. I don’t think it is accurate to look at all Chinese officials as monolithic. I think there are a lot of people in the Chinese system in favor of more openness and more freedom and perhaps the Nieman Foundation has an opportunity in this educational enterprise of giving some Chinese officials a little leverage toward more openness.”
Giles said the idea to help the Chinese officials had originated with Harvard’s Center for Asian Studies. The cost to the Nieman program will be minimal. “We will provide a few meals,” he said. He suggested that the Chinese may reimburse the Nieman program for expenses associated with the event.
That didn’t satisfy Dick Dudman, a 1954 Nieman and a foreign correspondent who was captured by the Communists and held as a prisoner in Cambodia during the Vietnam war. Dudman, who now lives in Maine, stood up at the Sunday meeting and told Giles that he had two concerns: “One, you won’t impact what the Chinese do with the press, and two, you shouldn’t accept a subsidy from the Chinese — or from the Bush Administration.”
Discontent about the direction of the program — on the part of at least some Nieman alumni — has been building for months. The Boston Globe published a front-page story in February about alumni unrest. The concerns were that Giles was redirecting the focus of the Nieman program to serve the interests of non-Nieman journalists through workshops and special events. There have also been published reports suggesting that the Nieman staff is being transformed into an events team. Historically, the staff and the program have been focused on broadening the intellectual background of the Fellows.
The stories about the Nieman program fed more discussion, especially in Washington, where there is a large group of Nieman alumni. The Washington-based Niemans raised so many questions that Giles recently traveled from his base in Boston to Washington to address their concerns.
As editor and publisher of the Detroit News during the newspaper strike in the mid-1990s, Giles made his share of enemies. Some of his critics opposed his candidacy for the Nieman curator job on the grounds that he was the wrong person to head a journalism institution.
In the Boston Globe story, Giles described himself as a “change agent.” But at the reunion meeting he denied that he has changed the central mission of the Nieman program. “My feeling is that the Nieman foundation has an obligation to carry out the mandate that speaks to our values…This is not so much a change as an evolutionary process.”
The 2005 Niemans made a special show of their support for Giles throughout the reunion weekend. They offered a toast to him at the Saturday night dinner. They stood with him at the Sunday meeting. Amy Nutt of The Star-Ledger in Newark and a member of the current class, described her Nieman year as “magical.” She said she and other Niemans had benefited from the special events and workshops that Giles had built into the program. Harvard has an “embarrassment of riches” and there are enough of those riches to share with non-Nieman journalists, she said.
In an interview after the meeting, Giles said that he has “a lot of authority to run the program” and to go forward with such events as the program for the Chinese officials. He said he had not discussed the program with Harvard President Larry Summers but had mentioned it two days earlier to his Nieman advisory board during a routine report.
He added: “I have been to China in the past year and it is clear to me that journalism enterprises are growing rapidly and that freedom follows. Independence follows. If this can make a small contribution to that, then I am happy. I think that is something for the Nieman Foundation to do.”
Despite Giles’ confidence in his decision and the support he has from the current class, some alumni express their doubts about what he is doing as curator.
“But all the other stuff pales in comparison to this Chinese stunt,” said Ron Javers, assistant managing editor of Newsweek International and a 1976 Nieman. “It is really ridiculous that the Nieman Foundation would be training government flacks on how to deal with the press.”
Nina Bernstein, a New York Times reporter and a 1984 Nieman, said she shares the concerns about the Nieman Foundation training of 40 Chinese government officials.
“There is a real danger that the Nieman name will be attached to what amounts to an exercise in public relations for the Chinese government in how to manipulate the western press,” she said. “You have to find ways to engage the Chinese government but this really does not seem to be the way. And it is also very disturbing that the decision was made unilaterally. It should have had all kinds of red flags attached to it. There are certainly plenty of active Niemans who could be consulted. There is a level of transparency that is missing.”
NPR’s Berkes, who was commended by the other alumni for raising the first question about the Chinese plan, summarized his concerns like this:
“I don’t think journalists should be involved in training government officials to do anything. We just had a scandal in this country where government officials paid journalists to help them get their message out. I understand that there may be some good intentions here. But ethically to me, to me, it is pretty clear. You don’t assist a foreign government in prepping their government officials to manage a news event like the Olympics.”
Former Washington Post reporter Molly Sinclair McCartney won a Nieman Fellowship in 1977, making her a member of the Class of 1978. She has attended four Nieman reunions since then. In 1984, she married former Knight Ridder reporter James McCartney, Nieman Class of 1964. Both attended this latest weekend Nieman reunion at Harvard.
