12 Journalists Appointed To '86-'87 Nieman Spots

The Harvard-affiliated Nieman Foundation, a program for select mid-career journalists, this week announced the 12 members of the 49th class of Nieman fellows.

Eight of the winning journalists work for daily newspapers, two work on television news programs and two edit weekly magazines. The 12 fellows will study at the College during the next academic year.

The fellows, who range in age from 29 to 42, include the Los Angeles Times' Nairobi bureau chief, a CBS "60 Minutes" producer, and a Newsweek editor.

The Nieman Foundation, established in 1938 through a gift of Agnes W. Nieman, each year chooses twelve Americans and several foreigners to spend a year of virtually unrestricted study at Harvard. The fellows from foreign countries will be announced later this month.

A committee selected the seven male and five female winners from a field of almost 100 candidates, said Elizabeth V. Tibbitts, a Nieman Foundation staff assistant.

The fellows do not receive course or degree credit for their time at Harvard but are required to complete the coursework for at least one class.

"It's a chance to recharge my intellectual batteries," said Nieman-to-be Albert May, 37, of The News and Observer in Raleigh, N.C.

"I wanted to do something different for a while, and I wanted to go back to school," said Linda Wilson, 30, a reporter from The Daily News of Longview, Washington.

Wilson, who is the first from her paper ever to receive a Nieman fellowship, said she was looking forward to her year on the East Coast. "I was so excited when they called that I had to call back to ask if it was true," she said.

Many applicants seck the Nieman fellowships to take a year-long break from the pace of journalistic life. "The program offers time away from the pressures of journalism," Tibbitts said.

The other American fellows are: Charles Alson of the Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record, Douglas Cumming of The Providence (R.I.) Journal, Michael Davis of The (Baltimore) Evening Sun, Susan Dentzer of Newsweek Magazine, Valerie Hyman of WSMV-TV in Nashville, Nancy Lee of The New York Times, Martha Matzke of Education Week, Michael Meyers of The Minneapolis Star and Tribune, Charles Powers of The Los Angeles Times, and Ira Rosen of the CBS program "60 Minutes."

The Nieman Foundation also announced its selection of a Nicaraguan newspaper publisher as the recipient of its annual Lyons Award for Conscience in Journalism.

The publisher of La Prensa, Violeta Chamorro, received the award for her paper's fight to keep a free press alive in Nicaragua, the Nieman Foundation said.