Shorenstein Center names fall fellows

A former spokesman for the Czech president, The New York Times science editor, and an investigative reporter are among the fellows at the Kennedy School’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy this semester.

“Our fellows have special interests ranging from the coverage of science at its furthest frontiers to investigating the workings of the CIA,” said Alex Jones, the center’s director. “It is a rich mix of scholars and journalists and includes the press spokesman for the president of the Czech Republic, so we are anticipating a lively fall.”

The 2003 fall fellows

James W. Carey is the CBS Professor of International Journalism in the graduate school of journalism at Columbia University and adjunct professor at Union Theological Seminary. He was dean of the College of Communications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from l979 to l992. Prior to that, he held the George H. Gallup Chair at the University of Iowa. He has published two books “Media, Myth and Narratives: Television and the Press” and “Communication as Culture.” The University of Minnesota Press published “James Carey: A Critical Reader” in 1997. His research is on the history of journalism and international media. As a Shorenstein fellow, he will work on a short history of journalism for journalists.

Cornelia Dean was the science editor of The New York Times from January 1997 through June 2003. She was responsible for coverage of science, health, and medical news in the daily paper and in the weekly Science Times section. She writes occasionally for the paper, usually on environmental issues. Prior to this post, she worked in the Times’ Washington bureau as deputy Washington editor. She began her newspaper career at the Providence Journal. Her book “Against the Tide: The Battle for America’s Beaches” was published in 1999 by Columbia University Press. Dean has taught seminars and courses at the University of Rhode Island, Vassar, and the Columbia School of Journalism, and has spoken to a wide variety of student, journalism, and scientific organizations. Dean will work on a book about the misuse of scientific information in American life.

Ted Gup has been a journalist for 25 years and is currently the Shirley Wormser Professor of Journalism at Case Western Reserve University. He is the author of “The Book of Honor: Covert Lives and Classified Deaths at the CIA,” which traced 50 years of CIA history through the lives and deaths of covert operatives killed in the line of duty. A former staff writer for The Washington Post and Time magazine, he also has written for National Geographic, Smithsonian, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Columbia Journalism Review, and Newsweek, among others. Gup was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in national reporting and recipient of the George Polk Award. He was a Fulbright Scholar in China, a grantee of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and a 2003 John Simon Guggenheim Fellow. While at the Shorenstein Center, Gup will examine press coverage of the CIA.

Tomas Klvana’s experience spans journalism, government service, and academia. Recently, he served as the spokesman and policy adviser to the president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus. Before joining the government, Klvana worked as the deputy editor in chief of Hospodarske noviny, a leading Czech daily newspaper affiliated with The Wall Street Journal, and Handelsblatt, where he was in charge of international coverage and international cooperation. Klvana was a senior international affairs commentator for another leading Czech daily paper, Mlada fronta Dnes. Klvana has taught at the New York University Center in Prague and at the University of Southern Maine in Portland. Klvana will focus on the interplay of politics, media, and civic society in the Czech Republic.

Regina Lawrence is associate professor of political science in the Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University, where she is director of the Northwest Communication Research Group. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Washington, teaches courses on political communication, public opinion, and public law, and specializes in research analyzing media coverage of public policy issues. She is the author of “The Politics of Force: Media and the Construction of Police Brutality” and has published articles analyzing media coverage of environmental issues, welfare reform, and the recent spate of shootings in public schools. Lawrence’s research at the Shorenstein Center will focus on the tendency of news coverage to “individualize” public health problems by highlighting the personal choices that contribute to these problems and often leaving their policy context out of focus.

The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy is a Harvard research center, based at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, dedicated to exploring the intersection of press, politics and public policy in theory and practice. The center strives to bridge the gap between journalists and scholars and, increasingly, between them and the public.