Shorenstein Center lists fellows, visiting faculty

A BBC senior producer, a political journalist, and an international scholar of political campaigning are among the recently named fellows and visiting faculty at the Kennedy School of Government’s (KSG) Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy this semester.

“This fall’s fellows and visiting faculty are a powerhouse of knowledge about journalism and politics, and we look forward to having an engaging and lively ongoing colloquy on the presidential campaign that will be open to all,” said Alex S. Jones, the center’s director.

Fall fellows and visiting faculty:

Jacqueline Jones is a senior producer for BBC Television News working on the evening news program. Based in London, she also produces for the BBC overseas. Last year she covered the war in Iraq and traveled to Gaza, Israel, Turkey, Kuwait, and the United States. Although international news and politics has driven much of her career, she has also been an editor on the “Today” program, Britain’s leading daily politics and current affairs radio program. Jones will examine the United States and European coverage of the 2004 presidential campaign during the period from the Democratic National Convention through election night.

Martin F. Nolan became a reporter for The Boston Globe in 1961 and over his 40-year career has covered Massachusetts’ politics, Congress, the White House, and national politics. He has covered every presidential campaign since 1968 and was the Globe’s Washington bureau chief from 1969 to 1981. He then became editor of the Globe’s editorial page until 1991, when he resumed reporting and in 1995 moved to San Francisco to cover California and the West. He retired from the paper in 2001. He has since written for the California Journal, The New York Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle. His research will examine the evolving self-image of the U.S. press.

Fritz Plasser is professor of political science and chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Innsbruck, and director of the Institute for Applied Political Research in Vienna. Prior to his academic career, he worked as a political pollster and as head of the research department of the Austrian People’s Party in Vienna. He has published widely on campaigns, elections, and the media from a comparative perspective. His recent publications include “Global Political Campaigning: A Worldwide Analysis of Campaign Professionals and Their Practices,” and “Political Parties and Electoral Change: Party Responses to Electoral Markets.” His current research interest is a comparative study of postmodern media logic, assessing American and European political journalists’ changing quality standards.

Alex Sanders has practiced law, served in the legislature, and taught law at the University of South Carolina and Harvard Law School. He was chief justice of the South Carolina Court of Appeals and president of the College of Charleston. In 2002, Sanders was South Carolina’s Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate. He has been the subject of several profiles by national media including Harper’s Magazine, The American Lawyer, The New Yorker, “60 Minutes,” and “Meet the Press.” He will conduct a study group on “Civil Rights, the South and the Media: 1945 to Now.”

Benjamin Bradlee, a joint fellow with the Institute of Politics and the Shorenstein Center, was vice president and executive editor at the Washington Post when the newspaper published the Pentagon Papers and articles that exposed the Watergate scandal. From 1948 to 1961, he wrote for the Washington Post and Newsweek magazine. In 1953, Bradlee joined Newsweek’s Paris bureau as a foreign correspondent, before he returned to Washington in 1957 as that publication’s political correspondent, and later, its Washington bureau chief. Bradlee rejoined the Washington Post as managing editor in 1965, became executive editor in 1968, and retired from this post in 1991. He is the author of “Conversations with Kennedy” and a memoir titled “A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures.”

Geoffrey Nyarota is a joint fellow with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. He founded Zimbabwe’s only independent daily publication, The Daily News, in 1999, and was fired a few years later on “administrative grounds,” according to management. His dismissal came amid an escalating campaign by President Robert Mugabe’s government to quiet criticism from independent news outlets. Nyarota eventually became editor of The Bulawayo Chronicle, Zimbabwe’s second-largest newspaper. During his tenure there, the Chronicle launched an investigation that linked government officials with corruption. Nyarota again lost his job; this time “for his own safety.” Nyarota has received seven international journalism awards. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard in 2003-04.

Steve Jarding, adjunct lecturer in public policy, has spent 25 years working in American politics. He is a past executive director of the South Dakota Democratic Party and former communications director in Bob Kerrey’s U.S. Senate campaigns in Nebraska. He has served as communications director of the national Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and has run leadership PACs for senators Bob Kerrey and John Edwards. In 2001, Jarding was campaign manager for Mark Warner’s bid for governor of Virginia. He has taught at the University of Oklahoma, George Mason University, and American University. He will be teaching a course titled “Running for Office and Managing Campaigns.”

Evan Thomas, the Edward R. Murrow Visiting Professor of the Practice of Press and Public Policy, has been assistant managing editor at Newsweek since 1991. From 1986 to 1996, Thomas was Newsweek’s Washington bureau chief. He has been a regular weekly panelist on the syndicated public affairs talk show “Inside Washington” since 1992. He is the author of five books, including “Robert Kennedy: His Life,” and “The Man to See: The Life of Edward Bennett Williams.” Thomas will teach “Mass Media and Public Policy.”