Nieman curator Ann Marie Lipinski to step down

Ann Marie Lipinski, the curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, will step down on July 1, completing a 14-year tenure framed by dramatic disruption and reinvention in journalism.

“Ann Marie and I returned to Harvard at the same time — our appointments announced just days apart — and I have watched with admiration as she has met change after change with energy and optimism, always centering her efforts on recruiting and nurturing outstanding fellows,” said Harvard President Alan Garber. “Her influence on countless careers and her impact on the field itself will continue to shape how news is produced and consumed around the world. I cannot imagine a leader better suited to have led the Nieman Foundation through a period of profound transformation for journalism.”

“I am grateful to Ann Marie for her leadership over the past 14 years,” said Provost John Manning. “Her dedication to the foundation, to innovative journalistic practices, and to engagement with the larger Harvard community has been invaluable to both the Nieman Foundation and the University.”

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former editor in chief of the Chicago Tribune, Lipinski was appointed Nieman curator in 2011, the first woman to lead the program.

“It has been a profound privilege to lead Nieman, not in spite of the industry complexities but because of them,” Lipinski said. “Each year, journalism faced new challenges and each year, a new class of fellows rose to confront them. Fortifying those journalists for the future is essential. I am grateful to the colleagues who joined me in that work, strengthened collaboration here on campus, and supported a global community sometimes fighting for the very right to practice journalism.

“I have found both purpose and joy as Nieman’s curator and am deeply grateful for the trust that Harvard has placed in me. I believe it is now time for others to lead this work that I have loved.”  

A 1989-1990 Nieman Fellow, Lipinski as curator guided the foundation through years of unprecedented disruption, including the pivot from print to digital; the proliferation of dis- and misinformation; growing reliance on artificial intelligence to report the news; the ascendance of social media; and the shuttering of hundreds of local news outlets. She also worked to bring attention to assaults on journalists, including the killing of two Nieman alumni on assignment (Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus and documentary filmmaker Brent Renaud), and the imprisonment of others.

Nieman’s record of innovation

Lipinski recalibrated the fellowship to include more journalists from emerging news organizations. She collaborated with Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society to launch the Nieman-Berkman Fellowship in Journalism Innovation; supported local reporters with a two-year fellowship for local investigative journalists; and bolstered writing on China by offering a specialized two-year fellowship in partnership with the AP.

In her first year as curator, she introduced the Nieman Visiting Fellowship, offering short-term research opportunities not only to journalists, but also technologists, publishers, and academics working to advance journalism. And she recommitted to Nieman’s support of journalists, some in exile, who have labored in countries where independent reporting is treated as a crime.

Lipinski focused Nieman’s publications on exploring journalism’s greatest threats and opportunities. Last year, she added writers to Nieman Lab, a widely read digital report on the future of news, to cover the rise of generative AI and the dramatic upheaval on the country’s local news landscape. Through the Nieman Storyboard website and translations of the foundation’s popular “Telling True Stories” guide for nonfiction storytelling, Nieman extended its support for narrative journalism.

Lipinski additionally led a redesign and digital expansion of Nieman Reports and directed numerous cover stories, from “Where Are the Women?,” about the dearth of female leadership in newsrooms, to the current “Dear America” issue, a collection of dispatches to the U.S. media from journalists working in countries where press freedom is under attack.

“International journalists are hearing echoes,” Lipinski wrote in that issue. “From countries around the world that have witnessed the rise of autocratic and populist leaders, they are watching the U.S. and warning of a characteristic of wounded democracies everywhere: an endangered free press.”

Commenting on Lipinski’s departure, Nieman Advisory Board chair John Harwood said: “There’s no better tribute to Ann Marie Lipinski’s leadership than recognizing that, as journalism faces mortal economic and political threats, she has made the Nieman Foundation stronger. Her foresight, creativity, and integrity have enriched not just 14 classes of fellows but our entire profession.”

Campus and public engagement

Lipinski committed to serving journalists beyond the fellowship and initiated a series of intensive workshops for reporters and editors covering immigration, climate change, housing, and nuclear issues. The conferences were planned in collaboration with Harvard faculty and researchers from across the University.

Nieman worked with the University of Chicago Institute of Politics to train political journalists on reporting beyond the horse race in the run-up to the 2016, 2020, and 2024 U.S. presidential elections. Lipinski also advanced Nieman’s efforts to mentor a new generation, expanding the Christopher J. Georges Conference on College Journalism, planned annually in partnership with The Harvard Crimson, to include public colleges and HBCUs far beyond the East Coast schools from which the conference had traditionally drawn attendees.

During Lipinski’s curatorship, Nieman brought leading thinkers to campus to probe our knottiest media problems, including the malevolent influence of some social media platforms on the integrity of news and information. Filipino journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, founder and CEO of Rappler.com and a clarion voice in the fight against disinformation, joined Lipinski for public conversations on the often-corrosive effects of social media as well as for more intimate discussions with Nieman Fellows battling these challenges in their own countries.

In response to declining trust in media, Lipinski advocated for increased engagement between journalists and the public. In the wake of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, she planned a town hall with organizations ranging from The Boston Globe to the Boston Police Department to examine breaking-news coverage in the age of social media. In 2018, as “fake news” accusations against journalism accelerated, she moderated “The Future of News: Journalism in a Post-Truth Era,” a public forum hosted by then-Harvard President Drew Faust for an overflow audience in Sanders Theatre.

Journalism’s triumphs were also recognized. At the invitation of the Pulitzer Prize Board, Nieman designed an ambitious exploration of the best of American journalism, arts, and letters — a three-day celebration of the 2016 centennial of the Pulitzer Prizes. With colleagues from the American Repertory Theater, Lipinski staged a program that opened with Wynton Marsalis, the first musician to win the Pulitzer for a jazz composition, and featured dozens of Pulitzer winners including Nieman alumnus Robert Caro on how he learned to write about power; Watergate reporter Bob Woodward, documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, and editor Dean Baquet in animated conversation about abuses of government power; playwrights Lynn Nottage and Lin-Manuel Miranda; and Harvard historians Annette Gordon-Reed, Caroline Elkins, and Fredrik Logevall. The Sanders Theatre event was Nieman’s largest-ever public convening.

Throughout her curatorship, Lipinski worked to maintain the bonds of the fellowship worldwide through reunions, regular newsletters, and “Nieman-to-Nieman” Zoom seminars. Her favored nickname for the community, now 100 countries strong, can be found on a button given to fellows: “Nieman Nation.”

A career dedicated to journalism

Before coming to Harvard, Lipinski served as senior lecturer and vice president for civic engagement at the University of Chicago. Prior to that, she was the editor in chief and senior vice president of the Chicago Tribune. As a Tribune reporter, Lipinski was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism. As an editor, she oversaw a newsroom awarded Pulitzers for international reporting, feature writing, criticism, explanatory reporting, editorial writing, and investigative reporting.

Lipinski will continue her long commitment to journalism. She is a trustee of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and a past co-chair of the Pulitzer Prize board. She is a trustee of the Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company and was named to the Commission on Information & Democracy led by Reporters Without Borders to promote democratic guarantees for news and information. Lipinski is a member of the board of directors for the Out of Eden Walk journalism project and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Harvard will soon begin a search to identify Lipinski’s successor.