Fellowships
Alejandra Matus, NF ’10
A Mystery Revealed
I think I was just 23 years old the first time I heard about the Nieman Fellowship program. Chile had just broken free from a fierce dictatorship and I was working at La Epoca newspaper. Journalists of my generation shared a collective feeling of hope. We were looking ahead to the contribution journalism could make to strengthen our newly recovered democracy.
It was about at that time that one of my colleagues told me about this world-famous fellowship. She told me that the Nieman Fellowships bring journalists from all around the world to Harvard University. She knew some former Nieman Fellows and she told me they were all great journalists. I was intrigued.
A few years later, I traveled to Uruguay to investigate the assassination of a former agent of Pinochet’s secret police. Uruguayan army officers seemed to be involved. Before writing my first line, I needed to understand the details of the ties between Chilean and Uruguayan agents under the period of time most of Latin America was ruled by dictators. One very clever well-informed and generous journalist helped me: Carlos Pauletti, a former Nieman Fellow. When my articles were published, I asked him about the fellowship and the way it had changed him.
I think it was in part because of that conversation that I decided to study English. I wanted to apply for the Nieman Fellowship.
Years passed. I published three books. One of them was banned and I asked for political asylum in the United States. The more time passed, the more I heard about the Nieman Fellowship. I also continued to meet more fellows: Peruvian Gustavo Gorriti, Colombian Ignacio Gomez, American Nancy San Martin-Raedle, Ecuadorian Monica Almeida and two Chilean journalists Consuelo Saavedra, and Veronica Lopez. In all of them, I saw a pattern: journalists who look beyond the triviality of daily news and see much farther, where most of us could not reach.
So I applied for a Nieman Fellowship hoping that I could experience the same transformation. It took me three attempts before I was selected for the class of 2010.
Now that my Nieman year is ending, I think I finally understand the power of the Nieman experience:
First, the year is special because of Harvard. I think the benefit of attending classes at Harvard does not depend how much you can learn. In fact, in current times, a lot of knowledge is available through the Internet. The benefit of being here is the opportunity to question everything. It is a chance to see the brightest minds in action, to follow the trail of their thinking. It is to dare to learn something new, even if useless.
During my Nieman year, I visited MIT, Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard College. I sat in on a diverse range of classes, from the most political and useful career-wise, like “New Media Power and Politics,” to the soul-food type of classes, like “First Nights.” My favorite classes were “Strange Russian Writers” by Stephanie Sandler and “Proust, Joyce, Wolf: Aestheticism and Modernism” by Philip Fisher. I enjoyed every class: the lectures, the readings, sharing with a crowd of young and bright students. The wonderful thing about being a Nieman Fellow is that it also grants you a special sense of respect from the professors. That allowed me to develop true friendship with some of them and extended the joy I felt in the classrooms to the outside world.
Second, the Nieman Foundation offered us a rich program that, by itself, provided a rewarding year. I yearned for every Wednesday seminar, wondering how I would be surprised. We listened to great thinkers and doers from the fields of science, journalism, the arts and politics. I never left the room feeling distracted or preoccupied. The issues we discussed every Wednesday kept me thinking for days, weeks and months.
I feel privileged also to have been part of the first Nieman class that was offered multimedia sessions each Friday. I deepened my understanding about the future of journalism, an area I was especially interested in, and I was able to acquire new and useful skills that will allow me to face the future in a more confident way.
And, of course, there were the creative writing classes with Rose Moss. Thanks to her, I dare to write in formats I never did before, but more importantly, I’ve learned to explore my inner self.
And finally, there were the Nieman Fellows. If it weren’t for the Nieman Foundation, there was no way I would have met this wonderful group of bright journalists; no way that I would have shared so much with their husbands, wives, partners and children. Not a chance that I would be able to discuss with them the issues that concern us all. Now at the end of the year, I feel part of a strong brother- and sisterhood, that includes the Nieman Foundation staff. I learned as much from them as I learned from Harvard.
The year is ending and I have no feeling other than gratitude. I understand now why this fellowship is so prestigious, why the Nieman Fellows stand out wherever they are. I wish to preserve that same legacy and hope I am able to make a difference in the world, as my predecessors have.
– May 2010