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The Lyons Years


Nieman Curator Louis Lyons with 1942 Nieman Fellows Sanford Cooper and Don Burke

In a memoir he wrote in the mid-1960s, Lyons recalled that the president wanted to reappraise the Nieman program after five years and asked Lyons to carry on without change since, “In an experiment you don’t want to have any variables.”

“It was quite clear that the only role he had in mind for me,” Lyons wrote, “was to preside over the Nieman dinners and seminars. With that in mind, he had offered me what he had the grace to call ‘an honorarium’ of $1,000.”

In 1946, after seven years of running the program from his office at the Globe and dividing his time between the paper and Harvard, Lyons accepted a full-time appointment as curator.

Over the next several years, Lyons revolutionized the Nieman program, expanding its scope dramatically. He acted on a Conant suggestion to organize a reunion of Nieman Fellows, launched Nieman Reports, persuaded the president that women should be admitted to the program, selected the first African-American fellows, secured funding to support fellowships for international journalists, initiated the foundation’s long relationship with journalists from South Africa, established reciprocal arrangements for fellows at MIT, formalized the selection process around a committee of faculty and Nieman Fellows and established the Nieman Advisory Board.

In 1948, as the Nieman Foundation approached its 10th year, a committee composed of publishers, editors and leading columnists was appointed to review the Nieman program. Lyons thought the group produced “a friendly, constructive report.” In his notes on the committee’s report, however, he wrote, “a few points disturb me more than others. One is the commentary that ‘liberals’ have an advantage in selection. I have been aware of the fact that the balance of most groups ran that way, and have been conscious of the need to seek balance. My view is that in the nature of the opportunity, those who seek it are apt to be the questioning rather than the stolid status quo men.”

The report also expressed concern about “cynicism” some of the committee members observed among the fellows. Lyons wrote that he was “surprised that publishers are unaware of its existence in their offices. Sometimes cynicism is not the apt word for it. It is as often idealism, a questing mind, or just a sharp conscience. It finds a chance for expression in such a year as a fellowship provides.”

Publishers on the committee also complained that some fellows were coming to Harvard to “escape their jobs or seek better ones.” Lyons’ notes indicated that he had been “sharply aware” of this since the beginning of the program and had “tried to avoid such fellows but not always successfully. We have for several years emphasized that the leave of absence was not to be thought of as a one-way ticket.” He said he thought the question of the commitment to return was “an unenforceable obligation.”

During his 25 years as curator, Louis Lyons stabilized the program and created the enduring relationship with Harvard that generations of Nieman Fellows since have experienced. Looking back on the first year of the program, when he was a fellow, Lyons said, “A Nieman year is just what you can make of it.”

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