UC graduate wins Fellowship to Harvard

UC graduate and White House correspondent wins Fellowship to Harvard

May 28, 2013

A University of Canterbury (UC) high-achieving journalism graduate has won a prestigious Nieman Fellowship to Harvard University.

Anna Fifield (class of 1997), White House correspondent for the Financial Times of London, will study how change occurs in closed societies, focusing on Iran and the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Spring and looking at the commonalities between revolutions.

Fifield says studying at UC provided her with a great foundation in journalism that has helped her tackle any challenge she has faced over the last 15 years.

`` I still use the tricks of the trade I learned during the UC programme,” she says. “I'm honoured to be accepted into the Nieman class to build on what I learned during my year at UC.’’

Prior to her posting to Washington, Fifield was the newspaper's Middle East correspondent, and before that worked for the former New Zealand Press Association.

She is one of 24 journalists - reporters, editors, columnists and digital media leaders - who work around the globe and across media platforms offered the Harvard Fellowship.

Nieman Foundation curator Ann Marie Lipinski says they are extraordinary journalists who have much to offer each other and the broader Harvard community interested in journalism.

The Nieman Fellows study with some of the world's leading scholars and experts in disciplines ranging from business and law to public policy and the natural sciences.

The last New Zealand Nieman Fellow was broadcaster Sharon Crosbie in 1985.

ENDS 

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