WINNER NAMED FOR TWENTY THIRD
MARTIN WISE GOODMAN CANADIAN NEIMAN FELLOWSHIP
The Trustees of the Martin Wise Goodman Trust announce that STEPHEN MAHER, national columnist and investigative reporter at Postmedia News, Ottawa, has been awarded the twenty third Martin Wise Goodman Canadian Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University.
This fellowship is funded by a publicly subscribed permanent endowment in memory of Martin Wise Goodman, late President of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited.
Stephen will join ten other foreign journalists and thirteen American journalists in the 78th class of Nieman Fellows at Harvard University. The fellowship carries a stipend for living expenses and payment of fees to Harvard University.
"I'm humbled and overwhelmed to learn that I will represent Martin Goodman’s legacy and Postmedia News at Harvard as a Goodman fellow. I hope to make the most of this amazing opportunity to contribute to Canadian political journalism in the years ahead." Mr. Maher said after an eight member Selection Committee awarded him the biennial fellowship. While at Harvard Mr. Maher will study the use of surveillance by the countries of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, examining abuses and privacy violations that take place in the absence of effective civilian oversight.
Stephen Maher is a columnist with Postmedia News in Ottawa. He has been covering national politics on Parliament Hill since 2004, often writing about corruption and electoral wrongdoing. In 2012, after he and a colleague uncovered a telephone voter suppression campaign, he won several journalism awards, including a Michener Award, a National Newspaper Award and the Canadian Hillman Prize. He began his career in journalism in 1989 as a reporter for a weekly newspaper in Newfoundland, and previously worked as an editor, political reporter and restaurant critic for Halifax's Chronicle Herald. He has travelled to Haiti and Afghanistan on assignment. He published a political thriller, Deadline, in 2013.
The Nieman Fellowships were established for American journalists in 1938 in memory of Lucius W. Nieman, founder of the Milwaukee Journal. It provides for a year of study for working journalists in any department of Harvard University as well as a seminar program. Previously, thirteen Canadian journalists had gone to Harvard on this program under other funding, including Martin Goodman (Nieman fellow class of '62).
This year’s Canadian Nieman Fellowship Selection
committee consisted of Mary Lou Finlay, formerly of the CBC; Malcolm Kirk,
president of The Canadian Press; John Honderich, Chair of Torstar; Douglas
Knight, President of St. Joseph Media; David Skok, Managing Editor/Digital,
& General Manager, BostonGlobe.com, The Boston Globe; Jonathan
Goodman, Vice Chair of Deloitte and Chair of the Canadian Nieman Fellowship,
Lauren Goodman, Administrator of the Canadian Nieman Fellowship and Janis
Goodman, wife of the late Martin Goodman.
“The committee was very impressed with Stephen, his body of work, and his aspirations for the future” said Mr. Goodman. “We are excited to have someone of Stephen’s journalistic stature represent Canada in the Nieman program this coming year.”
