Contact: Geoffrey Baum, (213) 821-1491
LOS ANGELES, March 3, 2006 -- Six distinguished arts journalists have been selected as 2006 Fellows for the
USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellowship Program.
With support from the Getty Foundation, the program, now in its fifth year, seeks to establish a new standard of excellence in arts and culture coverage. The program's philosophy is guided by a core belief in the importance of first-hand encounters with artists and journalism colleagues. The program begins April 22, 2006.
This year’s fellowship will emphasize online media, blogging, and transitioning onto the internet.
Jeff Weinstein, Bloomberg News editor for culture and entertainment, has been named the program’s Senior Fellow. He will lead discussions during his week with the fellowship, drawing from his experience as the former fine arts editor and columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The Fellows and Senior Fellow for 2006 are:
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SHELLEY ACOCA, The Miami Herald, Features Editor/Arts and Style. Acoca oversees the paper's Arts & Entertainment coverage and assists in planning all features sections and 1A. Recognizing that Miami’s demographics point to an ever-growing immigrant presence, she is rethinking arts coverage to reflect the city’s emergence as diverse and world-class. She edits Pulitzer Prize-winning columnists Leonard Pitts and Dave Barry.
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KAREN D’SOUZA, San Jose Mercury News, Theater Critic. D’Souza joined the newspaper in 2000 and soon became its chief theater critic. She has written a theater blog for almost a year. In 2004, she served on the Pulitzer Prize drama jury and was elected to the American Theater Critics Association board. A former American Conservatory Theatre student, D’Souza’s reviews are defined by an insider’s understanding.
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DANIEL HERNANDEZ, L.A. Weekly, News and Culture Reporter. Until February 2006, Hernandez was a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times. His stories delving into the worlds of hipsters, Santeria, graffiti, Spanglish and the city’s Mayor appeared on the front page. He also contributed to the paper’s Calendar section. In his new post, he will cover news and continue to incorporate arts and culture in his work.
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DOUG MacCASH, The Times-Picayune, Art Critic and Staff Writer. Primarily an art critic and reporter, MacCash also contributes hard news stories to the paper. During Hurricane Katrina, he distinguished himself by serving the longest, uninterrupted tour of duty of any reporter on the staff. He is an artist, as well, whose milk carton covered with a map of New Orleans and captioned “Missing,” was featured on the Op-Ed page.
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KEVIN NANCE, Chicago Sun-Times, Visual Arts Editor, Art & Architecture Critic. While planning and editing the newspaper’s visual arts stories, Nance is responsible for his own beat as art & architecture critic. He contributed to team coverage of a natural disaster that won a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1997. His recent articles on gay topics captured national attention.
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CAROL POWERS, Kansas City Star, Deputy Features Editor. Powers plans and assigns the newspaper’s visual and performing arts coverage. Her staff of 14 editors and reporters includes seven critics. She has been rethinking arts and culture coverage in preparation for a redesign that will appear this spring. She spent 16 years at the Los Angeles Times, the last four as deputy travel editor.
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JEFF WEINSTEIN, Bloomberg News, News Editor, culture and entertainment. Weinstein will join Bloomberg in March 2006 to assign and edit international and national news, reviews and features for the wire service’s culture division. For eight years prior, he was The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Fine Arts Editor. His mark is to this day felt at The Village Voice, where for 17 years he was Senior Editor and chief restaurant critic.
"Programming for the 2006 USC Annenberg/Getty Fellowship will respond to the big picture consequences of traditional journalism moving online and how the arts journalists’ role is changing,” said
Sasha Anawalt, director. “This group of USC/Getty Fellows was chosen, because each of them is deeply invested in making a thoughtful, creative impact on the future of arts reporting.”
A committee of five journalists selected the Fellows from an international pool of approximately 50 applicants.
The USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellows will meet with top Los Angeles artists and arts organization leaders, and visit key cultural and arts venues across the city.
The J. Paul Getty Trust is an international cultural and philanthropic institution devoted to the visual arts that features the Getty Conservation Institute, the Getty Foundation, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Getty Research Institute. The J. Paul Getty Trust and Getty programs serve a varied audience from two locations: the Getty Center in Los Angeles and the Getty Villa in Malibu. Additional information is available on the Getty Web site at
www.getty.edu
Located in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California, the USC Annenberg School for Communication is among the nation's leading institutions devoted to the study of arts journalism and criticism. Its programs include the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program (annenberg.usc.edu/getty) and the Knight New Media Center. In addition to its programs for working journalists, USC Annenberg enrolls of more than 1,900 graduate and undergraduate students earning bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees in journalism, communication, public diplomacy and public relations.
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