USC Annenberg | 2002 Fellows

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2002 Fellows

The first USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellowship took place April 6 to 26, 2002.

The 2002 Fellows were:

Marianne Combs, Minnesota Public Radio (Minneapolis)—Combs is writer, producer and frequent host of Word of Mouth: A Radio Guide to the Arts. The half-hour program reaches a network of 31 MPR stations and more than 600,000 weekly listeners. Combs started her career in world news for MPR.
Shaun de Waal, Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg, South Africa)—De Waal is the weekly newspaper’s literary editor and film critic. He has also served as the paper’s arts editor. Co-editor of two anthologies of journalism, and founder of South Africa’s first gay talk radio program, de Wall has been covering the arts for 15 years.
Tim Griffin, Time Out New York—Griffin was Time Out’s art editor and writer. He is now the Editor of Art Forum. Griffin is author of Contamination, a collection of essays on art, architecture, design, technology and fashion.
Johanna Keller—A frequent contributor to The New York Times Arts & Leisure section, and a former editor of Chamber Music magazine, Keller is now director of the Goldring Arts Journalism Program at Syracuse University.
Peggy McGlone, The Star-Ledger (Newark)—McGlone is the daily newspaper’s arts news-business reporter, a position her editor created so she could cover the arts as a business writer. McGlone tracks trends, covers government and private funding patterns, and explains developments in the state’s major cultural institutions.
Michael Norman, Cleveland Plain Dealer—Norman is the daily newspaper’s art and entertainment editor, overseeing an editorial staff of 20. He spent seven years as the Plain Dealer’s pop music critic. Norman’s writing has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times.
Ariel Swartley—Swartley is a Los Angeles-based freelancer who writes primarily about popular and literary culture. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and The Misread City: New Literary Los Angeles. She is also a contributing writer and book critic for Los Angeles magazine.

Feedback from the Fellows:
"It's clear that the Los Angeles art scene is huge in the context of American art. Anyone who wants to know what is happening in art today, and anyone interested in creating whatever is next in art must visit the city regularly. I, for one, will continue to do just that. The program laid the foundation for me coming back to do more work."
--Tim Griffin, Time Out New York

"Renewed, invigorated, and enriched, I came home with a bag full of material and a head full of new connections between music and the other arts. It is a fellowship experience I highly recommend to you all."
--Johanna Keller, freelancer for The New York Times

"For me, the on-going conversation with my fellow Fellows was the most valuable single aspect of the program. It was the conversation that pulled it all together, that reinserted what we had seen and done into our daily practice as journalists, and put it all into context for someone who was coming to this as a non-American, an outsider of some kind."
--Shaun de Waal, Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg)

"I came to the Getty Fellowship with very specific expectations - to expand my knowledge of the national arts scene, particularly arts criticism. When I first saw our schedule for the three week fellowship, my heart sank; How could my needs be met by a program that was so obviously L.A. specific, and which allowed so little free time for additional research/interviews?

"I'm happy to say I was proven wrong. When I initially looked at our program, I failed to see the gaps in-between the interviews, tours, meals and performances. It’s during those moments that each fellow's expertise came to the fore and spurred a dynamic discussion of the arts, whether it concerned funding, architecture, music, theater or the visual arts. These conversations became the glue in the fellowship that held together all the individual elements and gave them a greater context, beyond even that of the landscape of Los Angeles. I can say with great certainty and enthusiasm that my knowledge of the arts has improved."
--Marianne Combs, Minnesota Public Radio