Seven distinguished midcareer arts journalists have been selected as fellows for the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program.
The Fellowship will emphasize the visual arts and architecture of Los Angeles, with attention paid to how conversation about the arts creates an increasingly valued buzz in global media. Fellows visit private studios, rehearsal rooms, architectural firms and art schools and will have behind-the-scenes opportunities to meet renowned artists, arts administrators and accomplished journalists. Fellows periodically integrate with USC Annenberg’s M.A. in Specialized Journalism (The Arts) program and will have the opportunity to share ideas with students who are mastering the skills needed to participate fully in new digital journalism cultures.
With support from The Getty Foundation, the program is now in its ninth year and seeks to establish a standard of excellence in arts and culture coverage. The Fellowship’s philosophy is guided by a core belief in the importance of first-hand encounters with both creators and journalism colleagues. The two-week program runs from November 7-21, 2010.
The fellows for 2010 are:
• JOERG HAENTZSCHEL, writer and editor. NewYork-based Haentzschel writes about American arts and culture for the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung. He has covered all cultural fields and interviewed such luminaries as P.T. Anderson, William Eggleston and Werner Herzog. He spent two years as deputy chief of the Sueddeutsche arts department in Munich and was also its sole writer in New York covering the events on and after 9/11.
• JENNIFER HSU, video journalist and producer. Hsu developed and reports for WNYC’s interactive online arts portal, culture.wnyc.org, and created the ongoing “Know Your Neighbor” video series of intimate personal portraits. She has produced for WNYC and Public Radio International’s The Takeaway as well as Rolling Stone, and focuses on music, politics, architecture and urban planning and stories about extraordinary everyday people.
• RYAN PEARSON, reporter. As a Los Angeles-based entertainment producer for Associated Press Television, Pearson covers film, music, video games and pop culture. On this beat, he has interviewed Jack Nicholson, Mel Gibson, Christina Aguilera and Kanye West. Previously, Pearson spent eight years as an editor, writer and videojournalist at The Associated Press, covering topics from pro skateboarding to wildfires.
• GILLIAN RENNIE, writer and editor. Rennie is a Journalism and Media Studies lecturer at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. For the past 10 years, she has edited and written for Cue, a daily newspaper produced by the Journalism School to cover the annual National Festival of the Arts. She received the Mondi Award for Profile Writing in 2006 for her MaMbeki profile published in Fairlady and has written for publications such as Grocott’s Mail, The Natal Witness and The Sunday Independent.
• ALISSA WALKER, writer and editor. Focusing on design and architecture, Walker has written for Fast Company, GOOD, and Dwell, and edited the design blog UnBeige for three years. She co-created and serves as curator for GOOD Design, an event series where designers present solutions to urban problems across the country, and she is the associate producer of KCRW’s DnA: Design and Architecture. She is author of CityWalks Architecture: New York, a walking guide organized into 25 itineraries.
• WEI-WEI WANG, columnist and reporter. Originally from Taipei, Taiwan, Wang covers the Beijing contemporary art scene for Taiwan-based ARTCO magazine. In addition to her column in Art and Investment, she is currently working on a year-long series of monthly interviews with Chinese contemporary art collectors for publication in the same magazine. She has also worked for the Beijing bureau of Christian Science Monitor and served as gallery manager for Boers-Li Gallery in Beijing, China.
• DOUGLAS WOLK, writer and critic. Based in Portland, Oregon, Wolk writes about comics and graphic novels for the New York Times Book Review, Techland.com, The Believer and Publishers Weekly, and about pop music for Rolling Stone, Time, Pitchfork.com and elsewhere. In 2002-2003, he was a Mid-Career Fellow with the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University. He authored the Eisner Award-winning Reading Comics (Da Capo) and Live at the Apollo (Continuum).
"These journalists want to drive the global conversation about arts and culture," said Sasha Anawalt (pictured, above), founder and director of the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program. "They have the skills, energy and ideas to spark further change in how people participate in the arts and make them meaningful to their lives. This is our most international fellowship so far.”
The 2010 USC Annenberg/Getty Fellows were selected from a pool of over 75 applicants from 19 American states and 17 foreign countries by a committee of arts journalists and journalism school directors.
Jeff Weinstein, deputy director of the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program, will participate in the Fellowship and will lend his expertise as a leading arts editor, formerly with the Village Voice, Philadelphia Inquirer and Bloomberg News. Douglas McLennan, founder and editor of Artsjournal.com, will also be present during the Fellowship for master classes on multimedia storytelling and career advisement. Arianna Sikorski, in her fourth year as program coordinator, completes the USC Annenberg/Getty Fellowship staff.
For more information about the Fellowship, visit http://annenberg.usc.edu/getty
The Getty Foundation fulfills the philanthropic mission of the Getty Trust by supporting individuals and institutions committed to advancing the understanding and preservation of the visual arts locally and throughout the world. Through strategic grants and programs, the Foundation strengthens art history as a global discipline, promotes the interdisciplinary practice of conservation, increases access to museum and archival collections, and develops current and future leaders in the visual arts. The Foundation carries out its work in collaboration with the Getty Museum, Research Institute, and Conservation Institute to ensure the Getty programs achieve maximum impact. Additional information is available at www.getty.edu/foundation.
