GMA News Online editor-in-chief Jaemark Tordecilla among 24 Nieman fellows at Harvard

GMA News Online editor-in-chief Jaemark Tordecilla has been selected by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism as one of 24 global journalists for a year of study at Harvard University.

Tordecilla, a Senior Assistant Vice President at GMA Network, will be part of the Nieman Class of 2024 which will arrive on campus this fall and includes investigative reporters, podcasters, documentary filmmakers, an open-source researcher, writers, video and photojournalists, a film critic, a television news producer, a media analyst and senior editors and newsroom leaders who direct innovative journalism ventures.

He will study audience trust in media organizations and what newsrooms can do to strengthen that trust and build engagement.

Tordecilla, a career journalist and editor, was also one of the Philippines' Ten Outstanding Young Men in 2021.

His leadership of GMA News and Public Affairs digital media led to recognition by prestigious institutions such as the WAN-IFRA Digital Media Worldwide and Digital Media Asia Awards, the Society of Publishers in Asia Awards for Editorial Excellence, and the New York Festivals.

According to Nieman, the fellows in two semesters at Harvard will examine the growing threats to democracy and the free press; the use of AI in reporting; innovations in storytelling; political polarization; trauma; climate destabilization; scientific advances in health care; reporting under repressive regimes; solutions journalism; media trust; and journalism collaboration.

“These inspiring journalists are working to elevate and redefine our industry at a critical moment,” said Ann Marie Lipinski, curator of the Nieman Foundation.

“The vast possibilities offered by changing modes of creation and communication invite new approaches to our work, and the severe threats against journalism around the globe demand them. I’m excited to support the research of these fellows as they work to strengthen journalism and contribute to the Harvard community in important ways,” she added.

The other fellows in the Class of 2024 are as follows:

• James Barragan, politics reporter for the Texas Tribune;
• Julia Barton, vice president and executive editor at Pushkin Industries in New York;
• Julian Benbow, a sports reporter at The Boston Globe;
• Elsie Chen, a Chinese reporter based in Shenzhen, China, who has worked as a reporter and researcher for The New York Times in Beijing and Seoul;
• Ben Curtis, a photojournalist and East Africa bureau chief for The Associated Press in Kenya;
• Lebo Diseko, a South African correspondent for the BBC World Service based in London;
• Sonya Groysman, a Russian reporter for TV Rain, documentary director and podcaster working in exile;

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• Cristela Geurra, senior arts and culture reporter at WBUR in Boston;
• Denise Hruby, an Austrian environment reporter who writes for The New York Times, The Washington Post and National Geographic;
• Beandra July, an independent arts journalist and film critic based in Los Angeles;
• Jikyung Kim, deputy editor, anchor and writer at the Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) in South Korea;
• Javier Lafuente, deputy managing editor of the American edition of the Spanish newspaper El País;
• Yana Lyushnevskaya, a senior journalist with BBC Monitoring’s team in Kyiv;
• Ilya Marritz, a New York-based reporter who covers threats to democracy for ProPublica and Trump legal matters for NPR;
• Andrea Patiño Contreras, a video journalist and editor from Colombia who is based in Boston;
• Rachel Pulfer, executive director of Journalists for Human Rights in Toronto;
• Andrew Ryan, an investigative reporter for The Boston Globe;
• Denise Schrier Cetta, a producer and writer for “60 Minutes” at CBS News;
• Surabhi Tandon, an Indian reporter and filmmaker;
• Sarah Varney, a senior correspondent for KFF Health News based in Massachusetts;
• Johanna Wild, a German open-source researcher and founder of the investigative tech team at Bellingcat in Amsterdam; and
• Annie Jieping Zhang, founder and CEO of Matters Lab in Taiwan.

Since 1938, the Nieman Foundation has selected more than 1,700 journalists from 100 countries for fellowships at Harvard.

In addition to taking classes at the university, fellows participate in a robust Nieman program of seminars, workshops, training sessions, and collaborations with Harvard scholars, students and leading innovators in the Cambridge area. —NB, GMA Integrated News