Harvard Sends Chinese Packing
Harvard has dropped its plan to train Chinese government officials to prepare them for dealing with journalists at the 2008 summer Oympic games.
Apparently the alumni of the Nieman Fellows
protested too much.
I'm not sure that Nieman director Bob Giles hasn't caved too soon. Yes, the training program was a bit of departure from the Nieman mission, which is basically to give journalists enough money to sit around and not do much for a year. (Thus ensuring that Harvard has many good and high-ranking friends in the media.)
But while it may seem odd for the Foundation to take on the challenge of training flacks for China, someone has to do it. And introducing Chinese officials to the traditions of American journalism can't be an entirely bad thing, right?
The real problem is that Harvard is hardly the place to teach transparency with the press. Its press people and those in Beijing have more in common than the Harvard folks would like to think.
The Nieman Foundation should train Harvard's press relations people first, then China's.
