Contender For Nieman Post Under Scrutiny

Harvard was hours away from naming former Detroit News editor Robert H. Giles curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism, but postponed a decision after protests regarding his role in a bitter strike at the News surfaced, sources said this week.

"They were supposed to issue the announcement Thursday [June 23]," said a media industry source with an active interest in the appointment. "They called up and said there had been a slight hitch and it would be Friday. And then, bingo, it didn't happen."

Giles has come under attack from former reporters at the Detroit News who say that his performance as editor and his conduct during the still-ongoing strike should disqualify him from the position.

President Neil L. Rudenstine's staff director, Jackie O'Neil, said that Harvard's search is on hold but that when Rudenstine returns from a European vacation in mid-July, the Nieman appointment would be "number one on his dance card."

Both Giles and Harvard refused to comment this week on whether he is still a candidate for the curatorship. But a close Giles associate, Knight Foundation President Hodding Carter III, said Wednesday that Giles is still being considered.

"It is my understanding that no offer, assuming that there is one out there, has been withdrawn," Carter said.

But Robert Ourlian, an ex-Detroit News reporter, said that rumor in the union camp is that it is only a matter of time before Giles withdraws his name from consideration.

Former curator Bill Kovach spent his last day at the Foundation on June 30 before leaving for Washington, D.C. to head the Committee of Concerned Journalists. He said this week that a new curator will not be named until mid-summer.

"I would imagine that a curator would probably not be named until sometime probably late in July or August," Kovach said. He said the Foundation will be able to function without a new curator into the early fall.

"I don't think anybody thinks there is a rush," said a source close to the Nieman Foundation. "There are no real decisions [for the curator] to make right now."

Still, the University was on the verge of announcing that Giles would replace Kovach in June when complaints from his former employees reached Mass. Hall.

Members of the Nieman staff were informed that Giles's appointment was imminent, said a former Nieman fellow close to workers there.

Some Giles supporters wonder why the University did not review his involvement with the Detroit strike earlier.

"These were not secrets," said Nancy Maynard, widow of Giles' Nieman classmate Robert Maynard.

"Mass. Hall hadn't done any homework," said the former Nieman fellow, who attributed the delay to the complaints from Giles's former employees. "They sat on the appointment and moved at the wrong pace."

While Giles' opponents object to his coverage of the strike, many also criticize his overall record as an editor. Some former associates accuse him of dumbing down the paper.

Ourlian said that Giles directed several changes in the newspaper's format, each of which reduced the space available for news stories.

"He cut the coverage, he cut the staff, he was responsible for the exodus of readers," Ourlian said.