Going National

We always knew he was headed for Broadway.

David Warner, editor of the Philadelphia City Paper, has been selected for a 2001-02 fellowship in the National Arts Journalism Program (NAJP) at Columbia University, it was announced Monday. The program, which is funded by a $4.5 million grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts, offers academic and research fellowships to journalists involved in arts and cultural coverage.

"I’m thrilled," said Warner, who has been instrumental in shaping the City Paper’s award-winning arts coverage since he first began working at the paper in 1987. "The paper has always placed a high priority on covering the arts, and this recognition validates what we’ve been doing."

Paul Curci, City Paper publisher, said that Warner "has done more to raise awareness and enthusiasm for the arts in our city over the last ten years than any other journalist… period. We can think of no one more deserving of this opportunity."

Warner, who has had success as an actor in Philadelphia theater, will take a variety of courses at Columbia, and will also pursue a "backstage" practicum in affiliation with a New York arts organization. He is one of nine journalists from around the country who have been named Mid-Career Fellows for 2001-02. Past winners of the fellowship from the Philadelphia area include Tom Moon of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Naomi Person, producer of Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Each 2001-02 Mid-Career Fellow receives a $40,000 stipend plus tuition.

NAJP also awards a smaller number of senior fellowships which provide shorter-term support to distinguished journalists for research and writing projects. The 2001-02 senior fellows include Hilton Als of the New Yorker, Michael Feingold of the Village Voice and Francis Davis, the Philadelphia-based jazz critic. This year the program has also awarded the first NAJP-Columbia University Distinguished Lectureship in Criticism to renowned film critic Pauline Kael.

Warner will be in residence at Columbia from mid-August through May 2002. He will, however, be "summoned from time to time," says Curci, "to make sure we're covering all of the bases properly."

If they can get him back, that is, once he has a brush with NYC stardom. Warner noted that the day he visited the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism to be interviewed for the program, Al Gore, who is currently teaching at the school, came out of the building with David Letterman in tow.

"If only Meadow Soprano had shown up," he said, "my day would have been complete." The TV character is currently a Columbia undergrad.

—City Paper Staff