Murphy
Winter 2018
Reporter
University of Minnesota
Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication
ALUMNI on the Front Lines
Graduates covering major U.S. tragedies
IN THIS ISSUE:
LEADING THROUGH INNOVATION JOURNALISM, CIVIL RIGHTS &SPRING POLITICS Murphy Reporter 2016 2
Murphy Reporter Winter 2018
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
1
DIRECTOR Elisia Cohen
HEADLINES + FEATURES News from the director ....................1
EDITOR Amanda Fretheim Gates
In memoriam: Helen Silha ................ 2
DESIGN Jeanne Schacht
Alumni on the front lines .................4
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Elizabeth Brunette, Elisia Cohen, Katie Dohman, Jane Kirtley, Brittany Robb
Leading through innovation ......... 10
Casey award .....................................3 Newspaper wars ..............................7 Why we give: Joel and Laurie Kramer................. 19
2 Helen SilHa
PHOTOGRAPHY Chris Cooper, Bill Kelley, John Sutter
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Silha lecture .................................. 14 Fall forum ...................................... 16
STUDENT ASSISTANTS Grace Boyle, Elizabeth Brunette, Andrew Tomten COPY EDITOR Ellen Burkhardt ALUMNI RECORDS Mary Achartz, Kaylee Highstrom 2017-2018 HSJMC ALUMNI SOCIETY BOARD MEMBERS Tim Nelson, president Tanya Wright, president-elect Jacqueline Larson, secretary Carolyn Ahlstrom Heather Arnston Jess Fleming Eric Hansen Brian Hurley Victoria Hoshal John Maher Jenni Pinkley Jennifer Sorenson
GroundTruth.................................. 17 Reporting on protests ................... 18
20 aluMni on tHe front lineS
3 Murphy Reporter
22
STUDENT NEWS Undergraduate.............................. 22 Graduate ....................................... 22 Meet a student.............................. 23
26
ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES Alumni news.................................. 24 Alumni spotlight: Byron Barnett ... 26 Alumni mixer ................................. 27
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Mentor program ........................... 28
leading tHrougH innovation
Send questions or comments to murphrep@umn.edu or Murphy Reporter, 111 Murphy Hall, 206 SE Church St., S.E., Minneapolis, MN 55455
This publication is available in alternative formats upon request. Direct requests to murphrep@umn.edu
FACULTY NEWS News ............................................. 20
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The Murphy Reporter is published semiannually by the University of Minnesota Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication for alumni, faculty, staff, students and friends of the school.
The University of Minnesota shall provide equal access to and opportunity in its programs, facilities and employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, gender, age, marital status, disability, public assistance status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.
EVENTS
Alumni Society Board ................... 29
30
DONOR REPORT
33
IN MEMORIAM
CONNECT WITH US! facebook.com/umnhsjmc
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Mentor PrograM KicK-off
twitter.com/umn_hsjmc instagram.com/umnhsjmc youtube.com/umnhsjmc
On the cover: McKenna Ewen (B.A. '09) of CNN documents life after Hurricane Maria. Photo by John Sutter.
U of MN Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication Alumni
From the desk of Elisia Cohen We are entering a time of
As a public school, accountability is
growth and innovation at the
important to our mission. The stan-
University of Minnesota. The
dards that our accreditor uses help
College of Liberal Arts has
benchmark
launched its capital campaign,
against national standards for pre-
“Shattering Expectations,” and
paring students in mastering the
we in Murphy Hall share the
professional values and competencies
transformational goals that the
detailed
campaign is designed to support.
org/policies-process/principles/. It is
While it is true that the Hubbard
my personal belief that professional
School of Journalism and Mass
schools of journalism and mass com-
Communication has experienced
munication have a critical role in
more change than most since
training students in these professional
the last capital campaign, we also remain ambitious. We are
values and competencies. We take on
committed to innovation and gaining national recognition as
this challenge to promote professional
the premier flagship, state-supported journalism school in
practice with enthusiasm in our daily
the United States.
research, training of students, and
the
here:
Hubbard
School
http://www.acejmc.
service in collaboration with the proTo achieve these goals, we are fortunate to have the contribu-
fessional community in the creative
tions of our alumni, faculty, students and friends. In 2018,
media industries.
We take on this challenge to promote professional practice with enthusiasm in our daily research, training of students, and service in collaboration with the professional community in the creative media industries.
we have plans to integrate five new full-time faculty into the ranks of instructors and researchers in Murphy Hall. We
On behalf of the faculty and staff of the Hubbard School,
also are reimagining and redesigning our office, classroom
please accept my appreciation for your support and warm
and research spaces to continue to support the professional
wishes for the new year. We are proud of our history, and look
development needs of our students, faculty and staff. Finally,
forward to what the new year will bring!
we are engaged in serious self-study and strategic planning as we enter a reaccreditation review period.
All the best,
In the years ahead we hope to capitalize on the “Shattering Expectations” campaign to launch new centers for excellence and strength. In the interim, we are rededicating ourselves to the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s reaccreditation process as one of
Elisia L. Cohen, Ph.D. Director and Professor Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication
118 accredited professional programs in the United States and abroad. The accreditation system is a voluntary one, but
Photo by Chris Cooper
it also provides an assurance of quality to students, parents and the public.
Murphy Reporter WINTER 2018 1
HEADLINES
Helen Silha, 1919-2017 BY JANE E. KIRTLEY Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law Director, Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law
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events, rarely missing any of them. Always a gracious hostess for our receptions, she attended the 2017 Silha Lecture less than three weeks before her death. Helen read the Silha Bulletin and our other publications faithfully, and would sometimes call me just to chat about something we had written or to comment on an interview I’d given to the news media. She took a personal interest in the academic and professional progress of our graduate and law student Silha fellows and research assistants, and was very proud of my travels in the United States and abroad to speak about freedom of the press and media ethics, spreading the word about the Silha Center’s mission. I was thrilled when she wrote me that, “We are all so pleased with the way the Silha Center is working under your direction.” Helen was by no means an easy grader, and I knew her strength of character and integrity would preclude insincere flattery. A compliment from Helen really meant something. I hope that the Silha Center can continue to serve as a living testament to Helen Silha’s values, her vision and her memory. All of us at the Silha Center will miss her very much. ❚
Bulletin, we used Helen as our bellwether. She was an educated and intellectually curious layperson, and we always strove to write our stories with a minimum of legal jargon in a way that Helen, and other readers like her, could appreciate. Helen also cared—a lot—about ethics, just as Otto had. She sometimes fretted about what she saw as a decline in standards in the traditional mainstream media, and encouraged the Silha Center to address that. Helen also relished Silha Center events focusing on unusual topics, such as the ethics of restaurant reviewing. She adored the Silha Lecture by editorial cartoonist Chip Bok, delighting in the political caricatures he sketched during his presentation— especially the ones he presented to her. Helen remained very much involved Helen Silha and her family attended the 2017 Silha Lecture in October. in Silha Center Pictured with Silha guest speaker David McCraw (back left) and Jane Kirtley.
Photo by Bill Kelley
Helen Silha was a force of nature. That sobriquet is not original to me. It was an observation made by my colleague, Professor Kathleen Hansen, when she learned that Helen had passed away on Oct. 21, 2017, at the age of 98. I share the sentiment. I met Helen soon after I was named the Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law in 1999. When I first moved to Minnesota from Washington, D.C., I initially— and erroneously—assumed that Helen’s role was essentially that of Helen Silha supportive spouse to her husband, the late Otto Silha, the long-time journalist, publisher, consultant and philanthropist. Although both were University of Minnesota alumni who cared deeply about their alma mater, I also assumed—again, erroneously—that, as a former school teacher, Helen probably had only a marginal interest in media law and ethics. It was certainly true that Helen had plenty of interests and causes of her own, such as organizing classes for the Continuing Education for Women Program at the University of Minnesota and serving on the boards of Minnesota Early Learning Design, COMPAS, and the Edina Special Children’s Group. She was also active in her church, Third Church of Christ, Scientist, in Minneapolis. But I discovered that Helen was intensely concerned about contemporary issues affecting freedom of the press. Though not an attorney herself, she took a keen interest in the media law topics we explored at the Silha Center, and she loved talking with the prominent media attorneys who delivered Silha Lectures on topics such as libel, privacy, reporter’s privilege, regulation of electronic media and national security. In fact, when the Silha research assistants and I sat down to talk about what stories we would cover in each issue of the Silha
HEADLINES
Honoring a Long Career of Leadership The Ralph D. Casey/Minnesota Award was presented to Doug Franklin. BY AMANDA FRETHEIM GATES Director Elisia Cohen traveled to the Inland Press Association’s annual conference in September to present the Ralph D. Casey/Minnesota Award to Doug Franklin. The award is named in honor of the first director of the University of Minnesota Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Ralph D. Casey, who believed that leaders in the journalism and media industry have an important responsibility to give their best to the community. When picking this year’s recipient, Cohen thought Franklin lived up to that legacy. Franklin is a past executive vice president and CFO of Cox Enterprises, a communications organization where he spent his 38-year career moving up the ranks. Franklin started at Cox in 1977 while attending college, first working as a door-to-door circulation solicitor for Dayton Newspapers in Ohio. He moved throughout a number of roles at different Cox publications, including at the Springfield News-Sun and the Longview-Texas News Journal. In the mid-’80s he took on the role as business manager at the Dayton Daily News. Just four years later he was promoted to executive vice president and general manager of the paper. Franklin provided leadership and vision in his newsrooms that could not be matched. It was this integrity that made Franklin a top choice for COO and then CEO and president of Cox Ohio Publishing, where he oversaw 1,100 employees at four daily newspapers. It wasn’t easy to run newspapers in the mid-2000s. It took the creativity and tenacity of great leaders for newsrooms and media companies across the country to stay alive during the Recession. And, unfortunately, many folded. But those under Franklin’s watch thrived. Franklin could foresee the changes that needed to happen in the newsroom and online. He could see how news and marketing could no longer remain in clear silos. News companies now had to get creative like never
Elisia Cohen presents the Casey Award to Doug Franklin.
before. Which is how, during his time with Cox Ohio Publishing, Franklin became one of the first publishers to blend newspaper content and marketing with Cox’s radio and TV business in Dayton. This skill to see the big picture and think ahead made Franklin’s next career step inevitable. From 2009 to 2013, Franklin led Cox Media Group as executive vice president and president. In these roles, he oversaw the group’s publishing, broadcasting and digital media properties, including eight dailies and more than a dozen non-dailies, 15 television stations, 86 radio stations, more than 100 digital services and the direct marketing company Valpak.
Franklin also brought his leadership to the boards of both the Inland Press Association and the now-News Media Alliance. His friends and colleagues at both associations say how much they trust his opinions and appreciate his hard work. Before retiring in 2015, Franklin spent two years as the executive vice president and CFO at Cox Enterprises—closing out his 38-year career as a key member of the leadership team. The continued success of the communications and media company—with 60,000 employees and $20 billion in revenue—is in part because of the risks, changes and strides Franklin made at each and every one of his positions. ❚ Murphy Reporter WINTER 2018 3
Photo by John Sutter
ALUMNI McKenna Ewen (B.A. ‘09) films a Puerto Rican resident for CNN (above). Front pages of the Las Vegas Review-Journal during the days after the Vegas shooting (right).
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When a man opened fire on a country music festival on Oct. 1, 2017, the Las Vegas Review Journal was immediately on the scene. Blake Apgar (B.A. ’16) covers the police beat for the newspaper and heard the shooting news over the scanner. He arrived at Mandalay Bay 10 minutes after the shooting ended. He followed Twitter for police updates and got swept up in the hotel’s lockdown. Jessie Bekker (B.A.
This fall, HSJMC alumni found themselves covering major U.S. tragedies. BY AMANDA FRETHEIM GATES, WITH ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY KATIE DOHMAN
of college, said Keith Moyer, editor in chief and former senior fellow for the Hubbard School. And even as a 40-year news veteran, Moyer said he wasn’t prepared to hear the final numbers of those dead and injured. “There’s no plan for that,” he said. “Whoever needs to be called is called, you don’t care what their beat is. We were an hour and 15 minutes from our print deadline.” While the Journal was able to hold off for an extra
ON THE FRONT LINES ’17) covers health care and immigration for the Review Journal and received the call to come in late that evening. Other HSJMC alumni working on the coverage after the shooting included: Bridget Bennett (B.A. ’16), Elizabeth Brumley (B.A. ’15), Betsy Helfand (B.A. ’15), Arthur Kane (B.A. ’93), Ben Gotz (B.A. ’16) and Sam Gordon (B.A. ’14). When tragedy strikes, journalists are some of the first people to get there, after the first responders. “It was 100 percent all hands on deck,” said Bekker. “Some went down to the Strip immediately to find out what was going on; we didn’t know the scale. Around midnight I went to the hospitals in the area but was not very successful—a lot of them were locked down, understandably. In the days that followed, everyone came in early and stayed as long as they could and did everything they could.” Most of the Journal’s reporters on the scene that night were one to three years out
hour, they still had to go to print without the full details, updating the paper’s website throughout the night.
RESPONSIBILITY OF TRUTH Apgar and Bekker both agree that a frustrating aspect of covering a tragedy of magnitude is that, try as you might, the wrong information can still be published by other outlets. While the Journal handled the story with very specific standards— they only reported a death after talking to a reputable source—they still saw fake stories about people who were not victims. They also had to manage the influx of national media that arrived at the site of tragedy, stayed for a few days, then left. “To see [incorrect stories] as a journalist is upsetting because it gives people a reason not to trust us,” Bekker said. “At the end of the day, national media can swoop in and cover this on the surface level, but we are the local paper of record. It’s our job to
Ewen stands with a Puerto Rican family.
Murphy Reporter WINTER 2018 5
Jessie Bekker
make sure that what we put out there is what people can turn to for years.” The Journal wanted to write about more than just the deaths, Moyer said. Reporters attended funerals and looked to highlight the human spirit of the victims, first responders and heroes. “Our staff became a tight-knit staff that week and everyone left with an even higher respect for each other,” Moyer said. “Some of it you can teach, but some of it you’re born with. And we’re not going to be done with this story for a long time. We’re still here.”
“JOURNALISTS ARE HUMANS.” The aftermath of covering a tragedy can take its toll. Both Bekker and Apgar agree that the night’s details are still a blur and remain difficult to talk about. Newsroom leaders made sure professional services were available to those who might need to decompress after such an event. The Houston Chronicle sent pizza and cookies and opened up a bar tab down the street. Some reporters were working 18-hour days and, perhaps due to fatigue, around 20 reporters and editors were struck by the flu in early November. Nothing can prepare you for event like this, Apgar, Bekker and Moyer said. Yet a journalist still has to do the job. In school, these graduates were taught to separate from their sources, but it’s not so easy when they’re talking to loved ones of those who were just lost. “Journalists are humans,” Bekker said. “It’s OK to be upset and to feel for these people who are grieving. A couple sources told me that talking about it was helping them process, and that helped me, too. I remembered it’s in my hands to help the world remember their loved one. They aren’t just a number.” ❚ 6
Murphy Reporter
J. Keith Moyer
Blake Apgar
“At the end of the day, national media can swoop in and cover this on the surface level, but we are the local paper of record. It’s our job to make sure that what we put out there is what people can turn to for years.”
Covering Puerto Rico It’s a journalist’s job to continue to tell the stories of tragedies during the days, weeks and months that follow. McKenna Ewen (B.A. ‘09), digital producer for CNN, traveled to Puerto Rico one month after Hurricane Maria hit on Sept. 20, 2017. When he arrived, there were 1 million Puerto Ricans still without water and 3 million without power. He made a return trip back in early November. During those trips, the CNN team worked to identify municipalities that were not receiving aid and told the stories about the challenges these residents were facing. “When we arrived in Puerto Rico, our focus was trying to better understand the needs of its people,” said Ewen, who shoots, writes and edits short documentary films for the network. “We found families drinking water from potentially contaminated drinking sources, living in structurally unsafe homes and bracing 90-degree days without power.” Visual journalism in a time of crisis can be very powerful. It’s one thing to read about a tragedy and another to see it. The lack of power and water provided the context for the reporting and filming during both trips. “It’s hard to express how significant water and power are for everyday life,” Ewen said. One of his pieces, filmed during his first trip, shows a woman living without a roof, as rain falls onto her bed. “I never fully appreciated the value of having a tarp after a storm, but to see people living without a roof and watch water collect on their floors was difficult to see,” he said. Ewen also covered Hurricane Harvey, which hit Houston, Texas, on Aug. 26, 2017. He watched hundreds of energy vehicles along coastal roads working to repair downed power lines, saw that most of the city had drinking water and, despite the widespread damage, saw a city rebuilding. In Puerto Rico, he saw hopeful people turn frustrated as the days and weeks went on. “There was a level of desperation that I had not seen from previous storms,” he said. “Most communities were receiving little, if any, aid, especially toward the center of the island.”
, M S I L A N R U JO S T H G I R L I V CI S C I T I L O P D AN
I
HSJMC professor’s book shows how newspapers led the political struggle.
n the spring of 1935, John Henry McCray graduated from college in Alabama and returned to Lincolnville, South Carolina, the tiny African American enclave near Charles- BY SID BEDINGFIELD ton where he grew up. Brimming with ambition, McCray told friends that he wanted to launch a newspaper and use it to fight for equal rights in his home state. At the time, McCray’s youthful optimism seemed dangerously misplaced. Mired in the Depression and demoralized by 40 years of violent Jim Crow rule, black Carolinians struggled each day merely to survive. As one observer noted, they seemed trapped in a morass of economic exploitation and political hopelessness. The organizations that dominated black civic life in the state—churches, schools and NAACP chapters— had grown either defeatist or moribund. White leaders believed the issue of white supremacy had been settled in the South, and some of the most prominent voices in the black community appeared to agree. Over the following decade, however, African Americans emerged as a political force in South Carolina. NAACP membership increased from fewer than 800 in the mid-1930s to more than 14,000 a decade later. And the new movement won a string of victories. In the 1940s, black South Carolinians overturned the state’s system of unequal pay for black teachers, won the right to participate in Democratic Party primaries, influenced the outcome of a U.S. Senate election and filed a school desegregation suit that would lead to Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court case outlawing segregation in public schools. These successes served as a turning point in the political history of the state and the nation. As one historian put it, the NAACP activists who led the fight in South Carolina in the 1940s served as the “vanguard” of the massive civil rights struggle that would emerge across the South the following decade. The surge in activism that began in the late 1930s Murphy Reporter WINTER 2018 7
and accelerated through the 1940s raises an obvious question: How did a movement planted in such desolate terrain manage to take root and grow so quickly? In my book, Newspaper Wars: Civil Rights and White Resistance in South Carolina, 1935-1965, I try to answer that question.
THE ROLE OF JOURNALISM Demographic and social changes that swept the nation during the 1930s and ’40s created two of the three conditions that social movement theorists believe are necessary for successful collective action. The Great Migration of Afri-
black activists and white segregationists crafted narratives that competed to interpret the meaning of the African American fight for political and social equality. They used the tools of mass communication and political symbolism to try to define citizenship and establish the proper boundaries of civic life. Both were pursuing a distinctly political goal: to mobilize supporters, persuade potential allies and shape public opinion on the critical question of race and citizenship. The black and white press operated at the heart of this meaning-making process. In the African American community, where a strategy of cautious accommodation of white supremacist rule remained prevalent, a radical newspaper emerged in the late 1930s to promote a new conception of what citizenship required. McCray’s Lighthouse and Informer served as the public voice of a political reform movement that included an aggressive NAACP and a rising Democratic Party insurgency. Using the newspaper as a means of command and control, the movement mobilized black community support and launched a coordinated assault on the barriers white society had erected to block black participation in the state’s civic life.
THE WHITE BACKLASH Faced with this new challenge, white newspaper editors, often in collusion with political office holders, struggled to redefine the meaning of white democracy. They would continue to pursue what an earlier historian had called the “central theme of southern history”—the region’s effort to remain a “white man’s country.” Yet the nation had changed since their forebears had fought to restore white supremacy at the turn of the twentieth century. With
can Americans leaving the South during the 1930s created political opportunities by increasing black voting clout in the North, particularly in the large industrial states where national elections were decided. In the South, urbanization helped produce new mobilizing structures in cities and small towns, making it much easier for black churches and the NAACP to unite the community and build support for protest. JOURNALISTS AT WHITE DAILY NEWSPAPERS DID MORE THAN DOCUMENT AND Yet these developments INTERPRET PUBLIC EVENTS; THEY SERVED AS INDEPENDENT AND DISTINCT alone did not ensure the rise of a robust civil rights movePOLITICAL ACTORS ENGAGED DIRECTLY IN THE STATE’S POLITICAL PROCESS. ment. To achieve that, black communities in the South needed leaders who could infuse these social and demographic changes with politinorthern public opinion turning in the years after World cal meaning. They required powerful new voices who could War II, white editors in the state worked to create a new carry out what sociologist Douglas McAdam calls “the defense of white rule in the South that would restore its collective processes of interpretation … and social construclegal and intellectual credibility within the nation’s larger tion that mediate between opportunity and action.” democratic narrative. My book argues that the civil rights struggle was more By moving the state’s newspapers from the periphery than a litany of court cases and voter registration drives. to the center of the political action, my book encourages At its core, it was a cultural contest. In South Carolina, readers to reconsider the role journalism played in the 8
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fight over civil rights. John McCray and his primary allies at the Lighthouse and Informer—Modjeska Monteith Simkins and Osceola E. McKaine—are significant historical figures who deserve more attention in the study of the nation’s black press. At a time when most black newspapers in the Deep South were assumed to be cautious and conservative—much like the Scott family’s Atlanta Daily World—the Lighthouse and Informer called for direct confrontation with white supremacy. In the 1940s, McCray and his allies challenged their readers to “rebel and fight” for their rights as American citizens, to reject the “slavery of thought and action” that created “uncle Toms and aunt Jemimas” and become “progressive fighters for the emancipation of the race.” This study also focuses on white journalists and their role in shaping the response to the movement McCray’s newspaper helped launch. In South Carolina, journalists at white daily newspapers did more than document and interpret public events; they served as independent and distinct political actors engaged directly in the state’s political process. In the wake of the Brown decision, they editorialized in favor of massive resistance, but they also helped implement that policy through the creation of White Citizens’ Councils and other political organizations. When massive resistance began to fail, the same journalists turned to partisan politics and played central roles in creating a new political home for white segregationists in a conservative Republican Party in the South. In the 1960s, white southern journalists began experimenting with new narratives designed to build the GOP and undermine growing black political activism in the South. My book shows how South Carolina journalists joined forces with William F. Buckley Jr. and his political journal, National Review, to begin developing a new rhetoric of socalled “colorblind conservatism” that could attract southern segregationists to the rising conservative movement without alienating northern supporters. Though geographically small, South Carolina has always played an outsized role in the racial history of the nation. In many ways it has served as ground zero for the most contentious and vexing issue of American democracy. From the debate over slavery at the constitutional convention through the first shots at Fort Sumter and the rise and fall of Jim Crow, the Palmetto State has taken the lead in the battle to stand still. No state has tried harder to rebel against
Bedingfield has been speaking and signing books at events in Chicago, Florida and the Carolinas.
the arrival of the modern world. And in each confrontation, South Carolina newspapers played significant roles. From the secessionist fire-eaters at the Charleston Mercury to John McCray’s fight for black voting rights and the white press’ embrace of Goldwater Republicanism, the history of journalism has been inseparable from the state’s politics. I argue that South Carolina provides a rich and fascinating landscape for the study of journalism and its role during times of political change. ❚ Sid Bedingfield is an assistant professor in the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. His book, Newspaper Wars: Civil Rights and White Resistance in South Carolina, 1935-1965, was published in Fall 2017 by the University of Illinois Press. Bedingfield, a former newspaper and television journalist, received his doctorate from the University of South Carolina in 2014. Murphy Reporter WINTER 2018 9
HSJMC full-time faculty (back row, left to right) Kenneth Doyle, Sid Bedingfield and Len Mitsch; (second from back row) Scott Libin, Christopher Terry, Valerie Belair-Gagnon, Jisu Huh, Steve Wehrenberg and Rebekah Nagler; (middle row) Benjamin Toff, Colin Agur, Susan LoRusso, Giovanna Dell’Orto, Chris Ison and Stacey Kanihan; (second row) Gayle Golden, Kathleen Hansen and Amy O’Connor; (front row) Elisia Cohen, Sherri Jean Katz, Hyejoon Rim, Betsy Anderson and Claire Segijn. Not pictured: Diane Cormany, Jane Kirtley, Al Tims and Marco Yzer. Photo by Chris Cooper.
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Leading Through Innovation
In the last decade, we’ve seen historic transformation in the way people tell stories. Journalists turn to digital media to break stories on Twitter every day. Large corporations seek out thoughtful media planners to keep them honest and respected in a tumultuous political environment. Major advertisers choose to pull their creative executions from TV shows that may conflict with their corporate sponsors’ brand identity or alienate consumers. Scientists strive to communicate their research to the masses in digestible ways. In the last year, we’ve also seen tried-and-true, investigative reporting break some of the biggest stories of our time. Thoughtful, engaged, media-literate professionals have never been in more demand and, frankly, in greater need. Schools of journalism and mass communication hold a great responsibility to not only train graduates for success, but to give the world the next generation of trustworthy storytellers. The School’s mission has always been to prepare In an effort to raise $4 billion, students for a wide variety of journalism and mass this fall the University embarked communication careers. The desire now is to raise the level of commitment and support for its mison the largest philanthropic sion in a few different ways. initiative in its history: Driven: “We’re confident that tomorrow’s graduates will be successful, grounded not only in a solid skill The University of Minnesota base, but also in the qualities that lie at the heart Campaign. The campaign’s of a liberal arts education: inventive thinking, nimble work habits and the ability to synthesize priorities reflect the University’s different perspectives,” said Elisia Cohen, direcvalues, such as retaining an tor. “But the world of our future graduates will be different—more diverse, endlessly interactive inclusive climate, supporting and intellectually challenging. We’re committed health and well-being, fostering to giving them a head start in becoming forwardthinking media professionals, no matter what innovation and providing a corporate, non-profit, or media industry career world-class student experience. they choose.” When she meets with donors, alumni, faculty, These campaign goals reflect students and staff, Cohen emphasizes that the role initiatives the Hubbard School of journalism and mass communication has never been so vital, especially when developing student of Journalism and Mass skills in communicating facts, shaping policy and Communication, within the holding leaders accountable. The School hopes to stand apart as a place that not only turns out College of Liberal Arts, can sought-after storytellers, but also as a place that is strongly support. The School a state, national and international leader in helping the media industry tell better stories. To do so, shares these University of over the next few years, the School will launch new Minnesota values and priorities. initiatives to support growing areas of expertise within the school.
How the Hubbard School is shaping tomorrow’s storytellers through new initiatives.
Murphy Reporter WINTER 2018 11
A CENTER FOR MEDIA ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND DIGITAL STRATEGY Our alumni have become leading media entrepreneurs and leaders in digital strategy. The rapidly changing media environment has resulted in changes to our curriculum, and requires our students and alumni be nimble and entrepreneurial when imagining and managing their careers. Our alumni are leaders in corporate communications, political campaign management, brand strategy, data journalism, account management, financial communications and so much more. But the school also sees a need for more specialized training in strategy and entrepreneurship. “Journalism students interested in working in these fields need to gain skills in writing effective business plans, analyzing audiences, pitching stories, developing portfolios, identifying brand strategies for digital media and broadly strategizing social media and marketing communications,” Cohen said. The School hopes to partner with other departments and colleges at the U, as well as local alumni, like Jorg Pierach of Fast Horse or an entrepreneurial corporate consulting pioneer like Carol Pine, who have built these types of careers, to offer co-curricular training programs for students to learn and perfect these entrepreneurship skills before they graduate.
A CENTER FOR HEALTH COMMUNICATION No other university is better positioned to train future strategic health communication professionals. As a top-20 research university that includes an academic medical center, the possibilities for students to be broadly trained in health, medicine and the liberal arts, while becoming wellskilled in health and science writing and strategic communication, is unparalleled. The Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication was the first journalism school in the nation to offer a dual B.A./ M.A. program in strategic health communication. Because of this initiative, the School has significant faculty expertise in this area and has the potential to be internationally recognized for its work in an urban environment ripe with industry leaders in healthcare, medical device manufacturing and health insurance. In collaboration with the other units on campus, one way the School can share this expertise is through a center for health communication. “Amidst a confusing landscape of health information, the world needs people who improve the health and well-being of individuals, organizations and communities by developing messages and data to improve health behavior change and policies,” said Cohen, who during her time at Kentucky, acted as the director of the Health Communication Research Collaborative (HCRC), which encourages faculty members across disciplines to work together to solve health communication challenges. A center could create programming that would draw people in with events that feature community strategic health communication experts, people who create policies or other researchers. What would the Center for Health Communication look like? 12
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The hope would be that it would focus on three pillars, said Rebekah Nagler, assistant professor in health communication. The three pillars—research, teaching and outreach—would not only foster collaboration with others, but would help create a self-sustaining service center for health communication needs. For example, accurate and engaging messaging is extremely important for health professionals and industry leaders. The Center for Health Communication would be a one-stop shop with dedicated staff for message development and pre-testing, usability testing, graphic design and creative vision development. “An organized structure like a center for health communication will give funding agencies greater confidence in the infrastructure for research,” Nagler said. A center could not only help University of Minnesota health professionals develop and disseminate their messaging, but also could be a resource for the greater medical community, which is an important part of the Minnesota economy. A center for health communication would also be a strong recruitment tool for both undergraduate and graduate students because it would give them hands-on, real-world experience right inside their school and community, Nagler said. It would be a pipeline for graduates to careers in the health care, medical device and insurance industry in Minnesota. Companies could look to the School first for finding broadly trained, well-skilled health communication professionals.
A CENTER IN DATA-DRIVEN COMMUNICATION RESEARCH Another area where the School sees great leadership potential is in big data analytics, or more generally, computational social science research. The job market for journalists and communication professionals who know how to analyze and interpret big data and communicate findings accurately is growing. Likewise, data scientists need help from social science scholars to effectively draw information from big data and to decipher the data patterns they have. “Everything we do, purchase, say, read, like or share is stored in bits of data, generating massive datasets,” said Professor Jisu Huh, Mithun Chair in Advertising and the director of graduate studies. “Thus, the problem is not a lack of data, but not knowing what to do with abundance of data.” Data-driven, computational social science research is a fast-growing interdisciplinary research field. People with a computer science or statistics background and expertise know how to mine and model data, but it’s the conceptual part that’s missing in most cases. “We understand communication functions and processes and the way communication effects happen,” Huh said. “Bringing in the expertise, we can ask good questions and develop sound conceptual frameworks for data mining and modeling, and help computer scientists develop better algorithms and interpret the meaning of data patterns.” A center in data-driven communication research could not only support big data research conducted by the School’s faculty and
students, but also provide an avenue for industry and academic collaboration. “Today’s organizations have more data than they know what to do with,” Huh said. “If data patterns are misread or miscommunicated, it can lead to incorrect storytelling or bad business decisions. As mass communication experts, we can offer the theoretical understanding and conceptual framework for analyzing and interpreting big data and help organizations make the best decisions with their data.” Learning how to analyze big data and draw useful information from data patterns is extremely relevant to all kinds
Joining Forces for Career Readiness The College of Liberal Arts has made career readiness an important part of its mission, starting early with freshman and driving it home until graduation. The initiative focuses on 10 core competencies—like analytical and critical thinking, digital literacy and career management—that students should be able to put on their resume by graduation. The competencies also show students how a liberal arts education prepares them for the real world and how to sell themselves to employers. The School has always taken pride in giving students plenty of hands-on experience and broad training from faculty to prepare them for their careers. Partnering with CLA in this initiative seemed only logical. Assistant Professor Christopher Terry is a member of the Faculty Fellows Program for Career Readiness. His cohort includes faculty members from English, theater, communication studies and psychology. “We work on taking conceptual liberal arts concepts and coming up with ways to teach students about how they can apply them in a practical way,” he said. “This has always been my approach to teaching. I take the law and turn it into practical skills the students can take with them.” For example, in his internet law class, Terry has students use the “applied problemsolving” core competency in an assignment that asks them to propose a solution to the digital divide in rural and urban broadband infrastructure. Each cohort of the Faculty Fellows Program meets throughout the school year to develop methods and curriculum examples that faculty in all CLA departments can use to help students meet the core competencies. This year’s cohort members will then move on to mentor new members in the following years, with a goal to create graduates across all of liberal arts who are workforce ready. For more information on career readiness, visit cla.umn.edu/academics-experience/ signature-cla-experiences/career-readiness
of organizations in an era of social media, electronic wordof-mouth, rumors, misinformed citizens and fake news. “For example, there are great opportunities for mass communication scholars to work with computer scientists to analyze social network data to discover patterns to see who is spreading fake news or rumors about a company,” said Huh. The application possibilities of data-driven computational social science research in the journalism and strategic communication fields are unlimited. “We really need to get into that game,” she said, “and a center devoted to data-driven computational communication research could set the School apart.”
LEADING JOURNALISM SCHOOL CONVERSATIONS ABOUT FREE PRESS AND FREE EXPRESSION Finally, faculty, students, staff and alumni share a deep concern for a free and independent press and informed electorate. As the University considers its liberal education reforms, Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teacher Gayle (G.G.) Golden will be a strong voice on the planning committee advocating for the importance in training undergraduate students broadly to understand the importance of a free press and the First Amendment to our democracy. It is the position of the faculty that graduates across all fields of study need media literacy training. The School is well-poised to provide this training, with its long-standing research expertise featured in Professor Jane Kirtley’s Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law, which focuses on the concepts and values that define the highest ideals of American journalism: freedom and fairness. “The current political moment seems to have reawakened interest in students’ learning about the First Amendment, freedom of the press, media, law and ethics, and media literacy,” Cohen wrote in an op-ed for MinnPost titled, “The dog whistle of ‘fake news’ requires more conversation about professional journalism.” The School not only offers many separate courses that cover these ideas, but also is examining how it can focus its efforts to reach the greatest audience. “It is the role of professional schools of journalism to train students in ethical journalistic conduct and to prepare students for professional practice,” Cohen wrote in the op-ed. “And it is the job of citizens, with the support of schools of journalism, to support and defend it in public conversation.” The School wants to take the lead in this conversation. In addition to these four initiatives, the School plans to hire more faculty to lead interdisciplinary and innovative projects, improve the reach and effectiveness of outreach events, and continue to connect and partner with community leaders and industries. Advancing knowledge creation and innovation in journalism, mass communication, advertising and strategic communication fields by supporting student and graduate success remains the school’s core mission. Over the next three years, the School expects to report on outcomes associated with these efforts. ❚ Murphy Reporter WINTER 2018 13
EVENTS | SILHA CENTER
32nd annual Silha Lecture addresses the freedom of the press during the Trump presidency. BY BRITTANY ROBB The New York Times deputy general counsel David McCraw argued during the 32nd annual Silha Lecture that beyond President Donald Trump’s tweets and disparaging of “fake” and “failing” news outlets, the current media landscape raises questions as to whether legal precedents for First Amendment protections are still viable today. Throughout his lecture, “Making Media Law Great Again: The First Amendment in the Time of Trump,” McCraw, a 15-year veteran of the Times and litigator of more than 35 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suits, discussed the origins and potential ramifications of President Trump’s attacks on the First Amendment right of freedom of the press. “Like no president before, Trump has both questioned our tradition of protecting freedom of the press and directly engendered a debate about our laws governing freedom of the press. It would be easy to dismiss all of that; it’s not real, it’s partisan, it’s a way to avoid accountability and it isn’t done in a really smart way. #Politics #Silly #Sad,” McCraw said. The lecture took place on Oct. 2, 2017, at the University of Minnesota’s Cowles Auditorium with nearly 300 people in attendance. In October 2016, McCraw wrote a letter to then-presidential candidate Trump’s attorneys defending the right of The New York Times to publish a news story titled, “Two Women Say Donald Trump Touched Them Inappropriately,” over which Trump’s attorneys had threatened a defamation lawsuit. The letter garnered more than two million views on the Times website alone and brought McCraw into the national spotlight. McCraw opened his lecture by recounting the experience surrounding the release of his letter. McCraw said he received varied responses, but took note of those with more personal emphases. “As the letter went out and the calls started coming in, my inbox exploded instantly. It was really a sort of inspiring time because there were people who 14
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criticized the letter, but the number of people who wrote and talked about how much it meant to them that I’d stood up for the Times and stood up for the women was really quite extraordinary,” he said. McCraw added that one of the lessons he learned from the experience was that perhaps it was not “a super great idea to send a ‘bring it on’ letter to the next president of the United States without first checking with senior management.” A major theme of McCraw’s lecture was the differences between the modern media landscape as compared to its past iterations.
“In media landscape 1.0, we had large and influential organizations that dominated the flow of information. They served as gatekeepers. These were professional organizations, so when the courts said ‘let’s get the government out of the business of regulating the press,’ it was easy to understand that you weren’t surrendering this to irresponsible players; you were giving freedom to those people who took seriously their role as a conscientious gatekeeper to the information that flowed into society. There was an understanding that there was a need for powerful media to check powerful government,” McCraw explained. However, McCraw contended that the former landscape no longer existed. “Media landscape 1.0 is gone and media landscape 2.0 looks nothing like it,” he said. “It has been replaced by a landscape dominated by digital communication with a cacophony of voices.” McCraw added that there are no gatekeepers left, and that the current landscape has
Photos by Bill Kelley
Making Media Law Great Again
EVENTS | SILHA CENTER
Media landscape 1.0 is gone and media landscape 2.0 looks nothing like it.
eliminated any semblance of a news cycle and changed the role of both creators and consumers of information. However, the legal foundation for freedom of the press still relies on cases decided long before the digitally dominated news cycle of this new landscape. McCraw explained that the foundation for freedom of the press jurisprudence largely took place during the period between 1964-1989, beginning with New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), which established the actual malice standard in which a public figure must prove that a journalist acted with knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth. What followed was a 25-year period of First Amendment and right of access cases which continue to stand as the foundational media law decisions governing the modern
landscape, according to McCraw. McCraw asked the audience to consider whether the preexisting body of media law was still relevant in the 2.0 landscape. “Have the decisions that made a whole lot of sense 30 years ago grown old? Does the First Amendment really still work in the way it’s been interpreted in those great decisions from 50, 40 and 30 years ago?” One issue McCraw said did not appear in landscape 1.0 was “fake news.” McCraw discussed one example in the 2016 presidential election, in which the website “Red Nation Rising” claimed Pope Francis had endorsed Donald Trump for the presidency. “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Trump for President, Releases Statement” was read more than 900,000 times, but was ultimately
just an example of fake news. “What do you do about this? This wasn’t even a problem in media landscape 1.0,” McCraw noted. McCraw concluded the lecture by arguing that resolving the conflict between media landscapes 1.0 and 2.0 will not be a simple or quick task. The strategies to do so will take a change in attitude and collaboration across the aisle and the digital divide. “We need to resurrect this unanimity. We need to support speech no matter who is speaking. How do we have both government transparency and national security? How do we stop fake news but not give up free press?” “We can’t answer these questions in 140 characters or less,” McCraw concluded. ❚ A video of the lecture is available on the Silha Center website at silha.umn.edu. Silha Center activities, including the annual lecture, are made possible by a generous endowment from the late Otto and Helen Silha.
David McCraw speaks at the 2017 Silha Lecture (opposite page). Answering questions with Professor Jane Kirtley (this page).
Murphy Reporter WINTER 2018 15
EVENTS
Alumni Gather for Master’s Fall Forum The professional master’s program hosted its semi-annual event. Trust is in crisis around the world, according to the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer. Trust in business, government, NGOs and media has declined, and that lack of trust can lead to fear by consumers. Organizations need to take this factor into account when thinking about their messaging and the way they operate. Jay Porter, president of Edelman Chicago, spoke about these issues and the results of the Edelman study to the alumni of the professional master’s program in strategic communication at the program’s Fall Forum, held Oct. 26, 2017, at McNamara Alumni Center at the University of Minnesota. Alumni from 13 years of the program gathered to reconnect and learn from the speaker and each other. ❚
Photos by Chris Cooper
Graduates from Cohort 11: (back row, left to right) Stephanie Schuh-Greenwald, Allen Sommerfeld, Megan Groves, Rebecca Morales, Caley Conney and Zhanna Petersen; (front row) Lindsay Bosley and Lacey Nygard.
Graduates from Cohort 8: Josh Cramer, Joan O’Fallon, Bonnie Usan Flood, Laurel Hood and Will Defiel.
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At the event, cohorts sit together to reconnect and learn.
Jay Porter, president of Edelman Chicago, expanded on the trust survey for attendees.
Shelley Lange, currently a member of Cohort 12, introduced Jay Porter.
Steve Wehrenberg, director of the program welcomed the group to the event.
EVENTS
GroundTruth’s Crossing the Divide comes to Murphy Hall Graduate Gabriel Sanchez was one of five fellows to participate in the three-month journey. BY AMANDA FRETHEIM GATES Gabriel Sanchez (B.A. ’17) was picked as one of five recent grads from around the country to participate in The GroundTruth Project’s Crossing the Divide fellowship. The five fellows spent three months traveling across the country, investigating what divides us. The project’s goal was not only to provide the fellows with an unprecedented journalistic experience, but also to touch on the increasing need for media literacy and transparent journalism in different parts of the country. The fellows’ journey started at the end of August and ended in mid-November and traveled to each of their home states: Western Massachusetts, Appalachian Kentucky, the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, Western Montana and California’s Bay Area. “At a time of deep divisions in America, we wanted to bring together a truly diverse team of reporters to take the great American road trip and capture stories along the way that enlighten and inform,” said Charles
Sennott, GroundTruth founder and executive director. “This is an extraordinary team that hailed from red states and blue states, from rural towns and big cities, from new immigrant backgrounds and those who are part of America’s long immigrant past. I’m excited these fellows came together to report on the issues that divide us and to find the places where we can all come together.” At each stop along the route, the fellows explored a specific theme through the lens of the region. They found that stories always changed once they started reporting. “I learned to not go in with assumptions,” Sanchez said, when the group visited Murphy Hall to talk to students in October. He said what he thought might be the story of the region or the group of people oftentimes turned out to not be true. People were also skeptical of the journalists at first. “Subjects would start out guarded, and it’s hard to get interviews and
stories written in a week’s time,” Sanchez said. But the group learned together that journalism isn’t just about taking from your source what you need, but about collaborating with them on the real story. The five fellows and three GroundTruth staff members traveled together in a van and spent nearly every second of the day together. In Massachusetts, the team reported on educational divides through the lens of a high school in Springfield, while in Kentucky the reporters looked at life after coal through a health care lens. In Minnesota, the crew looked at generational divides within the Somali community. They traveled to Montana to report on environmental divides and ended in California to explore how tech giants have an effect on neighboring communities. ❚ For more information and to read, listen and see the work the fellows did, visit thegroundtruthproject.org/projects/crossing-the-divide/
The GroundTruth Project held a community event in Minneapolis featuring Somali storytellers (top left); the fellows traveled across the country in a van (top right); Gabriel Sanchez (B.A. ‘17) at work (bottom left and right).
Murphy Reporter WINTER 2018 17
EVENTS
Reporting on Protests Experts came together to talk about how to properly cover protests.
(Above) The event was
About 60 people gathered on the U of M campus to hear from a variety of experts on how to report on protests, while also protecting yourself and your data. The event was hosted by the Minnesota Journalism Center and the Society of Professional Journalists as well as National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Newspaper and Communications Guild and SAG-AFTRA. Experts included Mark Anfinson, a media and First Amendment attorney, Rod Adams of Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, Corey Schmidt, the Minneapolis police spokesperson, Anthony Souffle, a Star
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moderated by Lindsey Tribune photojourSeavert of KARE 11 nalist and Doualy (far left). Panelists included (second from Xaykaothao, a MPR left to right) Doualy News reporter. The Xaykaothao, Corey Schmidt, Anthony event was moderSouffle, Rod Adams ated by Lindsey and Mark Anfinson. Seavert of KARE 11. It was also livestreamed on Facebook by the Midwest Emmys. The panelists talked about their experiences covering protests and offered potential reporters tips, like working in teams, obeying police, carrying cash and a photo ID and maintaining neutrality. â?š
DONOR REPORT
Why We Give Joel & Laurie Kramer INTERVIEW BY KATIE DOHMAN
Joel and Laurie Kramer are known throughout Minnesota for many reasons: Joel for his storied career as editor, then publisher and president at the Star Tribune, who went on to found MinnPost, a pioneering nonprofit digital publication focused on regional news, with his wife, Laurie. Laurie has done it all in the nonprofit sector: writing, editing, marketing, membership and fundraising for giants such as the Guggenheim, the Consumers Union, and Jewish Community Centers in Buffalo, New York and St. Paul. She also was recognized as one of Blue Cross Blue Shield’s Champions of Health for her founding of the Mental Health Education Project. She received her master’s degree in public health from the University of Minnesota in 2001. They talked to the Murphy Reporter about why they give.
ON HAVING A PHILANTHROPIC PHILOSOPHY The Kramers are part of the 1 Percent Club, which means they are committed to giving 1 percent of their income to charitable causes. They also serve on many different nonprofit boards. JOEL: We set five priority areas. LAURIE: Mental health, journalism, education, youth and Jewish causes. JOEL: These were all causes because of either our own careers, or careers of children or interests we have in the community. We also donate to what I would call social things—work on social justice in the community.
it’s more difficult to sustain as a career than it used to be. I’ve been very impressed with the students. They are very good reporters, worked hard, wrote well and we were impressed with how well prepared they were.
ON SCALING GENEROSITY JOEL: Every organization that gets philan-
ON CONNECTING JOURNALISM AND PHILANTHROPY JOEL: When I left the Star Tribune, I never associated journalism and philanthropy, except for journalism schools. But when Laurie and I cofounded MinnPost in 2007, we adopted a business model that was heavily dependent on philanthropy. Laurie led that part of that effort and is the person most responsible for raising money over those years. It was exciting to combine those two things, and MinnPost has been reasonably successful. All media that deal in serious issues have a lot of economic challenges. It’s not an easy business, for-profit or nonprofit, but we were able to get thousands of donors to support the work. LAURIE: We have raised over $16 million since 2007.
ON GIVING TO THE NEXT GENERATION OF JOURNALISTS The Kramers partnered with Chris Ison’s advanced reporting classes at MinnPost to provide real-world experience. JOEL: It was a lot of fun to get to work with the next generation of journalists. Also, it’s interesting that there are still so many people who want to go into journalism, even though
thropic money will say, “Every gift counts.” Not only the dollars, but the show of support. First of all, institutions can do a lot with small amounts of money. Second, when they go after foundations, grants, or talk to major donors, they always go right to talking about how many small donors you have. LAURIE: I organize a big annual mental health conference—and we raise money for it—and some people give thousands, and one person sends in a money order for a dollar. To the person who sends the money order—because she doesn’t have a checking account—that dollar is important emotionally, and I know how important it was to her to make the gift. Whatever your level of means, it makes you feel good and us feel good to give. Nothing is too small, to make a contribution.
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF SUPPORTING JOURNALISM NOW JOEL: I give some talks on what I call the “senior citizen circuit.” I get invited, mostly by word of mouth, to talk about President Trump and our democracy. I don’t really talk so much about Trump, but more about the pillars of our democracy and examine how well they are holding up. One pillar is journalism. Others are courts, Congress, federalism and civil liberties organizations like ACLU and Planned Parenthood. In general, these institutions are holding up pretty well, but the stress is enormous, and we should not take these things for granted. They are fragile. I think that journalism and our civil society are very much worth people’s support. We’re supporting democracy. ❚ Murphy Reporter WINTER 2018 19
FACULTY NEWS
FACULTY NEWS
Colin Agur
Photos by Chris Cooper
Valerie Belair-Gagnon
COLIN AGUR is the principle investigator for a LATIS Academic Innovation Grant (value $9,100). The project is titled, “Gamification as Pedagogy: Student-Centered Design, Mobile Gameplay, and Small-Group Learning,” and will create new mobile games for use in teaching Jour 1501: Digital Games, Sims, and Apps. Following two years as vice chair of the mobile communication interest group, Agur became chair and is serving a two-year term as chairman and member of the International Communication Association board of directors. In the last six months, Agur presented at three conferences: the International Communication Association (ICA) Annual Meeting in San Diego in June; the European Research and Education Association (ECREA) Symposium on Digital Democracy: Critical Perspectives in the Age of Big Data in Stockholm, Sweden; and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Annual Meeting in Chicago in August.
Jane Kirtley
VALERIE BELAIR-GAGNON was invited to speak several times, including at the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication in September, the University of Missouri School of Journalism in October, and at the Internet of Things Minneapolis group event in September. She presented her work at four recent conferences: Future of Journalism Conference at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism in September; the International Communication Association annual meeting in San Diego in June; the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in Chicago in August; and the Journalism Studies Division PreConference in San Diego in June.
Jisu Huh
JANE KIRTLEY was interviewed by numerous publications and news outlets, including the Minnesota Daily, KARE 11, WGN Radio, The Wrap, Star Tribune and Salon about fake news, hate speech, the First Amendment, kneeling for the anthem, leaks in the press and defamation. She appeared at the University of Kentucky in October to talk about the anniversary of the Pentagon Papers and the First Amendment. In November, she appeared at the Ad IDEM/Canadian Media Lawyers Association Annual Conference in Toronto on a panel called, “Australian, UK and U.S. Developments” and at the Practising Law Institute’s conference, Communications Law
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in the Digital Age. She was a speaker on the panel, “Global Privacy and Data Protection.” The course handbook chapter she submitted was prepared with the assistance of HSJMC graduate students Scott Memmel and Casey Carmody, and law student Ashley Turacek. The National Cancer Institute recently published a monograph on tobacco-related health disparities. Chapter 10, which focuses on communication, marketing and tobacco-related health disparities, was co-authored by Ph.D. alum K. “VISH” VISWANATH and Assistant Professor REBEKAH NAGLER. Progress in reducing tobacco use in the U.S. has been uneven. Substantially higher rates of tobacco use persist among population groups defined by race/ethnicity, occupation, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation and other factors. For more information, visit cancercontrol.cancer. gov/monograph22 In July 2017, CLAIRE SEGIJN received the 2016 Baschwitz Article of the Year Award for Young Researchers for her article, “The Underlying Mechanisms of Multiscreening,” which was published in the Journal of Advertising. All chapters were published of Segijn’s dissertation, “Everyday Multiscreening: How the Simultaneous Usage of Multiple Screens Affects Information Processing and Advertising Effectiveness.” Segijn also published two articles, “How Related Multiscreening Could Positively Affect Advertising Outcomes,” in the Journal of Advertising, and, “Insight into everyday media use with multiple screens,” in the International Journal of Advertising. At the American Political Science Association’s annual meeting in September, BEN TOFF’s dissertation, “The Blind Scorekeepers: Journalism, Polling, and the Battle to Define Public Opinion in American Politics,” was recognized with the Thomas Patterson best dissertation award from the political communication section. One article he wrote based on the dissertation was published in the journal Journalism and an essay based on this work, “The Nate Silver Effect is Changing Journalism. Is that Good?,” appeared in Politico Magazine in October. CHRISTOPHER TERRY was interviewed about “fake news” and FCC regulations several times recently, including at the University of Montreal and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, in journals and on the Radio Survivor podcast. In August, he was elected to the leadership team of the Association for Education in Journalism and
FACULTY NEWS
Mass Communication (AEJMC) law and policy division. He published a chapter, “Nintendo’s Retro Revolution: Commodified Nostalgia and the Virtual Console,” in The Evolution and Social Impact of Video Game Economics with co-author Steven Cuff. Terry also published a paper on advertising in judicial elections that will be published in the University of Arkansas-Little Rock Law Journal in December. NORA PAUL and KATHLEEN HANSEN presented their work about news archiving and led a panel discussion, “Raising News Archiving Awareness in Future Journalists,” at the Dodging the Memory Hole conference in San Francisco in November. The gathering was held at the headquarters of the Internet Archive. JISU HUH visited three different countries in connection to her responsibilities as immediate past president of the American Academy of Advertising (AAA). Huh attended the International Conference on Research in Advertising (ICORIA) in Ghent, Belgium, where she presented her research on trust and viral advertising diffusion. In July, she attended the 2017 American Academy of Advertising (AAA) Global Conference held at Waseda University in Tokyo, which she organized and chaired, followed by her visit to China’s Peking University to discuss planning for the 2019 AAA Global Conference. In August, Huh participated in the AEJMC Annual Conference as Chair of the AEJMC’s Standing Committee on Research and a member of the Board of Directors, and she was also appointed to serve on the Presidential Task Force on Graduate Education. SHERRI JEAN KATZ published two articles in October 2017: “Mitigating the Perception of Threat to Freedom through Abstraction and Distance,” in Communication Research and “E-cigarettes Warning Labels and Modified Risk Statements: Tests of Messages to Reduce Recreational Use,” in Tobacco Regulatory Science.
Mark Jenson
Kathleen Hansen
SCOTT LIBIN began as chair of the Radio Television Digital News Association in September. In October, Libin emceed the Edward R. Murrow Awards Gala in New York City. He spoke twice locally on the subject of “fake news,” once as part of a Citizens League panel discussion in Minneapolis and again as part of Medica’s “Policy by the Slice” lunch speaker series at the company’s headquarters in Minnetonka, Minnesota. Libin was interviewed on the same subject by the Minnesota News Network and was interviewed in October on the subject of hurricane coverage by KARE 11. HYEJOON RIM had four articles published recently: “Evolution of Corporate Social Responsibility: A Content Analysis of United States Magazine Advertising, 1980-2009” in the Journal of Promotion Management; “Proactive vs. Reactive CSR in a Crisis: An Impression Management Perspective,” in the International Journal of Business Communication; “Corporate Message Strategies for Global CSR Campaigns: The Mediating Role of Perceived Altruism,” in Corporate Communications: an International Journal; and “Company-Nonprofit Partnerships, Negative Spillover, and Response Strategies” in the International Journal of Strategic Communication. Starting in Spring 2018, MARK JENSON will join the full-time faculty after 35 years of building brands at agencies in Chicago and Minneapolis. He has led marketing communication efforts for an all-star list of companies like Andersen Windows, ConAgra, General Mills, Land O’ Lakes, Kraft, Pillsbury, Polaris and Tropicana. Most recently he has served as a VP-Account Director at Preston Kelly. His other agency experience includes Campbell-Mithun and Martin/Williams in Minneapolis and Leo Burnett and Foote, Cone and Belding in Chicago. Jenson has been an adjunct professor at the School for 15 years, teaching the capstone course Strategic Communication Campaigns (Jour 4263). He earned a B.S. in journalism and speech at the University of North Dakota and an M.S. in advertising from Northwestern University.
Claire Segijn
Scott Libin
Christopher Terry
Hyejoon Rim
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FACULTY NEWS
Nagler Studies Awareness of Overtreatment and Overdiagnosis of Breast Cancer Routine mammograms can lead to overdiagnosis and overtreatment of breast cancer. But do women know this? And how would they respond to messages telling them so? Assistant Professor Rebekah Nagler wanted to find out. She is the lead author of a paper Rebekah Nagler titled, “Women’s Awareness of and Responses to Messages about Breast Cancer Overdiagnosis and Overtreatment: Results from a 2016 National Survey.” The study was published in the October issue of Medical Care journal, the official journal of the Medical Care Section of the American Public Health Association.
HERE ARE FIVE TAKEAWAYS
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There’s little awareness among women that routine mammograms can lead to overdiagnosis and overtreatment, Nagler said. The exposure to the message of prevention and early detection has been greater than the message about the risks and potential harms of screening.
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The estimate for how much overdiagnosis there is with breast cancer is as high as 30 percent.
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Overtreatment follows overdiagnosis because the science is not far enough along to be able to predict which of those cancers are actually going to be fast growing versus slow growing, Nagler said.
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When presented with statements regarding overdiagnosis and overtreatment, most women had negative perceptions. “Fewer than 1 in 4 agreed with and found statements about overdiagnosis and overtreatment to be believable, and even fewer evaluated them as strong arguments to consider in their own mammography decision-making,” Nagler wrote.
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The study concluded that rigorous health communication research is necessary to inform communication interventions that could improve patient understanding of overdiagnosis and overtreatment, and promote appropriate use of screening. ❙
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UNDERGRAD STUDENT NEWS Five HSJMC students received the Fall 2017 CLA Internship Scholarship. GABRIELLA GRANADA received the Barbara Newsome Liberal Arts Internship Scholarship and interns at The Riveter Magazine as an online editorial intern. EMMA DILL received the Elden Johnson Award and interns at the Minnesota Historical Society as an MNopedia research and writing intern. LAYNA DARLING received the CLA Alumni Award and interns at Special Olympics Minnesota as a public relations intern. BROOKE ESHLEMAN and AUSTEN MACALUS also both received the Barbara Newsome Liberal Arts Internship Scholarship. Eshleman interns at the Office of Senator Al Franken and Macalus interns at Murphy for Minnesota as a communications interns. RYAN FAIRCLOTH’s Minnesota Daily story, “Despite Stigma, Somali Parents Find Support for Children with Autism,” won first place at the Associated Collegiate Press (ACP) awards given out in Dallas in October. RILYN EISCHENS came in fourth place for Reporter of the Year at the ACP awards. HSJMC nominated both RYAN FAIRCLOTH’s Minnesota Daily story, “Despite Stigma, Somali Parents Find Support for Children with Autism,” and JACKIE RENZETTI’s story, “After Years of Stagnation, University of Minnesota Recycling Center Looks for Renewal,” for the Hearst Journalism Awards for best feature writing. HSJMC nominated both XAVIER WANG and MATT WEBER for the Hearst Journalism Awards, both for the photojournalism news/
feature category and television feature category. EVA WEIGMAN joined the HSJMC Alumni Society Board as its honorary student member. MOHAMED AHMED was nominated for the Citizen Diplomat of the Year Award for 2018.
GRADUATE STUDENT NEWS JISU KIM presented two papers to the Newspaper and Online News Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication conference in Chicago in August: “The Imagined Audience for and Perceived Quality of News Comments,” and, “Differences in the Network Agendas of #Immigration in the 2015 Election.” SUSAN HAGEN, a master’s student in the strategic communication professional program, was promoted to senior marketing strategist in University Relations at the University of Minnesota. SCOTT MEMMEL and CASEY CARMODY, along with law student Ashley Turacek, assisted Professor Jane Kirtley in submitting a chapter to the course handbook, “Communications Law in the Digital Age.” Ph.D. student ALEX PFEUFFER received an offer of tenure-track assistant professor of advertising from the University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
STUDENT NEWS
Meet a Student: Lauren Myhra Lauren is the managing director of CLAgency, a student communications agency in the College of Liberal Arts. INTERVIEW BY ELIZABETH BRUNETTE of what a liberal arts education looks like. I started as an account executive and am now managing director—so it’s been an incredible experience to build my writing, communications and leadership skills, and apply the skills that I’m learning in my classes in a realworld setting. It has also shown me that I really enjoy the agency dynamic. WHAT HAS BEEN THE MOST INTERESTING EXPERIENCE YOU’VE HAD RELATED TO YOUR MAJOR OR CLUB ACTIVITIES? The summer after my sophomore year, I applied for CLAgency’s associate managing director position. I got the job, which led me Lauren Myhra is a senior on the strategic communications track at HSJMC. She works at the College of Liberal Arts’ student-run communications agency to help augment her education, moving up in the ranks over her four years at the U. WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO BECOME A JOURNALISM MAJOR? I have always had an interest in marketing, advertising and public relations, but was drawn more toward the strategic and creative side. That combined with my love for writing, made me know that the School of Journalism would be the right fit for me. ARE YOU PURSUING ANY MINORS, INTERNSHIPS OR FIELDS OF INTEREST OUTSIDE YOUR JOURNALISM MAJOR? IF SO, HOW DO YOU THINK THESE ENHANCE YOUR STUDY OF JOURNALISM? I am currently the managing director for CLAgency. We work with the college and its departments to highlight and feature aspects that shatter the expectations
We work with the college and its departments to highlight and feature aspects that shatter the expectations of what a liberal arts education looks like. to have a summer internship with Fast Horse, an integrated creative agency located in the North Loop that was founded by HSJMC alumnus Jorg Pierach. I got to work with clients like Coca-Cola, General Mills and Champs Sports—which was exciting and an incredible learning opportunity WHAT IS YOUR DREAM JOB? Right now, I am thinking I would love to be a content strategist with a medium-sized agency, but I am still exploring different focuses within PR. ❚
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ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
ALUMNI NEWS
REED ANFINSON (B.A. ’77) was elected to a two-year term as president of the National Newspaper Association Foundation in October 2017, thus also being named to the NNA Board of Directors for 2017-2018. Anfinson is the publisher and owner of the Swift County Monitor-News in Benson, and the Grant County Herald, Herman Review and Hoffman Tribune published out of Elbow Lake. In 2016, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton named Anfinson to the Center for Rural Policy and Development, a body that advises the Minnesota Legislature on rural issues. JESSIE BEKKER (B.A. ‘17) received a 2017 Story of the Year Award (first place, feature story) from the Associated Collegiate Press for a story she wrote for the Minnesota Daily titled, “‘An Obstacle to Justice’: How Delta Upsilon Leaders Tolerated a Culture that Dismissed Sexual Assault.”
KATIE FOSS (PH.D. ’08), associate professor of media studies at the School of Journalism at Middle Tennessee State University, published her second book, Breastfeeding and Media: Exploring Conflicting Discourses That Threaten Public Health. The book is a study of more than 200 years of media coverage and depictions of breastfeeding, highlighting how news, entertainment and online media undermine health messages about breastfeeding, place responsibility on individual women and ignore the breadth and diversity of breastfeeding mothers and experiences. ELIZABETH FULLER (B.A. ‘83) has been the co-owner and publisher of the Larchmont Buzz, a hyperlocal online news website for the Larchmont, Hancock Park and Greater Wilshire communities in Los Angeles since 2015. She also earned an M.F.A. in screenwriting from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema-Television in 1993, and spent more than 25 years as a writer/producer/director in
corporate communications before returning to daily journalism. LAURA HEDLUND (B.A. ‘87) works in new business development and as a host at AM950, the Progressive Voice of Minnesota. STEVE HENNEBERRY (M.A. ’16) was hired as the director of communications in the Office for Students Affairs at the University of Minnesota. SARA KEHAULANI GOO (B.A. ‘98) was promoted to managing editor at NPR. In this new position, she’s focused on fully integrating the editorial operation with digital, and overseeing all editorial content published on NPR.org and other digital platforms. SUNITA MUDALIAR (M.A. ’77) was recently appointed as executive editor of Nagpur Today, a leading paper of central India. She was promoted after working as associate editor for three years prior.
Husband and wife team TIM and COLLEEN BROWNE (B.A. ’72 and ‘82) celebrated the 30-year anniversary of their marketing and advertising firm Browne+Browne Marketing. DAVID BUTWIN (B.A. ‘61) published his second memoir, Barefoot Days, Electric Nights: A Kid Reporter in 60s Honolulu, about his four years working at the Honolulu Advertiser.
MCKENNA EWEN (B.A. ‘09) left his job as a photojournalist with The Washington Post to become a digital producer at CNN.
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Photo by Chris Cooper © University of Minnesota 2017
Health Communication B.A./M.A. 2017 graduates RACHEL EVANS and CHLOE GANSEN are both participating in the National Cancer Institute’s Health Communication Internship Program (HCIP). The program gives highly qualified graduate students and recent graduate degree recipients the opportunity to participate in vital health and science communications projects in one of the many offices that make up the NCI. Interns select an area of emphasis: health communications or science writing.
Dave Mona (B.A. ‘65) and his wife Linda were the Grand Marshals of the 2017 University of Minnesota Homecoming parade.
ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
SHREYA MUKHERJEE (M.A. ‘07) rejoined Deutsch New York as senior vice president, group planning director. She is tasked with leading strategy for clients like PNC Bank and assisting in new business initiatives.
CHELSEA REYNOLDS (PH.D. ’17) received the Mary Ann Yodelis Smith Award for feminist scholarship from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
HYEDI CRIBBEN NELSON (B.A. ‘08, M.A. ‘10) was a recipient of the 32 Under 32 Award from Ad Fed Minnesota. She also recently joined the marketing communications committee of the Women’s Health Leadership Trust.
In June 2017, SAM RICHTER (B.A. ’89) was inducted by the National Speakers Association into the Minnesota Speaker Hall of Fame. He was only the 28th person to be inducted. Richter is a keynote speaker and author on topics including sales intelligence and digital reputation management.
MICHELE NORRIS (B.A. ‘05) was honored with the International Women’s Media Foundation’s inaugural Gwen Ifill Award, which recognizes an outstanding female journalist of color whose work carries forward Ifill’s legacy of mentoring and supporting other women journalists. LACEY NYGARD (M.A. ’17) was promoted to assistant director of public relations in University Relations at the University of Minnesota. EMILY (BANKS) PHILLIPS (B.A. ‘08) joined Hearst Television’s digital team as managing editor, overseeing daily original content. In the newly created position, she leads central digital teams supporting the Hearst Television stations to produce and distribute content on multiple digital platforms. Phillips previously served as deputy editor, mobile at Bloomberg LP, overseeing that company’s flagship news app.
CLINT SCHAFF (B.A. ‘00) is the vice president of strategy and development for
the Los Angeles Times, and just finished his ninth year as an adjunct professor at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. BRANT SKOGRAND (B.A. ‘94) started as the vice president of public relations for digital marketing agency Rocket55 in March 2017, establishing a public relations division for the firm. In July 2017, JENNIFER VOGEL (B.A. ‘92) became the editor of Minnesota, the University of Minnesota’s alumni magazine. Before that she was a senior reporter at American Public Media Group.
Four Alums From One Impressive Cohort Chosen as Fellows for ICA This past May, a fourth member from a single cohort of doctoral students from the School became a fellow of the International Communication Association (ICA). Becoming an ICA fellow is one of the highest honors available globally within the field of communication. The four alumni, in order of induction, are:
KASISOMAYAJULA (“VISH”) VISWANATH (M.A. ‘86, ‘PH.D. ‘90) of Harvard University, SANDRA BRAMAN (M.A. ‘84, PH.D. ‘88) of Texas A&M University,, JOSEPH MAN CHAN (PH.D. ‘86) of City University of Hong Kong, and DOUGLAS MCLEOD (M.A. ‘86, PH.D. ‘90) of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In graduate school, Viswanath and McLeod worked on health campaign projects with John Finnegan, Jr., and, until his death, Jerry Kline. Chan worked with C.C. Lee on changes in the nature of journalism in Hong
SADA REED (B.A. ’03, M.A. ‘11) is an assistant professor at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix. She recently published two journal articles: “Four Areas of Collegiate Student-Athlete Privacy Invasion” in Communication & Sport, and, along with co-authors Yioryos Nardis, Emily Ogilvie and Daniel Riffe, “Thatcherism and the Eurozone Crisis: A Social Systems-Level Analysis of British, Greek, and German News Coverage of Margaret Thatcher’s Death,” in International Communication Research Journal. She was also a 2017 recipient of a Dean’s Research Grant and presented at the International Association for Communication and Sport summit in Phoenix.
Kong as a result of the political changes. Braman worked with Don Gillmor on a new approach to information policy. Braman has since published her book, Change of State: Information, Policy, and Power, which is widely acknowledged as field-definitional. Viswanath, along with Assistant Professor Rebekah Nagler, recently published a chapter in the National Cancer Institute’s monograph on tobacco-related health disparities. Chan has a number of published works in both Chinese and English, covering topics that include his research interest of the intersection of international communication, political communication and journalism studies. McLeod has published more than 100 journal articles, book chapters, law reviews and other publications. McLeod’s research develops two lines of inquiry into the antecedents and consequences of mass communication: social conflicts and the mass media, and media content and effects.
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ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
Alumni Spotlight: Byron Barnett INTERVIEW BY KATIE DOHMAN
Byron Barnett (B.A. ‘77) is a Minneapolis native and currently posted at WHDH-TV in Boston, where he does general assignment and political reporting, and also hosts Urban Update, a Sunday-morning local public affairs program. On September 18, 2017, he was inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
Byron Barnett
The Murphy Reporter caught up with Barnett as he was driving with his cameraman, Joe Mullowney, from New York City back to Boston after covering some of the NFL National Anthem controversy.
HOW DID THE U OF M PROVIDE YOU WITH WHAT YOU NEEDED FOR THE REAL WORLD? Two people in particular, who are both deceased now, [helped prepare me]. One was Dr. Fang. The other was Dr. George Hage. Dr. Hage’s classes were three-hour sessions covering the whole concept of chronicling daily life for an audience. Ten minutes before we’d be done with class, he’d suddenly say, “OK, we’re going to write a story now.” It was a great lesson in learning how to write under pressure. Dr. Fang told us about his chance to interview Nixon, and he asked him the most provocative question first. Nixon blew up and almost ended the interview. Get all your information first, and save provocative questions for the end. TALK ABOUT YOUR EARLY STEPS INTO JOURNALISM. In ’77, when I graduated, Dr. Fang offered me an internship at KSTP. I was the only intern in the newsroom, so by end of the summer, I was putting stories together for other reporters. Stan Turner was the news director, and when he found out I was interviewing for jobs, he asked me to stay at KSTP. I was coming on to a senior team, so I had to get up to speed very fast…sometimes it wasn’t pretty. But I stayed six years. Then came 26
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the opportunity in Boston. I thought I’d stay a short while, then maybe become a foreign correspondent, but the industry changed, my life changed, and I stayed. They’ve been very good to me. IN AN INDUSTRY WHERE PEOPLE MOVE A LOT, YOU’VE STAYED PUT. WHAT’S THE UPSIDE TO LONGEVITY? The trust that builds with your sources, audience and industry. Because people know me, they will let me into their homes and hearts and pour their stories out. HOW HAVE YOU SEEN YOUR ROLE CHANGE WITH THE RISE OF DIGITAL? As the tech changes, the way we do our job and the skills needed to do the job change. In the days of film you did a story, put it together, went home, and watched it on air. That’s almost a joke now. In the ’80s they developed the earpiece so they could talk to you from the control room to go live. As time went on, we started adding more newscasts and going live more. I almost have to have that earpiece when I sleep. Sometimes on my way to work I get a call to go live. Everything is moving faster. But you still have to follow proper journalism principles. NOW YOU’RE COVERING THE NFL CONTROVERSY. HOW HAVE YOU APPROACHED YOUR COVERAGE? I’m a news reporter, not a sports reporter, but Boston is a big sports town, and the Patriots make the news a lot. It’s a very interesting story. All these team owners are billionaires and 70 percent of their players are black, and a lot of the players come from communities where racial injustice is an issue. Most of the NFL customers are white. Some are shocked. Our president got involved. You have a toxic mix of major controversy. It’s a fascinating story: Do NFL owners support their players or their customers? WHAT DID GETTING INDUCTED INTO THE MASSACHUSETTS BROADCASTERS HALL OF FAME FEEL LIKE? It is one of the biggest honors of my life. I was surprised and overwhelmed. I was inducted with eight other people, and I have such a great respect for them. WHAT WOULD YOU TELL JOURNALISTS HOPING TO SCORE THEIR OWN HALL OF FAME NOMINATION? Be a humble speaker of the truth. Be informative. Move people. Get your information right. Keep things in the proper context to avoid unintended consequences. The power you’re given as a journalist is serious. ❚
ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
Current HSJMC students Samir Ferdowsi and Sawyer Boyles.
Amy Sundem (‘94), board member Victoria Hoshal (‘82) and Mark Steen (‘92).
Alumni Mixer Lauren Cutshall (‘16) and Alyssa Bluhm (‘14).
The HSJMC Alumni Society Board hosted an alumni mixer on Sept. 25, 2017. The event was held at Republic in Minneapolis and more than 60 alumni showed up to meet the new director, reconnect and network. ❚
HSJMC Director Elisia Cohen welcomed alumni and gave a brief overview of the school’s future initiatives.
Photos by Amanda Fretheim Gates
Republic in Minneapolis offered a nice space and good food for the event.
With apps and drinks in hand, alumni from a wide range of classes mingled.
Former board member Amy Nelson (M.A. ‘02) and new board member Jess Fleming (‘98) reconnected after previously working together at the Pioneer Press.
Phil Gran (‘05), Brian Hurley (‘03) and Eric Hansen (‘05).
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ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
Mentors and mentees sat together and got to know one another.
Student Megan Drews and mentor Jeremy Chacich make plans for the year.
Mentor Program Kicks off 34th Year Mentor Nicole Miller and student Kelli Theiler.
Each November, the Alumni Society Board’s Mentor Program matches students with industry professionals. The pairs meet periodically throughout the school year to talk about real-world career experiences. This year, the program matched nearly 80 students with mentors. The pairs met for the first time at a kick off event on November 6, 2017, at Coffman Memorial Union. �
Chris Ison, associate professor and director of undergraduate studies, talked about the history of the Mentor Program and what it means to the School.
Alumni Board member and mentor Brian Hurley and student Alex Barber.
Photos by Chris Cooper
Student Lauren Pahmeier and Alumni Board member and mentor Jess Fleming.
Mentor Katie Priebe and student Katherine McCarthy. Student Keren Habtes and mentor Kyndell Harkness.
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ALUMNI NEWS & NOTES
Alumni Support Can Accelerate Excellence There will never be another year quite like 2017. Trust—in media, government and business—is at an all-time low (Edelman), and our fractured society has grappled with an erosion of core values, on both sides of the aisle. In uncertain times, I challenge each of you to support the fundamental values of our journalism school by investing in its future—and in the rising storytellers who face a whole new set of challenges in the “fake news” era. Your support helps fund world-class faculty to ensure the education our students experience will propel them into meaningful careers that benefit our global communities. It secures technology for a new generation of digital journalists—with more platforms and tools than ever to reach their audience. It allows the next cohort of strategic communicators and marketers to enter the workforce with the fundamental skills and ethical grounding they need to compete. Alumni gifts allow us to reconnect with each other, too. This year, we’ll oversee nearly 80 J-school students while they work with alumni mentors in journalism, media and strategic communication. We’ll host networking events for young alumni and grant lifetime awards to those who’ve made the school proud year after year. Your support, at every level, truly makes a difference. So, as we reach the end of a year like none other, please help elevate our beloved alma mater and support our passion for truthful, honest storytelling—today and in the future. Ski-U-Mah!
A New Face
The Alumni Society Board welcomed a new member this fall. Jess Fleming (B.A. ’98) is the newest member of the Alumni Society Board, replacing outgoing member Amy Carlson Gustafson. Fleming is the main food writer at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. She reviews restaurants, writes recipes, covers the ever-changing culinary landscape of the Twin Cities and has been at the forefront of covering the burgeoning local craft beer scene. She has worked in various roles at the Pioneer Press for 18 years, doing everything from design to editing to leading a team of evening editors and designers. She’s the winner of local awards for headline writing, layout and reporting. She is also the 2012-2013 winner of the HSJMC Alumni Society Board’s Above the Fold award. Contact Jess Fleming at jfleming@pioneerpress.com for more information about newspaper reporting, features reporting, beat development and social media.
KEEP US INFORMED New book? Win an award? Job change? Keep HSJMC and your fellow alumni informed. Email murphrep@umn.edu with updates. Please include your name and graduation year.
Tim Nelson (B.A. ’09) is an account supervisor at Padilla in Minneapolis, current Alumni Society Board president and is a master’s candidate in the HSJMC strategic communication program. Contact him at tim.p.nelson@gmail.com with questions about volunteering or joining the HSJMC Alumni Society Board.
CAN YOU JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN EFFORT?
The Alumni Board offers several volunteer and committee opportunities for alumni, including guest speaking, mentoring and giving. Visit z.umn.edu/hsjmcmentor for more information.
We would love for you to contribute to the capital campaign in support of one of our gift funds. We have a secure page for online donations. To give, visit z.umn.edu/hsjmcgive
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DONOR REPORT
THANK YOU TO HUBBARD SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM & MASS COMMUNICATION DONORS With gratitude, we would like to acknowledge the generosity of the many donors to HSJMC. The President’s Club includes donors who have contributed more than $25,000 to the school over a lifetime, and the Heritage Society includes those individuals and organizations that have pledged a future gift to the school. We are grateful to all our lifetime and 2017 donors, all listed on the following pages. The strength of our school and evolving programs depends on your ongoing support.
2017 President’s Club Members ($25,000+)
$50,000-$99,999
$10 million+
Adath Jeshurun Congregation
Hubbard Broadcasting, Inc., and the Hubbard Broadcasting Foundation
3M Company & 3M Foundation Judith K. Conrad & James E. Stai The Century Council, Inc. Charles K. Porter
$1 million+ Elizabeth B.* and John* Cowles, Sr. Don R.* & Carole J. Larson Otto A.* & Helen F.* Silha
$500,000-$999,999
Porter Creative Services, Inc. Mark* & Muriel L.* Wexler
$25,000-$49,999 Richard A.* & Barbara B. Chapman* Cowles Media Co Eastern Enterprises Inc
Lifetime Donors $10,000-$24,999
The New York Times Co. Foundation
American Broadcasting Co, Inc.
Photo Marketing Association International
Asian American Journalists Association of Minnesota
Jorg A. & Angela M. Pierach
Linda K. Berg Ann M. Brill
National Broadcasting Company, Inc.
Lily T.* & Walter H. Brovald*
Harold J. Roitenberg
Robert W. & Virginia D. Carlson
S C Johnson Giving, Inc.
Lynn M. Casey & Michael J. Thornton
Selwoc, Inc.
Comcast Corp
Solutran, Inc.
Gus L.* & Shirley G. Cooper*
Victor N. Stein*
DDB Needham Worldwide, Inc.
James M. Sternberg & Marsha E. Sternberg-May*
Fast Horse, Inc. Hazel F. Dicken-Garcia
Albert R. Tims & Kathleen A. Hansen
John F. Dille
Tunheim Partners, Inc.
Michael L. & Betty A. Soffin
Sigma Delta Chi Foundation
Herbert Berridge Elliston Memorial Fund
Ann & Thomas L Friedman Charitable Fund
Raymond O.* & Doris B.* Mithun
Bette M. Hammel
Star Tribune and Star Tribune Foundation
Allan A. & Lois J. Hietala*
Bruce R. Gefvert
Daniel B. & Kathryn Wackman
Michael E. Hill & Barbara Bink
Harvey & Gail D. Goldberg
Jean W. Ward
Deborah L. Hopp & Christopher T. Dahl
Willard A.* & Doris A. * Greenleaf
Dare L.* & William F. White*
Wendy F. Horn
William F.* & Patricia M. * Greer
Milton P. Woodard*
$100,000-$499,999 Michael H. Anderson Paul S. Brainerd CBS Corp & CBS Foundation, Inc. China Times Cultural Foundation David C. & Vicki B. Cox Duluth News Tribune David D. Floren Freedom Forum Joel R. & Laurie M. Kramer
John T.* & Hazel H. Helgeson*
John S. & James L. Knight Foundation Steven P. Krikava & Linda A. Singer Mark R. Kriss Lester A.* & Lorraine K. Malkerson*
Sam H. Kaufman*
Scott D. Meyer Midwest Communications Inc
R. Smith & Patricia W. Schuneman
Janell M. Pepper Star Tribune Media Co LLC
St Paul Pioneer Press
Strother Communications Group
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Jerome Foundation
D.J. Leary & Linda L. Wilson
Sandra M. & C R. Morris
Westinghouse Foundation-CBS Fund*
Interpublic Group Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation
Jane D.* & Bernard H. Ridder*
WCCO AM/TV-WLTE FM
Mary J.* & Graham B.* Hovey
Charles B. Sweningsen* William Randolph Hearst Foundation
Beverly A. Kees* Land O’Lakes Foundation Howard P. & Roberta J. Liszt William H.* & Madoline D. * Kelty KTCA/KTC I-Public TV John & Mary R Markle Foundation Mary N. Mullaney*
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Note: The contribution amount needed to be inducted into the President’s Club is changing from $25,000 to $100,000 in 2018.
* denotes deceased
DONOR REPORT
Heritage Society Members FUTURE GIFTS OF ANY AMOUNT
2017 THIRD QUARTER REPORT Thank you to these supporters who made a gift between January 1, 2017, and October 31, 2017.
Brian E. Anderson* Keith H. Anderson* Helen V. Beggs* Gertrude L. Berndt* Kenneth G. Brown* Stan W. Carlson* James D. & Kathryn A. Catalano Clayton Kaufman Family Philanthropic Fund Phyllis B. Conrad*
$10,000-$25,000 Carole J. Larson Charles K. Porter Porter Creative Services Inc Jean C. Schlemmer Mabel L. Thompson Jean W. Ward
Ellen R. Costello* Michael A. Donner* Elizabeth D. Edmonds* Norma C. & John R. Finnegan* Neil D.* & Jeanne K. Freeman* Sheila M. Gothmann
$5,000–$9,999 Joan W. Petroff John N. Petroff Robert San Solutran INC
Herman F. Haeberle* Joan L. Halgren Gladys L.* & Robert W. Hefty* Patricia J. Heikenen* Susan S. & Clayton Kaufman* Jacqueline S.* & Joseph C. Kinderwater*
$1,000-$4,999 Kenneth J. Abdo Apple Inc Lynn M. Casey Christopher T. Dahl Sr.
Carol E. Ladwig*
Eugene C. Frazer
Stephen F. & Bonnie T. Litton*
Deborah L. Hopp
Serge E. Logan*
KSTP AM LLC
Sandra K. Nelson Carol L. Pine Daniel S. & Katherine M. Revsbeck* Falsum V. Russell* Colleen M. Sauber Vincent B. Shea* Diane R. Siegel-Lund Elizabeth P. & B W. Shippee* Norma B.* & James A. Smutz* Raymond J. & Elvira A. Tarleton*
Steven P. Krikava John S. McKeon Mary Ann Meidinger Ray Mithun Mithun Family Foundation Jennifer A. Schweigert Diane Siegel-Lund Star Tribune Michael L. Soffin Jacqueline D. Thompson Michael J. Thornton
Herbert A. Terry & Diane E. Wille
Kasisomayajula Viswanath
Mabel L.* & Willard L. Thompson*
Levy Family Charity
Joy D. Viola
Hubbard Broadcasting INC
William D. Wells John W. Wheeler
$500-$999
Thomas C. & Elizabeth A. Yuzer
Beverly M. Bethune Jonathan S. Bream CP Charitable
Burton D. Cohen Rusty K. Cohen ECM Publishers Inc Brian R. Gabrial Randolph Hearst Foundation Judith A. Moen Jo M. Tichenor Philip J. Tichenor Christian J. Trejbal Peggy Trejbal
$100–$499 Linda Adler-Kassner Rodney Alexander Daryl R. Alexander Scott V. Anderson Monica Bay Kathleen M. Bergquist Carolyn J. Borow Moore Jill M. Braaten Donald F. Brod Carleton W. Brookins Jean A. Brookins Loren L. Chamberlain Marian Chamberlain Frances F. Compton Joan L. Conners Cynthia Cooper Thomas M. DeFrank Dirk G. DeYoung Robert E. Drechsel Lynn M. Drechsel Duschesne P. Drew Richard A. Forschler Scott G. Gassner Cecilie J. Gaziano Elaine P. Geelan Mike Gelfand Katherine Girton Eaton Getty Images Inc Theodore L. Glasser Paula F. Goldberh Robert J. Goodman
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DONOR REPORT
Nancy C. Goodman
David Royle
Georgia A. Ewing
John P. Richards
Darlene Gorrill
Ingrid A. Sanden
Elizabeth Fedor
Robert J. Roos
Patricia C. Graham
Jon F. Scheid
Eugene L. Felton
Barbara J. Ross
Gary L. Griswold
Lyall A. Schwarzkopf
Steven V. Fisher
Linda S. Sawyer
Roger R. Gustafson
Inez M. Schwarzkopf
Miriam A. Fisher
Sam H. Schoen
James B. Gustafson
Cynthia A. Scott
Robert B. Franklin
Lynn E. Schwartz
Joan L. Halgren
Dhavan V. Shah
Joan W. Frey
Mark O. Schwartz
Carol A. Handberg
Robert E. Sheldon
Paul V. Froiland
Securian Foundation
Ronald N. Handberg
Jeffery Siegel
Nathan D. Gilkerson
Penelope Sheets Thibaut
Barbara S. Haugen
Mary V. Smith
Krista Giuffi
Michael R. Sigelman
Mary Kay Hicks
Soar Foundation
Amanda S. Grimm
Joelle M. Stangler
John B. Hoeft
Paul M. Sponholz
Robert K. Groger
Timothy F. Sturrock
Hormel Foods Corp
David E. Steen
Jodi Hanson
Linda J. Vanderwerf
Denis J. Houle
Kay L. Steiger
Judy H. Hartman
John B. Webster
Deborah M. Hudson
Mark D. Strobel
David E. Helgerson
Donna M. Weispfenning
Linda D. Huntzicker
Thomas Suddes
Patrick J. Hennessy
Wells Fargo Foundation
William E. Huntzicker
Gerri Sumerville
Christopher J. Ison
Allison M. Wickler
Russell V. Johnson
Gerald R. Taft
Alan S. Jaffe
Jodi L. Williamschen
Janice I. Johnson
Helen L. Taft
Nancy C. Keating
Linda L. Wilson
Harlan R. Johnson
Jeff Taube
Molly E. Kentala
Gary P. Wisner
Marcia L. Kemen
Donald Tehven
Robert L. Koepcke Jr.
Thomas C. Yuzer
Rolf M. Kemen
Dana L. Villamagna
Constance F. Krejci
Elizabeth A. Yuzer
Linda V. Kline
Joy D. Viola
Dale J. Krishef
Gerald T. Zgoda
Nate Kranz
Whitney O Walther
William F. Kuykendall
V. Allan Krejci
Ellen A. Wartella
D.J. Leary
Megan E. Kruse
D. Charles Whitney
Kim O. Lindahl
Norman W. Larson
Eric A. Lindbom
Philip M. Lewenstein
Jason Lorentzen
Serge E. Logan Estate Judith K. Mack Ann M. Merrill Randall A. Mikkelsen Jonathan E. Miller Janice E. Miller James A. Mokres Steven A. Morawetz Jun R. Myers John S. Nichols Anne M. Obst Kevin K. Odegard Don Oseland Nora Paul Pichotta Pichotta Cynthia K. Pichotta Richard J. Plaisance Virginia K. Plaisance
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Note: We made every effort to ensure that this list is accurate and reflects contributions recorded between January 1, 2017 and October 31, 2017.
Marianne C. McDonough Jim McGuinn Slusarek
HOW TO GIVE
Lara McMaster Kolberg
If you have comments, questions,
Eric J. Meester
corrections or would like to make
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your own gift, please contact Peter Rogza at the University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts Office of Institutional Advancement at 612-624-2848 or rozga001@umn.edu
IN MEMORIAM
Blair Charnley, a journalism student in the '60s, worked at the Minneapolis Star until the 1980s. Blair was the son of Mitchell V. and Jean Charnley. Mitch Charnley was a decades-long fixture and staunch advocate for young journalists while a professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The Mitchell V. Charnley Alumni Professorship in Journalism was established in his honor. Mitch and Blair Charnley co-wrote a latter edition of Mitch's widely used "Reporting" textbook. Blair Charnley left Minneapolis to work at the Orange County Register in California from 1983 to 2006, when he retired. He spent the last 10 years of his life traveling with his wife around the United States and Canada in a pickup camper. Blair Charnley died on July 5, 2017, at age 73.
MABEL (LOHNES) THOMPSON
Mabel (Mae) Thompson died on April 4, 2017, at the age of 98. While she wasn’t a graduate of the journalism school, she was married to Willard L. Thompson, who, after teaching in Illinois, Oklahoma and Oregon, completed his career at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication as a professor in advertising. Because of her relationship to the School, Thompson left a generous gift, designating that the gift be directed “to the scholarship fund to provide scholarships for students who need financial support.”
Tom Wallace, Copyright 2001, Star Tribune
BLAIR CHARNLEY
AL SICHERMAN THOMAS COSTELLO
Thomas Costello (B.A. ’68) died on Sept. 5, 2017, at age 70. He was a proud Gopher having joined the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity while in college as well as the ROTC program. After graduating with a degree in journalism, he was commissioned as an officer with the Army and served in Vietnam, before returning to Minneapolis where he married Mary Louise and raised three children, Brian, Timothy and Ann, in Edina. Putting his degree to work along with his gift for storytelling, Costello worked for more than 40 years in the Minneapolis-St. Paul advertising industry with agencies Martin/Williams, Campbell Mithun, Harris West and finally Carmichael Lynch where he retired as partner. Costello enjoyed giving his time to several local organizations, spending time at his cabin and traveling the world.
Popular Star Tribune food writer and humorist, Al Sicherman died on Aug. 27, 2017, at the age of 75. At first working as an electrical engineer, Sicherman decided to switch careers and become a writer. He attended the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and was hired by the Minneapolis Tribune in 1968 as a copy editor. His engineering background allowed him to help install the newspaper’s first computerized publishing system. Throughout the years, he edited different sections of the paper, finally landing in the Taste section, where his humorous, yet precise, food columns becamse widely popular amongst readers and colleagues alike.
SUBMIT AN OBITUARY If you have news of the death of an HSJMC graduate, contact murphrep@umn.edu. Please include the name of the deceased, class year, date of death and if possible, the published obituary.
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THE STATE✪ OF OUR SATIRICAL UNION ✪ Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell at 30
The State of Our Satirical Union: Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell at 30 symposium will mark the anniversary of a landmark Supreme Court Save the Date + decision, issued in 1988, affirming the First Amendment right of editorial cartoonists and satirists to lampoon public figures. The State of Our Satirical Union: Hustler Inc.ofv.allFalwell 30 symposium will But 30 Magazine, years later, satirists stripes areat working in an environment that presents to freedomof of aspeech unimaginable when the markchallenges the anniversary landmark Supreme unanimous court decided Hustler Falwell. are calls the to change Court decision, issuedv. in 1988,There affirming Firstlibel laws to Amendment make it easier to right sue theofnews media. Cartoonists and journalists editorial cartoonists and face intimidation mediapublic platforms. In the era of Trump and satirists on to social lampoon figures. Charlie Hebdo, will Hustler’s protections endure?
But 30 years later, satirists of all stripes are working in an environment that presents challenges to freedom of speech unimaginable when the unanimous court decided Hustler v. Falwell. There are calls to change libel laws to make it easier to sue the news media. Cartoonists and journalists face intimidation on social media platforms. Those same platforms make it possible for cartoons drawn in Buffalo, Copenhagen, or Paris to reach audiences in any corner of the world, including
The symposium will explore the many dimensions of the Hustler decision, including the history of the case and participation by editorial Call for Papers cartoonists and other First Amendment advocates as “friends of the court.” Leading media law scholars and editorial cartoonists will interpret law scholars and editorial cartoonists will interpret the legacy of the ruling in the context of major political events and legal the legacy ofofthe ruling in the context of major developments the last 30 years. political events and legal developments of the last The symposium will feature some of the country’s best-known editorial 30 years. cartoonists, whose work will be displayed throughout the event.
The symposium will feature some of the country’s April 20-21, 2018 Cowles Auditorium, West Bank best-known editorial cartoonists, whose work will be displayed throughout the event. The Silha Center at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication will publish a special symposium book examining the significance and vitality of satire in American life today. Scholars, media lawyers, historians, cartoonists, comedians, and others are invited to submit abstracts of articles, essays, and graphic art exploring these topics by January 16, 2018. The