GRADUATE
profiles
FRED ANKLAM F By Logan Kirkland
red Anklam, the senior night editor of USA Today, grew up in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and went to the United States Military Academy to study engineering, but he quickly realized it was a field he did not want to pursue. Anklam said he knew about the small journalism department at Ole Miss. It had a great reputation, plus it was one of the fun schools in the South. Anklam entered the university as a transfer student in July 1974 and immediately started working at The Daily Mississippian. “The first thing I did was go to the DM,” Anklam said. The DM seemed to be constantly covering the Watergate hearings. “It was a time when interest turned to journalism,” Anklam said. He found it fascinating to be able to talk to important people. For instance, he wrote a story on coed dormitories and opposite sex visitation policies at each of the SEC schools, and was able to talk to the chancellor and the college board and got to see many different institutions. “I was treated like an equal and grew up fast,” Anklam said. In school Anklam always challenged himself by taking classes with teachers who were well known on campus. “It was a lot of fun challenging myself,” Anklam said. Anklam recalled that in Jere Hoar’s feature writing class, students were required to write one story a week and to submit them for publication.
48 MEEK SCHOOL
“He told us, ‘Why are you studying journalism if you don’t want to be published?’” Anklam said. Another class that was challenging, Anklam said, was Will Norton’s advanced reporting class. “We were assigned a beat on campus and had to write two stories a week,” he said. Norton, now dean of the Meek School of Journalism and New Media, said Anklam “wrote one great story after another.” Anklam said the expectations of both Hoar and Norton in their classes really prepared him for the journalistic world. “Oh, Dr. Hoar’s class,” Anklam said. “He’s a wonderful man. He didn’t mean to terrify us, but he did.” Anklam said many top journalists graduated from the program at Ole Miss and benefited because of the classes at the university. “We all did very well in the real world because of the curriculum,” Anklam said. The one person in the department who had the most energy was Norton, Anklam said. “If anyone left me prepared for the newsroom, Dr. Norton was the one,” he said. Anklam said they both kept him competitive and working hard. “I still have a great relationship with both of them,” he said. Anklam became much more serious during his junior year. He realized that The Daily Mississippian was a real service to the students and each story he covered was a learning experience. On one assignment, he interviewed Dean Frank Moak. After he left the interview, he realized he had not asked several vital questions. He went back, asked the questions and started writing the story. Then he realized
that he still had more questions that needed to be answered. “It was very embarrassing for me,” Anklam said. “It was a good learning experience.” Shortly after graduating from Ole Miss, Anklam worked at The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, where he and Nancy Weaver were the lead reporters on a team that won the Pulitzer Prize. “I thought I did not have a chance in a small paper in Mississippi,” Anklam said. “I can’t explain to you how exciting it was. Anklam said he and Weaver covered in depth the problems in public education in Mississippi. They spent more than half a year traveling through all parts of the state in order to gather information. “We were shining a light on what was really going on,” Anklam said. “It never entered my mind that our reporting would win a Pulitzer Prize.” Anklam said Weaver was masterful at pulling the information out of sources and organizing it effectively. “We went out and did basic reporting,” Anklam said. Charles Overby, executive editor of The Clarion-Ledger at that time, said Anklam has the intangibles. He gets along with people, is hard working and understands the big picture. “Fred has this great ability to be a nice guy, but a tough reporter,” Overby said. “He knows the right questions to ask.” Overby, now the chairman of the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics, entered that package of education articles in the category of public service that helped achieve public reform. Overby said he remembers the excitement
