ISSUE 26 H FALL 2017
2016-17 DONOR ROLL … We are proud to announce the list of Student Media donors for the 2016-17 academic year … see page 5.
tunnelvision A publication for alumni of student media at Vanderbilt University
NOMINATE ALUMNI FOR HALL OF FAME Student Media accepts Student Media Hall of Fame nominations on an ongoing basis. The selection committee typically reviews nominations and makes selections in the spring. Nominations may be sent to committee chair Paige Clancy (Hustler '98) at paige.clancy@vanderbilt.edu.
ALUMNI
JIM LEESON PRIZE
ALUMNI UPDATES
Several of your former staff members and classmates give a glimpse into their lives since Vanderbilt … page 3
HONORING LEESON'S LEGACY Charlie Euchner reflects on VSC's first adviser … page 7
Jim Leeson see page 7…
THE 2017 CLASS Five alumni to join the Student Media Hall of Fame in October
HALL OF FAME CRITERIA To be considered for induction in the Hall of Fame, candidates must meet the following criteria. Candidates are not required to be currently working in journalism or the media. • Last worked with Student Media as a student staff member at least 10 years prior to their potential Hall of Fame induction date; • Contributed in a significant way as a staff member to one or more of Vanderbilt’s print or electronic student media organizations; • Distinguished themselves through their work and acts at a level that merits recognition of the highest honor bestowed by Student Media.
JOHN HAILE
ELAINE SHANNON
by Ann Marie Deer Owens (BA’76)
A judge who blazed new trails for women while fighting for civil rights, three journalists whose careers have been shaped by passion and innovation, and an Emmy-winning writer for a leading news-satire show are the newest members of the Vanderbilt Student Media Hall of Fame. Selected for the 2017 class are John Haile, Elaine Shannon, Caryl Privett, Walter Brown Potter Jr, and Zhubin Parang.
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JOHN HAILE Haile, who earned a bachelor of arts in 1967, grew up in Cleveland, Tennessee. As a freshman, he joined WRVU, where his hometown friend Warren Corbett was business manager and a mentor. The radio station was on a couple of floors of Neely Auditorium's south tower. Haile served as station manager his junior and senior years. "I learned to surround myself with people passionate about their jobs and trust them to do their work," said Haile, who also served on the VSC board. "We changed the format—bringing in Top 40 programming—and doing remote
CARYL PRIVETT
WALTER BROWN POTTER JR.
broadcasts to bring more attention to the station." In 1966, Haile, who had worked for his local newspaper in high school, also became campus correspondent for The Tennessean. Haile majored in political science. "Given all my other responsibilities, I was not the best student," he said. "Sometimes I didn't make it to class. However, beloved professors like political scientists Bob Birkby and J. Leiper Freeman helped me work through everything." Thanks to a flier he saw on the WRVU bulletin board, Haile went to Boston University for graduate school, where he earned a master of science in communication. Haile also continued working at The Tennessean, as a state and national political reporter. "I can’t think of a more dedicated group of journalists to be around during a turbulent and exciting political era, with legendary editor John Seigenthaler as our anchor," Haile said. "The connections I made in Nashville have stayed with me." Not long after completing a journalism fellowship at Stanford University, Haile moved to the Orlando Sentinel, where he became editor in 1985. Haile was among the first to recognize that changing the culture of the newsroom was key to adapting traditional print to new media. As a new media pioneer, he built one of the world's first fully-integrated multimedia newsrooms with print, the Internet, and a 24-hour cable news channel all
operating from a central news desk. The paper earned three Pulitzer Prizes under his leadership. At age 55, Haile chose to step away from daily leadership of a newspaper to devote what he called “a second half” to public service. He has served on a number of health care, environmental and arts boards. He lives in the Denver area, where he also “works at” his pastel and oil painting.
ELAINE SHANNON Shannon was born in Gainesville, Georgia, and worked for her hometown newspaper during high school. She enrolled at Vanderbilt in 1964, when issues like the Vietnam War, civil rights, drugs and poverty were beginning to generate intense debate on college campuses. "Vanderbilt had a great deal of academic freedom, one of the reasons I chose this university," Shannon said. She was a student during the first years of the Impact Symposium, a speakers series designed to bring more intellectually stimulating programming to campus. "I was proud of then-Chancellor Alexander Heard for standing firm on the principle of 'open forum' when many of those connected to Vanderbilt and in the community opposed letting Stokely Carmichael speak in 1967," she said. Shannon majored in English and CLASS OF 2017, continued on page 6
Bayless Gives Back to Student Media Skip Bayless (BA’74, The Vanderbilt Hustler) generously donated to Student Media this year, marking the largest gift received by Student Media to date. His unrestricted gift is supporting all areas of student-led media efforts on Vanderbilt's campus, including media education, various related resources, educational trips, and studentrun events. Bayless, who grew up in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, attended Vanderbilt on the prestigious Grantland
ZHUBIN PARANG
Rice Scholarship. He covered sports for The Vanderbilt Hustler student newspaper and majored in English and History. After college, Bayless worked as a newspaper sportswriter and columnist, author, and commentator at ESPN for programs like First Take and SportsCenter. In 2009, he was inducted into Vanderbilt Student Media’s Hall of Fame. His new show Skip and Shannon: Undisputed debuted in September 2016 on Fox Sports 1.
Skip Bayless