a department of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota,
for alumni, faculty, staff, students and friends of the School.
- SJMC Happenings
- News for Alumni
- SJMC Media Hits
- Awards and Kudos
- Publications and Research
- Upcoming Events & Important Dates
Professor Gary Schwitzer has taken on the role of Director of Graduate Studies for the Health Journalism M.A. program, in addition to teaching the core program seminiars in the coming academic year. Schwitzer replaces Professor Dan Sullivan, who helped create the program and took the lead in bringing the core faculty together and bringing the proposal through the Graduate School and College of Liberal Arts review processes. For more information about the Health Journalism M.A. program, visit http://www.healthjournalism.umn.edu/.
John Mason, weekend anchor of 5 Eyewitness News on KSTP-TV, spoke to Professor T.K. Chang’s Introduction to Mass Communication class on April 11, 2005.
Guest lecturers in Chris Ison's Media Ethics class in April included public relations expert Bruce Benidt, SJMC Professor John Eighmey, and Barb Palser of Internet Broadcasting Systems. Palser also spoke to Ison's Public Affairs Reporting class on bloggers as journalists, and Star Tribune legal affairs reporter Pam Louwagie spoke to Ison's News Reporting and Writing class on beat reporting.
Professor Gary Schwitzer’s health journalism graduate seminar spent an afternoon at Abbott Northwestern Hospital on April 6. The class also hosted guest lectures from Nora Paul of the Institute for New Media Studies, Ron Nixon of the Star Tribune, Dr. Robert Kane of the School of Public Health, Dr. Robert Wachter of the University of California-San Francisco and Dr. Karen Lawson of the UMN Center for Spirituality & Healing.
Gayle Golden’s Jour 3101 class welcomed guests Laurie Hertzel, projects editor and writing coach at the Star Tribune, who spoke about long-form newspaper writing, Mike Reszler, editor of twincities.com, who spoke about online journalism, and Robert Ingrassia, city hall reporter with the Pioneer Press, who spoke about beat coverage. Also visiting 3101 was Chuck Haga of the Star Tribune, who spoke about his role in covering the Red Lake shootings. Later that day, another section of Jour 3101 visited the Pioneer Press newsroom to chat with managing editor Chris Worthington and to sit in on the afternoon news meeting.
Save the date:Tuesday, May 23, 2006! Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will keynote the University of Minnesita Alumni Association’s 102nd Annual Celebration. Arrangements were made by U of alum Robert Stein ’60,’61, executive director and chief operating officer of the American Bar Association and the alumni association’s 2005-06 president-elect. Appointed by President Ronald Reagan, Justice O’Connor is the first woman and 102nd person to sit on the United States Supreme Court. Tickets for the event will go on sale in early 2006.
The University of Minnesota Alumni Association has contracted with The Reeher Group, a consulting firm that specializes in higher education strategy development and implementation, to assist with the development of a strategic plan that will guide the organization over the next five years. UMAA volunteers and employees, University administrators, deans, UMAA partners, and 40,000 members and non-members will be interviewed and/or surveyed to assess their perceptions, interests and aspirations for the association. Based on the results of this research and data collection, strategic recommendations and a comprehensive plan will be presented to the UMAA’s national board of directors in December 2005.
The Scholars Walk and the Alumni Wall of Honor are nearing completion and will be formally dedicated on Friday, September 23, 2005, in conjunction with Homecoming weekend. Plans are under way for the dedication events, which will include an all-campus lunch on the Gateway Plaza where members of the campus community will be encouraged to “Walk the Walk” and explore the Alumni Wall of Honor, and a gala dinner at the McNamara Alumni Center to honor those recognized on both the Scholars Walk and the Alumni Wall of Honor. The Scholars Walk will provide a prominent, permanent memorial to University faculty and students who have distinguished themselves with their award-winning research and classroom accomplishments.
Upcoming UMAA events, 2005-06
August 28: Maroon & Gold Day at the Minnesota State Fair
September 23: Scholars Walk and Alumni Wall of Honor Dedication
September 24: Homecoming Breakfast
October 7: Alumni Volunteer Awards
October 8: Alumni Volunteer Leadership Forum
May 23, 2006: UMAA 102nd Annual Celebration Featuring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor
Institute for New Media Studies director Nora Paul’s work in digital storytelling research was profiled in Gateway to Research and Inventions, the bi-annual magazine of the University of Minnesota’s Office of Sponsored Projects Administration. The article is available online.
Professor Ron Faber was quoted in an April 17 Pioneer Press story about the media’s inflation of statistics in reporting stories. “Everybody wants the topic they're talking about to sound important,” Faber says in the piece. “To get the story read, you need to grab people's attention, and big numbers grab attention.”
Professor Jane Kirtley appeared in a number of media outlets regarding some of the top news stories of the month. She was a guest on MSNBC's “Connected” on May 10, discussing the scandal involving the Spokane Spokesman-Review's investigation of the Spokane mayor, and was also quoted in the May 6 Seattle Times regarding the same story. She also was a widely cited source on the story regarding Newsweek magazine’s repudiation of its story about the desecration of the Quran by interrogators at Guantanamo Bay: as a guest on “Drivetime Dialogue” on WWRL Radio in New York on May 16 and as a guest on "South Dakota Forum" produced by South Dakota Public Broadcasting Radio on May 18. She was also quoted in the Star Tribune’s coverage of the Newsweek flap. Both the Pioneer Press and the Star Tribune quoted Kirtely regarding the media coverage of St. Paul police officer Gerald Vick’s murder.
Professor Gary Schwitzer was quoted in a May 2 Star Tribune story about the reactions to KSTP-TV’s cancer series, which featured the personal experiences of KSTP reporter Kristin Stinar and her own bout with cancer.
Professors Don Brazeal and Brian Southwell were guests on Minnesota Public Radio's “Midmorning” with Kerri Miller on May 4 to discuss declining newspaper readership and its impact on society.
The SJMC’s National Student Advertising Competition team, which finished 2nd in the District 8 competition in April, has been selected as thw “wild card” team for the national competition. The team, along with NSAC adviser and SJMC Senior Fellow Howard Liszt, will travel to Nashville in June to compete against the district winners. In the four years the team has been under Liszt's leadership, the SJMC NSAC team has finished either first or second in the district; this marks the second year in a row that the team will compete in the national finals.
Professor Hazel Dicken-Garcia received an award from the November 2004 Symposium on the 19th-century Press, Civil War and Freedom of Expression, University of Tennessee (Chattanooga), for “Excellence in Journalism History and the Advance of the Discipline of Historical Scholarship.”
Katherine Roberts Edenborg, SJMC Ph.D. student, was awarded second-place honors in the the graduate division of the AEJMC Mass Communication and Society and Graduate Student Interest Group's Promising Professors Competition. Edenborg’s entry was deemed “outstanding” by a group of judges from colleges and universities around the country. Edenborg will receive her award at the AEJMC’s national conference in San Antonio in August.
Professor Dona Schwartz was selected as one of ten finalists for the prestigious Santa Fe Prize for Photography for her project “In the Kitchen.” The Santa Fe Prize for Photography recognizes and rewards gifted and committed photographers who have completed or are near completion of a meaningful body of work. The award process is by nomination only; photographers cannot apply independently. The juror’s statement regarding “In the Kitchen” states that the work is “brilliantly observed.” Selections from the series are also on view at the Photographic Resource Center's annual juried exhibition from May 20-June 26th at the Boston University gallery.
Holiday Shapiro, SJMC graduate student, has received the “Best Paper” award in the Public Policy category for the the Steven J. Schochet Scholarship Award for Excellence in Creativity and Scholarship in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies. Shapiro’s paper, entitled “Out of the Closets and Into the Courtroom: The Evolving Law of Outing” was awarded a $350 cash prize.
Publications, Presentations, and Research
Chris Ison gave two presentations at the Investigative Reporters and Editors Computer Assisted Reporting bootcamp on April 9 at the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO. One presentation focused on blending computer-assisted reporting into stories; the other discussed ways to “humanize” computer-assisted reporting stories. Ison also gave a presentation on journalism ethics for the University of Minnesota's Communicators Forum conference on May 12.
Professor Gary Schwitzer was the Grand Rounds speaker at the Minneapolis Veterans Administration Medical Center on May 13, discussing trends in health journalism. Schwitzer also spoke to the St. Louis Park Rotary Club on April 11. His talk was entitled “All the Wrong Stuff” and discussed local TV health news coverage. Schwitzer also presented his research on the growing trend toward commercialism in TV health news as part of a panel he moderated at the annual Broadcast Education Association conference in Las Vegas on April 21.
Professor Jane Kirtley was a panelist at the American Bar Association's Seventh Annual Conference on April 15. The panel was titled “Dealing with the Press in Multi-Party, Environmental Disputes: Challenges with Confidentiality.” Kirtley also delivered the 2005 Society for Collegiate Journalists Lecture at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa on April 21, and guest-lectured in two classes at Simpson. She delivered a lecture on “Secrecy, Privacy and the PATRIOT Act” at the Libraries and the PATRIOT Act conference on May 16 at the University of Minnesota.. The conference was co-sponsored by Regional Research Associates, the Minnesota Library Association, and the Graduate School of Information and Library Science at the College of St. Catherine.
INMS director Nora Paul was part of a Soros-sponsored lecture tour to universities in Lima, Peru, Montevideo, Uruguay, and Chile, where she spoke to journalism students and professionals in sessions on computer assisted research, digital storytelling, and the evolving media landscape and its implications for news organizations.
Upcoming Events and Important Dates
The Minnesota Journalism Center and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis will co-host the annual Supply, Demand & Deadlines Workshop June 12-14, 2005. "Supply, Demand & Deadlines: A Workshop on Economics for Journalists," provides mid-level reporters, editors and producers from the business, economics, political and policy beats with insights into how to cover some of the most important but difficult economic and business issues facing our communities. The workshop will include extensive opportunities for journalists to work through sample stories, case studies, and critiques of journalistic work in these subject areas. Visit http://www.mjc.umn.edu/sdd2005/index.htm for more information and to register.
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May 2005