21st Annual Silha Lecture featuring Geoffrey Stone: On Wednesday, October 4, 2006, the SJMC’s Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law will host its 21st annual Silha Lecture. This year’s lecture, entitled “The Freedom of the Press v. The National Security,” will be delivered by Geoffrey Stone, professor and former dean of the University of Chicago Law School. Professor Stone is a nationally-known expert in the field of constitutional law and is the author of Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism (2004). Perilous Times received the 2005 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and was named the Best Book in History by the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 2004. The Silha Lecture will be held in the Cowles Auditorium of the Humphrey Institute at 7 p.m., and will be followed by a reception and book signing with Professor Stone. The Silha Lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, contact silha@umn.edu, call 612-625-3421, or visit www.silha.umn.edu.

Muslim/Non-Muslim Relations: An Integrative Approach: The SJMC's Minnesota Journalism Center is co-sponsoring a lecture by Dr. Jamal Badawi on Saturday, June 17th, 2006, from 6:30– 9 p.m. in Humphrey Institute’s Cowles Auditiorium. Dr. Badawi’s lecture, a project of Minneapolis’ Islamic Resource Group, will focus on the nature and parameters of the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims, including an examination of the media’s coverage and treatment of Muslims and Islam. Dr. Badawi is the director of Canada’s Islamic Information Foundation, a non-profit foundation seeking to promote better understanding of Islam by Muslims and non-Muslims. His lecture is also co-sponsored by the Humphrey Institute, the U’s Center for Resorative Justice and Peacemaking, and Hamline Law School’s Dispute Resolution Institute. The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, contact islamicresource@yahoo.com or (612) 676-0165.

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A May 22 wire story by SJMC student and Star Tribune Scholar Emma Carew '09, an intern with the Minneapolis bureau of the Associated Press, was picked up by dozens of newspapers and media outlets around the world. The story, about a malfunctioning ride at the Valleyfair amusement park that injured 18 people, appeared in the Duluth News Tribune, St. Cloud Times, Rochester Bulletin, Seattle Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, and a number of online news sites, including ABC, CBS and Forbes. The story was also picked up by papers in England, Australia, and Canada.

 

News coverage of Professor Gary Schwitzer’s new website, HealthNewsReview.org, included stories in more than 200 U.S. newspapers, televsion newscasts, and websites, including U.S. News & World Report, USA Today, CNN Headline News, National Public Radio, ABCNews.com, FoxNews.com, and Editor & Publisher. In the site’s first six weeks online, it received 3.2 million hits by 44,000 individual users, over 1000 of whom registered with the site.

Professor Jane Kirtley made a number of appearances in the broadcast media, including as a guest on Gary Eichten's Midday show on MPR on April 27 discussing the sale of the Pioneer Press to MediaNews Group. Kirtley was the guest on Wisconsin Public Radio on May 8, talking about the Bush Administration’s crackdown on press freedom, and also appeared on WCCO Radio's “Jack Rice Show” on May 22 to talk about possible prosecutions of journalists under the federal Espionage Act. Kirtley was also a guest on “Meet Your Court,” a weekly public affairs program sponsored by the Hennepin County District Court. The topic was “Court Records and the Public Interest,” and the show was taped on May 9. Kirtley’s appearances in the print media included a quote in a May 5 story in the Providence (RI) Journal about the release of personal letters from the families of victims killed in the 2005 Station nightclub fire. She was also cited in a May 8 New York Sun story entitled “Reporters' Subpoenas Amount To War Against the Press,” and in a May 11 Christian Science Monitor article entitled “What is the price of plagiarism?” She was quoted in the April 2006 issue of Presstime (the magazine of the Newspaper Association of America) about a recent court decision involving several Baltimore reporters.


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SJMC alumni David Domke (Ph.D. ’96) is the 2006 recipient of the Krieghbaum Under 40 Award from the Association of Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). The award honors AEJMC members under 40 years of age who have shown outstanding achievement and effort in teaching, research and public service. Domke is an associate professor in the department of communication at the University of Washington in Seattle.

The SJMC’s Institute for New Media Studies received a grant of $31,457 from the University of Minnesota’s Digital Technology Center for a project titled: “Digital Story Effects Lab: Research into the Effects of Alternative Digital Story Designs on News Audiences” The INMS will work with the online team at the Star Tribune, University design professor Sauman Chu, and University of North Carolina multimedia design professor Laura Ruel. INMS director Nora Paul hopes this research will be a foundation for better understanding of the impact that story design has on the news audience and will provide guidance to the news industry and other online message makers.

The Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal has named SJMC adjunct instructor Matt Kucharski one of its 2006 “Forty Under 40” award winners. The award honors 40 Twin Cities professionals under 40 years old for their business accomplishments and community contributions. This year's winners were featured in a special insert in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal's May 12 print issue. Kucharski, who teaches public relations classes in the SJMC, is a senior vice president at the Twin Cities PR firm Padilla Speer Beardsley.

Professor Dona Schwartz won the 2006 Griffin Award for the photograph “Lip Gloss,” her entry in The Griffin Museum of Photography's 12th Annual Juried show. The photo is part of Schwartz’s “In the Kitchen” series, which is currently on exhibit at the Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Oregon. Blue Sky is a non-profit space dedicated to educating the public about photography; Professor Schwartz gave an artist's lecture at Blue Sky on May 5th.

SJMC Ph.D. student Kate Roberts Edenborg's submission “News Judgment Call to Action: How to Show Students That With Journalism, There Are No ‘Right’ Answers” was one of the top 25 “Great Ideas For Teachers” (GIFT) submissions and will be part of a poster session at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) convention in San Francisco in August. The submission will also be published in a limited edition GIFT booklet. Former SJMC graduate student Matthew Baker and SJMC alumna (Ph.D. ’05) graduate Amy Lauters also had GIFT submissions selected.

The Minnesota Daily and SJMC student Emily Kaiser '07 were among the winners of the the Society of Professional Journalists’ national Mark of Excellence awards. This year, collegiate journalists submitted more than 3,100 entries in 43 categories. The Daily editorial board was honored as a National Finalist in the Editorial Writing category, and Kaiser was honored as a National Finalist in the In-Depth Reporting category for her October 18, 2005 story entitled “Under Heat,” which examined the University’s heating delivery systems.

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The work of SJMC professors Brian Southwell and Marco Yzer on the role of conversation in media campaign effects has resulted in a special issue of the journal Communication Theory on “Conversation and Campaigns.” Southwell and Yzer will edit the issue, which will be published in late 2008 or early 2009. The pair’s research in this area is also reflected in a chapter that they will have in Communication Yearbook in 2007.

Professor Marco Yzer spoke on the role that behavioral theory can play in media-based public education at a Sea Grant conference in Puerto Rico on May 23-25. He will speak on the same topic at a second Sea Grant conference on June 13-15 in Michigan. The Sea Grant programs mission is to provide accurate, science-based information that people can use to make prudent decisions that will contribute to the stewardship of America's marine, estuarine, and Great Lakes resources.

Professor Gary Schwitzer was a panelist for the 25th session of the Minnesota Health Care Roundtable on April 19. His topic was “Health care marketing: appropriate standards for diverse initiatives.” Schwitzer presented his paper, “A web-based systematic review and feedback mechanism analyzing U.S. health news coverage,” at the 2006 Kentucky Conference on Health Communication on April 21. Schwitzer also spoke to the National Breast Cancer Coalition annual meeting in Washington D.C. On April 30, in a lecture entitled “Do the Media Get the Breast Cancer Story Right?”

Professor Jane Kirtley was a panelist at the 4th annual Gary Klott Ethics Symposium at the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) annual conference in Minneapolis on April 30. The title of the panel was: "Short Sellers and the Media: the use (and misuse) of negative tips to newspeople."

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Guest lecturers in Professor Gary Schwitzer’s Jour 3771: Mass Media Ethics class included Jon Bream, Star Tribune music critic; Pat Kessler of WCCO-TV; and Tom Horner of the Himle, Horner, Inc. public relations/public affairs firm.

Beth Newkirk, executive director of the Organizing Apprenticeship Project, which trains and supports community organizers around Minnesota, spoke to Bill Huntzicker's Journalism 5601: History of Journalism class. Newkirk discussed her research on news coverage of the civil rights movement and the process of doing research in journalism history.

Attorney Brent Robbins, in-house counsel at General Mills, delivered a guest lecture on advertising law in Professor Jane Kirtley's Jour 3776 class in April.

Adjunct instructor Marilyn Moyer hosted several speakers in her News Writing and Reporting class: Sid Hartman, columnist for the Star Tribune; Gary Gilson, executive director of the Minnesota News Council: and Rod Simons, sports anchor for KSTP-TV.

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May 2006