A wish for all seasons

This is the season for giving thanks for bountiful blessings, bestowing gifts upon people and causes we hold dear, and making lists of wishes and dreams we hope come true.

Thus, I am inspired to craft a wish list for the J-School in this online edition of our newsletter to alumni and friends.

One might think that at the top of such a list would be a new building. I believe that the new building will happen on schedule because I know Dean Bierbauer is committed to achieving that goal, and he will with all of our support.

Instead, heading my wish list is becoming one of the top five journalism and mass communications programs in the country. We are well on our way, thanks to a number of developments the past few years, and traditions the School has maintained for decades. Among them, a dedicated and committed faculty and staff, working as a team to realize the full potential of our mission as a professional school in a university environment that values excellence in teaching, research, and public service. We keep adding to our faculty—this semester alone we will hire seven new faculty members in print and broadcast journalism, advertising and public relations, health/science communication, and a joint position in risk communication. We will have 40 full time faculty members in the next two years, ever closer to achieving our objective of improving the student to faculty ratio in the School. At the same time, the School has added new positions to complement the existing administrative staff, such as an additional professional adviser, technology support, and assistant to the director for student and program development.

Another ingredient for a top five program, in addition to a world-class faculty, is a top-notch student body. We have that, but I am wishing for even more of the best and brightest in South Carolina, the state, region, nation, and the world. Our students have a tremendous track record of excellence, and their performance in state, regional and national competitions, enrollment in major graduate and professional schools, and employment at major media companies are indicative of that success.

I also wish for a curriculum that continues to meet the demands of an evolving industry, higher education landscape, and the larger society. What that portends for journalism and mass communications is exploring new opportunities for collaboration and seeking alternative delivery systems to meet the needs of nontraditional students, science and technology, and an increasingly multi-ethnic and multicultural population. We can and must do more with our sister School of Library and Information Science, exploring such areas as news resourcing, media literacy and others, even as we establish the health/science communication initiative, launch an international program under the leadership of professor Kent Sidel, and implement a new mass communications studies major, recently approved by the faculty.

To reach the top five, we will need to raise our research profile, an effort we have already begun by increasing our support for faculty research and other development activities, identifying and recruiting scholars to join our faculty, and increasing our grantsmanship and proposal writing productivity. The College’s research director is doing a superb job in leading the faculty’s increased research productivity.

Strengthened alumni and industry ties are also necessary to become a top tier program. You will read about the exciting launch of the CMCIS Alumni Society this fall elsewhere in this newsletter, but the School has other alumni events of significance, such as the annual Distinguished and Outstanding Alumni Awards that recognize significant professional achievements of alumni. The Taylor-Tomlin Award for Investigative Journalism will also position the J-School as a proponent of excellence in the practice of journalism, as the prize recognizes enterprising, perceptive and beneficial reporting by journalists whose work is published in a South Carolina daily or weekly newspaper or wire service.

And there you have it, my wish list—a top five ranking, more dedicated and committed faculty and staff, recruiting and retaining the best and brightest students, developing an interdisciplinary curricular thrust, raising the unit’s research profile, cultivating stronger alumni and industry ties in the state, region, nation, and extending our global reach.

That is my wish list for this season. May all your wishes, dreams, hopes and aspirations be fulfilled, too.

Tell it to the judge

I’ve never talked with Scooter Libby. I haven’t seen Karl Rove since he visited USC a couple of years ago. I’ve known Dick Cheney a long time, but we’ve not discussed Valerie Plame, yellowcake or Saddam Hussein. Those are my disclaimers.

Have I used anonymous sources? Sure.  In Washington, it’s hard to avoid the background briefing—attributed to a “senior White House official”—or the calculated leak. Occasionally, you’ll hear from a whistleblower wary, even terrified, of exposing his identity. If the information disclosed fits the story, is credible and verifiable, you will probably use it. Still, you always prefer on the record information to which you can attach a name. 

The issue that is causing so much journalistic turmoil is not so much the use of anonymous sources, but the journalist’s responsibility to protect those sources. It’s also about the preservation of journalistic integrity. 

Here’s what we need to tell our journalism students and remind our grads.

The First Amendment to the Constitution is not a grant of immunity. It says Congress shall make no law “abridging the freedom…of the press.” But it’s not an impenetrable shield. The New York Times’ Judith Miller was jailed for contempt of court, a law intended to keep all of us respectful. Whether Miller needed to go to jail or should have is fuel for lengthier discussion than this. 

Anonymous sources should be the rarest kind, a condition rarely asked and even more rarely granted. Absent personal or national security concerns, there’s seldom compelling reason for it.

Manipulation has become the norm of politics. Whether it was Scooter, Karl, the Veep or yet another White House whisperer, the Plame game was cloaked—and not very clandestinely—in political motives. The journalist, eager for the nugget no one else has, must still question the reason for the leak.  Skepticism is one of a journalist’s healthiest attributes.             

Moreover, when a journalist goes to court and becomes part of the story, the story changes. Journalists are trained to be observers, occasionally participant observers—I’m thinking of the embedded reporters in Iraq.  We’re headline writers, not headline makers.  At least, that’s the way I learned it.

Journalists have a place in court and, from my experience, should have a bigger place. The third and often decisive branch of government is too seldom covered. Is it because too few journalists are trained in the law? Is it too complicated for the tight news hole in many papers and most tv newscasts?  Are the media unwelcome? 

Importantly, it is not necessarily the latter.  At a gathering of federal judges and journalists at the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt in mid-November,  judges expressed a willingness to work with the media. 

“I wish more media would call me more often,” said Judge Andre Davis of the District of Maryland. “We, as judges, are teachers.” Other judges indicated they are not unwilling to talk with reporters, even explain cases. But they are more inclined to do that when they have established a working relationship with the reporter. 

Judge Gerald Tjoflat of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Florida noted that he tailors some court opinions with the media in mind, especially in cases with high public profiles. Judge Tjoflat feels that if he writes for the media, reporters should not have to ask, “What does this mean?”

“The coverage we get is pretty darn good,” said Judge Brock Hornby of the District of Maine. “If we have a complaint, it’s the coverage we don’t get.”

That argues strongly for editors and news directors assigning experienced reporters to cover courts and giving reporters the latitude to spend what time is needed to get to know the issues, the cases and the judges. 

Arriving at that kind of a symbiotic working relationship with the courts might even keep a journalist out of jail.