ALUMNI
MAGAZINE

Author: Belinda Clarke

Categories
Home My Medill Story

Kelly Brockmeier (IMC19) How a start in news production led to an IMC degree

Kelly Brockmeier.

By Kelly Brockmeier (IMC19)

My mom used to tell me, “you can’t feed the neighborhood.” I was born a helper. I have a heart for the underdog, the disadvantaged, the lost—you get it. I’m still an idealist in many ways. I was also the kid that asked “why,” a LOT. I was destined to be a journalist, and boy was I good at it.

In my late 20s, I inadvertently landed an Executive Producer role. I never set out to be in management, it just happened. And not long after, I advanced to Assistant News Director. If you’ve worked in news you understand the job IS your life. The hours are grueling, and the pay can be really poor but that’s not why you sign up for this. It’s a calling.

In 2004, my news career suddenly ended. I didn’t know it was ending forever but it did.

Long story short, my boss told me it was either me or him. Brutal right? That’s the news business. My sudden unemployment opened a door to consider all my possibilities and I did just that. Somehow despite being fearful of doctors and needles and healthcare in general, I found myself smack dab in the middle of an academic medical center. My news skills translated nicely in the PR world and then eventually into a marketing leadership role. My secret sauce? The ability to identify and tell great stories across mediums, platforms and positions.

In 2015, I began interviewing for C-suite roles and most called for an advanced degree, something I did not have and honestly did not want. I was not keen on going back to school to check a box. I investigated lots of MBA programs and knew it was not the right fit. I even met with various universities. I had all but given up when one night I was served an online ad from Medill IMC. I knew about Northwestern as a journalist, it was a top program in the country. Additionally, my brother-in-law had played football at NU. He died suddenly in 2012 and there was an emotional tie to the university thanks to Coach Fitzgerald and his incredible staff and team who honored Leon Brockmeier by wearing his initials on their helmet that season. Without much thought as to how I would pay for this degree, I hastily applied as I sat on the couch one evening. I remember telling my husband what I had done, he sincerely thought I was joking.

As I waited for word on whether I had been accepted, I recalled the University President speaking at a pep rally during a bowl game in Jacksonville, Fla.,in January 2013. He talked about the academic prowess of NU. My brother-in-law often reminded us that his bachelor’s degree from NU was equivalent to his wife’s master’s degree from Florida State University. As we sat and heard Morty Schapiro list off stats on the student body we suddenly realized Leon hadn’t just been bragging—it was legitimate. I had hoped that maybe someday my son might go to NU to honor his uncle, but NEVER did I think it would be me. In 2013, I had zero aspirations to go back to school and even if I had, NU did not seem attainable.

Fast forward to 2016 and I get an acceptance letter. My NU journey began at age 45! To date it’s the largest single investment of time and money I have ever spent on myself and it was worth every penny. In the summer of 2019, I walked across the same football field my brother-in-law called home with his cardiac Cats. This time the heart attack was all mine as I donned the purple and officially graduated from NU with a master’s in Integrated Marketing Communications. It’s equivalent to a Ph.D. in some books! I still pinch myself, but the pictures prove it happened—I did it!

Immediately after my last class ended at NU in San Francisco, I took a job with Wounded Warrior Project as their national Director of PR & Social Media. My new chapter is well underway and I’m doing what I do best—telling meaningful stories and helping those most in need. The cool kids call that #winning, or so I’m told.

Learn more about my career journey by visiting www.kellybrockmeier.com.

 

 

Categories
Home Medill Research Uncategorized

Medill student internship research project findings in the Chicago Tribune

Graphic reading "Virtual Internship."

Employers, don’t cancel those internships — make them remote

By Melissa Santoyo (BSJ23)

When COVID-19 first hit the U.S., I was extremely fortunate that the pandemic only ruined the spring quarter of my freshman year and my summer study-abroad plans. But as a low-income, first-generation college student, I scrambled to find something to fill the few months of vacation. Because whereas my wealthier peers could probably afford to spend a summer unemployed, I am constantly racing against the clock, asking myself, “How long do I have until graduation and what can I do to make sure I’ll be hired after that?”

I am the daughter of Cuban immigrants, and I inherited their tenacity. My hunger to succeed is the product of growing up in a country that seems to constantly work against people like me. So, I scoured the internet for summer internships to keep busy, to hone marketable skills, to move forward.

After 30 emails to editors at various publications, I scored an unpaid internship — and an outside scholarship.

I know that, as a student at a private institution, I am incredibly privileged to be able to take up such a summer task. But still, I urge employers to keep internship opportunities available for students, even if they must be remote. Otherwise, as in my case, many of us wouldn’t have access to professional connections.

As a student collaborator on the well-regarded internship program at Northwestern University, I see firsthand the value of on-the-job experience. But earlier this year, when our journalism residency director Karen Springen and I started a small journalism research project called The Intern Factor, we quickly realized hands-on experience outside of the classroom is even more important than we thought. Of the 1,156 alumni of the Medill School of Journalism who responded to a short online survey, 683 gave the top rating (“very valuable”) to their internships’ ability to help them find meaningful full-time employment.

That makes it even more upsetting that many internships have been rescinded, albeit for a good reason (a global pandemic). A poll by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that 22% of employers were revoking their offers to interns this summer, and a Yello survey found that more than a third of students said their offer was canceled.

“I can’t fathom what those students are going through now,” says Gustavo Paredes, who works in client services at a technology company and interned for a Buenos Aires newspaper in 2019 through a Northwestern University program covered by his financial aid. “My experience played a pivotal role in where I am.”

Without a college internship at what is now called Florida Today, “I wouldn’t have landed that first job,” says Northwestern alum Scot O’Hara, who currently works in financial-industry communications. “It made all the difference in the world.”

We understand why companies are canceling their summer internships. After all, hiring managers are often unsure of their own jobs and of their ability to give students a good “remote” experience.

Still, the rescinders quickly earned some bad social media PR while the keepers (including PepsiCo and Apple) earned high praise and gratitude. Paredes’ employer decided to still hire a dozen summer 2020 interns, who are working remotely. “People like myself said, ‘These internships play a pivotal role for these young adults,’” he says.

Internships are a two-way street. Young people get training, experience, connections and, in the case of journalists, published “clips.” But their older bosses arguably get even more from the deal. Their students bring fresh ideas and tech savvy, teaching their on-the-job mentors how to, say, build a line graph on a Google spreadsheet. Interns offer important insight into Gen Z tools such as TikTok and Snapchat. They also help fill in when regular employees are on vacation or family leave. And, perhaps most important, they bring the energy of youth. “I find the enthusiasm that the interns bring is even a bigger payoff,” says O’Hara. “It just revitalizes the whole department.”

Sure, coronavirus-caused remote internships aren’t ideal. It’s nicer for students to sit in person next to experienced reporters and editors, overhearing how they conduct interviews, bumping into them in the elevator and grabbing coffee with them. But the cancelers forgot that most young people are extraordinarily flexible and willing to Slack and Zoom.

My own remote internship has so far been an incredible learning experience. Not only is my work being published, but I’m learning about the intricacies of journalism outside of the Medill classroom. From hunting down PR contacts to working a 9-to-5 schedule, there are things J-school can’t teach.

“If the college curriculum gave me the basics and the tool kit, the internships gave me the opportunity to really build,” said Gina Mangieri, a TV reporter in Hawaii who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Medill and completed six internships. “If you can’t actually go do it and practice it, you’re not going to learn everything you need to learn in the classroom.”

During internships, students typically discover their interests, their strengths and their passions. They learn to pitch their own ideas and to be proactive. They also learn about how corporations do (or don’t) follow their mission statements. They learn to feel more confident in their abilities. And during this short period of professional experience, they figure out what they like, and don’t like, doing.

Students often realize they love — or hate — a city like New York. They see that they like researching better than writing — or vice versa. They learn to multitask, get up early, keep to a tight schedule and talk to people. Dream jobs change. They get a clear idea of what they’d like to do after graduation. They see what matters to bosses: attention to detail, dedication, hard work.

Despite bright spots like Report for America (similar to Teach for America), there need to be more places where young people can make connections and also figure out who they are and who they want to be.

After all, soon the Class of COVID-19 and its immediate successors will be the bosses.

Melissa Santoyo is a rising sophomore at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications.

 

Categories
Features Home Medill News

New York Times Reporter Azam Ahmed awarded the 2019 James Foley Medill Medal for Courage

Azam Ahmed and the James Foley Medill Medal.

 

Azam Ahmed, New York Times bureau chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, has won the James Foley Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism for his investigation of gang murder across Latin America. In his series “Kill, or Be Killed: Latin America’s Homicide Crisis,” Ahmed chronicled the rampant and unchecked gang violence in the region.

“No one deserves this recognition more than Azam,” said New York Times International Managing Editor Greg Winter. “He has put himself on the frontlines for years, from Afghanistan to Honduras, to document the lives of the world’s most vulnerable people. He does so with compassion, exceptional insight and compelling narratives that draw readers in and remind them, in the most intimate ways, of what people around the world confront on a daily basis.”

In Mexico and Honduras, Ahmed witnessed shootouts and cartel killings. In Brazil, he tracked down police officers who were members of illegal death squads and persuaded them not just to talk, but also to confess to murders and other crimes. After nine members of a Mormon family were killed in remote Mexican mountains, Ahmed traveled to the scene and discovered evidence that had been overlooked, including spent shell casings and a child’s shoe, to create a more accurate picture of what had happened than what the authorities presented.

“Year after year as I read the entries, I think the stories can’t get any more harrowing; the world can’t get any more dangerous for journalists,” said founding judge and Medill Professor Emeritus Donna Leff (BSJ70, MSJ71). “But there seems to be no end to the violence for the subjects and peril for the reporters telling their stories. What stood out in Azam’s work was the riveting, graceful language and the vivid narrative in a deep portfolio that embraced the whole of his domain–Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.”

Ahmed spent 17 months interviewing one of Mexico’s deadliest hired killers who worked for the cartels. Ahmed exposed closely guarded secrets of the underworld, including an assassin training camp. In Honduras, Ahmed lived inside gang territory for weeks. In San Pedro Sula, Honduras, one of the deadliest cities in the world, Ahmed chronicled the siege of a neighborhood with vivid descriptions of shootouts, gang incursions and last-minute pleas to stop the killing.

“Much in the spirit of James Foley himself, Azam is a daring, gifted and skilled journalist,” said co-judge Brett Pulley (MSJ87), Bloomberg’s Atlanta bureau chief and Medill Board of Advisers member. “In story after story, he demonstrates a willingness to venture into society’s heart of darkness to illuminate the places and people who are integral to some of the globe’s most vexing issues and confounding and violent occurrences. His body of work stood tall above a field of entries that in their own right were tremendously impressive, important and powerful.”

Before moving to Mexico, Ahmed worked for nearly three years in Afghanistan covering the war there. He accompanied the Afghan security forces as they struggled to take over security from U.S. forces, and more broadly wrote about the deterioration of the United States’ longest-running war.

“As I read one arresting story after the next from Azam’s impressive portfolio, I could hardly believe this was the work of a single journalist,” said co-judge and Medill faculty member Ceci Rodgers (MSJ81). “Through his detailed reporting and his access to the inner workings of the drug gangs in Latin America, Azam opens a world to readers in a way that contextualizes the horrors driving migrants to the U.S. border to seek asylum. Beautifully crafted narratives and compelling characters draw us in and make us care.”

Honorable Mention

This year’s honorable mention also won high praise from the judges. In “Outsourcing Migration,” Associated Press reporters Maggie Michael, Lori Hinnant and Renata Brito exposed the devastating effects of restrictive European and U.S. immigration policies that have resulted in asylum-seekers being sent back to Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador—the very countries many of them are fleeing. The year-long project, funded in part by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, documented the abuse of people fleeing violence, and the benefits gained by mafia, militia and even the Libyan coast guard, which was paid by the EU to warehouse migrants.

Virtual Event

The judges will present the award to Ahmed and he will share his journey via webinar on Thursday, July 16 at 5 p.m. Central Time. Joining the event will be special guest Diane Foley, mother of Medill alumnus James Foley (MSJ08) and founder and president of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation. Visit this link to participate in the webinar.

About the James Foley Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism 

The award is named in honor of Medill alumnus James Foley, who was captured while reporting in Syria in 2012 and killed by ISIS extremists in 2014.

The 2019 medal is given for work published during the 2019 calendar year to an individual or team of journalists, working for a U.S.-based media outlet, who best displayed moral, physical, ethical, financial or political courage in the pursuit of a story or series of stories.

The selection committee included Bloomberg’s Atlanta Bureau Chief and Medill Board of Advisers member Brett Pulley, Medill Professor Emeritus Donna Leff and Medill Director of Global Journalism Learning Ceci Rodgers.

The 2018 award was given to Max Bearak, Nairobi Bureau Chief for The Washington Post, for his reporting in 2018 from sub-Saharan Africa. Bearak’s stories from Congo, Niger and Zimbabwe chronicled a wide range of extreme events that required intense bravery in dangerous situations without being reckless or putting himself at the center of the story, said the judges, who were unanimous in their decision.

 

Categories
Features Home Medill News

Medill inducts Six Women into its 2020 Hall of Achievement Class

Headshots of Medill Hall of Achievement inductees.

Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications welcomes six inductees into its Hall of Achievement this year. The all-female class celebrates 150 years of co-education at Northwestern. Medill’s Hall of Achievement was established in 1997 to honor Medill alumni whose distinctive careers have had positive effects on their fields.

“Northwestern’s 150 Years of Women is a celebration of catalysts — individuals who take risks, chart their own course and inspire change,” said Medill Dean Charles Whitaker. “Each of this year’s inductees is a pioneer and innovator in her field. We are honored to call them alumnae and induct them into this year’s class.”

Jeanie Caggiano (COMM82, MSA83)

Jeanie CaggianoJeanie Caggiano is an executive vice president and executive creative director at Leo Burnett Chicago. Currently, she is the lead for UnitedHealthcare, UnitedHealth Group and Feeding America, among other clients. In addition to UnitedHealth, she is best known for her two Allstate campaigns: “Mayhem” and the “Our Stand” campaign featuring Dennis Haysbert. She has contributed writing to Disney, McDonald’s, Hallmark Cards, Kellogg’s, Kraft, Procter & Gamble and Morgan Stanley. In February 2019, the women’s media group She Runs It (formerly Advertising Women of New York) named Caggiano a “Trailblazing Mother” at the Working Mothers of the Year awards.

A member of the 2016 Cannes Lions Outdoor Jury, Caggiano also has judged film and direction at the One Show, chaired the OBIE Awards jury, judged London International (mainline and Health & Wellness), the Facebook Awards and more.

Cindy Chupack (BSJ87)

Cindy ChupackCindy Chupack has won two Emmys and three Golden Globes as a TV writer/producer whose credits include “Sex and the City,” “Better Things,” “Divorce,” Modern Family,” “Everybody Loves Raymond” and most recently, Showtime’s darkly comic hour, “I’m Dying Up Here.” In 2018, she directed her first episode of television for “I’m Dying Up Here” and her first feature, OTHERHOOD, starring Angela Bassett, Patricia Arquette and Felicity Huffman.

Chupack has written about dating and relationships for many magazines, has been published in The New York Times’ Modern Love column and is the author of two comic memoirs: “The Between Boyfriends Book: A Collection of Cautiously Hopeful Essays” and “The Longest Date: Life as a Wife”.

Chupack grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Right after graduating from Medill, she moved to New York City to work in advertising. She sold her first humorous essay to a women’s magazine in 1990, and the piece was spotted by a TV producer who encouraged her to pursue comedy writing, which she’s been doing ever since.

Mary Dedinsky (BSJ69, MSJ70)

Mary DedinskiMary Dedinsky is the director of the journalism program and associate professor in residence at Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q). A long-time editor and reporter, Dedinsky was the first woman to be named managing editor of the Chicago Sun-Times. At the Sun-Times, she was also an education reporter, investigative reporter, editorial writer, metropolitan editor and director of editorial operations. For her work at the Sun-Times, she was elected to the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame. She has twice served as a Pulitzer Prize juror.

After the Sun-Times, Dedinsky became associate dean and associate professor of journalism at Medill where she taught media management to graduate students and news writing to undergraduates for 10 years. She also directed the Teaching Media Program, now called Journalism Residency, in which undergraduate students work for a quarter at media outlet or communications company. She has consulted for the Associated Press and numerous newspaper companies, among other things facilitating a major reorganization of a client’s editorial staff.

Helene Elliott (BSJ77)

Helene ElliottHelene Elliott was the first female journalist to be honored by the Hall of Fame of a major professional North American sport when she was given the Elmer Ferguson award by the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2005.

She began her career at the Chicago Sun-Times and later went to Newsday before joining the Los Angeles Times, where she has worked since 1989. She has covered 16 Olympics, as well as countless Stanley Cup Finals, in addition to covering the World Series, men’s and women’s World Cup soccer tournaments, the NBA Finals, the Super Bowl and other events.

Elliott also won the Best Breaking News Story award from the Associated Press Sports Editors for her story on the labor agreement that ended the National Hockey League lockout in 2005. She became a general sports columnist in 2006.

Maudlyne Ihejirika (MSJ87)

Maudlyne IhejirikaMaudlyne Ihejirika is an award-winning Chicago Sun-Times urban affairs columnist/reporter with 30 years of experience in journalism, public relations and government. Recently named among the Power 25, an annual ranking of the 25 most powerful women in Chicago journalism, she earned a B.A. in journalism from the University of Iowa before attending Medill. She currently writes the Sun-Times “Chicago Chronicles,” long-form columns on “people and places that make Chicago tick.” She is the author of “Escape From Nigeria: A Memoir of Faith, Love and War,” a tale of her family’s survival of the brutal Nigerian-Biafran War, and miracles that brought them to the U.S.

Ihejirika is president of both the Chicago Journalists Association and the National Association of Black Journalists Chicago Chapter. She is a member of the Professional Advisory Board of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Iowa, and a member of the prestigious Council of 100 at Northwestern.

Kary Mcllwain (MSA86)

Kary McillwainAs chief marketing and communications officer for Lurie Children’s Hospital, McIlwain leads marketing for the hospital and Lurie Children’s Foundation as well as all media relations and strategic communications. Her team is responsible for all owned, earned and paid media, CRM and direct marketing efforts, annual giving physician marketing and driving awareness, preference, volume, donations, reputation and reach for the top-ranked children’s hospital.

Lurie Children’s represents a capstone on a 25 plus year career in advertising. As President and CEO of Y&R Chicago, McIlwain was responsible for the strategy and operations of a full-service digital and traditional agency. Under McIlwain’ s leadership, Y&R grew exponentially, reinvented its digital offering, created a digital content studio, revamped its creative product and was named top 10 “Creative Heavyweights” by Creativity magazine.

Medill will honor the Hall of Achievement class of 2020 in the spring of 2021 in Evanston.

Categories
Home Medill News

Medill selects alumnus Jeremy Gilbert as Knight Chair in Digital Media Strategy

Headshot of Jeremy Gilbert.

Endowed chair holder charged with leading journalism in digital age
July 6, 2020

Medill welcomes alumnus Jeremy Gilbert (BSJ00, MSJ00) as the new director of strategic initiatives at The Washington Post, as Knight Chair in Digital Media Strategy.

At The Washington Post, Gilbert directed a lab dedicated to experimental storytelling that aimed to create unique digital products and stories. In 2016, he built The Post’s first artificial intelligence storytelling system, called Heliograf, which used machine generated text to expand elections and Olympics coverage. Gilbert also helped to create The Post’s first augmented and virtual reality projects — the most recent of which, 12 Seconds of Gunfire, debuted at the Tribeca film festival and won a Webby.

In his position as Knight Chair, Gilbert is tasked with creating new knowledge and advances in media strategy and exploring how new technologies can further the creation, consumption and distribution of media. The Knight Chair helps Medill graduate and undergraduate students explore how new and emerging ways of delivering news and information on digital platforms and provides hands-on, full-time instruction to undergraduate and graduate students.

“Technology continuously transforms how we tell stories—every generation and sometimes multiple times in a single generation,” said Gilbert. “I am looking forward to using my time at Medill to experiment with and explore the new techniques and approaches that will shape the next generation of media and storytellers.”

Gilbert has a long history at Northwestern and Medill. Starting as an assistant professor in 2008 before moving up to associate professor, he taught graduate and undergraduate courses in interactive storytelling, multimedia presentation, user experience design, innovation projects, and journalism and technology. He also served as a faculty adviser for undergraduate students participating in Journalism Residency, Medill’s quarter-long course that allows students to work in the media industry. He was as a founding faculty member at the Knight News Innovation Lab, helped advise Design for America and the Daily Northwestern and was a core faculty member at the Segal Design Institute.

“We are very excited to have Jeremy return to the Medill faculty,” said Dean Charles Whitaker. “He is a talented teacher, a visionary news executive and an inspiring leader. His expertise in using cutting-edge technology to tell stories in new and dynamic ways will build on the work that Medill is already doing with the Local News Initiative, the Knight Lab and the Bay Area Immersion Program and will help us prepare students and the industries we serve explore the challenges and possibilities of the digital frontier.”

Former Medill Dean Ken Bode was the first Knight Chair at Medill when it was established as the Knight Chair in Broadcasting in 1999 by the Knight Foundation. The focus of the chair was later changed, and, in 2009, Medill Professor Owen Youngman was named Knight Chair in Digital Media Strategy—a position which he held until his retirement earlier this year.

The Knight Foundation has established endowed chairs in journalism at top universities nationwide as part of its focus on sustaining democracy by leading journalism to its best possible future in the 21st century.

“Medill student journalists will benefit from Jeremy’s work at the intersection of journalism, technology and design as they prepare to create journalism’s future,” said LaSharah Bunting, director of journalism for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Categories
Home Medill Research

Survey Reveals That Americans Overwhelmingly Support Freedom of the Press, but Many do not Trust the U.S. News Media

Graphic showing results of Medill survey on trust in U.S. news media.

Trust in news media remains tepid with just above half of Americans saying the media is trustworthy, rising only two percentage points from December 2019, according to a new survey by Medill and The Harris Poll.

Americans overwhelming agree that freedom of speech is one of the values that makes the country great and freedom of the press is essential for American democracy; even so, four in 10 say the news media is the “enemy of the people.” Majorities of Americans say the news media are too negative in their reporting and that they report “fake news.” That said, significantly fewer Americans in May compared with December agree that the media reports fake news, suggesting that trust in media is improving in the COVID-19 era. In fact, nearly two-thirds say they trust information about COVID-19 provided by the news media, much more than the 55 percent who trust the information about COVID-19 provided in White House briefings.

Charles Whitaker, dean of Northwestern’s Medill School, said, “This research is a timely snapshot with fresh data on one of journalism’s most critical challenges, that of trust by the audience and larger public. The findings underscore public reliance on professional journalism while wary of social media.”

“The report especially opens the aperture on trust, which in U.S. news media is often narrowly cast in one’s politics and world view. This has been no ordinary year in the face of COVID, racial equality and economic/ cultural fallout with Americans receptive to science, public health and local media,” says John Gerzema, Medill alumnus and CEO of The Harris Poll.

The survey was conducted December 9-11, 2019, and repeated May 27-29, 2020, on behalf of Medill by The Harris Poll. Both polls were conducted online among roughly 2,000 nationally representative adults.

The research was organized and overseen by Everette E. Dennis and Klaus Schoenbach, well-known media researchers, authors and educators. Dennis is professor of journalism at the Medill School and formerly dean and CEO at Northwestern’s campus in Doha, Qatar (NU-Q). Schoenbach, a former senior associate dean at NU-Q, is a distinguished adjunct professor there and honorary professor at Zeppelin University in Germany.

Results for the study’s first wave were completed before the COVID-19 pandemic began, so Dennis and Schoenbach decided to do a second wave to see whether the national lockdown caused an uptick in media use or had influenced change in public perceptions of the news media.  Importantly, the study was conducted two days after the death of George Floyd at the outset of national demonstrations.

As Dennis put it, “Public attitudes toward the news media are as polarized as the country itself, mostly along partisan lines and threatening to the idea of an informed citizenry.  We wanted to see whether reliance on media during the pandemic would alter that perception.  In some significant ways, it did so with regard to some media outlets and news sources.”

Key Findings from the report include:

  • Americans give the news media a tepid endorsement, viewed simultaneously as a friend and foe. There is a wide political divide in perceptions of the media, and the gap has expanded over time.
    • 55% of Americans trust the news media, up 2 percentage points from December, ranking the media behind such organizations as the medical community, banks, car manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies.
    • Democrats are nearly twice as likely as Republicans to agree that the news media is trustworthy (77% Democrats vs. 36% Republicans).
    • On the other hand, 41% of Americans describe the news media as the enemy of the people, down 2 points from December.
    • Nearly six in 10 Americans believe the media report fake news, but this is down significantly from December (65% December vs. 58% May).
  • Almost all Americans say they support freedom of speech and freedom of the press. At the same time, many would like to suppress media that don’t support their own views.
    • 61% agree reporters should be shielded from prosecution by the Trump administration (63% in December).
    • But 40% agree the president should have the authority to close down news outlets engaged in bad behavior (39% in December), and 29% in both waves say President Trump should close down certain media like CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times.
  • There is a strong distrust of news on social media, yet many still get their news from social media.
    • 82% are concerned about what is real or fake on the internet (85% in December), and only 33% both waves say they trust news on social media.
    • Yet 42% get news on social media each week, jumping to 54% among Millennials and 62% among Gen Z.
  • Most Americans trust information about COVID-19 provided by public health experts. Trust in news media and briefings by the White House and President Trump are split down party lines.
    • For information about COVID-19, 83% trust public health experts, 63% trust news media and 55% trust White House briefings.
    • By party affiliation, 85% of Republicans vs. 19% of Democrats trust President Trump, while 85% of Democrats vs. 44% of Republicans trust news media for information about COVID-19.
  • Americans have more respect in journalists as a profession than they do in media as an institution.
    • Two-thirds of Americans say they respect journalists, unchanged from December. That puts journalists behind doctors, medical scientists, military personnel, teachers, police officers and the clergy, but ahead of entertainer/actors and members of Congress.
    • Democrats are much more likely to respect journalists (85%) than Independents (59%) and Republicans (51%).
  • Respect for the military and police officers has decreased from December to May, with a significant decline for police, which likely is a reaction to the recent killings of African Americans including George Floyd.
    • 42% of Americans respect police officers very much, down 9 percentage points from 51% in December.
    • While this decrease in respect is observed among Black and White respondents and across political affiliations, respect for police has fallen more among Black Americans, dropping 16 points to 60%.

A complete 60-page report including detailed findings from the Trust in U.S. News Media survey can be found here.

Categories
1990s Featured Legacies Legacies

Betsy Rothstein (MSJ95)

Betsy Rothstein.

Betsy Rothstein, columnist for the Daily Caller, passed away after a long battle with cancer.  Her friend, Olivia Nuzzi, said this about Rothstein in an article posted after her death in “The Intelligencer.”

“I don’t know what I expected Betsy Rothstein to look like, but I guess I wasn’t expecting a woman who made her living filleting media personalities and nurturing feuds to be so tiny in stature. When she approached me on the grass outside the Capitol building and introduced herself, I almost burst out laughing. She was delicate — almost birdlike — with a sweet, girlish voice. I can’t remember what exactly we were both doing there. It was some kind of rally, and we were surrounded by protesters and people dressed up like soldiers in the Revolutionary War. This was 2014, what would turn out to be the last semi-normal year in American politics. I’d only been a part of the Washington press corps for a few months, but already I knew about Betsy, having learned about her, as many young journalists did, when she wrote about me in her gossip column. I knew she was regarded with a mixture of fear and contempt. I also knew that my colleagues read her, scanned her copy for their boldfaced names. I did the same.

Betsy was a professional thorn in the side of Washington media figures, whom she covered at The Hill, and then Fishbowl DC, and then the Daily Caller. Nora Ephron once said that when she watched TV news, she did so wondering if what she was seeing was actually a romantic comedy. Betsy watched the political media as if it were a sitcom. She was always looking for characters, preferably ones that amused her. She thought we were all silly. She was chronically wrong on the minor details, but on this larger point she was always correct.

Betsy had confronted the idea that she might not live, and she had chosen to try very hard, to suffer, to continue to be a part of this world. She wanted to live more than those of us who do not have to consciously register our will to live each day. She was taken out unwillingly. She did not “lose a fight” or “lose a battle.” We did. Those of us who loved her, robbed of her spirit and originality. Robbed of her delightful strangeness. And those who feared or loathed her, spared of her bite, unaware that they have lost something vital too.”

Photo: Darrow Montgomery

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/remembering-my-friend-betsy-rothstein.html

Categories
2010s Class Notes Featured Class Notes

Emily Glazer (BSJ10)

Emily Glazer at The Wall Street Journal.
Emily Glazer photographed at The Wall Street Journal in New York City on September 17, 2019. Credit: Dave Cole

Emily Glazer, a Wall Street Journal reporter, was recently featured in the Netflix documentary series “Dirty Money” for her reporting on Wells Fargo.

Glazer covered Wells Fargo for five years, breaking news and writing enterprise articles on countless regulatory investigations and problems across one of the largest U.S. banks. Through source development, Glazer convinced contacts to share internal documents, record phone calls and take notes during internal meetings to get a sense of what was happening inside the bank, an eye no other publication had. Her reporting has been cited in congressional hearings and has forced Wells Fargo to disclose more information.

Glazer is featured in the Dirty Money episode “The Wagon Wheel” that focuses on Wells Fargo’s misdeeds and wrongdoings.

Categories
2010s Class Notes Featured Class Notes

Brian Rosenthal (BSJ11)

Headshot of Brian Rosenthal.
Brian Rosenthal.. Earl Wilson

Brian M. Rosenthal, an investigative reporter on the Metro Desk of The New York Times, won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting on May 4 for a series of stories about predatory lending in the New York City taxicab industry. The five-part series showed how taxi industry leaders made hundreds of millions of dollars by inflating the price of taxi medallions — the permits that allow drivers to own their cabs — and trapping thousands of immigrant buyers in loans they could not afford. The stories prompted criminal investigations and arrests, government reforms and an ongoing $810 million effort by the New York State Attorney General to bail out cabdrivers. The series also won a George A. Polk Award on February 19.

Categories
Home Medill News

Lori Edmo selected as 2020 NAJA-Medill Milestone Achievement Award recipient

Headshot of Lori Edmo.

Medill and the Native American Journalists Association have selected Lori Edmo (Shoshone-Bannock) as the 2020 NAJA-Medill Milestone Achievement Award recipient. Edmo is editor of Sho-Ban News.

The award honors an individual who has made a lasting effect on media to the benefit of Indigenous communities. It is given jointly by NAJA and Medill to celebrate responsible storytelling and journalism in Indian Country. The annual award also includes a $5,000 cash prize and an invitation to speak with Medill faculty and students to further advance the representation of Indigenous journalists.

“I am proud to continue our collaboration with NAJA in recognizing journalistic contributions of Native Americans,” said Medill Dean Charles Whitaker. “Lori is doing the important work of elevating stories of Indigenous communities, which need to be included in mainstream media.”

Edmo’s nomination was reviewed and selected by the NAJA Major Awards Selection Committee. She was selected based on the award criteria, which includes her body of journalistic work, her contributions to society, recognition from peers and the community, contributions to the advancement of Native Americans in the field of journalism, and commitment to NAJA and its values.

“Lori is an award-winning journalist who has been fearless in her reporting of tribal issues,” said Patty Loew, Medill professor and director of the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research at Northwestern. “In 2003, Lori was fired for reporting on tribal council issues leading to the removal of the chairwoman and the controversy surrounding it, which showed that she doesn’t back down from threatening situations, even in her own tribal community. Her coverage and integrity are legendary.”

Edmo has worked as the Sho-Ban News editor for more than 25 years and is a graduate of the University of Montana, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in journalism. She is a former NAJA president and served 10 years on the board of directors.

Edmo was a journalist in residence at the University of Idaho School of Communication (now known as School of Journalism and Mass Media) under a grant from the Freedom Forum. While there, she worked on a Native journalism project titled “Idaho Natives” that upper-level journalism students published.

She has also worked as copy editor for the Idaho State Journal, publications manager at the UCLA American Indian Studies Center and communications coordinator at The Museum at Warm Springs in Oregon.

“It’s an honor to receive this recognition for my work,” said Edmo. “I became a storyteller because it’s instilled in my tribal culture. I have been fortunate to spend my life learning about tribal history, my family history and culture, along with learning the Bannock language that is endangered. It’s important to tell the stories of our Nanewe (tribal people).”

Because of the interest in tribal history, in 2008 and again in 2018, the Sho-Ban News did special publications on the 140th and 150th anniversary of the Fort Bridger Treaty that both the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes and Eastern Shoshone in Wyoming share. The publications featured interviews on the significance of the treaty and areas of importance to each tribe.

The Sho-Ban News has published a color magazine during the annual Shoshone-Bannock Festival every year that features stories about tribal elders, artists and related events.

Edmo also helps with tribal cultural events, specifically the Annual Return of the Boise Valley People that is conducted to help educate the public about the original people of the valley and tribal ancestors.

Edmo’s contributions to Native American journalism will be highlighted during a virtual award ceremony hosted by Medill at a date to be determined.