Category: Features

Unlocking Social Impact: The Medill Cause Marketing Initiative (CMI)

Post author By Rafaela Jinich
Post date May 15, 2024
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Have you heard of the Medill Cause Marketing Initiative (CMI)?

If not, it’s time to get acquainted with this powerhouse of impact-driven marketing right here at Northwestern University.

With more than 100 students and 15 clients, this year CMI has the largest cohort of students involved.

What is CMI?

CMI isn’t just any student-run committee; it’s a force for good in the community. Since its founding in 2008, CMI has been dedicated to providing pro-bono marketing services for non-profit organizations in the Chicago area. Led by graduate students in Northwestern’s Integrated Marketing Communications program, CMI leverages classroom knowledge to tackle real-world challenges faced by non-profits.

What Does CMI Do?

From brand strategy to digital marketing and public relations, CMI offers a wide range of services aimed at amplifying the voices of non-profits. By partnering with organizations like the American Legion, Lambs Farm and Openlands, CMI helps them extend their reach and deepen their impact within the community.

In 2023, CMI made waves with its transformative work for Sarah’s Circle, a nonprofit organization with a mission of serving women who are homeless or in need of a safe space in Chicago. By redesigning marketing materials and crafting an innovative social media strategy, CMI elevated Sarah’s Circle’s brand and bolstered its donor relationships, leaving a lasting impact on the organization and the lives it touches.

CMI is currently collaborating with Lambs Farm, an organization dedicated to enhancing the lives of individuals with developmental disabilities, on a transformative rebranding project. With a focus on dispelling misconceptions and elevating awareness of its mission, Lambs Farm seeks to transition to “The Lambs” and revamp its branding across various touchpoints. CMI’s role involves crafting a comprehensive marketing strategy, developing rebranding content and conducting a social media audit to support Lambs Farm in communicating its impact effectively to the community.

Meet the Minds Behind CMI

Behind CMI’s success are the dedicated individuals who drive its mission forward. From program management to client partnerships and communications, CMI’s executive board is a diverse team of passionate IMC graduate students committed to making a difference.

“The CMI Team for 2024 is working on a range of causes from education to veteran welfare. Our student teams are extremely passionate and hoping to make a difference wherever possible. Small steps, together, will ensure large impact.” – Anoushka Jaipuria, CMI Program Director ’24.

“Being part of CMI means turning passion into purpose. Every project is an opportunity to make a difference, to amplify voices, and to leave a lasting impact.” – Laila Sofia Garza Kamar, CMI 2024 External Communications Director ’24.

Connect with CMI

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/cause-marketing-initative-northwestern-medill/

Instagram: @medillcmi

Website: https://cmi.medill.northwestern.edu/

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NU/Medill Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the African American Studies Department

Post author By Belinda Clarke
Post date May 3, 2022
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African American Studies 50th image with May 20 date

by Julianne Sun (BSJ24)

Northwestern’s African American Studies Department (AFAM) will be hosting and celebrating its 50th anniversary on May 20, 2022. The event will celebrate all that the department has achieved to date since its inception, as well as map out what they hope the next 50 years will look like. The anniversary celebration will be available both in-person at the Block Museum of Art and virtually over Zoom. Current students and faculty are welcome to attend, as well as alumni and anyone else who might be interested.

AFAM finds its roots in the Bursar’s Office Takeover in 1968, according to Northwestern’s commemorative web page of the historical event. Otherwise known as the May 4th Agreement, it marks the 38-hour peaceful occupation of the Bursar’s Office by 120 Black Northwestern students. The occupation protested the issues of racism Black students encountered on campus, but presented a list of demands for the university. These included increasing the percentage of Black students in the incoming student population, providing more and greater scholarships for Black students, designating separate living spaces for Black students, and creating a separate Black student union. The Black House on Sheridan is a direct result of the occupier’s efforts, and functions as the Black student union to this day.

“It is important to celebrate this 50-year milestone to give honor and respect to all of the people who did the work and made the sacrifices for us to exist today,” said Mary Pattillo, the Harold Washington Professor of Sociology and African American Studies and chair of AFAM, “and to celebrate the people who have been educated by this department over the years.” The research done by AFAM alumni – from law to medicine to journalism to education to social justice – is all encompassing, and AFAM’s overarching goal is to “address that research to the aims of Black liberation.”

Despite the progress made by the May 4th Agreement and AFAM’s 50 years of work, the goals expressed during the Bursar’s Office Takeover remain unchanged. AFAM faculty have published hundreds of scholarly books and academic articles challenging the boundaries of studying race, gender, sexuality, and culture, but they have also led and participated in countless struggles, from increasing Black enrollment and faculty to the anti-apartheid movement.

“Our impact on our students,” said Pattillo, “on Northwestern, on academic fields, and on Evanston and Chicago and beyond, will continue to be our work in the years to come.”

Raedell Boateng, a Northwestern alum who graduated from her undergrad in 2007 with a major in journalism and a minor in AFAM, said “My decision to minor in AFAM studies was 100 percent grounded in how much my Black femininity was not seen/valued and [that was] why the telling of our stories became very important to me during my undergrad. I found that the promoting of objectivity in journalism wasn’t going to work for me, but how to craft a story—the visuals, the words, the sources of information—is the most important thing I learned in Medill.”

Realizing in her senior year that she didn’t want to be a journalist, Boateng went on to become a teacher through Teaching for America, a nonprofit organization that trains teachers to expand opportunities for low-income students. She is now an educator and liberation life coach and uses Black women’s stories and experiences as a launching point across all of her work.

“I can’t imagine not being an educator,” she said, “and my experiences in Medill and AFAM studies play a huge role in how I approached teaching and in what I do now. I also entered into teaching wanting students to see the world through windows and mirrors—to value others and value who they are—and to understand how privilege creates barriers to holding such values, but literature, storytelling, and justice will help us overcome.”

Regarding this momentous anniversary, Pattillo said, “We decided to make this like a reunion and to celebrate the students who have come through the classrooms over the last half-century. Come to see old classmates. Come to see former professors. Come to see old colleagues. Come to find out what people have done since you last saw them. Come to see how strong the department is because of the people who make it up. Come to hear how African American Studies acts in the world to make it better.”

Registration for the in person anniversary can be found here, and the virtual event registration can be found here.

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Medill Alums Win 2021 Pulitzer Prizes, Individual and Teams

Post author By Belinda Clarke
Post date June 11, 2021
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Michael Paul Williams (MSJ81), a veteran journalist and longtime columnist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, has won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Commentary.

The Pulitzer board honored Williams for his “penetrating and historically insightful columns that led Richmond, a former capital of the Confederacy, through the painful and complicated process of dismantling the city’s monuments to white supremacy.”

Williams has been at the Richmond Times-Dispatch for nearly 39 years and has been a columnist for the paper since 1992.

Abbie VanSickle head shot. — Abbie VanSickle

Three Medill graduates, Abbie VanSickle (BSJ04) and Katie Park (BSJ12) from the Marshall Project and Dana Brozost-Kelleher (MSJ19) from the Invisible Institute, Chicago, were on the winning teams for National Reporting, along with the staff of AL.com, Birmingham and the IndyStar, Indianapolis. The National Reporting Pulitzer was awarded for a year-long series: “Mauled: When Police Dogs Are Weapons.” The investigation focused on K-9 units and the damage that police dogs inflict on Americans, including innocent citizens and police officers, prompted numerous statewide reforms.

“I’m so grateful to everyone who shared their experiences with us,” VanSickle said. “This work wouldn’t be possible without our sources. I’m so fortunate to be part of such a great collaboration across newsrooms. It gives me a lot of hope in the future of our profession.”

“The injuries and terror faced by victims of police dog attacks are truly horrifying — it was crucial to us to convey the seriousness of these attacks while being sensitive to the trauma people have undergone,” Park said. “I’m so proud to work at an organization that not only prioritizes in-depth reporting but also recognizes the immense value of visual and data-driven storytelling. It’s an honor to work alongside such talented and thoughtful journalists.”

https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/staffs-marshall-project-alcom-birmingham-indystar-indianapolis-and-invisible-institute

Finally, numerous Medill MSJ 2020 alumni were on the winning team for Public Service at the New York Times (Maura Turcotte, Alison Saldanha, Sarah Cahalan and Brandon Dupre, Matt Craig, Alison Saldanha, Brandon Dupré, Sarah Cahalan and Maura Turcotte continue to work with us on the data project. Maddie Burakoff, Jake Holland, Alex Schwartz, Andrea Michelson and Samone Blair, Mitch Smith).

The public service Pulitzer was awarded for courageous, prescient and sweeping coverage of the coronavirus pandemic that exposed racial and economic inequities, government failures in the U.S. and beyond, and filled a data vacuum that helped local governments, healthcare providers, businesses and individuals to be better prepared and protected.

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Petco CMO Tariq Hassan (IMC94) joins Medill Board of Advisers

Post author By Belinda Clarke
Post date May 12, 2021
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Tariq Hassan chief marketing officer at Petco, has joined the Board of Advisers for Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications.

As CMO, Hassan leads Petco’s enterprise marketing strategy, dedicated to providing customers with a seamless omnichannel pet care experience. With more than 20 years working in global marketing strategy, communications, innovation as well as insights, Hassan leads the development and sustainment of long-lasting relationships between pet parents and the rearchitected Petco brand – which was instrumental in the company’s successful IPO in January 2021.

As a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion, and firm believer in the power of the arts, Hassan sits on the board of directors for Education for Employment, a non-governmental organization dedicated to empowering marginalized youth across the Middle East and North Africa through vocational training and job placement; as well as on the board of Noor, a woman-founded and -led community theater organization. Additionally, Hassan worked with the Obama administration on efforts to counter-message young Americans at risk of religious extremism and systemic discrimination.

“I’m thrilled to have Tariq join our Board of Advisers,” said Medill Dean Charles Whitaker. “Aside from his vast knowledge of brand strategy and communications, Tariq also brings to the Board a passion for diversity and inclusion initiatives that I know will benefit the work that Medill is doing in this area.”

“As an alum, it’s an honor to join Medill’s Board of Advisers, and give back to the organization that provided me with the marketing communications skills and values I leverage to this day,” said Hassan. “As marketplace expectations and society at large continue to evolve, it’s never been more important to work with industry leaders like Medill’s talented Board of Advisers to help the next generation of journalists and marketing communications professionals succeed in a purposeful and equitable manner.”

Hassan holds an honors bachelor’s degree in international political science and philosophy from the University of Western Ontario and a master’s degree in integrated marketing communications from Medill.

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Northwestern News Network Launches New Morning Show Format

Post author By Belinda Clarke
Post date March 8, 2021
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Despite the COVID-19 lockdown, the Northwestern News Network (NNN) has continued to produce its top-quality newscasts remotely without a studio. For the first time in its 28-year history, the students created a 90-minute NNN AM news show that mirrors the network morning news programs like “The Today Show” and “Good Morning America.” For the last two weeks the NNN team, working from campus and from their homes around the country and the world, produced stories tackling the serious issues confronting students along with features that demonstrate how campus can joyfully go on.

“NNN AM is serious and refreshing at the same time,” says Associate Professor Larry Stuelpnagel, who serves as faculty adviser for NNN. “The program embodies the best of the skills and values Medill instills in its journalists.”

In this first NNN AM production, the students talk to Asian students at NU about the assaults on Asians around the country and their own fears on the campus. All of the stories and segments are professionally produced and executed, concluding with a report about Medill’s centennial and an interview with Dean Charles Whitaker.

View the 90 minute program: https://fb.watch/44GJI3qp0H/

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Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, Medill associate professor Debbie Cenziper launches second book, “Citizen 865: The Hunt for Hitler’s Hidden Soldiers in America”

By Thea Showalter (BSJ22)

Medill Associate Professor and Director of Investigative Reporting and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Debra Cenziper recently released “Citizen 865: The Hunt for Hitler’s Hidden Soldiers in America.” Her book, published last November, tells the extraordinary true story of the U.S. Department of Justice’s decades-long search for former members of a secretive Nazi killing squad who hid in plain sight after the war as American citizens.

In her book, Cenziper breaks open the story surrounding one of the deadliest and most secret Nazi killing operations of World War II— a “school for mass murder” run in the small Polish town of Trawniki. The SS recruited and trained thousands of men from across Eastern Europe, creating a ruthless army of soldiers that ultimately carried out the systematic murder of nearly two million Jews in fewer than 20 months.

But after the end of the war and the fall of the Third Reich, some of the so-called “Trawniki Men” obtained documentation to move to America and vanished, some taking their families with them. Decades later in Prague, American historians unearthed new evidence of the Trawniki men, triggering a fervent search on U.S. soil and a long-awaited battle for justice.

“Citizen 865” is a “triumph of reporting and storytelling,” but it doesn’t feel dark, despite its subject matter, said bestselling author and Medill alum Alex Kotlowitz at a Medill book talk with Cenziper held January 30 at Medill.

“It’s a book that reads like a detective novel,” Kotlowitz said.

But “Citizen 865” is also a love story— it weaves in the tale of Feliks and Lucyna, two Jewish orphans who escaped the Trawniki Men and certain death at every turn. The couple later moved to America and raised a family, unaware that they were sharing a country with some of the men who had once pursued them and killed their families.

Cenziper said that idea for the book came in late 2016, at a cocktail party outside Washington, D.C. where she talked to a lawyer with the Department of Justice about a lesser-known, “tiny” unit responsible for tracking down Nazis after the war, and was hooked.

“I was really interested in knowing the people inside the Justice Department who spent their entire lives trying to track these people down,” Cenziper said.

Cenziper soon after talked to Elizabeth White, one of the historians who discovered the Nazi roster of Trawniki men in Prague in the 1990s.

“When she told me that story I knew it was a book,” Cenziper said. “Because I loved that image of historians finding those records in a dusty basement in Prague. I was fascinated by that idea.”

She retraced the steps of Elizabeth White and her colleagues by visiting the Nazi archives in Prague. She also met Feliks and Lucyna’s children and grandchildren, who shared tapes recorded by the couple to preserve a record of their story.

Through “Citizen 865,” Cenziper was able to bring “a sense of hope and light” to an “incredibly dark period” of history, said Kotlowitz.

Cenziper acknowledged that the reporting– researching people whose lives were tragically impacted, and listening to interviews with mass murderers, who were dispassionate and clinical about their crimes– was often dark and difficult.

However, chronicling the efforts of so many historians, investigators and prosecutors to seek justice brought a sense of hope.

“I was so moved by the people in this book, especially the historians,” Cenziper said. “They were able to find this unexplored sliver of history and expand the record.”

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Medill alumna’s recounting of the sinking of the S.S. Athenia in WWII as told by her aunt

Post author By Belinda Clarke
Post date February 8, 2020
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Doris Elaine Kent (4th from right, in white blanket) after being rescued by the Knute Nelson

Photo credits: (Getty Images)

By Martha Wiedman (Weinberg71)

Martha Wiedman, a 1971 graduate of the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, penned the following essay about her aunt, Doris Elaine Kent (Fox), (MSJ40) and her experience aboard the S.S. Athenia when it was torpedoed in 1939. The SS. Athenia was the first UK ship to be sunk by Germany during World War II. 117 civilian passengers and crew were killed including 28 U.S. citizens. Kent survived to chronicle her account of the sinking and its aftermath.

My aunt, Doris Kent, was born in 1917 to a family living in the small town of Humboldt, Kansas. She grew up during the Great Depression, the oldest in a family of five. Her appetite for adventure sprang from her fascination with the outside world and love of communication. Like three of her siblings, she attended the University of Kansas on a scholarship and graduated in 1937. She loved to write and moved to France in 1939 to work for the Paris Herald Tribune and earned her master’s from Medill in 1940. I wrote this essay to show what exactly what a woman with her interests and background could accomplish— preserving a personal experience as a moment in history.

Doris showed bravery, clear thinking and concise reporting at a time of national crisis. In August 1939, she was a copywriter for the Paris Herald Tribune. A former colleague alerted her to the impending threat of war with Germany and she quickly made her way to Glasgow to board the S.S. Athenia on September 1st, 1939. She chronicled her experience of the torpedoing of the Athenia and the ensuing destruction that resulted in the loss of 117 civilian lives. She documented the terror and suffering of the passengers and the eventual rescue of most by the Norwegian tanker MS Knute Nelson, which delivered 430 survivors to Galway, Ireland.

Doris wrote her own first-hand account of the harrowing events of the time between when the torpedo struck and her rescue the following morning.

I was in the dining room (tourist) eating a lamb chop. After the awful explosion, I dashed somehow thru the door, down a long corridor, to stairs. My cabin was one deck below. I had to get my lifebelt. Going down, I found the stairs broken— clinging to the rail I got down—in pitch black felt my way to cabin–reached under bunks for lifebelts—a heavy metal trunk had been shoved in—a great shove and I got it out of way—and felt the lifebelts. On way back up broken stairs, gave one lifebelt away, feeling way up, opened door to deck and it was LIGHT! Barney was there on deck—he saw me and said— “Here, get into that boat.” It was Boat 6, the only other boat (besides 5) which had a motor and shortwave radio. No one knew how to run it and we had to row all night long. . . Lady Lake nearly fell back into the sea on top of me!

I was the next one up from Boat 6. Hanging dead weight on the bosin chair, just then I heard them scream, “Hold tight!” The ocean washed up over my head and washed me off the chair. My grip on the knotted rope held. The lifeboat surged out away, then back in. . . they jerked one great jerk—and yanked me up just as boat came crashing into ship—just below my legs—they had pulled me up just in time to keep me from being crushed. On up, to deck’s rail, and there was Captain Cook. He exclaimed, “My God, girl, it’s you!”

According to historian Max Caulfield, the sinking of the S.S. Athenia, the last passenger ship out of Europe before the start of the war, was the very first of Germany’s acts of aggression against Britain in World War II.

“Two days later,” wrote Caulfield, “with 1102 passengers aboard, the Athenia was at sea 250 miles from the nearest land. On that day, September 3, war was declared. . . Oberleutnant Fritz-Julius Lemp in command of U-Boat 30 struck the first blow of the war.”

My aunt was also an advertising copywriter at Marshall Field & Company, Chicago from 1937 to 1939, a freelance writer for the New York Herald Tribune and Paris Herald Tribune in 1939 and advertising copywriter for the Chicago-based Carson Pirie Scott & Company from 1939 to 1940. She was a public relations writer for Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. from 1963 to 1966 and a member of the American Association of University Women (branch president from 1984 to 1986), part of the University of Kansas Alumni Association.

Note: Alicia Fox, Doris’ granddaughter, supplied vital details and news clippings to reconstruct Doris’ role in Paris and her escape to Glasgow. Deborah Fox, Doris’ daughter-in-law, created a display board of her experience on the Athenia, for her birthday. We are all proud of Doris and I thank them for their help.

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Hannah Gebresilassie (MSJ16) celebrates positivity with HannahJoyTV

Post author By Belinda Clarke
Post date March 5, 2020
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A “leap of faith” has taken Hannah Gebresilassie on a journey from working as a television reporter in a small-town in Illinois to launching headfirst into developing her own media brand.

Late in 2018, Gebresilassie launched HannahJoyTV and the and the Promote Positivity Movement, combining her passion for entrepreneurship and her love of storytelling to share uplifting news and promote a message of worldwide peace and unity for her followers across social media platforms.

Today, her personal brand and her company are still growing and evolving in ways she never expected.

“It’s taken its own form, honestly,” said Gebresilassie. “I went from just focusing on the storytelling aspect to releasing a brand, like a whole merch line that goes along with it. It went from just sharing positive stories to sharing a positive message in many forms.”

At the end of February, Gebresilassie was the keynote speaker for Project Africa, an annual event hosted by the African Student Association at Georgia Tech, her alma mater.

HannahJoyTV is simultaneously a celebration of Gebresilassie’s Ethiopian-Eritrean heritage and universal content that “anyone and everyone” can enjoy. This duality is reflected in HannahJoyTV’s logo: four hearts of green, yellow, red, and blue, from the colors of the Ethiopian and Eritrean flags.

The design reflects the desire for unity and peace between the two countries that Gebresilassie says she and many members of the Ethiopian and Eritrean communities hope for.

“But it’s also the same colors as Google, if you think about it,” Gebresilassie said. “I wanted to create something neutral that anybody could relate to.”

The daughter of Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrants, Gebresilassie grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. After earning an undergraduate in business administration from Georgia tech and a master’s in journalism from Medill, Gebresilassie fell in love with telling stories and became a television reporter for WSIL-TV in southern Illinois in the summer of 2017.

In her first year, Gebresilassie brought global perspectives to her local TV audience that rippled out across social media. After just a few months on the job, her coverage of an Ethiopian New Year celebration went viral. Not long after, Gebresilassie wore a traditional braided hairstyle on air that again caused a buzz.

“It was actually pretty crazy that I was reporting on this international situation in this little rural town in southern Illinois and people actually really appreciated it,” she said.

By the end of her first year she was in charge of WSIL-TV’s “Going Global,” a news segment where she could report and share stories about immigrant communities in southern Illinois.

“I just saw what I could do,” Gebresilassie said. “When I was working as a reporter, a lot of my stuff went viral. I just kind of said, ‘if I can do this here, what I could do on my own?’”

Gebresilassie said that what inspired her to transition to create HannahJoyTV was gaining a new perspective on the potential that was in front of her. The biggest challenge Gebresilassie faced was money— she moved from Southern Illinois back to Atlanta, Georgia, where her parents live.

“I’ve been the brokest I’ve been since undergrad, to be frank,” Gebresilassie said. “But I’m happy. I’m happy with the flexibility that I have and I’m thankful.”

Gebresilassie took on side jobs that were easy on her mental health as she developed HannahJoyTV— washing dishes and babysitting.

“I always tell people, everyone doesn’t come from the same type of financial situation,” she said. “And it’s okay to take jobs that can fill the gaps in the meantime.”

But in the past months, Gebresilassie has seen a burgeoning income from emceeing at events around the country and freelance projects she found through connections she made at Medill.

And she has developed an expert eye for cost-saving opportunities to promote her brand— in 2019, she organized a pop-up tour across eight states, around her existing travel plans to visit family.

But managing her time to address every aspect of her platform is also a challenge for Gebresilassie.

“The to-do list never seems to end,” she said. “For me, it’s like my mind goes in sometimes a hundred different directions, so I’m still working on building a structure and making sure that I’m just taking care of everything equally.”

But Gebresilassie has never doubted the direction she is taking— and for that she acknowledges her time at Medill.

“My time at Medill really prepared me to be the ultimate journalist…you’re at Medill with these incredibly talented people from all over,” she said. “And I found my niche while I was there. I found that my heart was in the community.”

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Medill Alumni Making a Difference During the Pandemic

Post author By Belinda Clarke
Post date April 3, 2020
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As the COVID-19 battle rages, Northwestern alumni are reporting daily from Washington, New York, Chicago and numerous other cities hit so hard by this pandemic. NBC correspondents Gabe Gutierrez (BSJ05), pictured, Peter Alexander (BSJ98) and Sam Brock (BSJ05, MSJ07) are reporting practically 24-7 on national television. Christine Brennan (BSJ80, MSJ81), one of the nation’s foremost Olympic experts, has been interviewing members of Team U.S.A. about the postponement of the 2020 Games.

Medill alum Justin Kerr (BSJ93) shifted the McKinley Park News toward coronavirus coverage and features starting in early March when the effects of the pandemic first started hitting the neighborhood. The publication, a micro-local news website covering Chicago’s McKinley Park Community Area and Central Manufacturing District, updated its neighborhood event calendars, de-listing canceled events and adding a coronavirus-specific community schedule, including senior shopping hours and food distribution for families of Chicago Public Schools students.

“We changed our coverage, too,” Kerr said. “Some articles in development had to be shifted aside to focus on more immediate coronavirus news.” This has included a directory of neighborhood restaurants staying open for delivery and take-out, published immediately after Illinois Governor JB Pritzker’s order to shutter in-restaurant dining, and a local fabricator’s efforts to manufacture 150,000 face shields for Chicago’s first responders and front-line medical workers. All news and event content published on the McKinley Park News has been freely available and will remain so, Kerr said.

The coronavirus pandemic also inspired the relaunch of the publication’s community forums, including the new McKinley Park Support Network, a set of discussion boards designed to support fast and easy coronavirus communication. Kerr said it’s been a handy channel for him to quickly aggregate and share general info that might not have a neighborhood-specific hook to justify a news article, but that’s still important and relevant for the readership of the McKinley Park News.

“All of our members — including participating local Institutions — have access to participate in the McKinley Park Support Network,” Kerr said. “Access to this and other features on the McKinley Park News is automated and available at no cost.”

Kerr noted how the publication’s progressive privacy practices support coronavirus dialogue. “Our member privacy policies and tools are best in their class,” he said.

According to Kerr, this ethos will help the McKinley Park News weather an environment of economic catastrophe caused by the pandemic. “Our operating costs are designed to be dirt-cheap,” he said. Kerr noted his own currently unpaid role as the publication’s sole staffer. “Where the pandemic will hurt is expanding our revenue to enable staff compensation and look at business expansion into adjacent neighborhoods,” he said. “However, I strongly believe in the demand and business potential of high-quality local news: When the pandemic ends, surviving local news publications will hopefully have even more opportunities in what’s already a mostly ignored, wide-open market.”

Leigh Ann Winick (BSJ84) is a medical producer for CBS News based in New York who is helping shape the network’s coverage of the pandemic. Since January, she has produced frequent segments on the emerging virus, fronted by the network’s practicing physician contributors. With the first U.S. death in late February, the medical team became command central for the network’s multi-platform coverage. Then, on March 11, two colleagues were diagnosed, and the entire CBS Broadcast Center was emptied in one afternoon. Since then, everyone based in New York has been working remotely.

“It’s taken a lot of improvising,” Winick says. “We no longer obsess over camera angles or lighting. Travel restrictions have increased our reliance on cell phone video. There’s an urgency to convey the latest information – which can literally be life saving – and if that comes via a phoner or a Zoom interview from a scientist’s hotel room, we’ll use that. We are finding many ‘real people’ stories through social media. While I’m working harder than ever, I’ve been fortified by the basic skills I learned at Medill, and the hope that we are positively impacting millions of lives during this heartbreaking time.”

Alumni journalists, however, aren’t the only Medillians making a difference during the pandemic.

Preeti N. Malani (MSJ91), MD, is the Chief Health Officer for the University of Michigan and a Professor of Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School. She, too, is working on the front line against COVID-19. Rather than covering the pandemic for news outlets, her work in infectious diseases is taking her to the bedside to help care of patients who are sickened with COVID-19.

Like many regions of the country, Michigan is developing contingency plans to care for large numbers of patients (well beyond the usual capacity of our hospital), according to Dr. Malani. She is part of a large multi-disciplinary group involved with the planning of a temporary field hospital to help care for the anticipated patient surge from across the state.

As Chief Health Officer, Dr. Malani advises the university president on all aspects of health and well-being for students, faculty and staff.

“In rapid sequence, we had to make decisions on bringing students home from overseas education, suspending face to face instruction, moving day to day activities to remote locations, and how to support students who can’t leave campus,” she said. “There are numerous administrative issues that require creative solutions as there is no playbook to address this situation.”

Dr. Malani adds that in her role as an associate editor at the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), she has written a series of summaries directed toward clinicians and helped review and edit a number of time sensitive manuscripts that have helped inform patient care, public health measures, and general policies.

“Instead of writing the news story, I’ve instead given dozens of interviews, and have been asked to provide guidance to several lawmakers including Michigan’s governor,” she added. “My Medill education continues to pay dividends in unexpected ways. Always grateful for what I learned so many years ago.”

David Charns (MSJ11) left his morning anchoring job at WMTW in Portland, Maine, in January for a new challenge, but his search quickly slowed due to the pandemic.

“I wanted to continue working my craft while searching for a new full-time broadcast job,” Charns said. “With 24/7 news of this national emergency on many different topics, I have found there was and is a need for concrete, ‘Here’s what happened, here’s what’s next’ coverage to easily communicate important information news consumers want. I had talked to many people who said they were tuning out because the nonstop news was so grim.”

Charns set out to provide quick, daily roundups of all of the major coronavirus headlines across his social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube). In three weeks, he said, these videos have garnered tens of thousands of combined views.

“I am now branching out with interviews with people impacted by this emergency, which will be posted soon along with the news of the day.”

IMC15 graduate Sunny Williams and his team at Tiny Docs are responding to the urgent need for child-friendly content about the pandemic with Covid-19 health information just for kids.

Tiny Docs, co-founded by Williams in 2015, produces “Health Caretoons,” — animated cartoons that teach kids about their health in a fun, relateable, and easy-to-understand way. The library covers medical procedures, chronic health conditions, and general wellness. “All Tiny Docs content is vetted by our board of pediatricians, child life specialists, and nurses to ensure the information is medically accurate and beneficial,” says Williams.

“To help kids manage Covid-related stress and anxiety, we released a caretoon on mindfulness. Our Tiny Comic: A Kid’s Guide to Covid-19 teaches kids how to be healthy, how to manage their feelings, and how to be kind during this time of challenge and uncertainty. We’ve also released several Covid-19 related blogs by experienced and passionate pediatric professionals. And more free caretoons, blogs, and comics will be released in the coming weeks.”

In the United Kingdom, IMC alumna Jacine Rutasikwa (IMC10) and her husband, Paul, have converted their rum distillery, Matugga Distillers, into a production house for hand sanitizer to help combat the pandemic.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has created a very uncertain landscape for communities and small businesses. With your help, our small family-owned distillery in Livingston can support our local NHS and care workers while building our company’s resilience during challenging times,” Rutasikwa told supporters in a March e-Newsletter to supporters.

“The impact of the coronavirus pandemic on our way of life is still unfolding, but it is profound,” she said. “From the uncertainty and chaos, new norms will emerge. And therein lies the big opportunity for our resilient community – to reshape new realities. Above all, now is the time to pull together, look after one another and refuse to let our spirits drop.”

Finally, on the student side, the Northwestern News Network team created a great segment on COVID-19 coverage. And, The Daily Northwestern, under the direction of newly appointed editor Marissa Martinez (BSJ21), has been producing COVID-19 coverage with the help of Daily staffers sheltering at home nationwide. Martinez is interviewed in this Chicago Public Radio station story. First year Medill undergrad, Andrew Rowan, successfully placed his first professional story in Teen Vogue: “With college mental health centers closed, many students are working out the kinks of online therapy,” which came out of research he began in a class in the fall quarter.

Photo credit Gutierrez – MSNBC
Photo credit Malani – University of Michigan
Photo credit distillers: Stewart Attwood

Features Medill News

Medill News April 2020

April 2020 News

Medill IMC Thought Leaders is proud to feature “IMC in a Changing World,” a series on marketing and leadership advice in the midst of the COVID19 epidemic and our new reality. We are grateful to our professors for their generosity in sharing practical advice for these challenging times.⁠ ⁠ We hope you and your family and friends are doing well and staying safe!⁠ ⁠ Follow along with the series on our LinkedIn page linked in the bio above, where you can also send us your questions. ⁠ ⁠ #IMCInAChangingWorld #MedillIMCThoughtLeaders #Medil #MedillIMC #COVID19

Patti Wolter has been named by the Provost as a Charles Deering McCormick Distinguished Professor of Instruction. This honor is awarded annually to a group of faculty members in recognition of their extraordinary teaching and service to the university. In naming Patti to the 2020 class of CDM Professors, the provost noted not only her exemplary teaching, but also her mentorship of students, alumni and younger faculty, as well as her leadership in matters of curriculum reform and her connections to some of the country’s most prestigious media outlets. Her three-year appointment as a Charles Deering McCormick Professor begins in September. A ceremony installing all of the CDM honorees will be held in the fall.

Medill senior lecturer Alex Kotlowitz’s “An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago” a trenchant examination of the social and emotional toll that gun violence exacts on both victims and perpetrators, has won the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, bestowed by Columbia University and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. Established in 1998, the Lukas Prize recognizes excellence in nonfiction that “exemplifies the literary grace and commitment to serious research and social concern” that characterized the work of the award’s namesake, J. Anthony Lukas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and investigative journalist who died in 1997.

The Northwestern News Network (NNN) took first place in Best Newscast category of the Region 5 SPJ student contest and will now move on to the national SPJ competition. Joey took first place General News Reporting category for a story she did as a reporter, not as an intern, for the NBC affiliate in Bakersfield, California last summer. Region 5 comprises chapters in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky.

Finding Yingying , which tells the story of Yingying Zhang, a 26-year-old Chinese student who disappeared at University of Illinois in 2017, won the Special Jury Recognition for Breakthrough Voice Award at the South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW). This feature-length documentary by Jiayan “Jenny” Shi (MSJ17) began as an MSJ student short in a graduate documentary class that went on to win a College Emmy and be nominated for a Student Academy Award.

MAGAZINE