Presentation of the John Bartlow Martin award for public interest magazine journalism and conversation with winner
Join us as Medill’s Helen Gurley Brown Magazine Professor Patti Wolter presents the 2020 John Bartlow Martin Award to Lizzie Presser of ProPublica for her story “The Dispossessed.” A conversation with Presser will follow. Presser is a journalist writing about inequality and how social policy is experienced. She was previously a contributing writer at The California Sunday Magazine. “The Dispossessed,” published in partnership with ProPublica and The New Yorker, is an investigation into the unjust repossession of African American-owned property through three different legal mechanisms in North Carolina. It won a George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting in 2020. Presser has twice been a finalist for a National Magazine Award and a Livingston Award.
Medill team wins Best Article Award from American Academy of Advertising
Online retailers must strike a balance between recommending relevant items to users and providing sponsored recommendations from advertisers. Recognizing this problem, a team at Medill IMC’s Spiegel Research Center developed an algorithm that improves user utility while reducing ad revenue by a small amount. The team consisting of Professor Ed Malthouse, postdoctoral fellows Khadija Ali Vakeel and Yasaman Kamyab Hessary, research fellow Morana Fudurić and Professor Robin Burke from University of Colorado Boulder were recently recognized for their work, receiving the 2019 Best Article Award in the Journal of Advertising from the American Academy of Advertising. The award was instituted in 1988 to honor the best article published each year.
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.
Prof. Jack Doppelt Co-Produces Election Report
What began as “Can American Democracy Survive the 2020 Elections? The Role of Media, Law, Norms, and Technology in Assuring Acceptance of Election Results,” evolved to “Fair Elections During a Crisis: Urgent Recommendations in Law, Media, Politics and Tech to Advance the Legitimacy of, and the Public’s Confidence in, the November 2020 U.S. Elections. Read a New Yorker article about the report. Read the report.
Participate in the Medill Centennial Alumni Photo Gallery
We plan to feature testimonials and photos from 100+ alumni on our Centennial website, launching this summer. If you want to participate, please submit your quote and photo using this form! We would love to include you.
The spring of 2020 brought fear, death and grief to hundreds of thousands across the globe. In the few months that the second year undergraduate journalism students taking Professor Doppelt’s spring 301 writing and reporting Immigrant Connect course were getting to know immigrants and refugees, more than 400,000 people died of the coronavirus pandemic. More than ¼ of them died in the U.S.
As the class was meeting for the first times in early April, they decided to focus our reporting on the pandemic’s effect on different immigrant and refugee communities.
What the group came to realize is that one of the potential effects of a global pandemic is to recognize that the experiences of migration and decisions about cross-national travel may pull the U.S., willingly or not, out of its exceptionalist posture and into a more cooperative arena.
Here are their stories on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected different immigrant and refugee communities:
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.
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 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 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 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 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 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)
As 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.
Left to right: Medill’s Director of Sports Journalism J.A. Adande, Michael Jordan’s personal trainer Tim Grover, Michael Jordan and Rachel Nichols, after a Washington Wizards practice in 2003. Adande covered the Chicago Bulls while writing for the Chicago Sun-Times.
By Grace Chang (BSJ23)
“The Last Dance” docuseries, which set ratings records on ESPN last spring, explored Michael Jordan’s final season with the Chicago Bulls through hours of never-before-seen footage, with interviews ranging from actress Carmen Electra to former President Barack Obama.
The show re-released on Netflix in July and has become the most watched ESPN documentary ever, also winning an Emmy for Outstanding Documentary Series.
But according to J.A. Adande (Medill ’92), the series left viewers clamoring for more.
Under a partnership between Audible and the National Basketball Association, three-time NBA champion B.J. Armstrong and Director of Sports Journalism at Medill J.A. Adande released the “Beyond the Last Dance” podcast. The podcast released on August 31, shortly after the launch of Audible’s new membership program Audible Plus.
“I never envisioned that I would still be talking about those things some 25, 30 years later, but here we are,” said Armstrong. “It’s been interesting to go back in time for a little bit and rehash some of the things or re-contextualize some of those events as they occurred.”
Armstrong is currently the executive vice president and managing executive of basketball at Wasserman, a sports marketing agency based in Los Angeles.
The podcast’s senior producer, Cher Vincent, said that “Beyond the Last Dance” expands on topics introduced in the 10 episodes of the docuseries by adding more interviews and storylines from the era.
“We kind of wanted to take away moments that we felt were ideas that were brought up in the series, but I think there was still more to explain and dig in deeper,” Vincent said. “‘The Last Dance’ wasn’t the end result. It was a starting point.”
The podcast outlines 10 themes, which parallel the 10 episodes of “The Last Dance.” Some topics the podcast will expand upon include Jordan’s competitive drive, making a “business mogul and endorsement king” out of an athlete and, most recently, the influence of foreign players like Toni Kukoč on the NBA, Adande said.
Each podcast episode follows a similar format, with an opening essay from Adande featuring interview archives, a discussion and interview co-hosted by Armstrong and a closing essay.
Adande, who covered the Bulls while writing for the Chicago Sun-Times in the early 1990s, said that what he enjoyed most about the docuseries was the interviews and the new footage. In creating the podcast, Adande wanted to draw more from the interviews, he added.
“Anytime there was something that was new for me that I learned, even though I’d been around for a lot of this firsthand, I think if it could surprise and interest me… it’ll be surprising and interesting for the audience as well,” Adande said.
Adande said while this is his first time writing and hosting a podcast, he has enjoyed the process.
Looking forward, he’s hoping the podcast continues to improve and he’s excited for the episode about athlete activism.
“The improvement as we go along — it’s noticeable to me and I think it’d be noticeable to people as well,” Adande said. “I mean we were sort of learning our way around this the first couple episodes and we really settled in.”
Photo: Images (left to right) correspond with ordered listing.
Debbie Cenziper
Debbie Cenziper is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter. She will serve as associate professor and director of investigative reporting. She will also lead the Medill Investigative Lab. Cenziper has been working at The Washington Post and as an assistant professor of journalism at The George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs.
Helen Chun
Helen Chun is an associate professor for the IMC program. Chun’s research focuses on managing and enhancing consumer experience. Her ongoing work examines technology-driven consumer insights and explores how an evolving high-tech interface disrupts traditional marketing communications. Her research papers have been published in leading marketing and services journals. She also has a courtesy appointment at Northwestern Kellogg School of Management. Chun has a Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Southern California.
Kelly Cutler
Kelly Cutler is a lecturer and director of the IMC Part-Time and Online programs. She is also the founder and CEO of Kona Company, a digital strategy firm. Cutler has more than 20 years of experience in digital marketing. Prior to founding Kona Company, she co-founded and led a Chicago-based search engine marketing firm for 11 years. She began her career working for Classified Ventures, Cars.com and AOL.
Greg Green
Greg Green joins our faculty as a Lecturer for the IMC program. Green’s background includes leadership roles in Marketing Analytics, Research and Consumer Insights focused on Digital Media and Marketing with companies such as PwC, Publicis, and Google. He specializes in extracting the untapped value in research and corporate data, focused on creating data driven decisioning cultures at the intersection of creativity and analytics. Green has a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Claremont Graduate University in California.
Eunhee Emily Ko
Eunhee (Emily) Ko is an assistant professor of IMC. Her research interests span online marketing and user-generated content as well as applications of machine learning and econometric methods. She earned her master’s in analytics from Northwestern McCormick School of Engineering, and her Ph.D. in marketing from Emory University.
Arionne Nettles
Arionne Nettles will be responsible for Medill’s publishing platform, Medill Reports, and serve as a lecturer. Nettles has been a digital producer for WBEZ, Chicago’s NPR affiliate, as well as an adjunct lecturer at Medill. Before her work at WBEZ, Nettles was a multiplatform editor for the Associated Press and the digital editor for the Chicago Defender.
Matthew Orr
Matthew Orr joined the faculty as assistant professor in January. Based in Washington, D.C., he will support Medill’s video and broadcast productions. Orr serves as the director of multimedia and creative at STAT News and is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker with nearly 20 years of experience in the industry. Before joining STAT, he worked at The New York Times for 13 years as a senior video producer and reporter.
Steven Thrasher
Steven Thrasher is the inaugural Daniel H. Renberg Chair and an assistant professor of journalism. He will focus on social justice reporting and issues relevant to the LGBTQ community. Thrasher has worked as writer-at-large at The Guardian, staff writer at the Village Voice and facilitator for the NPR StoryCorps project. His articles are regularly published in The New York Times, BuzzFeed News, Esquire, The Nation, The Atlantic, The Guardian and The Daily Beast. He has a Ph.D. in American studies from New York University.
Yu Xu
Yu Xu is an assistant professor in IMC. He specializes in the intersection of organizational communication, networks, technology, strategy and computational social science. His current research investigates ecological and evolutionary foundations of behavioral and network change, especially in the context of digitally mediated communities. Xu has a Ph.D. in communications from the University of Southern California.
Prof. David Abrahamson Retires
The founder of Medill’s Literary Journalism seminar, Abrahamson celebrated his retirement from Medill after 26 years on the faculty at a full-house send off on Jan. 29, 2020 at the McCormick Foundation Center in Evanson. Abrahamson taught long-form writing and magazine editing and was the co-director of the graduate Magazine Publishing Project.
While at Medill, Abrahamson was the general editor of a 40-volume historical series, “Visions of the American Press,” published under the Medill imprint by the Northwestern University Press. With more than 20 years of experience as a magazine writer, editor and management consultant, Abrahamson’s background includes senior editorial positions at a number of national consumer magazines, including Car and Driver and PC/Computing. He is the author of “Magazine-Made America: The Cultural Transformation of the Postwar Periodical,” an interpretive history of the magazine profession in the last half of the 20th century, and editor and co-editor of two definitive anthologies of magazine scholarship, “The American Magazine: Research Perspectives and Prospects” and “The Routledge Handbook of Magazine Research: The Future of the Magazine Form” (forthcoming). Raised in Annapolis, Maryland, Abrahamson holds a B.A. in History from Johns Hopkins University (1969), a Master’s degree in Journalism from the University of California, Berkeley (1973) and a Ph.D. in American Civilization from New York University (1992).
NPR’s Antonia Cereijido named inaugural Cecilia Vaisman award winner by Medill, NAHJ
Audio journalist Antonia Cereijido (BSJ14) has been selected as the first recipient of the Cecilia Vaisman Award for Multimedia Reporters. The award is a partnership between Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Cerejido visited Medill Nov. 5, 2019 and spoke to Medill students, faculty and the NU community at Harris Hall.
Cereijido is an award-winning producer at NPR’s Latino USA where her coverage has included a profile of the Mexican-American man who became wealthy by building controversial shelters housing migrant children, a meditation on whether Latinos cry more on average, and a historical and feminist analysis of Mattel’s Frida Kahlo “Barbie.”
Members of the award selection committee, which included NAHJ Chicago and student chapter members, along with Medill representatives, selected Cereijido based on her body of work, as well as her willingness to mentor students, speak in classes and serve as a role model. The award, which will be given annually, includes a $5,000 cash prize. Cereijido will visit Medill in November to talk about her audio journalism work with students, faculty and the community.
The award is named in memory of Vaisman, a Medill associate professor who was a leader in audio journalism and a member of NAHJ. The award recognizes Latinx and Hispanic audio and video journalists who bring light to the issues that affect the Latinx and Hispanic communities in the U.S. and around the world.
Cereijido is an alumna of Medill where she had Vaisman as a professor. “Through Cecilia’s guidance, I learned of stories that rejected tropes that portray immigrants as one dimensional and showed how immigrants could make art of their lives by daring to envision new futures. She was a fierce advocate for quality and thoughtfulness,” said Cereijido. “At the editing phase of every story I produce, I wonder what she could take issue with or what other sources she would suggest … I am deeply honored to be given this award and am very grateful to both Medill and NAHJ.”
Cereijido was a USC California Health and Institute for Justice and Journalism Fellow. She was the co-host of The Payoff, a podcast about personal finance for millennials from Mic.com, a guest on Buzzfeed’s Another Round and on Slate’s Represent. She also hosted a Twitter exclusive video for the History Channel. She has interpreted for This American Life and Love + Radio.
Mark Trahant (Shoshone-Bannock) is the winner of the 2019 NAJA-Medill Milestone Achievement Award
The Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) and Northwestern University’s Medill School named Mark Trahant (Shoshone-Bannock) the 2019 NAJA-Medill Milestone Achievement Award recipient.
The award honors an individual who has had a lasting effect on media to the benefit of Indigenous communities. The award is given jointly by the Native American Journalists Association and the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. The award celebrates responsible storytelling and journalism in Indian Country.
Trahant is editor of Indian Country Today. He reflected on the first tribal editor, Elias Boudinot (Cherokee), the namesake for another of NAJA’s top awards, when reflecting on the standard for Indigenous journalism.
“[Boudinot] described his paper as ‘a vehicle of Indian intelligence.’ Even though ink has been replaced by pixels; the task remains the same – to publish an informative daily account that’s comprehensive and adds context to the stories missing from the mainstream media.
“We have so many stories to tell. Our mission is simple but important: Solid, factual reporting. Great writing. Photography that inspires and records. Provide a real service to readers across Indian Country’s digital landscape,” Trahant said.
Trahant previously served as editorial page editor of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and worked for the Arizona Republic, Salt Lake Tribune, Seattle Times, Navajo Times Today and Sho-Ban News.
He has been a reporter for PBS Frontline, publishing “The Silence,” which detailed sexual abuse by priests in an Alaska Native village.
Trahant is known for his election reporting in Indian Country, developing the first comprehensive database of American Indians and Alaska Natives running for office. His research has been cited in publications ranging from The New York Times to The Economist to Teen Vogue.
During the 2018 election, Trahant launched a journalism initiative and as a result, more than 40 Native media professionals conducted the first ever live coverage of election night. Six hours of TV programming was produced at the First Nations Experience | FNX studios in California and viewers were able to get reports about the dozens of Native candidates running for office during this election, which included the first two Native American women voted into Congress.
Trahant was recently elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been a professor at the University of North Dakota, the University of Alaska Anchorage, the University of Idaho and the University of Colorado.
The award includes a $5,000 cash prize and an invitation to the recipient to speak with Medill students and faculty on campus in Evanston, Illinois, to further advance the representation of Indigenous journalists in mainstream media.
New fellowship from Medill and The Garage aims to increase diversity among media entrepreneurs
Student working at the Garage
A new fellowship for entrepreneurs working on media and media-related endeavors is being launched by Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications in partnership with The Garage, NU’s entrepreneurial incubator.
The one-year fellowship will identify and support entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups—with an emphasis on women and people of color—who are working on innovation in the media industry.
The fellow will receive an $80,000 stipend for the year, and access to a variety of resources across Northwestern. The fellow also will be able to participate in select classes at Medill and in other areas of the University, and will be an active participant in both the Medill and The Garage communities.
The Garage is an 11,000 square foot space that brings together a cross-disciplinary community of students, faculty, staff and alumni who share a passion for developing ideas. Currently home to more than 60 student-founded startups and projects, the co-working space provides cutting edge technology resources, special programming and mentorship from accomplished entrepreneurs.
Audrey Cheng (MSJ15), co-founder and CEO of Moringa School in Nairobi, Kenya and Kigali, Rwanda. Moringa School provides software development and data science training.
by William Clark, BSJ24
Graphic by Emma Ruck
In the five years since Audrey Cheng (BSJ15) has graduated, she co-founded a software development and data science school with campuses in Kenya and Rwanda, worked with the World Bank to run a 20-week coding program in Pakistan and was featured on Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list for social entrepreneurs.
However, Cheng resists placing too much focus on her recognitions.
“It’s really validating to receive them, but I think ultimately what matters most is, ‘Are we solving a real problem? Are we doing it in a really meaningful and effective way?’” she said.
Cheng is working to solve what she called a “skills gap” in East Africa. The term describes the gap between technical skills African youth are acquiring in schools and the rapidly changing needs of the African economy as it increases automation.
The employment gap is another hurdle African youth face, Cheng said. As the population grows, the economy and jobs market must grow with it, and if it doesn’t, finding employment could become difficult and competitive.
During her sophomore year at Northwestern, Cheng started working remotely with the Savannah Fund, a capital fund that invests in African technology startups. She took the Spring Quarter of her junior year off to work with them in Nairobi, Kenya.
Cheng said she enjoyed the work but realized that as important as investment was, access to technological skills training for local youth was central to economic stimulation.
“You don’t get to build these amazing companies without that kind of skill,” Cheng said.
So, she co-founded a school.
In May 2014, Moringa School started its first class in Nairobi. Moringa offers students short, intensive programs that focus on building technical, career-oriented skills. These courses are split into two sections, a five-week introduction to programming and a 15-week program where students focus on a specific coding language of their choice. Throughout the program, students complete hands-on projects with mentors.
“(Moringa’s learning model) helped me interact with people,” Moringa graduate Ruth Mwangi said. “It also helps you learn to work in teams, because you’re usually put in pairs and have to work with your partner trying to solve problems.”
Other Moringa graduates said the school’s curriculum fosters a sense of community.
“We still have… communication groups in WhatsApp,” Reuben Gathii, a 2020 graduate, said. “We get to talk, we share ideas, we review each other’s code and we learn things from each other.”
But it’s not just the student community that allows for collaboration.
Moringa students receive technical mentors who help them find job opportunities after graduation, Billy Ayiera, another 2020 graduate, said.
Ninety-five percent of Moringa graduates have been hired at reputable companies, and graduates record a 350 percent average salary increase after graduation, according to the school’s website.
Moringa’s sense of community helps students succeed in the technology industry post-graduation, but it also addresses a problem Cheng said she noticed when she started working with Western organizations in Africa.
Too often, Western organizations seeking to “aid” African communities lack knowledge and respect for African independence, cultures and lifestyles, Cheng wrote in a 2014 Huffington Post op-ed. They draw on a stereotypical view of Africa that reduces the continent to disease, poverty, hunger and war, ignoring positivity, growth and vibrancy.
But Moringa is a company, not a charity, and Cheng said she believes this model incentivizes the school to better serve the needs of the community.
“At a nonprofit… the money is coming from donors, and so ultimately organizations are responsible and accountable to their donors, as opposed to… the person that they’re actually serving,” she said. “In a company, because the person who is paying is also the user, we have to be meeting their needs, and we are accountable to our students.”
Moringa also offers need-based flexible installment plans, as well as financial aid amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sasha Achieng, who leads community engagement at Moringa, said she frequently surveys the student community to ensure that their needs are met.
Moringa is currently using the online model to access more students across Africa during the pandemic, but in the future, they’re looking into geographic expansion, Cheng said.
“There’s basically space for everyone to grow,” Achieng said. “I mean, if I started (in 2018) as an intern and I’m currently leading in the company, it really speaks for itself, right?”
For all journalists, 2020 was a wild ride. This especially rings true for journalists working at theGrio, a news outlet owned by Byron Allen’s Entertainment studios dedicated to covering and serving Black Americans. Several Medill alumni hold positions on theGrio’s leadership team, and in the chaos of 2020, they feel theGrio’s mission was as crucial as ever.
Vice president of digital content and senior correspondent Natasha Alford (MSJ14).
“There’s been a reckoning with the way that certain communities are covered in the media,” says Natasha Alford (MSJ14), vice president of digital content and senior correspondent at theGrio. “Having a brand like theGrio that’s been around for more than a decade now, that has built trust with the African American community and has deep connections, and can just sort of have a depth in the storytelling is, I think, really important.”
Senior editor Mariel Turner (MSJ15).
Mariel Turner (MSJ15), senior editor at theGrio, says that working in an all-Black newsroom means her voice is always heard. “You know, I think often when I was working at predominantly white outlets, there would be certain public figures … that I would pitch for coverage. And it was often shut down because the people in the room didn’t know the importance of those figures, or they didn’t think that it was relevant to our audience,” she says.
“When [Black journalists] come into the space, there’s certain stories that they’re not going to have to fight for somebody to believe is important, to get the attention that it deserves,” agrees Alford. “But I think the flip side of that is that we are constantly immersed in the trauma of being Black in America. We’re reporting on issues, and we’re experiencing certain issues at the same time.”
Those issues have never gotten more national attention than they did in 2020, with the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and other Black Americans inciting massive Black Lives Matter protests across the nation.
Entertainment director Cortney Wills (BSJ06).
Entertainment director at theGrio Cortney Wills (BSJ06) says that reporting on these killings and their aftermaths as a Black person is a challenge in itself.
“We didn’t have any time to react to these events that had very real emotional, traumatizing effects on us as Black people,” she says. “It really showed me that in order to do this job well, you also have to take care of each other personally and emotionally.”
That emotional support is another way theGrio’s all-Black environment separates it from other newsrooms.
“Being able to work with people that not only empathize with you, but also understand how you feel or how you may not have the capacity to work at a certain level because of everything else that’s happening,” Turner says. “That’s the biggest thing … is just having a little bit more of that family feeling.”
Wills agrees, saying, “I can’t imagine having to do this job at this time, anywhere else.”
To best serve its Black readers, theGrio is very intentional in its news coverage, says Alford.
“When we have certain conversations with families, we’re moving beyond some of the trite narratives, you know, so it’s not about getting a crying mother, or just talking about how sad something is, but we’re focused on asking hard questions about action and organizing and policy change,” she says. “I think in many ways, we’ve been pushing the coverage to move beyond just the obvious of, ‘Is there a problem?’ into, ‘What is the solution?’”
TheGrio’s coverage is also often more nuanced than that of non-specialized media outlets, says Turner, particularly when it comes to police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement.
“[In 2020] with the resurgence [of Black Lives Matter], we really tried to focus on stories that were more special to our community … actually speaking with people in the community, talking to different leadership there and making sure that it was a boots-on-the-ground kind of coverage,” she says. “We really try to give a voice to the people that mainstream media may not feel compelled to talk to or to cover.”
“You know, our first story about police brutality was not Ahmaud Arbery — that probably was not the first one of the week,” says Wills. “I think theGrio never lets up on the things that we are shining a light on and conversations that we are starting.”
Chief content officer Todd Johnson (BSJ07, MSJ08).
In addition to Alford, Turner and Wills, theGrio’s chief content officer Todd Johnson is also a Medill alumnus who received his BSJ in 2008 and his Medill master’s degree in 2009. Alford says she saw his picture in the hall every day while studying at Medill’s Chicago newsroom, and it inspired her to seek a career at theGrio.
“When you see someone, it creates a sense of possibility for you. So me seeing Todd at theGrio made me aware of Black media as an option for me,” she says. “It was not until I went to Medill that it truly crystallized for me what I should be doing with my life.”
TheGrio’s conversations are about so much more than just Black struggles — Black media, Black successes and, above all, Black joy are present in almost everything theGrio produces.
Alford says, “I hope that any journalist, particularly Black student journalists, who are looking for a place and don’t feel like they see that space in the current media landscape — I hope that they know that they can still create their own world, and they can still do impactful storytelling.”
In March, the coronavirus was ravaging the Life Care Center of Kirkland, a nursing home in Washington state. Two-thirds of the residents and 50 staff would eventually contract the virus. Dozens would die.
The story of the Life Care Center of Kirkland signaled to a team of students at the Medill Investigative Lab (MIL) at Northwestern University just how vulnerable nursing homes would be to the spread of the virus. With residents and staff unable to socially distance and older individuals having the highest likelihood of developing severe or terminal symptoms, nursing homes would be particularly susceptible.
Having identified this looming crisis, the MIL team sprang into action working with reporters and editors at The Washington Post to develop a data source to track cases of coronavirus at nursing homes across the country. Eventually, that list grew to more than 4,000 facilities and contributed to thecoverage in the Post. Medill students worked on more than 15published stories on the topic.
“The work of student journalists from the Medill School’s investigative program has been crucial in The Post’s ongoing reporting of the pandemic’s tragic impact on nursing home residents,” said Ziva Branstetter, corporate accountability editor at The Washington Post. “These students have provided important data work and have teamed up with Post journalists to tell stories exposing patterns of inequality, waste and lax government oversight at a time when this vulnerable population most needed protection.”
Debbie Cenziper, an associate professor at Medill and the director of the Medill Investigative Lab, also is a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist who writes for The Washington Post, making the partnership between Medill students and the Post possible. All the stories were completed in the first year of the new lab, which focuses on social justice reporting.
“Like all good journalists, students in the Medill Investigative Lab pivoted quickly in March to write about the devastating impact of COVID-19,” said Cenziper. “Working with a team at The Washington Post and me, they helped tell wrenching stories of illness, loss and love. Lawmakers have called for change.This is what good investigative reporting is all about and I couldn’t be prouder of our talented, passionate and persistent team of journalists.”
“It feels very powerful to be able to do work with this kind of reach and impact,” said Joel Jacobs (MSJ20), a former software engineer who quit his job at Google to pursue investigative journalism and a journalism master’s degree at Medill. “Some of our stories ran on the front page. A few of our articles were republished by my hometown paper, which was definitely a point of personal pride. With all this, there’s also a tremendous feeling of responsibility to make sure we get things right. It can be stressful, but it’s incredibly rewarding.”
With his background in tech, Jacobs dug into federal nursing home data that helped fuel the reporting. “Often, we combined different datasets,” said Jacobs. “Combining nursing home inspection records with our list of homes with outbreaks provided the backbone for our story on the history of infection control issues in nursing homes with coronavirus cases. We also compared outbreak data with demographic data on nursing homes for a story on the disproportionate impact on majority-Black nursing homes.”
Those health disparities resonated with Sidnee King (MSJ20) who set out to tell the story of the coronavirus in a predominantly Black nursing home. She chose a home steps from the birthplace of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Atlanta. Her story combined the history of the Sweet Auburn Historic District with the story of a nurse trying to care for more than 100 residents.
“When Debbie told us that we’d spend the quarter covering coronavirus in nursing homes, it wasn’t long before I got curious about how the virus was impacting Black elderly residents,” said King. “I’d seen how the virus had impacted my own family and community and knew that Black people, in general, were being disparately affected by the pandemic. So as the ongoing national conversation about racial justice grew more prevalent, I really wanted to highlight how even in nursing homes, Black Americans are disadvantaged by systemic racism.”
Medill degrees are now designated as STEM degrees based on a program review from Northwestern’s Office of the Registrar that provided updated CIP Codes. This includes Medill’s bachelor’s and master’s of science degrees in journalism and its master’s of science in integrated marketing communications.
STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. STEM designation provides F-1 international students with a possible 24-month employment extension of a 12-month Optional Practical Training (OPT) authorization. Domestic students also benefit as STEM skills are sought by employers.
“Medill’s programs prepare tomorrow’s journalists and marketers, and STEM skills are essential to leading in the media industry,” said Medill Dean Charles Whitaker. “This new designation will position our graduates to demonstrate these important skills to employers who are eager to have them.”
Medill’s degrees are included under the “Digital Communications and Media/Multimedia” code (09.0702).
To learn more, visit the Northwestern Office of International Student Services.
The Role of Media, Law, Norms, and Technology in Assuring Acceptance of Election Results,” evolved to “Fair Elections During a Crisis: Urgent Recommendations in Law, Media, Politics and Tech to Advance the Legitimacy of, and the Public’s Confidence in, the November 2020 U.S. Elections. Read a New Yorker article about the report. Read the report.
Jeanie 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.
Cindy 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.
Mary 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.
Helene 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.
Maudlyne 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.
As 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.
