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Local news consumers shifting to new platforms and sources, Medill survey shows

Smart phones are now the dominant device used to consume local news; more people get local news from content creators than legacy news outlets; people want humans – not just AI – delivering their news; and local news is widely used, but very few pay for it.

Those are among the headline findings in a comprehensive new survey of 1,101 residents in the 14-county Chicago area commissioned by the Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern University. The survey was conducted this spring for Medill by NORC at the University of Chicago. It was led by Medill’s Associate Dean of Research Stephanie Edgerly and Tim Franklin, the John M. Mutz Chair in Local News.

The survey captures the changing ways in which people’s news behaviors are evolving, as they abandon traditional media and find new ways to get information. The report’s findings provide both dire warning signals for the news industry, as well as reasons for optimism.

Here are some of the major survey results:

  • Two-thirds of those surveyed frequently consume local news on their smartphones, far surpassing television and other platforms.
  • There’s a massive generational divide in where people turn for local news. More than 70% of young adults frequently use smartphones, while about the same number of older adults turn to TV.
  • Nearly one-third of respondents consume local news daily from content creators, more than those who turn to traditional news sources like newspapers, radio and digital-only sites. This shows that individuals can compete with major news organizations to develop followings.
  • Most respondents are not comfortable with news produced mostly by artificial intelligence, but they’re more accepting of AI in a support role with journalists.
  • The vast majority of those polled, 85%, consume local news at least once a week, illustrating widespread demand for local information. And a majority, 51%, said they trust local news, far more than those who trust national news.
  • Still, few respondents, 15%, said they pay for local news, an alarmingly small number at a time when news organizations are suffering declining ad revenue and public media is losing federal funding. Despite that, nearly two-thirds believe local news is on sound financial footing, even amid mounting newspaper closures and journalist job losses.

“This survey highlights the transformational changes afoot, ones that are remaking both where people are going for news and how journalists are producing it,” Edgerly said.

Franklin, the founding director of the Medill Local News Initiative, said, “This survey gives news leaders valuable insights to help them tailor their audience and business strategies to the new news diets of consumers.”

The Medill Local News Initiative, a research and development program launched more than seven years ago, commissioned this survey with financial support from the Chicago-based Robert R. McCormick Foundation. This was the second consecutive year Medill has conducted a Chicago-area news consumer poll in the hope it would arm news leaders, philanthropists, policymakers and scholars with the information they need to make informed decisions about the local news ecosystem.

View the full survey report here: https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/posts/2025/09/10/chicago-area-news-consumption-survey-2025/index.html

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Medill launches new concentration in sports marketing

Recently Medill announced a new concentration in sports marketing that students in its Integrated Marketing Communications Full-Time program can join starting Fall 2026.

The concentration will give students deep knowledge on topics such as sports and athlete branding, e-sports and gaming, sponsorship strategy, digital fan engagement and brand communications. Guided by expert faculty and real-world projects, students will acquire the skills to design campaigns and drive engagement across arenas, online platforms and global markets.

“In sports marketing, every moment is more than a play—it’s an opportunity to spark emotion, build loyalty, and create lasting connections between fans, brands, and the games they love,” said Vijay Viswanathan, Medill associate dean of IMC. “If you aspire to launch a career where sports, brands, fans and media intersect, Medill is where your journey begins.”

As part of Medill’s signature experiential learning programs, choosing the sports marketing concentration will give students the opportunity to gain hands-on experience while working on projects for top sports marketing brands.

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Andy Wolfson (MSJ78)

Andy Wolfson, an investigative reporter for more than 44 years at The Courier Journal and its former afternoon affiliate, the Louisville Times, has died. He was 70.

Wolfson died Sept. 17 at his home in Louisville where he had been managing several health problems, including recovery from a stroke last year, according to his wife, Mary Welp.

His death was reported Thursday by The Courier Journal, where he served as an award-winning journalist covering the justice system and other subjects for most of his career.

His work helped The Courier Journal win two Pulitzer Prizes, one in 1989 for team coverage of the fiery Carroll County church bus crash that killed 27 children and adults. In 2020, he was among reporters who won a Pulitzer for the coverage of a flurry of last-minute, highly-controversial pardons by outgoing Gov. Matt Bevin.

But Wolfson, who retired in 2024, was best known for his work covering legal affairs and the justice system, including reporting on the case of a man on Kentucky’s death row, Gregory Wilson, who was freed after Wolfson’s work outlined Wilson’s poor legal representation and other flaws in the prosecution, The Courier Journal reported.

He was known and largely respected by lawyers and judges throughout the commonwealth and beyond.

“I think he’s the best investigative reporter in Kentucky,” Scott Cox, a prominent Louisville defense lawyer and former prosecutor said when Wolson retired last year, according to The Courier Journal. Cox called Wolfson “fearless” and said he “doesn’t back down.”

Brusque and at times abrasive, Wolfson was known for asking pointed questions and striking alarm in subjects through an unexpected call or visit.

Among stories Wolfson liked to tell on himself: Some years ago, he visited Jefferson District Court to protest a traffic ticket he believed was unfair.

The judge was calling cases alphabetically and he waited several hours till most of the other cases were called, the courtroom cleared, and the judge, recognizing Wolfson, asked what he was doing in the courtroom.

Wolfson explained he came to protest a ticket. The judge, in relief, said he thought Wolfson was there to investigate his handling of traffic court and promptly addressed his complaint.

A native of Connecticut, Wolfson graduated from Colorado College and Northwestern University, where he received a master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism in 1977.

He came to work in Louisville in 1980, first at the Louisville Times, before moving in 1983 to the morning statewide newspaper, The Courier Journal.

He is survived by his wife, Mary Welp; a son, Wylie Wolfson; his sister, Ellen Wolfson; her husband, Neil Grosberg, and a niece and nephew.

https://kentuckylantern.com/2025/09/18/andy-wolfson-journalist-whose-beat-was-justice-dies-in-louisville/

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Q&A with Prof. Kalyani Chadha about her new book

By Kaitlin Bender-Thomas

Medill Professor Kalyani Chadha’s new book, “Disrupting Mainstream Journalism in India,” explores how India’s mainstream media has historically excluded or misrepresented marginalized communities and how alternative journalism is pushing back against it. In this Q&A, Chadha reflects on how her scholarship has shaped her teaching and why it matters for the next generation of journalists.

kalyani-chada head shotQ. How has your research informed your teaching, and have you brought any of these themes into the classroom at Medill?

A. I have in a graduate classroom, not so much in an undergraduate classroom, mainly because of what I teach. But what I have tried to do is sensitize students to the coverage of marginalized communities, broadly speaking, in the United States. So that’s very much a part of the version of JOUR 202 that I developed. You know, how do we cover marginalized communities more sensitively?

In my graduate classes, of course, I’ve tried to talk a lot about the theoretical ideas of the book, which is how digital affordances allow different kinds of marginalized groups to create what are called counterpublics or counterpublic spheres — so, arenas in which they operate. And I just taught a PhD-level class where we had extensive discussion of these ideas.

Q. Why do you think it’s so important to teach students how to cover marginalized communities with sensitivity and care?

A. Here’s the thing. I think the best journalism is journalism that sort of looks at things from other people’s points of view. It’s easy to empathize with people like yourself. But as it turns out, a lot of people are not like oneself, whether it’s in a demographic sense or whether it’s in the sense of some kind of other issue.

So I feel like good journalism is empathetic journalism at some level, or at least journalism that provides — even if you can’t empathize — maybe journalism that enables you to develop perspective. It gives your audience some perspective on other people’s lives, other positions, other ways of looking at the world, or other ways of being. I think studying groups that have been marginalized really hopefully does that for students because, as I said, it’s very easy to do journalism and to feel empathetic when you focus on people like yourselves. It’s just infinitely harder when it’s people who are different from you, in whatever capacity.

Q. What advice would you give to journalists who are trying to cover communities that are different from their own and still produce good journalism?

A. Ask yourself, at some level at least, what are my own biases? How do I look at these things? People will say, ‘I don’t have biases.’ I would beg to differ. We all have these notions of how we think about people who are different from us. Try to go into a community and try to find people who have an understanding of the community. Don’t just rely on official sources. Don’t just rely

on what you think is happening. Try to get a sense from someone who’s a part of the community
— what is going on there? Be open about what you don’t know. Being a know-it-all does not help. Like, “I know how I’m gonna write this story.” Well, why bother to go to the neighborhood then?

And yes, it’s very difficult when you’re not a part of the community. Most marginalized communities have zero reason to trust the mainstream press. Their experiences in general do not lead them to do so, and you have to understand that.

Q. What do you hope students and journalists take away from your book?

A. I think they should question the nature of their practice. It’s very easy to write a story that runs according to some pre-existing template in your head or within your organization. It’s very easy to tell a story by calling the same sets of sources or taking whatever the official line is, or whatever some institutional person or official gives you.

I hope people will learn that stories are complex, with many perspectives that often go unexplored. They should be trying to look for those stories, look for those voices that don’t get represented. Be challenging. Is what seems to be the story really the story? What else could be going on there? Whose voice is being heard? What voices aren’t being heard? What kinds of stories are being covered? Who’s just not in the news for whatever reason?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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New Book by Medill Professor Highlights Role of Alternative Journalism in India

By Kaitlin Bender-Thomas

In her new book, “Disrupting Mainstream Journalism in India,” Medill Professor Kalyani Chadha sheds light on the communities that the country’s growing media industry has long overlooked and the digital journalists working against the odds to change that.

Chadha, originally from India, has spent much of her academic career studying the country’s evolving media landscape. She had been thinking about how marginalized communities were beginning to use the Internet to push back against their exclusion from mainstream coverage when the editor of Routledge’s “Disrupting Journalism” series reached out with a timely proposal: Would she consider writing a book on India?

“I was thinking about these things already, and then this opportunity came along,” Chadha said. “And so then I was like, okay, so this is what I’m going to do it on.”

India’s media industry has undergone tremendous growth since the country liberalized its economy in the 1990s. Today, India has nearly 15,000 registered newspapers and 392 television news channels.

One might think this kind of expansion would lead to more inclusive or representative journalism. But, according to Chadha, the reality is quite the opposite.

“It didn’t necessarily mean that we were getting better journalism,” Chadha said. “There was a lot of infotainment. There was a lot of focus on crime, celebrities, and sports. Public interest journalism really wasn’t happening.”

What troubled her even more was the continued exclusion and misrepresentation of India’s most marginalized communities. Much like in the United States, these groups face deep-rooted structural discrimination. However, she notes that in India, the primary line of division is caste, as opposed to race.

From Chadha’s relatively brief time working in Indian newsrooms, she observed firsthand that those institutions were not representative of the country’s diversity.

“Newsrooms in India are incredibly undiverse — both in terms of caste and in terms of religion,” she said.

The impact of this lack of representation is evident in the stories being told — or more often, not told at all. Groups like Dalits (historically referred to as “untouchables”) and Muslims are rarely given a voice in the mainstream media, and when they are, they’re often covered in a negative context.

“You see this in the United States, too,” she said. “Either you get no coverage, or the coverage you get, you’re sort of the source of problems.”

In her book, Chadha draws on the concept of “epistemic injustice,” a term coined by philosopher Miranda Fricker. It refers to the idea that some communities are denied the opportunity to narrate their own experiences and to be seen as credible sources of knowledge about their own lives.

But her book also explores how marginalized communities are responding to this injustice. Many are launching their own digital media platforms and telling their stories on their own terms. She found that this form of alternative journalism doesn’t subscribe to the traditional notions of objectivity or neutrality. Instead, it prioritizes advocacy, transparency, and community-based sourcing. By shifting the focus, these journalists are actively challenging who gets to decide what is “newsworthy.”

“What these communities try to do is give a much more holistic picture of the lives of these groups, both the negatives and the positives. They try to create a sense of perspective on what’s going on,” Chadha said.

One example she highlights is the work of Dalit-run news organizations that produce counternarratives on caste-based violence. She recalls a particularly harrowing case from 2020, in which a lower-caste woman was gang-raped and murdered by upper-caste men in a rural part of northern India. While mainstream media downplayed the role of caste and framed the incident as a “love affair gone wrong,” Dalit-run news platforms confronted it as a source of ongoing oppression.

There was a real effort to push the caste angle aside,” Chadha said, “Very often, mainstream narratives will say, ‘Well, this really wasn’t about caste,’ just like sometimes they will say, ‘This really wasn’t about race.’”

Muslims face similar misrepresentation. Chadha found that mainstream coverage in India rarely portrays Muslims in an everyday context. Instead, they’re often depicted as extremists, fundamentalists, or jihadists. Alternative media outlets counter this bias by showing Muslims as professionals and individuals who lead normal lives.

Despite operating on tight budgets funded through donations and personal savings, Chadha says the journalists she interviewed were filled with hope.

“I was really awestruck by the journalists that I spoke with, and the outlets, and the work that they produce,” she said. “Because it just takes so much to keep these outlets going. Sort of a wing and a prayer, a lot of the time.”

While these alternative media outlets do not solve every problem, Chadha emphasizes that their presence matters because they give marginalized groups a sense of agency, provide holistic counternarratives, and challenge the agenda-setting power of mainstream media.

At Medill, Chadha incorporates her research into the classroom by encouraging students to confront their own biases, look beyond official sources, and strive for what she calls “empathetic journalism.”

“It’s very easy to do journalism and to feel empathetic and to focus on people like yourselves,” she said. “It’s infinitely harder when it’s people who are different from you.”

At a time when journalism around the world is facing political pressure and economic uncertainty, she hopes her work serves as a reminder of what’s at stake and to give a voice to those too often left out.

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Andy Hullinger (Medill Lecturer)

Andrew Steven Hullinger, known affectionately as Andy, left this world on July 4, 2025, suddenly and unexpectedly due to complications of cancer, which he had been living with for over a year. Born in Decatur, Illinois on October 12, 1965, Andy’s optimism and imagination inspired everyone he met. He passed away with his wife by his side in Evanston, Illinois, leaving a legacy of curiosity, creativity, and joy.

Andy was the beloved husband of 35 years to Meg Egan and the proud father of Lily (Michelle) and Ben (Margaret) Hullinger. He was a cherished brother to Dana (Lynnette), Jon (Morgan), and Ty Hullinger. His role as a fun-loving uncle to Amanda, Fiona, Rachel, Maeve, Riley, Cait, Roan, Finley, Maddie, and Luke, as well as a great-uncle to Joseph and Isaac, will be fondly remembered. He was preceded in death by his parents, Jasper and Joyce Hullinger.

Andy earned his Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communication at Blackburn College in 1987 and applied his skills and passion for design throughout his professional life. His career included influential positions as Creative Director/Designer for numerous advertising agencies, including Dept. 11, HY Connect, energyBBDO, Y&R, Element 79 Partners, Leo Burnett Company, Capps Digital, and Willson Graphics. In 2008, Andy changed career paths to become a Design Professor and Department Chair of Web Design & Development at Harrington College of Design. In 2015, he achieved his MFA in Communications Design and worked as an educator and lecturer at Medill. He loved his new role as a teacher, helping to shape the talents and creativity of his students. His students all loved learning from him. His creative pursuits and recognitions also included working as a Type Designer for T26 and the creation of the award-winning children’s book App, Dragon Brush. One of his font designs, Christmas Gift Script, can be found in the older editions of the 3rd Harry Potter book, The Prisoner of Azkaban, in reference to Mr. Padfoot on the Marauder’s Map.

Whether playing guitar with his band at The Musical Offering, singing with the North Shore Choral Society, or designing for the Women’s Western Golf Association, Andy brought a unique flair and enthusiasm to every creative endeavor. A noted “jack-of-all-trades and self-proclaimed “Renaissance Man”, his talents and hobbies ranged from caring for animals to collecting fountain pens, Blackwing pencils, and Field Notes. Andy was a skilled woodworker, luthier, and entertainer, who was a card-carrying member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, Order of Merlin.

Andy was a devoted and loving father to Lily and Ben Hullinger. He took great pride in being a parent, especially through reading books to his kids, creating costumes for Halloween, assisting them with the Science Olympiad, and being an active mentor in their day-to-day lives. Andy was proud to see his creativity reflected through Lily and Ben’s numerous artistic passions.

Andrew Steven Hullinger’s journey through life was one marked by laughter, hope, and an unwavering commitment to enriching the lives of others through his creative spirit, kind heart, and quick wit. His memory will continue to inspire and uplift those who were fortunate enough to know him.

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2025 George R.R. Martin Summer Writing Workshop Fellows announced

Ten writers have been accepted into this year’s George R.R. Martin Summer Intensive Writing Workshop at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. The workshop will take place in Evanston in July.

Medill received almost 200 workshop applications from accomplished journalists around the world. The group of fellows includes veteran journalists covering a variety of topics such as entertainment, immigration, business, health, and fashion. They hail from all across the United States, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Israel.

Meet the fellows!

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McCormick Foundation awards $3.6 million, three-year grant to the Medill Local News Initiative

The Robert R. McCormick Foundation has awarded a $3.6 million, three-year grant to the Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern to expand the University’s work to strengthen local news and scholastic journalism in Illinois.

The grant provides funding for Medill to create a shared services hub that offers expert help and infrastructure support to news outlets in the Chicago region. The grant also will allow Medill to continue its efforts to bolster coverage of state government, propel the practice of solutions journalism and improve high school media programs.

The new hub, which will expand the Medill Local News Accelerator, will work directly with local news organizations in the Chicago area on critical needs like consumer research, audience strategy, product development, revenue diversification and legal services.

The hub is an outgrowth of Medill’s Metro Media Lab and Local News Accelerator programs, also funded by McCormick. Under those programs, Medill has been working with Chicago-area news outlets since 2020 on projects to help fortify the region’s local news ecosystem and improve coverage of matters relevant to its residents. Those programs have supported more than two dozen news organizations in the region serving more than 5 million Illinoisians.

“We’re grateful to the McCormick Foundation for its continued investment, and for its confidence in us to help grow original, reliable local news and information at this critical moment,” said Charles Whitaker, dean of Medill. “This new shared services hub will help us provide much-needed resources to Chicago area news outlets. And it will allow them to spend more time focusing on what they do best — providing valuable journalism that helps residents be more informed about local matters that affect their daily lives.”

Timothy P. Knight, president and CEO of the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, said this grant supports a core mission of the foundation’s grant making.

“We invest in journalism to promote informed civic engagement and ensure government accountability,” he said. “We are enthusiastic that our continuing partnership with Medill advances this goal by strengthening local coverage of city and state government and improving newsroom sustainability.”

The new grant will support the ongoing work of the Medill Illinois News Bureau, which was launched last fall in partnership with the nonprofit outlet Capitol News Illinois. Under this program, Medill students provide coverage of state government news from Springfield and Chicago in collaboration with CNI, and their stories are distributed to 700 news outlets in Illinois and surrounding states. Since its launch, more than 20 graduate and undergraduate Statehouse Fellows have generated dozens of stories.

The Medill Midwest Solutions Journalism Hub, one of five universities nationwide affiliated with the Solutions Journalism Network, is providing training for newsrooms and colleges on the practice of solutions journalism. The Hub includes more than 50 partner news organizations and colleges across the Midwest. As part of building a community of practice, the Hub works directly with Chicago-area newsrooms on specific projects in solutions journalism, which explores reporting of responses to communities’ most vexing systemic problems.

McCormick’s grant also supports the ongoing work of Medill’s Teach for Chicago Journalism Program, which for the past five years has been helping Chicago-area high schools to bolster scholastic journalism through educational programs for students and teachers. Medill also has created a module for the College Board’s Advance Placement seminar course that incorporates journalism and media literacy. The module is being used in more than dozen high schools around the country.

All these programs are intended to help improve a local news ecosystem that is undergoing historic changes.

The Medill State of Local News Project has found that about 2.5 newspapers close in the U.S. every week and more than 50 million people live in counties with little to no access to local news. Medill research shows that Illinois has lost 45% of its newspapers in the last 20 years and 54% of its newspaper jobs in just the last decade. The state has five news desert counties and 40 others with only one remaining local news source. Combined, that equals 44% of all Illinois counties with limited access to local news.

The Chicago news landscape is healthier than many others around the country. The region counts well more than 100 local newspapers, digital-only sites, ethnic media and broadcast news outlets. Many of those outlets, however, are relatively small operations that need expertise and audience research to thrive over the long term, Whitaker said.

Medill launched its Local News Initiative in April 2018 as a research and development program to provide new insights about trends in local news and to work directly with news organizations to bolster sustainability. It’s supported by grants from major foundations, corporate contributors and individual donors.

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Madeline Halpern (MSJ86)

Madeline J. Halpern, née Jackolin, passed away peacefully at home on May 8, 2025. She was 79. Beloved wife of the late Richard C. Halpern, loving mother of Rebecca (Hal Rudnick), stepmother of Susan Winstead and Daniel (Mary) Halpern, and “Mam” to grandchildren Eden, Megan and Nathaniel.

Madeline, or “Maddi”, was born in Chicago, IL, on August 11, 1945, the daughter of Arlene Eier Jackolin and Luigi Giuseppe Iacolin (Louis Joseph Jackolin), a brick mason who immigrated from the town of San Leonardo in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy. She was a devoted sister of Joyce June Keith, and Louis (Judy), Bill (Janet) and Robert Jackolin, and aunt and cousin to many.

A graduate of Harrison High School, Maddi was a lifelong learner who earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, which she parlayed into a successful career as a food journalist. In 1987, she developed, produced and starred in “All About Food” for Cablevision, the first food-related magazine show of its kind that later became the format of so many of the cooking shows we see on television today. She was also a regular columnist for several Chicago-area publications, including Today’s Chicago Woman, The Pioneer Press and Fra Noi.

Maddi and Richard, her soulmate of 44 years, were partners in the truest sense of the word. Maddi was instrumental in helping grow Richard’s career as a master builder who oversaw the construction of more than 200 Chicago-area landmarks and buildings around the world, including the Willis Tower, Navy Pier, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Harold Washington Library. A former member of the Women’s Board of the Goodman Theatre and Ravinia Festival, and a Governing Member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Maddi and Richard also endowed the M.J. Halpern Scholarship Fund for Medill at Northwestern, and established the Architectural Engineering & Design Certificate Program and the Richard C. Halpern/RISE International Distinguished Architect in Residence at the McCormick School of Engineering. Maddi was a longtime member of the Chicago Botanic Garden, and she loved tending to her herb, vegetable and cut flower beds at the home that she and Richard built with Architect Tom Beeby in 2005.

A guiding light to all who were inspired by her, Maddi’s life was a masterclass in living, and dying, well. Her family is forever grateful to the many caregivers and cherished friends who helped maintain her charm, elegance and dignity to the very end.

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/wilmette-il/madeline-halpern-12369249

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Medill, Marketing, and a Mic: How Peter Johnson (MSJ72) Found a Passion for Music Along the Way

Long before he became Dr. Johnson, a marketing professor at Fordham University, he was harmonizing at Northwestern’s fraternity parties and waiting for a draft letter from the U.S. Army.

“I graduated from Weinberg (formerly CAS) as an undergrad with a major in Economics in June of 1971,” Peter Johnson said. “And you may have heard from people that in those days, for young men, there was a military draft, I had a low lottery number, so I was almost certain I’d be called into service.”

But the letter that came wasn’t a draft notice — it was a reclassification. 

“The local draft board had filled its quota,” he said. “So there I am with no career plans.”

That unexpected twist led him back to Northwestern. A couple of his fraternity brothers had gone to graduate school at Medill to study advertising — what is now known as the Integrated Marketing Communications program. 

“One of them had a very good job at a Chicago ad agency, and I said, ‘Well, one more year of school, I can get myself teed up and go into marketing.’”

Johnson earned his Master of Science in Journalism in 1972, launching a career that would take him from big banks in Chicago to agencies on Madison Avenue, and eventually to Silicon Valley. And somewhere along the way, he also became a frontman in a rock band that’s been playing for more than 50 years.

Early in his career, Johnson focused on advertising and business development, working at major ad agencies and eventually riding the first wave of the internet boom.

“In 1995, a former boss of mine called me and said, ‘We just acquired an agency out in Silicon Valley, it’s all gonna be based on the internet.’ And I said, ‘What’s that?’”

A week later, during a trip to Mountain View, California, he was introduced to the pioneers of the web’s earliest days. 

“It was just amazing. I said, ‘This is the next big thing. Sign me up,’” Johnson said. “Six months later, the firm was landing million-dollar accounts.”

But as his business profile grew, so did a side passion — teaching. It started with a guest lecture at Pace University and quickly snowballed.

“I found I was spending so much time preparing for teaching that I was ignoring my day job,” Johnson said. “I brought that concern to a psychologist. I said, ‘I feel guilty. I’m spending more time teaching than on my job. It’s just so easy.’ And he said, ‘Well, do you think everybody finds teaching easy? That’s because you’re good at it.”

It was a revelation. From then on, Johnson knew he had to teach at a university.

At 57, he took the GRE, applied to a doctoral program at Pace University, and eventually earned his PhD. Today, he teaches in the marketing department at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business, where he specializes in services marketing.

“Services are actually different than products,” he said. “They’re intangible. You can’t really evaluate a service until you actually experience it — whether it’s renting a car or attending a university. So marketing services tend to be very challenging.”

He teaches core courses like marketing principles, customer-driven marketing, and purpose-driven marketing, as well as an MBA-level services marketing course. And yes, he still draws on lessons from Medill.

“There’s a skill I learned at Medill in the IMC program that I use in my teaching and used throughout my business career,” Johnson said. “That’s understanding the hierarchy of objectives: What do you want to accomplish? How do you accomplish it? What strategies do you use? That three-tiered approach has stayed with me my entire career.”

Another Medill takeaway: creativity. 

“We don’t teach enough of it,” he said. “Coming up with something that is indeed new, different, but also fits the brand and message. I’ve done research on whether creativity can be taught.”

And just like in business or teaching, performance is a recurring theme.

In 1971, while still in grad school, he lived in a rented house on Asbury Street in Evanston, where he heard music drifting through the walls. “I was friends with Rick Telander, a football player and a very accomplished guy,” he said. “I would come to the band rehearsals and just sort of sing along.”

With experience in a high school a cappella group, he had a good ear. 

“I could sing harmony, which many in the band could not do. So I would come in and harmonize on the leads and choruses. It added a little depth.”

His role then evolved into something bigger. 

“A lot of what I do with the band is perform—dance, play the tambourine, add energy to the performance. And that’s been really fun.”

As an article Telander wrote for the Chicago Magazine says, the band, Del-Crustaceans, has played at “countless weddings, including all our own. We’ve played in garages, in backyards, in tents, in seedy hillbilly bars, in swinging hipster bars, on a barge in Manhattan’s East River, in the lobby of a bank in a downtown high-rise, and at more country clubs than you can name. We’ve played at the Shedd Aquarium, Wrigley Field, Navy Pier’s Grand Ballroom, the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, the Playboy Mansion on the Gold Coast,” and many more places they can’t recall anymore. Telander and Johnson are the only original members remaining, but the band continues to perform today, albeit less frequently. 

“We started out playing fraternity parties. This was before DJs—if you wanted music at a party, you hired a band,” he said. “We were never in it for the money. It was always in it because it was just so much fun.”

And it wasn’t just fun—it shaped how he approached his career. 

“I remember one time we played a Northwestern reunion at Norris,” Johnson said. “My boss was in the audience. After the show, he said, ‘I’m seeing a whole different side of you. I wish you brought that to work.’”

That stuck with Johnson. 

“Sometimes we have our work face on and don’t always feel we can express joy or emotion. The band helped me realize that’s okay to do,” he said

To students graduating from Medill today, he offers some advice: keep your creativity close.

“You don’t have to be Picasso,” he said. “But there’s a process for creative thinking, and that can be taught.”

Ultimately, the thread connecting his life—from advertising to academia to the stage—is simple: joy.

“We’ve formed our own musical enterprise that’s not based around money or even fame. As Rick wrote in the article, it’s really based around fun.”