Category: Medill News

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Four leaders in the fields of journalism and marketing have joined the Medill BOA 

“Our board members are a tremendous resource for the school and its leadership,” said Medill Dean Charles Whitaker. “I look forward to working with these new members in the years ahead and to the contributions they will make to Medill.”

New Board of Advisers members include:

Bradley Akubuiro (BSJ11) is the chief spokesperson and senior director of global media relations for The Boeing Company, the largest aerospace manufacturer in the world. In this role, he is responsible for leading Boeing’s team of company spokespeople enterprise wide in their efforts to advance and protect the company’s interests around the globe. Akubuiro has provided leadership and counsel through the company’s response to COVID-19, the national conversation around race and several news making challenges and milestones in its effort to return the grounded 737 MAX to commercial service.

Prior to joining Boeing, Akubuiro served as director of corporate communications and public affairs for United Technologies Corporation (UTC) where he led the global corporate media relations and public affairs functions for the $77B Fortune 50 company. In an earlier role, he was deputy communications leader for the global military jet engines business at Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies.

Marcia Davis is the supervising editor of race and identity at National Public Radio. She joined NPR in June 2020. A native of St. Louis, she spent more than 20 years as an editor and writer at The Washington Post.

At The Washington Post, Davis edited for Metro, Style, National and The Washington Post magazine. On the National Desk, she led coverage of the federal government, including breaking stories on mismanagement at the General Services Administration and stories on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. She edited several columns, including the Federal Eye, In the Loop and the Federal Diary.

She also helped to lead the coverage of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in St. Louis. That death was a significant point in the history of the Black Lives Matter Movement.
As the District of Columbia political editor, she supervised reporters who covered Mayor Adrian Fenty. And while editing for Style, she helped lead the award-winning series “Being a Black Man.”

Davis attended Medill in the 1980s before finishing her degree at Roosevelt University.

Matt Murray (BSJ87, MSJ88) is editor in chief of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, responsible for all global newsgathering and editorial operations.

Murray previously served as executive editor since 2017, and had been deputy editor in chief since 2013. He joined Dow Jones & Company in 1994 as a reporter for the Pittsburgh bureau.

He is the author of “The Father and the Son” and collaborated on memoirs by former New York City fire commissioner Thomas Von Essen.

Emily Ramshaw (BSJ03), is co-founder and CEO of The 19th, a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom reporting at the intersection of gender, politics and policy. Most recently, Ramshaw was the editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune, a Peabody Award-winning, 10-year-old news startup that boasts the largest statehouse bureau in the nation, powers the pages of newspapers across Texas and the nation, and is considered the gold standard for sustainability in local news. She is also the youngest person ever to be named to the board of the Pulitzer Prize, where she is serving a nine-year term.

Before helping to found the Texas Tribune a decade ago, Ramshaw was an award-winning investigative reporter at The Dallas Morning News, where she broke national stories about sexual abuse inside Texas’ youth lock-ups, reported from inside a West Texas polygamist compound and uncovered “fight clubs” at state institutions for people with disabilities.

Medill welcomes Penelope “Penny” Muse Abernathy as a visiting professor. Abernathy recently retired from the University of North Carolina Hussman School of Journalism and Media, where she served as the Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics.

“Penny is the nation’s foremost authority on the worsening crisis of local news deserts across the U.S.,” said Medill Dean Charles Whitaker. “Her research has chronicled the growing number of communities with no local news source, and it has brought attention to this critical problem and what it means in a self-governed democracy where citizens need news and information to make informed decisions. Medill is committed to providing news outlets with the tools and insights they need to thrive in their communities, and we are delighted to have the opportunity to work with Penny.”

As a journalism professional with more than 30 years of experience as a reporter, editor and senior media business executive, Abernathy specializes in preserving quality journalism by helping news organizations succeed economically in the digital environment. Her research focuses on the implications of the digital revolution for news organizations, the information needs of communities and the emergence of news deserts in the United States.

“Penny’s arrival will help make Medill the nation’s epicenter for local news research and thought leadership at this critical time for the industry,” says Tim Franklin, Medill senior associate dean, professor and the inaugural John M. Mutz Chair in Local News—a first of its kind chair in the nation. “Penny and her research are constantly quoted by national news outlets and cited by scholars studying the challenge of local news deserts and the implications for society.”

The Medill Local News Initiative launched in 2018 to help bolster the sustainability of local news and foster new business models. Since then, the Medill Spiegel Research Center has mined local news audience data in more than 20 markets, and it’s now creating a new Subscriber Engagement Index to help local news organizations grow reader revenue. In addition, Medill’s Knight Lab has conducted field research of local news readers and non-readers to help inform experiments with new tools and approaches to improve reader engagement. Medill also is starting a new Metro Media Lab to help strengthen local news and high school journalism in Chicago.

“I’m delighted to be joining the critically important Local News Initiative and collaborating with Medill colleagues in their efforts to save local journalism,” said Abernathy. While at Medill, she plans to collaborate with the Local News Initiative and Spiegel Research Center on local news-related projects and research. She’ll deliver presentations and talks at national conferences and at the school. And, she’ll write articles for news outlets and scholarly journals that provide new knowledge on the state of local news.

Abernathy is the author of “News Deserts and Ghost Newspapers: Will Local News Survive?” — a major 2020 report that documents the state of local journalism, what is as stake for our democracy, and the possibility of reviving the local news landscape, and she is the lead co-author of “The Strategic Digital Media Entrepreneur,” which explores in-depth the emerging business models of successful media enterprises.

Her first book, “Saving Community Journalism: The Path to Profitability,” is based on five years of research, involving more than two dozen newspapers around the country. She is also author of two other major reports: “The Expanding News Deserts,” published in 2018, and “The Rise of a New Media Baron and the Emerging Threat of News Deserts,” published in 2016.