UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF JOURNALISM FALL 2003

A failure to communicate?
Task force assesses future after provost’s panel urges breakup of College
By HEIDI WALDMAN
News-editorial graduate student
OLLEGE OF COMMUNICATIONS
C
faculty members and students are
waiting to learn the fate of the Depart-
ment of Journalism after an evaluation for the
provost’s office suggested that College units
had little sense of a shared mission and the
College should be dissolved.
Ron Yates, interim dean of the College and
head of the Journalism Department, has
appointed a task force to write the College’s
response to the suggestions, which would
have made Journalism a separate school,
eliminated Advertising as a department (pos-
sibly to be integrated into Journalism or some
other program), and transformed the Institute
of Communications Research into a depart-
ment, possibly within the College of Liberal
Arts and Sciences.
“We are alive and well and teaching an
exemplary group of students in all of our
academic units: Advertising, Media Studies
Provost Richard Herman made the same
GET INVOLVED point in a closed meeting with tenured and
Alumni are invited to submit comments tenure-track faculty Sept. 16. He said the
about the future of the College of Communi- College had a “contract with students” to
cations to the Department of Journalism, 119 allow them to complete majors in the core
areas of the College.
Gregory Hall MC-462, Urbana, IL 61801. The task force will have until Jan. 1 to
issue a report addressing the concerns raised
and Journalism,” Yates wrote in a letter to by an outside committee Herman had
students Sept. 19. “The academic mission of appointed to examine the college last May. In
the College and its units is in no danger of
collapsing, no matter what.” FUTURE, continued on Page 2

NOTEBOOK

Retired dean dies

Kim B. Rotzoll, who retired as the dean of
the College of Communications, died Nov. 4 in
Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana from com-
plications related to can-
cer. He was 68.
Rotzoll, a professor of
advertising who special-
ized in media ethics, led
the college from 1992
until Aug. 21 of this year,
when he was succeeded
by Interim Dean Ron
Yates.
Rotzoll demonstrated a
Rotzoll “love for this college that
rubbed off on a lot of peo-
ple,” Yates said. “It was his life. This place was
everything to him.” A very positive thinker, he
was “always ready to try something new,” Yates
said, and was “such a decent, honorable man.”
Chancellor Nancy Cantor said: “Kim was a
beloved figure on this campus. ... He was gen-
erous with his time and his ideas, and he was
devoted to this university.”
He is survived by his wife, Nancy; two sons,
Jason of Champaign and Keith of Williams-
burg, Va.; and two grandchildren.
The College plans to create a professorship
in his honor. Those interested in contributing
should contact Interim Dean Ron Yates
Professor recuperating
Associate Professor Robert Reid is recuper-
ating at home after being hospitalized Sept. 8
through 12 for treatment of coronary blockage.
His classes are being han-
dled by Professors Leon
Dash and Louis Liebovich
and Associate Professor
Matt Ehrlich.
“I would say that doc-
tors have determined his
condition is more serious
than first thought and that
further tests are required,”
Interim Dean Ron Yates
said. “His heart has been
Reid weakened but doctors

Related story feel, at this point at least,
on Page 5 they can treat his condi-
tion with medication.”
Yates said Reid was considering whether he
might return to teaching. Cards may be sent to
1708 S. Prospect, Champaign, IL 61820.
Placement director named
Broadcast journalist Lynn Holley will join
the faculty in January as academic programs
coordinator, replacing the late Dana Ewell.
Holley has 25 years of experience as a pro-
ducer and reporter for WMAQ and WGN in
Chicago and CNN. She also will teach and
organize contests, recruiting and conferences.
A secret
source of
education
Deep Throat inquiry,
including upcoming
feature in Smithsonian,
is about the quest,
not the results
By CONNIE HSU
News-editorial graduate student
OR PROFESSOR BILL GAINES,
F his classes’ quest to unmask Deep
Throat never was about uncovering
the secret informant involved in one of the
nation’s greatest political scandals. It was
about teaching his students how to be
investigative journalists.
“I absolutely do not care who Deep
Throat is,” Gaines said. “The purpose is
the education of the students.”
The December issue of Smithsonian
Magazine will feature a first-person article
by Gaines summarizing how his Investiga-
tive Reporting class researched and organ-
ized documents and testimonies and even-
tually named Fred Fielding as Deep Throat
this past spring.
“It tells about the efforts of the class and
how the class learned about the era of
Watergate,” Gaines said.
Photographers from Smithsonian came
to the university in October to take pic- Illustration by Melissa Monno, news-editorial senior
tures of the Investigative Reporting class.
Although the classes change every Dateline NBC also featured the inves- about something of historical signifi-
semester, incoming students continue the
research done by previous classes, and for-
tigative journalism class on the 30th
anniversary of Watergate.
cance,” Gaines said.
Despite the publicity, Gaines said he
mer students help out whenever they can. Gaines said the class received so much wanted to keep his class focused on learn-
The Deep Throat project created nation- attention because it was not some “old ing and producing good work.
al and international attention in 2002 and dumb guy like me doing the whole “I don’t know if we can keep this high
again in 2003 from media organizations research.” level of activity up. What we want is to
including the BBC, the Chicago Tribune, It was a class of young journalists. keep the high level of quality,” he said.
CNN, radio stations in South America, and “The producers at NBC wanted to show
newspapers in Australia and Ireland. young people involved and enthusiastic DEEP THROAT, continued on Page 2
FALL 2003
By RON YATES
Department Head and Interim Dean
A change offers a chance
Program will benefit from internal review
F YOU HAVE BEEN following events
I here at the University of Illinois during
the past several months you are aware
that the College of Communications has
been the object of intense scrutiny.
An external committee appointed by the
provost examined each unit in the College,
including the Department of Journalism.
The purpose of this assessment was to
determine whether the College and its
units had a collective vision and purpose as
well as provide an objective look at our
programs, their mission and their perform-
ance. This examination occurred after
Provost Richard Herman called off a sec-
ond search for a new dean to replace retir-
ing Dean Kim Rotzoll.
The committee’s conclusions were not
met with great applause, mainly because it
concluded that the College, particularly
two of its units (the Department of Adver-
tising and the Institute for Communica-
tions Research) had significant problems.
It was during this time that I was appoint-
ed interim dean of the College.
Among the recommendations was the
disbanding of the Advertising Department,
which the committee said had “imploded.”
The committee also had suggested the
possible restructuring of the College into a
School of Journalism.
Rather than accept the committee’s
report at face value the provost turned it
back to the College and asked us to deal
with the report’s perceptions
and recommendations.
We are in the process of
doing that. I subsequently cre-
ated a college-wide Task Force
for the Future of the College to whole
‘‘
I see the
examine the issues raised by
the report and, more important,
to work on a plan that would
sequence of
allow us to determine our own events as an
configuration and fate. That
plan is due Jan. 1. opportunity.
I gave the Task Force a
broad array of items to work
on, including:

Internal assessments of each unit.

Benchmarking each unit against the
top three to five comparable programs in
’’
the nation.

Examination of the College’s system
of governance and administration.

Assessment of the College’s facilities,
equipment and technology.

The efficacy of a four-year as opposed
to a two-year College.

Appraisal of the areas of scholarship,
research, creative endeavor, teaching and
professional activities.

The collective vision of the College
and its units, or lack thereof.

How the individual programs serve
the professions — that is, what is the pro-
gram’s track record in placing students in
local, regional and national news and
advertising organizations?

Evaluation of College’s diversity
(how our programs have or have not
achieved a balance of racial, ethnic, gender
and geographical diversity).

An examination of the College’s fac-
ulty, curriculum and instruction.
In addition, the Task Force had been
asked to create a new College mission
statement that demonstrates and reinforces
a common vision and set of goals.
All of this will be difficult work because
it will be done while most of the College
faculty members teach a full load of class-
ILLINI JOURNALIST
HOT T Y P E
es. But we will do it because we know it is
necessary.
I believe that the Department of Jour-
nalism never has been stronger, a view the
provost’s committee passed on to me. It
also is my belief that we can become better
through this process of self-examination.
Indeed, I see the whole sequence of
events as an opportunity. Among other
things, it is an opportunity to redefine and
refocus.
Change has never frightened me. As a
professional journalist with the Chicago
Tribune for 27 years, I found myself living
with change almost daily as a foreign cor-
respondent in Asia and Latin America or as
an editor in the Tribune’s newsroom.
Someone once said, “Everything
changes but change.” How true that is. At
the same time, I am not in favor of change
simply for the sake of change. There has to
be a reason.
For example, while the Journalism
Department is flying high with exemplary
students and faculty, the objective is to
make sure we maintain that kind of consis-
tency in a world where media are changing
in a myriad of ways.
We have chosen to do that by incorpo-
rating media convergence into our curricu-
lum.
As one faculty member recently wrote:
“The critical meta-skills we impart are not
how to set an f-stop or find a CTRL-ALT-
SHIFT shortcut in QuarkXPress.
They are how to find, organize
and present a story. By doing
this in an unfamiliar form, we
stress convergence without
stressing technology or craft.
We are so traditional that we
become avant-garde.”
So change in the Department
of Journalism has been much
more subtle, but no less sweep-
ing, than in journalism pro-
grams that have embraced
media convergence as a new
religion.
We feel our students are as prepared to
work in any media environment because
they not only understand current technolo-
gy but also have a solid grasp of the fun-
damentals of reporting, organization and
writing.
They understand the two empirical
skills every good journalist must master:
observing and interviewing. And most
leave our program confident in their abili-
ties. That is perhaps the greatest contribu-
tion we can make to them and their careers.
Everything the Task Force does this
semester must ultimately answer the fol-
lowing questions:

Will the changes we make in our pro-
gram be changes that will enhance and
improve our educational mission?

How will these changes serve our pro-
fessional constituencies?
These are big questions.
If we cannot answer them in a positive
way then whatever reconfiguration or
restructuring the Task Force recommends
will be vulnerable and intellectually unac-
ceptable.
I am optimistic, however, that with our
destiny firmly within our hands, the Col-
lege and each of its units will emerge from
this process of intense introspection
stronger and more vigorous than ever.
If I didn’t believe that, I would not still
be here.
Task force to report by Jan. 1
FUTURE, continued from Page 1
a written charge to the task force, Yates said
the report should not simply refute findings
or rebuff recommendations.
“The purpose of this phase is not simply to
defend ourselves, but to be honest in the self-
appraisal prompted by the committee’s find-
ings,” Yates wrote.
The committee’s second charge is to com-
pare the College and its units to the country’s
five best colleges of communications, jour-
nalism schools or mass media programs.
The third phase is to provide a workable
blueprint for the College for the next one to
three years, three to five years and five to 10
years.
The committee’s creation is the most
recent step in a series of upheavals.
Amid budget shortfalls, funding for the
College of Communications has been cut by
for two successive years, and Journalism has
absorbed a large share of the cuts.
In May, Herman called off a search for a
replacement for retiring Dean Kim Rotzoll
and appointed a committee of faculty mem-
bers from elsewhere on campus to examine
the college. At the time, Herman said the
search for Rotzoll’s replacement had
“brought to the forefront ... fundamental
questions” about whether all units in the col-
lege had “shared aspirations” and “a coherent
vision” and whether their vitality and devel-
From left, students Kelly Soderlund, Tom Rybarczyk and Professor Bill Gaines participate in
CNN NewsNight with Aaron Brown in April.
New findings being posted online
DEEP THROAT, continued from Page 1
Next semester, another class will take on
the Deep Throat research, uncovering addi-
tional evidence linking Fred Fielding to Deep
Throat. Whenever research is passed down,
the investigation is delayed, taking longer
than it would a full-time investigator or his-
torian, Gaines said.
“I won’t give up,” he said. “I can do it all
myself and things will go faster. But that
would spoil everything. It wouldn’t be a
school project anymore.”
New information will be added in Novem-
ber or December to http://DeepThroatUn-
covered.com, a multimedia Web site that
reports the class’s findings. The site was
developed by Associate Professor Eric Mey-
er’s Online Publishing class. To date it and a
previous site incorporated within Spike mag-
azine (http://www. comm.uiuc.edu/spike)
have recorded well more than 20 million
“hits” and served more than half a million
unique individual readers.
This past summer, the previous site won
for Meyer and Gaines a juried award from
the nation’s largest group of journalism pro-
fessors, the Association for Education in
Journalism and Mass Communication, as the
best journalistic Web site designed under the
direction of an AEJMC member in 2002.
On April 25, The Cleveland Plain Dealer
reported that Carl Bernstein, one of the two
reporters who broke the Watergate story, said
that “the Illinois journalism program should
be disaccredited” and Gaines “should be
Page 2
MORE ONLINE
The full text of the report by the
committee appointed by the provost and
the interim dean’s letter to students are
available online at:
http://www.comm.uiuc.edu/future.html
The interim dean has said the task force
report also will be made public.
opment would be “well served by the present
structure.”
In August, Rotzoll stepped down —
according to him, at the provost’s request.
Herman appointed Yates to interim dean.
In September, Herman’s committee
reported: “There appears to be little sense of
direction based on a shared mission for the
entire College, and we were struck by the
walls that seem to exist between units.”
The committee generally praised the Jour-
nalism Department but said the Advertising
Department had “imploded” and had
“changed its curriculum rather markedly to a
more critical, less professionally, oriented
one.” The Institute of Communications
Research, the report said, “is increasingly
moving away from Communications
Research” and “the Media Studies under-
graduate program is greatly undersubscribed
and slow to develop.”
Photo by Craig Chamberlain
spanked.” The Plain Dealer also quoted
Bernstein as calling the class investigation “a
parlor game that has nothing to do with
responsible journalism.” Gaines responded
to the article saying he was “a bit old to be
spanked.”
Gaines also said that Bernstein and his
partner should not have written the book nor
created a movie based on a source who they
were trying to protect. Gaines said they
leaked clues by offering dates and descrip-
tions.
“I’m not the one who gave out the infor-
mation,” Gaines said.
Produced each semester by students at
DEPARTMENT OF JOURNALISM
College of Communications
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
http://www.comm.uiuc.edu/spike
(217) 333-0709 journalism@uiuc.edu
PUBLISHER
Interim Dean Ron Yates
ADVISER
Associate Professor Eric Meyer
EDITORS
Heidi Waldman Connie Hsu
Kim Bayley Richard Cornish
FALL 2003
Instructors
receive
high marks
LEVEN INSTRUCTORS and a
E department record 15 course sec-
tions earned spots on the Universi-
ty’s “Incomplete List of Teachers Ranked
as Excellent” for spring 2003.
Faculty members honored included:

Matt Ehrlich for Radio Feature
Reporting and Reporting 1.

Walt Harrington for Reporting 2.

Steve Helle for Law and Commu-
nications.

Brian Johnson for Photojournal-
ism and Photography in a Digital World
and Advanced Photojournalism-Multi-
media.

Mitch Kazel for Television News
1 and for Digital Technology in Broad-
cast News.

Eric Meyer for News Editing.

John Paul for Reporting 1.

Jay Rosenstein for Television
Documentary.

Jeff Unger for Reporting 1.

Ron Yates for Business and Finan-
cial Reporting and an international
reporting Discovery course.
In fall 2002, 14 course sections — a
record at the time — and 13 instructors
qualified for the list:




Leon Dash for Reporting 2.
Ehrlich for Journalism Movies.

Helle for Law and Communica-
tions.

Robin Kaler for Radio News.

Kazel for Television News 1 and
for Digital Technology in Broadcast
News.

Meyer for Graphics and Design.

Paul for Reporting 1.

Rosenstein for Journalism Issues
in the Television Documentary.

Teresa Savage for Angelou, the
Communicator: A Case Study in Mass
Media and Culture.

Unger for Reporting 1.
In addition, three graduate assistants
teaching lab sections of Introduction to
Journalism were included on the list for
the 2002-03 school year. Those honored
for fall were Amy Boerema, Sarah
Schiltz and Jo Ellen Werking-Weed-
man, who also made the spring list.
Graduate students are ranked only on
teaching effectiveness, not course quality.
In spring 2002, nine journalism
instructors and 12 journalism course sec-
tions received “excellent” ratings, placing
them in the top 30 percent of all courses
at the University:

Dash for Reporting 2.

Jennifer Follis for Reporting 1.

Helle for Law and Communica-
tions and for Law and the Internet.

Johnson for Advanced Photojour-
nalism-Multimedia.

Kazel for Television News 1 and
for Digital Technology in Broadcast
News.

Meyer for Online Publishing.

Paul for Reporting 1.

Rosenstein for Television News 2
and for Journalism Issues in the Televi-
sion Documentary.

Unger for Reporting 1.
All three semesters, Kazel received
special recognition for “outstanding”
scores in the top 10 percent of the Uni-
versity. Other professors who did this
include Unger in spring 2003, Yates in
spring 2003 and Paul for the spring 2002.
ILLINI JOURNALIST Page 3
Photo by L. Brian Stouffer
AMASONG CHORUS, a lesbian/feminist choir, is the subject of Assistant Professor Jay Rosenstein’s award-winning documentary to air on PBS.
Singing out on PBS
Rosenstein’s ‘Amasong Chorus: Singing Out’ is highly praised
By HEIDI WALDMAN
News-editorial graduate student
FACULTY MEMBER will soon see
‘‘
We wept all the way
through it.
The Champaign-Urbana premiere was
Oct. 8 as part of the Brown v. Board of Edu-
cation Jubilee Commemoration.
A his work on the small screen. “The
Amasong Chorus: Singing Out,” by
The film also was screened at the 27th
International San Francisco Gay and Lesbian
Assistant Professor Jay Rosenstein, will air
nationally June 8, 2004 on PBS. The docu-
mentary aired locally on WILL-TV in
November.
’’
time she saw it was with two friends who had
been fans of the choir.
“We wept all the way through it,” Boerger
Film Festival where it received a standing
ovation, Boerger said.
“The crowd went nuts,” Boerger said.
“There was a prolonged exuberance that was
Rosenstein’s work describes how a les- said. incredible.”
bian/feminist choir in Champaign-Urbana Rosenstein won the Documentary Award
was started 11 years ago and grew into a In addition, Rosenstein was a featured
of Excellence from the Broadcast Education
national award-winning group. The film cen- Association in April for his work. It was one speaker for the monthly Evanston, Ill., film
ters on founder Kristina Boerger and her of two given this year by the BEA, an educa- series Reeltime in April.
work as an activist and musician. tion association geared to college and univer- His award-winning documentary “Erased”
“I was instantly eager for us to do it,” sity radio and television professors. was shown as part of the evening’s collec-
Boerger said in a telephone interview. “I “It’s about how a choir that bills itself as a tion, which was curated by Columbia Col-
knew his work. I knew he was a beautiful lesbian/feminist group can exist in conserva- lege professor Mary Filice.
documentarian.” tive central Illinois,” Rosenstein said.
The PBS series “Independent Lens” The documentary took Rosenstein three Rosenstein also moderated and spoke at a
selected the film as part of this season’s doc- years to complete. panel titled Teaching Long-Form Documen-
umentaries. “It’s not quite put to bed yet,” Rosenstein tary in a Short-Attention-Span World at the
Boerger said the group voted unanimous- said of the editing process. The film will be annual Broadcast Education Association
ly to take part in the project and that the first 53 minutes for the PBS series. Conference in Las Vegas this past April.
Faculty notes: Book receives literary awards
Professor Walt Harrington’s book, “The In March, Liebovich will moderate a panel discussion on Native
Everlasting Stream: A True Story of Rabbits, American images in the media over the past two centuries and honor
Guns, Friendship, and Family,” was named a Dee Brown’s book, “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” published in
Newsday Best Book of 2002, a Kansas City 1970 and one of the best-selling books of all time.
Star Noteworthy Book of 2002 and a San Jose Brown was a librarian in the Agricultural Library at the Universi-
Mercury News Recommended Book of 2002. ty for 20 years.
The book also was a finalist in the nonfiction The panel discussion will be part of the ongoing jubilee remem-
category of the Kentucky Literary Awards this brance of the 1954 Supreme Court decision of Brown v. the Board of
year. Education of Topeka, Kan., which began the desegregation move-
Harrington has been guest participant at a ment.
variety of events including delivering the com-
Harrington
mencement address at the University of Mis-
Professor talks to Canadian journalists
souri School of Journalism, instructing at Harvard University’s Nie-
man Foundation project and presenting at the Wilmington, Del., Associate Professor Eric Meyer spoke at the Canadian Associa-
National Writers Workshop. tion of Journalists annual convention and to the staff of the Canadian
Broadcasting Company online publishing trends in May.
He also moderated panel discussions at the Association for Educa-

Multimedia site looks behind the scenes tion in Journalism and Mass Communications convention about
Teaching Associate Mitch Kazel’s Digital Technology in Broad- encouraging young journalists to seek employment with community
cast News students produced a behind the scenes look at UI-7 News. newspapers and about the latest research in visual communication.
The site is at http://www.comm.uiuc.edu/ui7/news.htm.

Faculty member trains Southeast Asian journalists

Nixon book examines impact on public, press Associate Professor Nancy Benson spent two months in Cam-
Professor Louis Liebovich’s book, “Richard Nixon, Watergate bodia training journalists from Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia and
and the Press: A Historical Retrospective,” is out. His sixth book is Laos working journalists at one of the Cambodia State Television sta-
an analysis of the impact upon the public and the press of the Water- tions who, for the first time, were covering parliamentary elections.
gate scandal in the past 30 years. She also was a panelist on international journalism at AEJMC.
FALL 2003
Out with the old . . .
A BIGGER, MORE COLORFUL DAILY ILLINI had its debut in August. The DI is now a broadsheet with a redesigned nameplate, two separate sec-
tions each day and full color on the covers and inside covers of both sections. Editor-in-chief Matt Stensland, a junior in news-editorial, said the
move from tabloid allowed more creativity with photos, graphics and design, more flexibility in planning and greater opportunities to display
national and local news. The DI also is running a regular full-page feature with color photographs on the back of the news section each week.
The new DI is printed on the presses of the News-Gazette of Champaign-Urbana. The debut issue included a promotional ad explaining to how
to fold the paper so as to continue reading it during classes.
Illini Media moves forward
Newspaper caps year of change with national award
By HEIDI WALDMAN
News-editorial graduate student
N ONE OF THE SHORTEST terms as edi-
I tor-in-chief of Daily Illini, Matt Stensland
and his coworkers have put a new face on
the DI as well as win a Pacemaker Award for the
second year in a row.
“When you talk to other college editors,”
Stensland said, “it’s how you’re judged. You’re
either a Pacemaker or not.”
Stensland and seven other Illini Media
employees traveled to Dallas in November to
receive the award at the Associated College
Press fall convention. Including non-dailies and
papers at community colleges, 23 other student
newspapers won the designation, which is based
on coverage and content, quality of writing and
reporting, leadership on the opinion page, evi-
dence of in-depth reporting, design, photogra-
phy, art and graphics.
It’s been a busy nine months for Stensland,
who was named editor in April and will finish
his term in December because Illini Media has
changed it hiring timetable to coincide to avoid
mid-semester turnover.
“Our first day on the job was protests on
campus,” Stensland said. “It was a great training
tool.”
The DI has moved to a broadsheet format,
printed at the News-Gazette in Champaign. The
local printer makes it possible for students to
watch the paper roll off the presses around 3
a.m.
ILLINI JOURNALIST
Publisher Mary Cory said that was an excit-
ing prospect for most.
“That still brings a tear to your eye when you
watch a press run,” Cory said.
The new format gives the student publication
a feel closer to that of a regular newspaper,
Stensland said. It allows photographers and
designers to do more. The back page of each
daily news section spotlights a full-color fea-
ture.
“You aim high,” Stensland said. “I think
we’ve worked really hard. We’re all tired. We’re
going to be able to look back on all the work
we’ve done.”
Internal changes streamlined the decision-
making process. The campus and metro desks
are now one unit.
The weekly magazine Buzz has also had its
share of changes. While it has been an enter-
tainment section for five years, it was restruc-
tured to include more community coverage. The
move happened shortly after CU CityView, for-
merly the Octopus, folded. The relaunch took
about six weeks and was complete in early
March.
“We were really to fill a void in this town,”
Cory said.
Another major change is in the works. Illini
Media Company plans to move into the heart of
Campustown between Legends, 522 E. Green
St., and Pizza Magia, 508 E. Green St. in the
next two years.
Cory said the move had been planned for
about 10 years. Plans are being developed to
Page 4
Students
win top
awards
Graduating seniors
take 1st and 3rd
in profile contest
NIVERSITY of Illinois
U journalism students won
first and third place in
personality profile writing in this
year’s William Randolph Hearst
Foundation Journalism Awards
Program.
Angie Leventis, a May 2003
graduate, placed first in the per-
sonality/profile category with
her article, “A life of their own /
Forty-five miles from campus,
another world exists,” which
profiles an Amish minister and
his life in Illinois Amish country.
It appeared in the Daily Illini.
Leventis received a $2,000
scholarship and competed at the
National Writing Championship
. . . in in June in San Francisco.
The University of Illinois
Department of Journalism
with received a matching grant.
“It was really fun,” Leventis
said of the national competition.
the She said they wrote several sto-
ries in San Franciso including
one that had to be about proper-
ty. To complete the assignment
new she profiled one of the poorest
districts.
Leventis recently finished an
internship at the Tacoma (Wash.)
Graphic by Connie Hsu, news-editorial graduate student News Tribune, where she joined
the staff full-time.
Another May graduate,
Lorien Menhennett, placed
third in the same category with
her article, “Respect: Glenn
Simpson Earns It Every Day,”
which highlighted a University
of Illinois janitor and his interac-
tion with students. She received
a $1,000 scholarship.
“I think a lot of the work done
at The Daily Illini and in (Jour-
nalism) 380 could win awards,”
Leventis said.
Broadcast students
create foundation to help pay for the project and
win 3 state awards
future projects. Broadcast journalism students
“Our goals were to get back to campus as from the University of Illinois
close as possible,” Cory said. “This is the first won first and third place in one
time we’ve found a perfect lot.”
The company plans to construct a four-story
building that would have room for the 300 stu-
category and second place in
another at the Illinois Broadcast-
ers Association student confer-
dent employees who work in its units: the Daily ence Oct. 3 in Springfield.
Illini, WPGU-FM “The Planet,” Illio yearbook, Ashley Kennedy and Breda
Buzz and Technograph magazine. Murphy won first place, the Sil-
Cory said by having all of the units under one ver Dome Award, for the best tel-
roof would facilitate multimedia cooperation. evision news/public affairs mag-
The company is currently divided between azine. They produced their half-
three facilities at 24 E. Green Street, 57 E. hour documentary, on interna-
Green Street and an office inside the YMCA on tional students at the University,
Wright Street. Plans call for a street-level win- as an independent study under
dow that will allow passers-by on Green Street Robin Kaler's supervision in
to look into the WPGU-FM studio during spring 2003.
broadcasts. Evan Halkias placed third in
The DI generated controversy, including the same category for producing
rejected calls for Chancellor Nancy Cantor to a program marking the one-year
censor the paper last winter, after the previous anniversary of 9/11. That pro-
editor, Angie Leventis, now a reporter for the gram was a group effort of Mitch
Tacoma News Tribune, approved publishing a Kazel's Digital Technology in
nationally distributed anti-Palestinian advertise- Broadcast News class.
ment and an anti-Israeli letter to the editor from Jeanine Ibrahim won sec-
a resident of the Pacific Northwest. ond place in the television news
“People should be exposed to as many things package category for her piece
as they can even if they’re hateful and disgust- on the friendship between two
ing,” Leventis said. “This is the real world. University High students: one
“The hardest thing is in your personal life, Jewish, one Muslim.
when you have friends who are Muslim or Jew- She produced it in Matt
ish who are very hurt. It's hard when you're the Ehrlich's Television Journalism I
symbol of what hurt them.” class last year.
FALL 2003
What stories can it tell?
Photo by Connie Hsu, news-editorial graduate student
THIS WASHINGTON HAND PRESS has been in the basement of Gregory Hall for
as long as anyone can remember. For an upcoming article about an effort to
perserve the historic press, Illini Journalist wants to know what you know about
it from your time at the University. Contact us via the Spike Web site at
www.comm.uiuc.edu/spike or mail your story to the Department of Journalism,
119 Gregory Hall MC-462, Urbana, IL 61801.
Alumni honored, remembered

Grad wins Maggie Award
Los Angeles Sports & Fitness Magazine,
published by a company founded in 2001
by alumnus Danny Greenberg, formerly
of Fox Sports and CNN/Sports Illustrated,
won the Best New Consumer Publication
award at the 2003 Maggie Awards competi-
tion honoring magazines published west of
the Mississippi River.
LAS&F is dedicated to running, cycling,
triathlon, mountain biking, adventure rac-
ing, beach sports, weight training and other
fitness activities in and around Los Ange-
les.

Benefactor left her mark
Maxine Greenwood, a Bronze Tablet
scholar and 1938 journalism graduate, died comm.uiuc.edu/spike or send it to Spike/IJ,
in August. Her memory lives on in the H. 119 Gregory Hall MC-462, Urbana, IL
Maxine Greenwood Video Editing Suite in 61801.
ILLINI JOURNALIST
Gregory Hall, and the H. Maxine Green-
wood Award, which provides scholarships,
fellowships, and teaching awards to jour-
nalism students and faculty.
Greenwood grew up in Urbana and was
the class valedictorian at Urbana High
School. After graduation from the Universi-
ty, she worked as a feature writer for The
Daily Dispatch in Moline, Ill.
She co-authored “Stunt Flying in the
Movies” with her husband and was an hon-
orary life member of the American Associ-
ation of University Women.
She became the editor of the Green Val-
ley (Arizona) AAUW branch newsletter.
Her survivors include her husband, Jim
Greenwood.
Submit your news online at http://www.
Alumnus finds
his comfort zone
A new journalism teacher writes how
lessons he learned from Professor Bob Reid
now play out in his own classroom
By MARK LUDWIG
Reprinted with permission from Quill Magazine
OR MANY OF US who went to jour-
F
nalism school at the University of Illi-
nois, Bob Reid is a figure larger than
life.
Quotes on the journalism department’s
Web site provide testimonials about Profes-
sor Reid’s influence. Here’s one:
“Listen to Bob Reid. His words will ring
in your ears the rest of your life.”
As journalism education struggles with
the proper balance between teaching profes-
sional skills and more academic-oriented
fare, we can learn some lessons from Profes-
sor Reid and his intensive drilling of journal- despite the whining about the workload,
ism students.
I was among Professor Reid’s first report-
ing students in 1980. His classes sure were
tough but the good kind of tough, the tough
that teaches you valuable lessons about your
chosen profession, and about yourself.
Professor Reid has come to my mind often
over the years since, and even more fre-
quently during the past year, as I have fol-
lowed him into journalism education. As I
struggled through my first semesters of
teaching beginning and advanced reporting
classes, I kept asking myself, “How did Bob
Reid handle this? How would Bob Reid han-
dle this?”
What was it that made him such a great
teacher? What things can I instill in my jour-
nalism students that he
instilled in me? Here are
some, in no particular
order:
A reverence for dead-
line. If you weren’t in class myself,
‘‘
I kept asking
with your work in hand
when the bell rang, you got
‘How did Bob Reid
an F. I sweated this one handle this?’
more than once not for me,
but for classmates who had
problems with punctuality.
An obsession with accuracy. This should
go without saying in journalism education,
’’
but I am surprised at the number of students
who make basic fact errors. In Professor
Reid’s world, if you misspelled somebody’s
name, you got an F.
Getting “real people” into stories. Don’t
limit your reporting to pronouncements of
officials and vested interests. Who are the
people affected by the news? That’s the real
story.
Digging below the surface of a story.
What is really going on?Don’t dwell on your
mistakes. Nobody’s perfect. Learn from your
errors and look forward.
But most importantly, Professor Reid
preached the importance of journalism as a
way to bring meaningful change to society
by informing the public. His was the same
notion that Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel
discuss in the first chapter of their book,
“The Elements of Journalism.” The authors
wrote, “The primary purpose of journalism is
to provide citizens with the information they
need to be free and self-governing.”
Some of my fellow students at Illinois
used to joke about Professor Reid’s propensi-
ty to describe this as having a “fire in the bel-ism requires,” Professor Reid wrote. “I’ll bet
ly” for a noble professional calling but I’m
not sure he ever actually used that term.
Nonetheless, the effect was the same.
I’ve found it hard to measure up as a jour-
nalism teacher, but I’m not giving up. Stu-
dents try to turn in late work frequently. Mark Donald Ludwig teaches reporting and
Sometimes I’ll let them; sometimes I won’t. editing at California State University, Sacra-
Cal State Sacramento is a commuter campus, mento.
Page 5
and students’ lives are more complicated
than they were at Illinois; sometimes com-
passion dictates giving them a break.
Whether that teaches the wrong lesson, I do
not know.
Some students have misspelled people’s
names. Some of them have received F’s. Oth-
ers I have been reluctant to fail, particularly
when it would mean failure of the entire
class. I have found a D to be about as effec-
tive in sending the message that they messed
up.
But I still insist on real people in stories
that are meaningful and insightful, and my
students must work, work, work. Over the
course of the semester, they improve, and
some see the value in it.
Well, most improve. Others wash out. In a
scene from the movie “A League of Their
Own,” the character played by Tom Hanks
tells a female ballplayer who wants to quit
because it’s too hard that baseball is hard
work; if it were easy, everybody would play
ball. Journalism is the same.
As I was preparing the syllabus for my
first section of advanced reporting last fall, I
called Bob Reid, to ask his advice and to
thank him for his influence in my life.
“I appreciate that,” Professor Reid told
me. “Just as students need feedback, teachers
need feedback, too.”
I knew exactly what he meant later, when
one of my students, working at an internship
at a small daily newspaper
near Sacramento, e-mailed
me about his experiences as
the first reporter on the
scene of a fatal freeway
accident involving a big rig.
“It was my ‘trial by fire’
today, and it marked the
very first time that I’ve ever
felt like a reporter,” he
wrote. “Not quite sure how
I like it; I got sick later that
day, as I am now. But man, what a crazy,
crazy thing to happen not only to those peo-
ple, but to me. And I was just writing to
thank you for giving me the knowledge and
the know-how to keep myself cool, be an
observer, get names, cars, makes, models and
how to write a crime story.”
Now that’s what makes teaching worth-
while.
I’m not arguing here that journalism
school ought to be exclusively skills-based.
In order to function effectively, journalists
need a broader understanding of the world
around them and the mass media’s place in
that world. But the value of skills training
should not be underestimated.
Professor Reid shared some teaching
materials with me last fall so that I could
have a running start. Along with those mate-
rials, he also attached some words of encour-
agement, now on the bulletin board above
my desk as a constant reminder:
“My main advice is to ask the students to
do a lot, have high expectations and rigorous
standards, and try to keep them inspired
about the role of journalists in a democratic
society, despite the hard work good journal-
you’ll be a great teacher.”
Those were just the words I needed to
hear. I sure hope he’s right.
After 20 years in the newspaper business,
FALL 2003
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
An
inspired
success
Reservist wears
2 journalism hats
By KELLY SODERLUND
May 2003 news editorial graduate
N THE CUSP of turning 30, Ismail
O Turay Jr. still considers himself a
young reporter trying to perfect his
craft. Turay does what he has to do when it
comes to pushing beyond what others might
consider to be obstacles.
“I always do my best,” he said. “As a per-
son with a learning disability and a journal-
ist who stutters, I must work twice as hard to
prove that I’m capable.”
No one knows that better than Associate
Professor Bob Reid, who takes considerable
pride in what Turay, his former student, has
accomplished.
“Ismail is very determined,” Reid said.
“When he gets a story done and if somebody
seems to be sitting on it, he can be very
determined on getting the story to run.”
One recent story was an in-depth exami-
nation of the life of prostitutes.
While in school, Turay spent the summer
of 1999 at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
After graduate school, Turay got a reporting
internship with Cox Newspapers at its Wash-
ington, D.C., bureau. He struggled at both
places with a stutter.
“I sometimes tell people that I’m a jour-
nalist,” Turay said, “but they don’t believe
me because I stutter and they say, ‘How can
you be a reporter if you stutter?’
“Toward the end of my internship at the
Cox Washington bureau, the bureau chief,
Andy Alexander, persuaded his boss to send
me to an intensive speech therapy program.
That was a wonderful experience. I learned
how to better control my breathing, which
increased fluency. Now, my words flow out
as smooth as honey. My stuttering was not
cured. I still have difficulties talking at
119 Gregory Hall, 801 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801
More
online at
http://www.comm.uiuc.edu/spike
ILLINI JOURNALIST
Ismail Turay Jr. sits at his desk at the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News. He also works as an army journalist one weekend each month.
times, but my speech is not as bad as it used
to be.”
Cox Newspapers wanted to keep him
within the chain, and Turay was offered a job
in June 2000 at the Springfield News-Sun in
Ohio. Turay has since moved to another
paper in the Cox chain, the Dayton Daily
News, covering county government and edu-
cation. But before he moved jobs his Ohio
Army National guard unit was activated
shortly after Sept. 11, 2001.
Turay spent two years in Army ROTC
while at the University and served six years
in the Illinois Army National Guard, includ-
ing one stint during which he was called to
active duty during finals week, before trans-
ferring to the Ohio Army National Guard. He
spent a year stationed with his infantry unit at
Fort Knox, Ky. He is now with a public
affairs unit.
“On drill weekends, I do my job as an
Army journalist. At the end of the weekend, I
take off my National Guard hat and become
a real journalist again come Monday morn-
ing,” Turay said.
While at the University, Turay started his
journalism career by covering sports for The
Daily Illini as a sophomore. His dream was to
become a big time sports reporter.
That dream changed after he interned at
the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1999.
While there, he covered his first murder trial
and other police stories.
“I also worked on a story about a 6-year-
old boy who accidentally shot his little broth-
er at point-blank range with a loaded pistol
they found in a Dumpster,” Turay said.
Other stories included two shooting sprees
that received national attention and a home-
less man whose body was found between two
abandoned buildings in a housing project. “I
fell in love with police reporting after that
summer, and that’s when I decided to leave
sports.”
Despite feeling intimidated by Reid at the
start of Reporting 2, the two developed a
relationship.
“He was one of my greatest supports at U
of I,” Turay said. “There were times when I
was discouraged, and he lifted my spirits. I
owe Bob Reid, Leon Dash, Jean McDonald,
Eric Meyer and others so much because they
believed in me — even when I didn’t believe
in myself — and prepared me well.”
It was Reid who suggested that he look at
the possibility of the University replacing a
fired football coach by one who was black.
He came back to Reid’s office and told
him the story of going to fired Coach Lou
Page 6
Photo courtesy Dayton Daily News
Tepper’s office and somehow getting an
interview. Turay was so overwhelmed during
the interview that he could barely get the
words out, but the coach told Turay to relax
and he would give him as much time as he
needed.
For Turay, one of his most inspiring
moments as a student came during a high-
profile interview. After trying unsuccessfully
for two years to get an interview with former
Chicago Bulls basketball player Bob Love as
a DI reporter he got the shot during a Chica-
go Tribune internship during the summer of
1998.
“He and I connected during the interview,”
Turay said. “His struggles with stuttering as a
child mirrored mine. We both cried at one
point as he described his hardships.”
At the end of the interview, Love told
Turay that reporters always had told him that
they understood his speech impediment, but
he knew they didn’t. Love told Turay he
understood.
“Those words meant a lot to me. He made
some other encouraging comments. ... He
said some other encouraging things that I
would rather keep to myself. I get choked up
when I think about them,” Turay said.
Non-profit Org.
(200 or more pieces)
U.S. Postage Paid
Permit #75
Champaign, IL