Norton named founding dean of new Journalism School

Morris H. Stocks, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at Ole Miss, made the following announcement earlier this afternoon:

“I am pleased to announce that Dr. Will Norton has accepted the position of
Dean of the Meek School of Journalism and New Media.

Dr. Norton is an accomplished administrator who has led the University of
Nebraska College of Journalism and Mass Communications for the last 19
years. As Dean, he has provided outstanding leadership, has built strong
relationships with alumni and the profession, and has led the program to a
position of national prominence. I am confident that his experience and
ability will serve the School and University well.

This appointment is effective July 1, 2009. Please join me in
congratulating Dr. Norton on his new position and responsibilities.”

Please join me in welcoming Dean Norton back to Ole Miss and in congratulating him for being named the founding dean of our new School of Journalism.

On journalism, news, and the future: words of wisdom from Chris Hedges

This has been a great week for me as a professor and chair of the department of Journalism at the University of Mississippi. It was even a greater week for our students. Many speakers came to campus and interacted with the students on “all things journalism.”
Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, gave the Stuart Bullion Memorial Lecture in Journalism. His speech “The Death of News and the Rise of the Entertainment Culture” touched on the major factors facing journalism in general, and newspapers in particular, today. Here are some excerpts:

The decline of newspapers is not about the replacement of the antiquated technology of news print with the lightning speed of the Internet. It does not signal an inevitable and salutary change. It is not a form of progress. The decline of newspapers is about the rise of the corporate state, the loss of civic and public responsibility on the part of much of our entrepreneurial class and the intellectual poverty of our post-literate world, a world where information is conveyed primarily through rapidly moving images rather than print.

The Internet will not save newspapers. Although all most newspapers have Web sites, and have had for a while, newspaper Web sites make up less than 10 percent of newspaper ad revenue. Advertisers have not gravitated to newspaper sites, either unsure of how to use the Internet or suspicious that it can’t match the viewer attention of older media. And the decline of revenues means an assault on the very heart of the news – the ability to gather and produce news. No internet site will ever bring in the kind of revenue that allows a large newspaper, such as The Los Angeles Times, to field a newsroom staff – a staff which even with all its lay offs — still employs 700 people.

Those who rely on the Internet gravitate to sites that reinforce their beliefs. The filtering of information through an ideological lens, which is destroying television journalism, defies the purpose of reporting. Journalism is about transmitting information that doesn’t care what you think. Reporting challenges, countermands or destabilizes established beliefs. Reporting, which is time-consuming and often expensive, begins from the premise that there are things we need to know and understand, even if these things make us uncomfortable. If we lose this ethic we are left with pandering, packaging and partisanship. We are left awash in a sea of competing propaganda. Bloggers, unlike most established reporters, rarely admit errors. They cannot get fired. Facts, for many bloggers, are interchangeable with opinions. Take a look at The Drudge Report. This may be the new face of what we call news.

We live in an age of moral nihilism. We have trashed our universities, turning them into vocational factories that produce corporate drones and chase after defense-related grants and funding. The humanities, the discipline that forces us to stand back and ask the broad moral questions of meaning and purpose, that challenges the validity of structures, that trains us to be self-reflective and critical of all cultural assumptions, have withered. And this assault has been a body blow to a free press, which is, like the humanities, designed to promote intellectual and moral questioning. The confusion of bread and circus with news means that social critics, those who do not shout clichés on cable news shows, but who challenge and question the assumptions and structures of the corporate state itself are left without a voice.

We are cleverly entertained during our descent. We have our own version of ancient Rome’s bread and circuses with our ubiquitous and elaborate spectacles, sporting events, celebrity gossip and television reality shows. Societies in decline, as the Roman philosopher Cicero wrote, see their emotional and political passions subsumed by the excitement and emotional life of the arena.

Television journalism is largely a farce. Celebrity reporters, masquerading as journalists, who make millions a year give a platform to the powerful and the famous so they can spin, equivocate, and lie. Sitting in a studio, putting on makeup, and chatting with Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, or Lawrence Summers has little to do with journalism. If you are a true journalist, you should start to worry if you make $5 million a year. No journalist has a comfortable, cozy relationship with the powerful. No journalist believes that serving the powerful is a primary part of his or her calling. Those in power fear and dislike journalists – and they should. Ask Amy Goodman, Seymour Hersh, Walter Pincus, Robert Scheer or David Cay Johnston.

You can watch the entire lecture here and I welcome your comments on the future of news, journalism and the rest of the issues raised by Mr. Hedges.

Photo by Robert Jordan

On Paul Guihard’s Day at Ole Miss: Hank Klibanoff Calls on the Killer(s) to Come Forward and Tell the Truth

From Hank Klibanoff speech at the Department of Journalism’s commemoration of a memorial bench in honor of the French journalist Paul L. Guihard who was killed on the Ole Miss campus in 1962.

I would call on the killer of Paul Guihard, or anyone who knows the story of how Paul Guihard came to die on this campus, to come forward and tell the truth. Tell us what happened.
To the killer: Tell us what happened. Tell us what you said, what he said, what you did, what he did. Tell us why you did it. Tell us how it felt.
Then tell us who you are. Tell us your story. What led you there that night, and what have you been doing since? Have you wrestled with the memory of your act? Everyday or just when you read about gatherings that memorialized the events here? How does this act fit in with your life? Was this just another in a series of criminal acts in your life, or was it an example of a highflying burst of idiocy?
Are you a spiritual or religious person? How have you squared your act with your faith? Do you believe in an afterlife? How do you think you’re going to end up? Where do you think you’re going to end up?

The day-long event was sponsored by the Campus Chapter of The Society of Professional Journalist under the leadership of Associate Professor Kathleen Wickham.
Watch for Klibanoff’s speech coming soon on our MCast.

Journalism Department Rededicates Farley Hall, Names Classrooms in Honor of Former Faculty

Written by Lee Eric Smith
11/09/2008

OXFORD, Miss. – Some 50 years ago at the University of Mississippi, journalism was taught in a small building that no longer exists and among the faculty were three professors who would distinguish themselves as they helped mold the minds of a generation of reporters and editors. In the process, those men ­ Jere Hoar, S. Gale Denley and Samuel S. Talbert ­ helped establish a legacy of excellence in journalism education that lives on in the newly renovated Farley Hall, home of the Department of Journalism.
On Friday (Nov. 7), the journalism department and the university rededicated Farley Hall, as well as three classrooms named to honor those professors: the J.R. Hoar Center for Excellence in Writing, the S. Gale Denley Digital Photo Lab and the Samuel S. Talbert Reading Room.
“Without question, they are the foundation of journalism at Ole Miss,” said Samir Husni, journalism chair and Hederman Lecturer. “They’ve touched countless lives and helped literally hundreds of journalists in their careers.” Read the entire story here.

Clarion-Ledger Executive Editor to Receive 50th Anniversary Silver Em Journalism Award

Ronnie Agnew

By Lee Smith and Deborah Purnell
OXFORD Miss. – To earn a prestigious Silver Em award from the University of Mississippi Department of Journalism, one must either be a Mississippi native who has excelled in news outside of the state or a Mississippi-based journalist who has left a mark on the Magnolia State. In Ronnie Agnew, the selection committee found both.

Agnew, a Saltillo native, is executive editor of The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, and on Nov. 6 becomes the 50th recipient of the Silver Em Award. The 7:15 p.m. banquet in Johnson Commons Ballroom is to be preceded by a 6 p.m. reception in the conference room of the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics. Tickets are available for $35. Call 662-915-7147.
“The beauty of choosing Ronnie is that he is both a Mississippian and he’s excelled in journalism in the state of Mississippi,” said Samir Husni, journalism chair. “He is at the highest position at the state’s largest newspaper, and he’s sort of become the spokesman of Mississippi journalism nationwide through his speeches. It’s a well-deserved honor, not just for his contributions to the state but nationwide and to the university.”

When Husni called to inform Agnew of the award, he was at a loss for words.

“When you look at the previous recipients, how could I not be speechless?” Agnew said. “And I’m not just talking about the people who got Pulitzer Prizes and other awards, but the people who put out excellent newspapers every day. To be included in this group is just phenomenal.”

Agnew has ties with several past recipients: John Emmerich Jr. gave him his first job out of college at The Greenwood Commonwealth and mentored him throughout his career. Bob Gordon preceded Agnew as managing editor at The Clarion-Ledger. “And I studied under Dr. Jere Hoar and S. Gale Denley,” Agnew said. “I look at this list and I’m in awe of being included.”

Before joining The Clarion-Ledger as managing editor in February 2001, Agnew was editor of the Dothan (Ala.) Eagle, where he also supervised four other daily and weekly newspapers. Other career stops included The Cincinnati Enquirer and a stint as managing editor at The Hattiesburg American. Agnew is also an alumnus of the Maynard Management Institute at Northwestern University, where he developed the skills for his current job as executive editor, including a focus on diversity.

“The emphasis placed on diversity made me understand it was OK to bring your viewpoints to the table and, in fact, we should do it,” Agnew told the Maynard Institute Web site in 2007. “If your race helps you bring new ideas to the table and make your newspaper a better place, then you should bring it. You need various viewpoints around the table including age, gender, even religion I think, because we’re becoming a world of different voices.”

In senior management, Agnew has been on the front lines of turmoil in the newspaper industry, which includes declining ad revenue, layoffs and competition from digital media. Yet he keeps his focus on providing what he sees as the key to newspaper survival.

“The one thing that won’t change is the demand for local news,” Agnew said. “Who’s going to cover the local football teams or science fairs? There’s an insatiable desire for local news, and I like our approach. We’ve launched new Web sites and other ventures. We’re not giving up.”

All of which speaks to Agnew’s larger vision – providing a valuable service to his readers.

“The approach we take is we try to help people,” he said. “We have to do watchdog journalism. We want to hold our public officials accountable and give people the information they need to be able to cope with their lives and make sound decisions. That’s why we do what we do. It would be boring if I just came in here for a check.”

That passion for journalism helped make Agnew almost a no-brainer for the Silver Em selection committee.

“Every year we have a lot of nominees, and we’re blessed that the well is full of names,” Husni said. “This year was a very easy choice for the committee. It is a well-deserved award. He’s earned it.”

The Silver Em has been awarded annually since 1958. Among the winners are the late Turner Catledge, a Neshoba County native who went on to become managing editor of The New York Times; Bill Minor, a figure in Mississippi journalism for 60 years; Jack Nelson, former Washington bureau chief of The Los Angeles Times; William Raspberry, former columnist for The Washington Post; and Rheta Grimsley-Johnson, an award-winning reporter and columnist.

For more information or to request assistance related to a disability, contact Julie Baker at the UM Department of Journalism, 662-915-7147.

Ole Miss Students Ask, and Fareed Zakaria, Editor of Newsweek International Answers

Earlier this morning Fareed Zakaria gave the keynote address at the FedEx Access Forum held at the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics at The University of Mississippi. Dr. Zakaria is the editor of Newsweek International and host of “Fareed Zakaria GPS” which airs Sundays worldwide on CNN.

My students have prepared some questions to ask Dr. Zakaria prior to the Presidential Debate that is taking place tonight on our campus. The students who are enrolled in the Debate Internship Class submitted the questions to me and I, in turn, sat down with Dr. Zakaria and asked him the questions.

Do you feel that the media has actually been biased in its coverage favoring one candidate over the other?

I think there is no such as thing as the media anymore. I never quite understand what people mean with the disaggregated nature of the media right now. Has Fox News been biased in covering the candidates? I leave it to you to answer that question. I think if you take the media as a totality, no, I don’t think it has been biased, but any individual player in the media that you happen to have a particular gripe with, you will probably always find that true. I will say with some sincerity and honesty that the two organizations that I represent, CNN and Newsweek, I don’t think we are particularly biased. I think there are some ways in which coverage takes place which reflect certain institutional biases of neutral media. When you spring a completely new candidate on the scene like Sarah Palin, there is going to be a feeding frenzy to try to figure out who she is. That would have happened whether she were left wing or right wing. Other than that, no, I think in general that CNN and Newsweek, at least, have been pretty balanced.

How do you try to keep Newsweek from being bias toward one of the candidates?

I don’t try particularly, to be honest. I think what people want more, particularly from places like Newsweek, are interesting analysis and news reporting that there is value in it; that in some way tells them something they don’t know. If you can do interesting research and interesting reporting, have interesting analysis, sometimes it is going to point in one direction and sometimes it is going to point in the other. I don’t lose a lot of sleep if one week there are two articles that seem to aimed at McCain and another day there are two articles aimed at Obama. We don’t consciously try to make life easy for one candidate or the other, but if it turns out one way or the other, so be it. We are not the Pope. We are trying to run an interesting magazine.

Does Newsweek allow its staff to be a part of a political party?

We certainly allow them to identify as republicans or democrats, but as you know, that is a very basic form of identification. But, no, they cannot join a campaign and I think even there, one should distinguish between columnists, who are very clear about their opinions. It would come as no surprise for someone to discover that Bill Crystal would like for McCain to be elected. The crucial issue is if people are reporting on a campaign, they should not, in any way, be part of that campaign or another one. We do not allow people to join campaigns.

How different is when you make a decision what will go in Newsweek International as opposed to the Newsweek?

About 70 percent of Newsweek International is unique content. It is not in Newsweek USA. The difference is we are a smaller magazine but we are more up market, for lack of a better term. Our readers tend to be more educated, more affluent, more traveled. What we try to provide in Newsweek International is a kind of bulls-eye view of global trends, of global events, global analysis, so that it will be of equal interest to businessmen from Singapore, a journalist in Munich and head of an NGO in Brazil. The trends have to be the ones that link us together in some way, that those ones are in some way or another effect all of us as citizens of the globe. It has very global aspirations. Newsweek USA is different. It is a larger magazine which very much occupies an important place in American culture and politics and tries to fulfill that responsibility.

If you were moderating the panel here, the first debate between Obama and McCain at The University of Mississippi, what would be the first question you would ask them?

I think the first question to really ask the candidates is how would you rebuild American power, because they can have a debate about foreign policy all you want, but the reality is that the United States is in a position where its power has just been hollowed out. We are financially in bad shape. We are economically going into a recession. We are not going to have the money to pay for all the elaborate schemes that people will want. We are challenged rebuilding our influence around the world. That would be the real question. How do you rebuild American power and influence before you can start having various grand designs around the world.

Ole Miss and Oxford will be in the eye of the hurricane because the debate is here. Do you think the location of the debate is going to be of any importance or do you think the history of Ole Miss and Mississippi will be a factor in this debate?

There is no question that there is some meaning to the location, whether it was intended or not. When the rest of the world suddenly looks at the United States, this is the great central drama of American history—the drama of race. To have it happen in one of the most important cities and to have the first African-American nominated, I think it is a very big issue, but I think one of the ways we have moved forward as a country is that I very much doubt it will be mentioned by either candidate. That is how is should be, because Barack Obama is a candidate for the American presidency who happens to be an African-American, not an African-American candidate for the American presidency. That itself is a sign of huge progress.

Ole Miss Students Ask and Rick Stengel, TIME Managing Editor, Answers Their Presidential Debate Questions

The following article appeared on page one of The Oxford Eagle newspaper on Monday Sept. 15:

UM Students Interview TIME Editor About Debate
By Samir A. Husni
Special to The Eagle

On Thursday Richard Stengel, TIME managing editor, was one of two moderators at the Forum on Service and Civic Engagement at Columbia University in New York that featured Barack Obama and John McCain.
On Friday students from Ole Miss turned the tables on Stengel by asking him some questions about the media’s coverage of the presidential campaigns and his thoughts on next week’s debate at The University of Mississippi.
The UM students are enrolled in the Journalism 495 Internship class that is preparing the students to work with the media expected to be in Oxford next week for the Sept. 26 debate. The students submitted the questions to their professor, Samir Husni, chairman of the journalism department, and he, in turn, asked Stegnel for his answers.

Do you feel that the media has actually been biased in its’ coverage favoring one candidate over the other?

I think the media is very biased, extremely biased, biased in favor of stories that people want to read, biased in favor of getting those stories on the front page, biased in favor of getting those stories talked about. I think, yes, there are classic studies that show that people in the media tend to be more liberal than people at large, but the main media bias that people have is for stories that are interesting, for facts that people don’t know. I think, as far as what you had during the primaries, was a really interesting and historically unprecedented race on the democratic side and two candidates in the case of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who were enormous draws for people. That did consume a lot of the air in the room and much of the focus, and I think that seems to be where much of the criticism and the bias comes from. I don’t know if that answers the question for students. They probably wouldn’t have follow-ups, but that is my feelings about it.

How come we have not seen or heard anything about Joe Biden? They said that all of the coverage has been shifted to Sarah Palin, but the other Vice President is not receiving as much publicity?

I am stepping off the last question. My criticism of the media is not bias, it is confidence. I think what we have seen with Joe Biden vs. Sarah Palin, and part of this is that people alas from the media, and this is part of our problem is that we don’t think about our readers and our viewers so much. We are thinking about ourselves and our own media eco chamber and a lot of people feel that Joe Biden is a known quantity. He ran this time for the presidency, so he was in so far as people are vetted and their biography are done, that was done in primary process, which is not to say that people don’t do it again. Sarah Palin is the new girl in town, the flavor of the month. She is a complete unknown and people get excited about that. Journalists get excited about that, and certainly in terms of people following the Sarah Palin story, whether it is her biography or her views on the issues. People have been fascinated by it. That goes back to my original point about bias people are biased in favor of stories that people want to read. Sarah Palin is the story that people want to read these days.

How do you try to keep TIME from being bias toward one of the candidates?

We try very hard. I want stories that have a strong point of view and that are reported analysis and I don’t want journalists to camouflage the fact that they feel one point of view is better than another or one critique is smarter than another. I try to have the wings of the plane be leveled and devote as much attention to the republican candidate as the democratic candidate and try to be equally tough on both and equally fair to both. For example, we have the candidates writing pieces for the magazine every other week on topics that we give them and this week is on national service. They each have the same number of words and they each have the same number of topics and we publish it. That in itself is a kind of print forum that we do every week and again, in so far as the Democratic primary process was more interesting, lasted longer than the Republican side, we did devote more time and space to that, but I think that we were just covering the story.

Does TIME Magazine allow its’ staff to be a part of a political party?

We do not allow people to actively campaign or participate in campaigns. They are obviously not allowed to be on staff or consult for campaigns. For example, Samantha Powers, a contributing writer for us and contributing columnist, and when she decided at one point to go full-time staff for Barack Obama, we suspended her column and we just don’t go for that. I haven’t gotten any requests from people that say they are going to work for Senator McCain or Senator Obama. One of the things we don’t do, and I know some journalists say that journalists shouldn’t even vote, I certainly don’t believe that should be the case and I certainly encourage people to vote and I believe that no matter who people vote for, that they can be objective and unbiased in their reporting, writing and their coverage too.

I remember you writing an editorial one time questioning whether journalists should endorse candidates.

It was actually more towards newspapers. I felt that, particularly young readers of newspapers, if even such a species exist, don’t get the classic Chinese Wall between the editorial page and the news pages and that the editorial pages are kind of a distantial limb of when newspapers were once tied to political parties and I think that younger readers don’t get that. If a newspaper endorses Senator McCain, why would there be fair to Barack Obama or if a newspaper endorses Barack Obama, why would they be fair to Senator McCain? I think that people who grew up in the newspaper culture and know about that divide and how carefully it was protected, can understand that. I think it is real disservice to younger readers and they don’t get it.

How influential do you feel the younger generation is on American politics?

I think that the younger generation is incredibly influential, not only in politics, but in business and commerce because they are the sort of bell weather of where things are going. You have to think in this particular election, in some ways they are a wild card, because I think the polling this year, and we will see when the results are finally in, has been much more difficult than any time in history, not just because more and more people, particularly young people, use cell phones and you can’t call them at home the way traditional pollsters do, but that there are people who are coming out of the woodwork, young people in particular, that pollsters don’t know about. We have seen how that has affected some of the democratic parties and it will be interesting to see how it affects the general election.

If you were moderating the panel here, the first debate between Obama and McCain at The University of Mississippi, what would be the first question you would ask them?

What I would ask them is that we really want the American people to get a glimpse of both of you, of who you really are, what you really believe government could do and should do, how you view the country and I would want them both to be kind of stripped away of so much of the preparation that they are doing and speak from the heart. It is a little like Joe Klein’s recent book where he says politicians should be unleashed from their consultants, and it wouldn’t so much be the first question but the ground rules that they have to sort of abandon all of their crutches that they have carefully built up over the months and speak directly and candidly from the heart.

Ole Miss and Oxford will be in the eye of the hurricane because the debate is here. Do you think the location of the debate is going to be of any importance or do you think the history of Ole Miss and Mississippi will be a factor in this debate?

Yes. I think the candidates would be very smart and it would be in their interests to play up the special history of Ole Miss and the historic role that James Meredith played in integrating the campus and what a symbol that was for America. I think it shows how far we’ve come in such short time, particularly with the first African American presidential nominee from a major party, I think both candidates need to address that and I think it would be to their benefit and to the benefit of the American public.

Teens converge on J-Department for the Presidential Debate Panel: Teens and Politics

Hosted by the Department of Journalism, and sponsored by Justine magazine, 13 teenager-panelists from across Tennessee and Mississippi engaged in a lively debate on the role of teens and politics. The event took place on Tuesday Sept. 9 at 4:00 pm at the Overby Center at the University of Mississippi. Jana Kerr Pettey, editorial director and publisher of Justine magazine moderated the panel. The panelist were selected as a result of a Justine magazine competition. Look for the entire panel discussion airing soon on our mcast internet video broadcast. (photo by Noah Bunn).

UM Journalism Faculty Member Promoted, Wins Public Relations Awards

Ole Miss Journalism faculty member Robin Street, who specializes in teaching public relations, has received both a promotion and a prestigious public relations award.

Street’s promotion to Lecturer in the Ole Miss Department of Journalism took effect this fall. She was also designated a Senior Practitioner by the Southern Public Relations Federation at their conference this summer, where she additionally won two awards of excellence for her work. Senior Practitioners are recognized for their professionalism, high ethical standards, and experience in the field.

SPRF is composed of public relations professionals in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Louisiana.

Longtime Ole Miss Journalism Faculty Member S. Gale Denley dead at 72

Longtime University of Mississippi Department of Journalism and Calhoun County Journal publisher S. Gale Denley died early this morning at Baptist Memorial Hospital Oxford following a lengthy illness. He was 72.

Denley was also a former syndicated columnist. At Ole Miss he served as professor of journalism and director of the Student Media Center, which was renamed in his honor following his retirement. He was actively involved in MPA affairs, including serving as its president in 1983. He was inducted into the MPA Hall of Fame in 1996.

On his blog this morning Sid Salter wrote “My friend and mentor S. Gale Denley of Bruce died shortly before 3 a.m. this morning at Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi in Oxford of complications from kidney disease… Read Sid’s entire obit here.

The funeral will be Sunday at 3 p.m. at Bruce United Methodist Church. The body is at Parker Memorial Funeral Home in Bruce.