Stephanie Lulay’s (BS ’08, journalism) start-up venture, Block Club Chicago—whose mission is to deliver reliable, nonpartisan, and essential coverage of Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods—has become a news staple for readers throughout the city since its founding in 2018.
Lulay serves as executive editor and co-founder of the award-winning newsroom, which has 18,000 paid subscribers, more than 130,000 newsletter subscribers, and an average of 2.3 million pageviews a month. Over seven years, the newsroom has grown from a staff of eight reporters and editors to a staff of 39. Lulay credits her journalism education at Illinois as a key to her success.
“The [University of Illinois] gave me the problem-solving skills and the confidence I needed to succeed in this industry,” she said.
In honor of her career accomplishments and her continued engagement as an alum, Lulay was chosen as the winner of the 2025 College of Media Emerging Leader Award.
“The College of Media is pleased to award Stephanie Lulay as our 2025 Emerging Leader for her innovative and entrepreneurial path in the journalism industry, along with her enthusiasm for sharing her experiences with our students and alumni,” said Dean Tracy Sulkin. “Stephanie is an alum who exemplifies, in an ever-changing media landscape, how to enhance the lives of people in our state.”
Lulay calls Block Club Chicago a “freemium site”—very few articles are paywalled and most stories are accessible for free, including breaking news, health, election coverage, and news from underserved South Side and West Side neighborhoods. They also produce twice-weekly Block Club Chicago podcasts, hosted by fellow Illinois journalism alum Jon Hansen (BS ’06).
The [University of Illinois] gave me the problem-solving skills and the confidence I needed to succeed in this industry.
Stephanie Lulay
Executive Editor and Co-Founder of Block Club Chicago
Their reporter model is different from traditional newspapers, too. Rather than having beats, reporters are assigned to neighborhoods, tasked with covering whatever news is most important that day.
Lulay says their “big bet” is when they put reporters on the ground every day, it will lead to a more accurate portrayal of the neighborhoods in Chicago and build reader trust.
“That’s what makes me so excited about working for a local newsroom in this time. I When you know who is serving you, and you see them all the time — at your kid’s school, at a community meeting —that is key to rebuilding trust between media and people,” Lulay said.
Lulay says she took what she learned at college with her into the workforce—including the hands-on experience she gained from writing and editing for The Daily Illini and the confidence she built from working closely with Brant Houston, Knight Chair Professor in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting in the Department of Journalism.
The staff of Block Club Chicago.
“Brant really encouraged me to dig into some big investigative stories and to not think of myself just as a student, but as an investigative journalist,” she said. “Because of that, I was able to get real-life professional experience.”
When Lulay and 115 reporters across the country lost their jobs after DNAinfo sites shuttered in November 2017, one of the first calls she made was to Houston.
Lulay describes Houston as “a godfather in the nonprofit news movement,” and said he gave her the right connections and insight to think through their plan at the start of Block Club Chicago.
Lulay has stayed engaged with College of Media students through educational webinars and classroom visits.
She hopes Block Club Chicago’s success might inspire others to start up similar newsrooms across the country, especially recent College of Media graduates.
“I would love to see some Illini students graduate, pop up in a news desert, and start a newsroom there,” Lulay said. “It’s hard work, but there is so much opportunity right now in nonprofit news and I’d love to see some students capitalizing on that.”
Leon Dash, winner of a Pulitzer Prize and Swanlund Chair Professor of Journalism, sat in his office chair on the third floor of Gregory Hall, appearing calm and collected on his last day of teaching at the College of Media.
Leon Dash at his retirement celebration on May 13, 2025. (Photo by Kelly Youngblood.)
With 27 years of classroom instruction soon to be behind him, and a 30-plus-year career as an investigative news reporter for The Washington Post in his rearview mirror, Dash was looking forward to his next step—retirement.
Dash has always tended to look ahead to the next step, the next chapter, the next story.
This inclination may have contributed to him becoming a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1987 for a six-part series on teenage pregnancy, and eventually winning the Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Journalism in 1995 for an eight-part series, “Rosa Lee’s Story,” that shed light on an impoverished, urban family trapped in intergenerational cycles of crime and addiction.
Dash followed Rosa Lee Cunningham, her children, and her grandchildren for four years, chronicling their struggles and occasional victories for TheWashington Post series, which also won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for setting “the standard for reporting about poverty.”
The piece was also named to the “Top 100 Works of Journalism of the Century” by the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University.
A year after winning the Pulitzer, Dash published a book based on the series, Rosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America. Dash didn’t know it yet but that book, along with another one he wrote about teen pregnancy—When Children Want Children: The Urban Crisis of Teenage Childbearing—would become required reading for his journalism students one day.
Dash’s trailblazing efforts in immersion journalism opened many doors for him, including an opportunity to join the faculty at the College of Media. In Fall 1998, he stood in front of his first class of college students and began the next half of his journalism career—this time as an instructor.
Dash said he was intimidated at first but quickly found his footing thanks to his “self-appointed” faculty mentor and fellow professor of journalism, the late Bob Reid. With Reid’s guidance, Dash said his transition from the newsroom to classroom went very smoothly.
Throughout his extraordinary career, Dash has seen the journalism landscape undergo several changes. The most notable for him is a decline in assertive news reporting.
“So many of the publications are weak when it comes to standing up to power. That used to not be the case,” he said.
At the Post, Dash said he was expected to confront people in power, if necessary, to get answers to the tough questions.
But now more than ever, media outlets are fearful of economic and legal repercussions, he said.
“That was a big disappointment to me. It was painful to watch,” he said. “That kind of interference was unheard of in the past.”
Dash also believes social media has blurred the lines between what is considered news and what is considered opinion, which creates confusion; and people tend to look to a variety of political figures and social influencers for their news today, rather than trained journalists, which Dash views as “very dangerous.”
About 10 years ago, he ran into a former newspaper colleague who told him her job required her to produce two to three different ledes a day for the same story. Using the same facts, the reporter told Dash she had to create a new enticing hook to reel in more readers.
For Dash, who was accustomed to spending months on stories, the idea of churning out multiple ledes a day sounded like “a nightmare.”
Dash says he has no solutions for the many issues plaguing the journalism industry today but does encourage others to think for themselves.
He knows social media is here to stay and engages on a few platforms, sometimes connecting with former students.
Leon Dash with students in his Great Books of Journalism course in Fall 2019.
He even joined a Facebook Group, which is now inactive, called “Dash Survivors,” created by former students to playfully discuss Dash’s more rigorous coursework.
Dash’s current news diet includes online subscriptions to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The News-Gazette. He never thought he’d make the transition from reading print news to digital news but now he says it’s more convenient.
“I no longer have ink stains on my fingers from reading the newspaper,” he said.
Dash will miss a lot about teaching, especially working with students who have the ability and genuine interest to become a successful journalist one day.
“Those kinds of revelations are always pleasant, and I’ll miss that,” he said.
But Dash is already looking ahead to his next piece of work. Namely, he said: “A book I need to write.”
He said his forthcoming book “entails lengthy interviews with Black and white Americans focusing on what, when, and under what circumstances did they have a defining ethnic experience on the American landscape.”
The honorary degree award recognizes individuals who have shown exemplary, extraordinary, and distinguished contributions to knowledge and creativity in a specific field, or sustained activity of uncommon merit.
The Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising was the key sponsor of Burrell’s honorary degree, with three additional departments supporting his nomination, including the Department of African American Studies, the Marketing Group in the Department of Business Administration, and the Department of Communication.
Jason P. Chambers, professor of advertising and associate dean for access and engagement at the College of Media, describes Burrell as his “favorite person in the history of the [advertising] industry.”
Tom Burrell is unquestionably a pioneer in the field of advertising. He helped to normalize the image of African Americans in advertising.
Jason P. Chambers
Advertising Professor and Author of Advertising Revolutionary: The Life and Work of Tom Burrell
“He started in advertising at a time in which the number of African Americans operating in a professional capacity could have been measured in the dozens,” Chambers said. “He is one of the people who is singularly responsible for helping to get African Americans on TV.”
Burrell’s career, first as a copywriter and then as an agency owner of the Burrell Communications Group, spans more than 40 years. He created an approach to advertising, “positive realism,” that is still utilized today in the field.
Burrell has been elected to the American Advertising Federation Hall of Fame, one of the industry’s highest honors. He also received the Albert Lasker Award for Lifetime Achievement in Advertising and the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism. In 2017, he became the first African American creative elected to the One Club Creative Hall of Fame.
Despite the many challenges he faced throughout his career, Chambers said Burrell provided an opening into advertising for African Americans who likely otherwise would not have found one, giving them a place to learn the business, to develop as professionals, and to be themselves.
“Tom Burrell is unquestionably a pioneer in the field of advertising,” Chambers said. “He helped to normalize the image of African Americans in advertising.”
The Sandage Department of Advertising will host a luncheon for students and faculty to meet Burrell while he is on campus.
Nancy Benson, professor emerita of journalism, died on April 21, 2025. She was 72 years old.
In 1996, she was hired as a visiting professor in the Department of Journalism and became an assistant professor in 1997. She was promoted to associate professor in 2003 and to full professor in 2014. Before retiring in 2019, she served as interim head of the Department of Journalism.
During her 40-year career in broadcast journalism at various television and radio stations across the Midwest, including morning drive anchor and reporter at WMAQ radio in Chicago, Benson won numerous awards for reporting.
The highlight of her teaching career was developing an international reporting course. After a term of teaching about a particular country, she traveled with her students to that country. There, they would research and produce stories about issues that otherwise had been ignored. Nancy took students to Peru, China, Romania, Italy, and Turkey.
April 14, 2025 | Ruth Kwak, Office of the Chief Information Officer, Technology Services
When the Website Management Center of Expertise collaborated with the College of Media, the College of Law and the School of Social Work to solve the challenges on each unit’s websites, the result was three new websites and a roadmap for building more.
Launched just one year ago from the grassroots efforts of the Website Implementation Guidelines Group, the Web CoE was established as part of the universitywide Operational Excellence initiative. With a mission to streamline dedicated resources and centralize expertise, the Web CoE now serves as a vital resource for helping units campuswide create and manage secure, accessible, and Illinois-branded websites.
How does it work?
At the heart of the Web CoE is its Website Management Consulting Service, designed to serve any group on campus—regardless of their levels of web experience. Groups can submit a ticket to start the consultation process, whether they’ve inherited an outdated website or are building one from scratch. The consulting team meets with the group to understand their specific goals, audience, technical capacity and needs. Based on this consultation, the team provides expert recommendations and, when appropriate, full-service migration support. Visit the Website Management Consulting Service webpage to learn more about the details of the process.
One of the biggest draws of working with the Web CoE is that it guarantees the final product will meet the university’s standards for accessibility, privacy, security and branding.
Previous Website Implementation Guidelines Group co-leader and current program director for the Website Management Center of Expertise, Cordelia Geiken shared more about why the Web CoE was identified as a part of the Operational Excellence initiative.
“People have been making websites at U of I since Mosaic in 1993, but it’s been all over the place. Our goal is to make things more streamlined, and to enable people to get the help they need in order to be accessible, secure and also branded…. Illinois branding is still pretty new. People are really excited about it and want to improve the user experience on their sites. If you’re on a University of Illinois site, you should know you’re on one.”
People have been making websites at U of I since Mosaic in 1993, but it’s been all over the place. Our goal is to make things more streamlined, and to enable people to get the help they need to be accessible, secure and branded.
Cordelia Geiken
Program Director for the Website Management Center of Expertise
Early adopters
This spring, the Web CoE completed full website implementation engagements with its first three early adopters: the College of Law, the College of Media and the School of Social Work. These projects were not only impactful for the individual units, but also valuable learning experiences for the Web CoE itself. The Web CoE engaged in a full website migration for each early adopter.
Geiken said that the early adopters each had a unique situation that the Web CoE had to work through. “All of campus will benefit from the unique situations those units faced,” Geiken said.
The College of Media
Without a web developer on staff, Holly Rushakoff, director of communications for the College of Media, was seeking assistance to update the college’s site when she was connected with Cordelia Geiken.
The College of Media’s previous homepage.
Media’s previous website was on Drupal and was a redesign that had been completed in 2019. According to Rushakoff, the web design of their page had impactful landing pages, but the other pages were simple with limited design and functionality options. Rushakoff also explained that the photos had to be a certain width or else it would break the flow of the page. These limitations were addressed with the Web CoE.
“The new website has accessibility enhancements and an incredible selection of design and layout options, from buttons to call-to-action blocks to clickable cards, plus photo slideshows, pull-quotes, and many header styles—and of course Illinois orange and blue templates to choose from. These design features enable us to make our stories much more visually dynamic and pull readers through the story or a landing page in a more engaging way, with multiple entry points,” Rushakoff said.
Working on the site was a year-long process, with many working meetings between Rushakoff and her Web CoE liaison, Liz Shallenberger, user experience design specialist at Technology Services.
The College of Media’s new website adheres to campus brand guidelines.
“The Web CoE team offered a wide range of expertise in web, graphic and user experience design, information architecture, accessibility and more. There were no questions they couldn’t answer! It was incredibly helpful and reassuring to have guidance from the Website Management Center of Expertise team throughout the entire process,” Rushakoff said.
Throughout the engagement, the College of Media was responsible for tasks such as auditing and organizing their content, tracking accessibility reviews, redesigning past stories with the new story template, updating short URLs and testing the development site for any issues before launch.
“I had an excellent experience working with the team from the Website Management Center of Expertise! Although it was a lot of extra work, it was primarily a joyful process because we could see the exciting transformation as we worked on the development site and chipped away at our milestones,” Rushakoff said.
The final product is a new Illinois-branded, accessible and secure website hosted on the Tech Services server, with people from the College of Media ready to perform site maintenance.
Krista Gaedtke, senior director of strategic marketing and communications for the College of Law was always looking for ways to stay connected with what was happening with website design at a campus level. The College of Law had been needing a refresh for a while, and so when talks about the Website Management Center of Expertise reached Gaedtke, she immediately submitted a ticket requesting available resources.
“Our previous site was not in terrible shape – it was nicely designed, well-structured, responsive and accessible, but it was decidedly not ‘on brand.’ There were also a few features that we were using on our previous site that didn’t provide the level of customization or flexibility that we needed, so finding viable alternative solutions was also a priority for the migration,” said Gaedtke.
According to Gaedtke, WordPress had been meeting their needs sufficiently, and so they opted to migrate their old WordPress site onto another WordPress site, focusing on minor re-structuring instead of changing the host.
“The end result is a website that is now fully compliant with Illinois brand guidelines and accessibility standards and takes advantage of many of the design features and components available within the Illinois web theme,” Gaedtke said.
In addition, Gaedtke noted that they were able to complete the website migration at no cost to the College of Law.
“Having gone through the process for a full-service website redesign project within the past ten years, I am well aware of the significant cost savings we were able to achieve with this partnership,” Gaedtke said. “I think we can easily say that we saved the College of Law at least $50,000 on this project, if not more.”
Gaedtke also mentioned several other benefits to partnering with the Web CoE, including regular access to the developers who were building the tools, the ability to offer feedback at will, see adjustments being made in real-time and suggest future developments.
Geiken said that the Web CoE worked with the College of Law for a full migration, and the College of Law then opted to perform their own future regular maintenance. However, as an official user of the Illinois Web theme, the College of Law will now have first access to all new product releases on the Illinois Web theme and tech support whenever needed.
“There was a point person for the project on both the Web CoE team and on our team. Dena Strong was assigned as our Web CoE liaison for the project; her background is user experience design, but she had to wear many different hats throughout our project, and she was an absolute rockstar. We met on a bi-weekly basis,” Gaedtke said.
Dena Strong, the Web CoE liaison for the project, is a senior information design specialist at Technology Services.
Gaedtke explained that the Web CoE drove the overall management of the project, prioritized action items, migrated all the content over to a development site, worked with them to make it look how they wanted; they performed troubleshooting and also advised on how to utilize certain tools.
On the other hand, Gaedtke’s team worked on making sure all the content was accurate and up-to-date, structured as they wanted it to be, and designed consistently across pages. As the site was on the College of Law’s server, they were also responsible for ensuring that they were aligned to the College of Law’s privacy and security best practices.
“There were certainly some growing pains along the way… simply because this was the first time that either of our teams were engaged in this type of project,” said Gaedtke. “We are really pleased with the end result.”
Over the years, the School of Social Work has had many conversations with units on campus about their lack of internal web support. Without internal staff dedicated to web support, they had been working with an external vendor.
“We started with well-designed, accessible, highly customized site that was expensive to maintain. Through migration [with the Web CoE], we transitioned to a clean, fresh design with significantly improved content organization. The new site aligns with our brand, enhances user experience and will hopefully be much easier to maintain in the long run,” said Becky Ponder, director of communications for the School of Social Work.
The previous site was a vended site hosted on WordPress with extensive customization.
“We had to do custom scripting in order to export their site out from their old environment to their current one. They don’t have staff to maintain their site, so we came up with a solution to address that, working with field consultants at Tech Services. We were able to hire a part-time field consultant to do maintenance for them,” Geiken said.
According to Ponder, the Website CoE managed more of the technical aspects of the site, while the School of Social work’s team focused on content, design preferences and identifying functional needs.
Social Work partnered up with Web CoE liaison and lead consultant for the project Huaqi Zhang, user experience design specialist at Technology Services.
“It was a true partnership, with both teams working diligently to ensure the site met our goals,” Ponder said.
The result was a full migration to a fresh site with dedicated web maintenance support from Tech Services. Receiving overall website support from campus has resulted in significant cost savings for the School of Social Work.
“One of the biggest takeaways from this migration is how complex website transitions can be, even with a great support team. Every website has unique needs, and ensuring all integrations function properly takes time and patience. It was a learning experience for everyone involved! While it was a complex transition, we’re grateful to have the new site launched and are very happy with it,” Ponder said.
The Web CoE has created a list of campus web resources for anyone at the university. This list of resources will be ever-evolving, updated with resources to support groups with all web-related concerns.
“Not everybody needs someone else to set up or maintain their sites. So we wanted to provide some resources for those who do have staff who can do all this for them. This is where collaboration comes in, and this is what this resources page and what our group is all about. We are trying to create a place for people to collaborate, to use whatever resources they have to join in the efforts to unify and protect our websites. So far, it has produced a much better product across the board,” Geiken said. Following the work on the three early adopter’s websites, the Web CoE will be reflecting and refining the program processes while engaging with the College of Applied Health Sciences on a website migration. The Web CoE will be ready to work with more units in the later summer of 2025. If you’re interested in learning more or working with the Web CoE, submit a ticket to start a conversation or to get on the list.
On February 25, 2025, the Suburban Illini Club hosted the College of Media for “Engaging in a Divided Society: Lessons from Journalism,” a panel discussion on how to engage with others in an age of polarization.
Leon Dash,Professor and Swanlund Chair, Department of Journalism; 1995 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Explanatory Reporting while at The Washington Post
Colleen King,Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Journalism; Director of the Richard and Leslie Frank Center for Leadership and Innovation in Media; former Executive Producer for MSNBC’s The 11th Hour with Brian Williams
Dan Balz(BS ’68, MS ’72, journalism), Chief Correspondent at The Washington Postcovering national politics, the presidency and Congress
Stephanie Lulay(BS ’08, journalism), Executive Editor and Co-Founder, Block Club Chicago, an award-winning, reader-funded nonprofit newsroom focused on Chicago’s neighborhoods
Read excerpts from “Engaging in a Divided Society” below. Note: Answers have been condensed for length and clarity.
Sulkin: It strikes me that a threshold that we discuss a lot is the lines between news versus commentary. And many see the lines between those two as becoming increasingly blurred. I wonder what your thoughts are about the extent to which that seems a useful theoretical divide, and then what the consequences are of the blurring of those lines.
Dash: News columns are very clear that they are news columns, and I try to point that out to the students, in terms of understanding what a news column is. An opinion column is very, very different from a news column, in which you have a lot of leeway to express your opinion. I think social media has blurred the lines between what is considered news and what is considered an opinion. But I think the conventional publications have continued to distinguish between the two and keep them separated.
Lulay: I think Twitter/X and TikTok are full of opinions. We’re in a period where newsrooms are rapidly disappearing and we’re in an era that the world really needs more truth tellers. Something I’ve seen, engaging with readers for a long time, is that readers on the whole really aren’t able to distinguish between news-driven reporting and opinions on the Op-Ed page, and I think that that damages trust.
Balz: One of the things we’ve noticed is that commentary and opinion writing draws a huge audience. And we know that because of the siloed nature of how people get their news, that people seek out opinion journalism that conforms with their points of view. And in the in the digital age, particularly when you’re looking at a homepage for—whether it’s the Washington Post or the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal—the commentary pieces are right there smack next to the news pieces. In a printed paper, the opinion pages are in a separate place. They’re clearly marked. But in a sense the, the presentation has helped to blur the lines.
Sulkin: We’ve been talking about the public’s trust in the news and looking at polling about what people think about the media. There’s been a slow decline in trust in all sorts of institutions over the past several decades, with the news media being part of that. Pew reports that over three-quarters of Americans and majorities from both political parties think that news organizations tend to favor one side or the other. Yet large majorities also say that news coverage keeps politicians from doing things that they shouldn’t. So that scrutiny, that watchdog role, still holds. What are your views about what would help the public to regain trust, if we think it’s been lost, or where could we build on some of those pockets of trust?
Lulay: I’m really happy to be in a local newsroom these days. I think we can make a real impact in terms of trust. Trust is built from the ground up and there’s no better place to build relationships with readers than in a local newsroom. Rebuilding trust in our city is key to why Block Club was founded.
When we started this newsroom, there was a study that trust, particularly on the South and West sides of our city—these are under-resourced areas of our city—trust was at an all-time low with the media. And that was because of generations of the media either only reporting on crime or chaos that happened in those neighborhoods, if they ever showed up at all. At Block Club, instead of covering a traditional beat like courts and education in such a big city where there’s too much going on, our reporters are assigned to two to three contiguous neighborhoods. And when they’re covering a smaller area like that, they really are able to build close relationships with readers, which we believe ensures the news that we’re reporting not only reflects what they most care about, but also leads to a more accurate portrayal of their neighborhood.
King: I would say it’s very tricky because the skills that we teach our students to cover Chicago and maybe go work for Stephanie [Lulay] are not different than skills I would teach up-and-coming reporters to go work with Dan [Balz]. I think people are turning off the news in large part because it always seems like bad news right now. So perhaps we can be more creative in our angles, but I also think transparency is a big part of reporting. And being honest in what we know and what we don’t is a big part of it, too. You know, it is our job to hold people accountable; that’s why we do what we do. Hopefully over the course of time, people can see that our reporting holds up and is fact-based and we’re just trying to report the truth as best we know it.
Balz: Repairing the decline in trust is a very difficult job that we can’t do in and of ourselves as news organizations. What’s happened in terms of the decline of trust is a societal-wide problem. Just as the polarization of the country is a societal-wide problem. And it will take time to begin to overcome that. We have a role to play in that. There are things we can do about that. Colleen [King] is exactly right. Transparency is important. The idea of being open about what we know and what we don’t know is important. But we also have to do what we’ve always done, which is to be aggressive in our reporting and follow that wherever it leads us and live with the consequences of that. Our first obligation is to find the truth to the best that we can find it on any day or week.
Sulkin: We had Chuck Todd visit the College of Media in December right before he announced that he would be departing NBC News after a long career there. I think a narrative thread he was pulling was that local news is the cure to what ails the news ecosystem. I think part of the argument was that maybe if folks have the opportunity to engage with local news, that helps with some spillover to how they think about national news. But the growing news deserts mean a lot of folks don’t have local news.As we are preparing students and launching them out into their careers, Colleen and Leon, what are we doing to correct some of these news desert issues?
Dash: My emphasis with my students is fact-based reporting. It’s a no-no in my classes when they say, ‘I assume’ or ‘I think.’ I say you shouldn’t be ‘assuming’ and you shouldn’t be ‘thinking’ anything. You should know. If you don’t know, you should say you don’t know. And transparency is a big part of that. Being honest and upfront. I don’t even know how you overcome this divide in this society today. But in terms of conventional journalism, fact-based reporting is very, very important and transparency is also very important.
King: And I would say we’re training our student journalists to learn all kinds of skills. Our students are leaving our universityknowing how to podcast and write, do audio and video journalism, and write online or for print news outlets. So they could really drop in anywhere and cover any community they want to. While we’ve got many who want to return home to the Chicagoland area, or make it big in New York or LA or Washington, we do encourage them to think about covering smaller communities— at least getting a start there—and understanding what it’s like to cover a community where you do get to know your audience and the people you’re covering and in government as well.
Netflix director Emma Miller (BS ’08, media studies) says returning to campus to speak at the 2025 College of Media Convocation ceremony feels like a full-circle moment for her.
As a Media student at Illinois, she remembers renting DVDs through Netflix’s mail subscription service for her film classes.
“I could watch films on my own time, which was really exciting because there was one video shop in town and all the film students would race to check out the film,” she said.
While Netflix was a lifesaver for her as a student, her current role at the global streaming service has proven to be an even more incredible opportunity.
“It’s amazing and I’m having the best time. I really love it, and I have to say [my job] has exceeded my expectations in a lot of ways,” she said.
Miller, who was named one of The Hollywood Reporter’s“35 Rising Executives 35 and Under” in 2018, joined Netflix in 2023 as director of overall deals in the series division.
I appreciate everything Illinois did to get me here and hopefully I can give something back and inspire at least one student.
Emma Miller(BS ’08, media studies)
Netflix Director of Studio Scripted Series
Since then, her title has changed to director of the studio scripted series division, but her role has essentially stayed the same.
Part of her job is to oversee deals with certain creative entities. For example, she covers Aggregate Films, founded by Jason Bateman (Ozark), and 21 Laps Entertainment, founded by Shawn Levy (Stranger Things).
Miller also works on ground-up development, doing first-reviews of projects and pitches from writers and producers.
“I’m basically one of the people at Netflix who buys projects and then supervises the creative development of those projects from the pitch to all the way out when it’s on the air,” she said.
Most of her work is reading first-episode scripts and giving notes to guide the writers, “almost like an editor would do in publishing.”
If Netflix picks up the series, Miller will do the same for all the episodes at the script level. While most of her work is in the creative domain, Miller also handles some business responsibilities as well. She oversees the production of projects, including budget management, hiring of actors and directors, and traveling to shoots on location to get shows up and running. She also covers technical aspects like editing sound mixes, visual effects, and film cuts.
As Miller approaches her two-year anniversary at Netflix, she’s looking forward to the release of a few exciting projects she’s managed.
Forever, a reimagination of the 1975 novel by Judy Blume, premieres on Netflix on May 8. Black Rabbit, starring Jason Bateman and Jude Law, is awaiting an air date. Miller is also working on post-production of Man on Fire, a television remake of the 2004 film starring Denzel Washington.
“I love Netflix and I’m really enthusiastic about what we’re doing,” Miller said. “I will say it’s just really fun to know that a lot of people are going to watch your work and the kind of impact you can have on culture is thrilling.”
Miller says she first learned about the power of media and how it can shape the way you experience the world as a student at Illinois. She credits a Women in Film class for changing the course of her academic career from English to media studies (now called media and cinema studies).
Miller, who serves on the College of Media Alumni Leadership Council and won the 2023 Emerging Leader Award, continues to engage with the college as a panelist for Media Career Nights and soon, to address the College of Media’s Class of 2025.
“I appreciate everything Illinois did to get me here and hopefully I can give something back and inspire at least one student,” she said.
It’s no surprise that renowned media studies scholar and two-time University of Illinois alum Denise Bielby (BS ’71, MA ’72, ACES), Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Emerita, at the University of California, Santa Barbara, was interested in fellow alum Roger Ebert’s work and helping preserve his legacy.
Bielby, whose research focuses on the culture-producing industries of film and television, has had a long appreciation for the scholarly value that the late Roger Ebert, Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic and journalism alum, brought to film criticism.
Bielby said it was important to support the research of faculty in the College of Media, and the training of their graduate and undergraduate students.
“Denise Bielby’s generosity is a distinct example of a transformative gift,” said Tracy Sulkin, dean of the College of Media. “The Ebert Center cements the College of Media as a supportive and enriching destination for academics pursuing film studies.”
After attending Ebertfest regularly, Bielby observed that “Roger’s thematic programming for each festival was not only intriguing, it was culturally important, and over time the scholarly value of that came into focus and relevant to how scholars understand and analyze the social value of film.”
At the launch of the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies at the University of Illinois on October 28, 2022, legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese shared a recorded message. (Photo by J. Sidney Malone.)
Bielby’s own research on media fandom developed as an outgrowth to her research on the film industry.
“Because Hollywood produces culture through its products, I wanted to better understand the process of audience reception that made media so engaging,” she said. She has co-authored two books, Global TV: Exporting Television and Culture in the World Market (2008) and Soap Fans: Pursuing Pleasure and Making Meaning in Everyday Life (1995).
Since its inception, the Ebert Center has offered robust programming, including the annual Ebert Lecture in the fall, the annual Ebert Symposium in the spring with a keynote and roundtable discussions, and a curated screening series throughout the academic year.
It also supports Ebert Center research grants and travel grants for film studies as well as the long-running Ebert Fellows Program, which selects three undergraduate students from the College of Media each year for an in-depth experiential learning opportunity.
Ebert Fellows work with advisor and mentor Michael Phillips, the film critic at the Chicago Tribune. They hone their writing and interviewing skills, sharpen their critical skills, attend film festivals, develop their podcasting skills with Chicago Public Radio and Illinois Public Media, and participate in other workshops and activities, including those in conjunction with the Ebert Center.
In addition to supporting Media faculty and students, Bielby hopes the Ebert Center is set up to accomplish another goal: “To advance the scope of the college more broadly as it engages related disciplines, the campus at large, and society as a whole.”
The Ebert Center programming is free and open to the public. Learn more and watch recordings of past events at media.illinois.edu/ebertcenter.
Director Francis Ford Coppola to participate in a virtual Q&A Actress Jane Levy and Critics Michael Phillips, Richard Roeper, Matt Zoller-Seitz, Nell Minow, Brian Tallerico, Eric Pierson, Dion Metzger, and Brenda Butler will be attending in person
April 1, 2025
CHAMPAIGN, IL (April 1, 2025) — Roger Ebert’s Film Festival, also known as Ebertfest, announced today the final three films screening at this year’s festival, to be held April 23-26 at the Virginia Theatre in downtown Champaign:
Francis Ford Coppola’s MEGALOPOLIS
Walter Salles’ Academy Award-winning I’M STILL HERE
Lotte Reiniger’s THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED
Coppola will participate in a virtual Q&A immediately following the screening of MEGALOPOLIS; Michael Barker, Co-President of Sony Pictures Classics, will discuss the Oscar-winning film I’M STILL HERE, which Sony Pictures Classics distributed domestically; and back by popular demand, The Anvil Orchestra will perform during THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED.
“It is incredible that Nate Kohn and I are just as excited to present the lineup for this 26th Ebertfest as we were for the first!” said Chaz Ebert, CEO of movie review site Rogerebert.com and cofounder of Ebertfest. “What Roger said about movies being a machine that generates empathy is so true. My heart swells with emotion in anticipation of the films and guests who will join us. And I look forward to sharing this communal film experience with our Ebertfest audience. Roger, we thank you!”
“Echoing Chaz, this year’s lineup is one of the most exciting we’ve ever had,” said Nate Kohn. “There will be lots to celebrate in Champaign this year, and I know Roger would be very proud to see how his festival continues to grow.”
MEGALOPOLIS is a Roman Epic set in an imagined Modern America. The City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare. Torn between them is socialite Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), the mayor’s daughter, whose love for Cesar has divided her loyalties, forcing her to discover what she truly believes humanity deserves.
The film was nominated for multiple awards and had its world premiere at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in 2024.
“Francis Ford Coppola has once again given us big ideas to digest,” said Chaz Ebert, “Are the characters in Megalopolis akin to those in Rome before its collapse, or can we find some redemption in acts seemingly small, but that portend hope for the future. Does Coppola’s film hold a mirror up to today’s society? And if so, does this master director give us a roadmap to avoid similar obstacles? We will eagerly pose these questions and others when he appears after the screening of this gorgeously shot film.”
I’M STILL HERE is set in Brazil, 1971, as it faces the tightening grip of a military dictatorship. Eunice Paiva, a mother of five children, is forced to reinvent herself after her family suffers a violent and arbitrary act by the government. The film is based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s biographical book and tells the true story that helped reconstruct an important part of Brazil’s hidden history.
The film had its world premiere at the 81st Venice International Film Festival in 2024 where it was critically acclaimed and received the Best Screenplay Award. I’M STILL HERE, which is certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a score of 97%, has continued winning over audiences globally and earned 69 nominations and 49 awards including a Golden Globe Award and the Best International Feature Film Academy Award, the first-ever Brazilian produced film to win an Academy Award.
“Through Fernanda Torres’ formidable presence, the deliberate I’M STILL HERE, a film that locates further meaning in the face of Brazil’s present Far-Right wave, remains in the heart long after the picture fades,” said Robert Daniels in his 4-star review for RogerEbert.com.
THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED is a fantasy animated film from 1926 that tells the story of a handsome prince with a flying horse who befriends a witch, meets Aladdin, and battles demons to win a princess’ heart. The screening will feature a performance from Ebertfest’s audience favorite group The Anvil Orchestra.
Newly announced guests include actress Jane Levy (A LITTLE PRAYER), and critics Michael Phillips, Richard Roeper, Matt Zoller-Seitz, Nell Minow, Brian Tallerico, Eric Pierson, Dion Metzger, and Brenda Butler.
Ebertfest tickets and passes are currently available to purchase online or by calling the Virginia Theatre box office at 217-356-9063. Individual tickets to each film cost $20, while festival passes to see all films cost $200, with both including reserved seating. Four-film bundles are available for $65.
Ebertfest is hosted by Chaz Ebert and Nate Kohn, the festival director since the very beginning, in collaboration with the College of Media at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
For additional information, including the full festival schedule, please visit https://ebertfest.com/, and follow us on social media:
Editor’s Note: Although originally announced as attending, unfortunately, actress Carrie Coon had to cancel attending Ebertfest with her film His Three Daughters. Director Azazel Jacobs will still be participating in the post-screening discussion.
March 24, 2025 | Lois Yoksoulian, University of Illinois News Bureau
In today’s rapidly evolving media landscape, the spread of misinformation and disinformation regarding scientific topics such as natural disasters, vaccines and climate change can pose a risk to public health. Nancy Averett, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign lecturer of journalism and expert in science and environmental journalism spoke with News Bureau physical science and media editor Lois Yoksoulian about how science literacy can help the American public make more informed choices.
Photo by Craig Pessman
What is science literacy?
Scientific literacy means using the scientific method to create a systematic process, free of as many biases as possible, to uncover evidence to answer a question.
A scientifically literate person understands that science rarely deals in absolutes. If a study shows there’s a 95% chance that smoking and cancer are linked, then most scientists would say the link is real — even though there’s a small amount of room for doubt. And any scientifically derived result should be reproducible by independent researchers using the same methods.
A scientifically literate person also should understand that scientific knowledge evolves as younger scientists build upon, or occasionally tear down, the theories of the scientists that came before them.
Why is it important for the average American to keep up to date on science news?
We’ve thrived as a nation, in part, because of the incredible scientific breakthroughs that have happened in the past century. For example, most of us don’t wake up in the morning worried about contracting smallpox or having to light a candle to illuminate our bedroom.
But our way of life was built for a world in balance, and now we are out of balance with nature and drastically changing the world. Our warming planet is amping up weather-related disasters like Hurricane Helene and the Los Angeles wildfires. We’re also experiencing incredible technological advances that could lead to more scientific breakthroughs but that also threaten our humanity.
These problems impact our food, our health and our economic stability. Rather than turning away from science at this time, we should embrace it. Science is unique in that it can uncover the truth or at least the truest version of the truth, and information is power.
What are some potential problems with consuming science news in today’s media environment?
People get their news from a wide range of sources that may or not be trustworthy. For example, popular podcaster Joe Rogan told his viewers that he wasn’t going to get the COVID-19 vaccine because he worried about its safety. This undoubtedly led to some people deciding not to get the vaccine even though Rogan had zero evidence that it was unsafe.
Even journalists in more traditional media are notorious for disliking math and not understanding things like statistics. They tend to shy away from science or fail to explain it in a way that helps people understand why it’s important. They’re also intimidated by scientists, so they don’t press the scientists to explain their work in an understandable way.
There are ways for journalists and scientists to combat these problems. For example, one acclaimed environmental health researcher went on Joe Rogan’s podcast to talk about her research looking at how certain chemicals are disrupting fertility. She wanted to get her message about the dangers of these chemicals to as many people as possible, so she didn’t just stick to more mainstream media outlets.
I think scientists are getting better at recognizing that if they want the public to understand and appreciate what they do, they need to communicate better. And when students take classes like my science journalism class, they gain confidence that they can cover science.
How can readers fact-check scientific claims in the media?
Readers can always look at the original source. Any scientific claim should have been published in a reputable scientific journal. That means it has gone through peer review — scientists, who were not involved in the research, have examined how the study was organized, the methods used, the sample size, how it dealt with various biases that might creep into the research, and the statistical analysis.
In one of my journalism classes, I show students an Instagram post from a lifestyle influencer who posts about the “health benefits” of drinking raw milk. The influencer quoted part of a study, so I asked my students to look up the study and read the abstract. They found that while the influencer had quoted part of the study accurately, she’d left out another part that described the dangers of drinking raw milk.
Another issue is reproducibility. If scientists from different institutions and parts of the world are in general agreement with a scientific claim, it’s more likely to be true. For example, a consensus of the world’s scientists agree that fossil fuel use is linked to the warming of Earth’s surface.
Another approach is to go to a reputable fact-checking source such as Snopes, Mediawise and Politifact.
Is there any way readers can spot potential author/media outlet bias in science stories?
Yes. Be aware of headlines that claim absolutes such as a scientific study had 100% effectiveness. Science just doesn’t work that way. The most a study can show is that there’s a strong chance that something works or is true.
A good science news story will include an outside source — someone in the same field as the scientist who was not involved in the research. This source may offer criticism of, or skepticism about, the study, or they may praise it. I would be skeptical if a news story doesn’t include an outside voice.
Consider the scientist who led the study. Are they affiliated with an institution known for producing good science? The journal Nature just published an analysis of the universities with the most retracted journal articles in science. You can also check the website Retraction Watch and type in a researcher’s name to see if they’ve published any studies that were later retracted.
There are also some simple things to think about when evaluating a study or a story about a study. How many subjects were part of the experiment? The smaller the number, the less robust the findings. What type of study is it? There are observational studies, where the scientist carefully observes something and makes conclusions; experimental studies where scientists manipulate two or more variables to find an answer; and randomly controlled trials. The latter is the gold standard.
The media is supposed to present the news without taking sides, but that doesn’t mean they should give equal weight to both sides. Going back to the example of fossil fuels and global warming, there’s very strong evidence gathered from many scientists that the two are linked. So I think journalists should be able to report on climate change or vaccines as a way to stop the spread of disease without giving equal support to climate change deniers or anti-vaxxers.
There is also a potential for journalists to put scientists on a pedestal and never question their findings. That’s a more subtle kind of bias. Scientists do make mistakes; they can have implicit biases or their funding may support research that’s not necessarily in the public’s best interests. Journalists should approach their work with some healthy skepticism.
