Journalism 14 | College of Media

Media students apply classroom skills to internships across the country

September 6, 2023 | Faith Lee, Communications Intern

Several Media students put the skills they learned in the classroom to good work this summer, applying their course knowledge to on-the-job training. At internships across the country, students gained valuable lessons that will help provide them with future academic and professional success. Here are just a few student experiences:

Vivian La
Reporting Intern/Asian American Journalists Association Intern with Chicago Tribune

Vivian La, a senior in journalism, worked as a reporting intern with the Chicago Tribune, covering environmental issues such as the city’s poor air quality due to Canadian wildfires. La’s work also focused on climate change and how it has affected Chicagoans—from tick season to home flooding.

La also covered breaking news twice a week, including crime, weather, and various events. She had the opportunity to write about the Chicago Pride Parade and the NASCAR Chicago Street Race. In addition, La was able to write one of her favorite pieces of the summer about the first LGBTQ+ pride parade held in Petersburg, Illinois.

La said she absorbed a lot of useful information from experienced journalists in the newsroom.

“There are a couple people who are on the younger side, who are just graduating college, but there are people there who have been nominated for Pulitzers,” La said. “Even just being in the office and listening to them talk to each other, or talk to me, or overhearing their phone interviews with people, you learn a lot just by sitting there and soaking in what people are saying to each other.”

Trent Miles
Business Affairs Intern with AppleTV+

Trent Miles, a junior in media and cinema studies, worked as a contract administration intern with AppleTV+ in Los Angeles. In his position, Miles assisted in three departments supporting a senior executive in charge of securing feature film deals.

Due to the ongoing strike by the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA, Miles had to work in the non-fiction programming department since production for scripted programming had stopped. Miles assisted sports executives in securing documentary deals by previewing submitted pitches and providing feedback on them.

A highlight of Miles’s time at AppleTV+ was being able to explore and find a passion for the non-fiction department.

“I came in wanting to do something in scripted, and then when I found out that scripted is not doing anything because of the strike, I guess I just naturally fell in love with non-scripted,” Miles said.

Paris Baptiste
Marketing Intern with Music for All

Paris Baptiste, a second-year graduate student pursuing a master’s in advertising, spent her summer as an intern with Music for All, an event-based, nonprofit educational organization. She worked on several projects including research and creating social media posts.

Baptiste enjoyed having the opportunity to attend a band camp for one week during the internship as well as the chance to work on a small team.

“Because it was a smaller nonprofit, it was a smaller team, and I felt very heard and listened to and like an actual part of the team, which was very valuable,” Baptiste said.

As an undergraduate, Baptiste took ADV 290 (now ADV 201): Social Media and Personal Branding that was helpful during her time at Music for All.

“That course presented ways to write content, how to find content, and that really helped when I was kind of stuck writing the same thing over and over again to post on Instagram,” Baptiste said.

Nathan Lin
Sales Intern with Procter & Gamble

Nathan Lin, a senior in communication in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences who is also pursuing a media sales certificate in advertising, relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina, this summer, where he joined Procter & Gamble as a sales intern. Lin assisted the fabric care division of the company to help increase profits and provided recommendations about product sales.

Lin, who credits several advertising courses with giving him the skills he needed to be a successful sales intern, says the experience will help boost his growing professional career.

“It was good work. I learned a lot,” Lin said. “I really learned how to sell and present. [I learned] it’s less about presenting and more about having a conversation with the buyer and being able to be persuasive and sell the products.”

Editor’s note: If you had a summer internship, we’d love to hear about it! Media students are invited to share summer work experiences here. Media students are also invited to learn about career resources by making an appointment with Media Career Services. For more career advice, Media students can attend a Rapid Resume Review on September 11 and attend our virtual Media Career Nights held throughout the academic year.

College of Media welcomes new faculty leadership roles, newly promoted faculty, and new faculty members

August 23, 2023

This fall welcomes two new heads of academic units, a new center director, a new associate head of advertising graduate studies, three faculty promotions, and two new faculty in the College of Media.

Professor Michelle Nelson will serve as the head of the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising for a three-year appointment. Nelson is a past president of the American Academy of Advertising. Her research interest focuses on advertising literacy and political advertising.

Professor Mike Yao has been appointed as the director of the Institute of Communications Research. He previously served as head of the Department of Advertising. Yao’s research delves into the interplay between media technology, society, and human communication. He studies how people engage with emerging technologies like AI, immersive multimedia, and extended reality across diverse social settings, and how these interactions influence our social behaviors and human communication within technology-mediated digital spaces.

Angela Aguayo, associate professor of media and cinema studies, will serve this year as acting director of the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies. She has previously served as Dean’s Fellow for Strategic Initiatives. Her research is centered around documentary production and media studies, connecting production, theory, and history.

Chang-Dae Ham, associate professor of advertising, has been appointed as associate head of graduate studies for the Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising for a three-year appointment. Ham studies persuasion knowledge and digital advertising.

Three faculty in the College of Media have been promoted:

Jason P. Chambers has been promoted to professor of advertising. He also serves as Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. He is a scholar of advertising history, particularly the contributions of African Americans to the industry, and has a new book titled Advertising Revolutionary: The Life and Work of Tom Burrell that will be published in early 2024.

Ewa Maslowska has been promoted to associate professor of advertising with indefinite tenure. Her research centers around marketing communication and consumer behavior, specifically consumer-brand interactions in the context of new technologies.

Julie Turnock has been promoted to professor of media and cinema studies. She served as the inaugural director of the Ebert Center and is on sabbatical this year. Turnock’s research focuses on film, with an emphasis on special/visual effects. She is working on her third book, a technical, industrial, and aesthetic history of the special effects industry in the Hollywood studio era, circa 1915-1960. Informed by extensive archival research, it centers around the labor and artistry performed by unsung “below-the-line” studio effects workers whose skills make much of “movie magic” possible.

The Department of Journalism welcomes two new faculty members: Nancy Averett, lecturer, who specializes in science and environmental journalism, and Alex Gonçalves, assistant professor, who is a scholar of social media and data journalism.

New journalism professor Alex Gonçalves explores social dynamics through data-driven insights

August 21, 2023 | Kelly Youngblood

Alex Gonçalves believes a vibrant press is crucial to the future of democratic societies. He also knows the foundation of a dynamic media ecosystem is created in the classroom.

For that reason, it’s been his goal to work in journalism education since Gonçalves left the newsroom as a science reporter and began his academic journey more than a decade ago.

“I am motivated by the thought of contributing to the education of the next generation of journalists and communicators,” Gonçalves said.

This fall, he joins the College of Media as a new assistant professor in the Department of Journalism.

Gonçalves, who received a PhD in communication from Columbia University and a master’s degree in comparative media studies from MIT, will be teaching Journalism 102: Surviving Social Media.

At both universities, Gonçalves studied the role of social media in the emergence of new cultural paradigms—a subject that continues to be a part of his research to help “inform the policies that shape the role of digital platforms.”

In addition to teaching, Gonçalves is also passionate about his research, which focuses on the intersection of computer science and social communication.

When he realized the College of Media would offer him the opportunity to teach and to continue research, he knew it was the right place for him, where he “could teach future journalists and communicators while advancing my research agenda in a very stimulating intellectual environment,” he said.

Gonçalves also felt a personal connection to the College of Media as he’d always admired the late James W. Carey, a journalism professor, former director of the Institute of Communications Research, and former dean. Carey, a student of the media’s role in society, was an internationally recognized scholar in communications research.

“I was exposed to [Carey’s] thought on journalism at MIT. His [book] Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society was part of the recommended reading list for the degree in comparative media studies,” he said. “Later, I joined the PhD program he founded and infused with his vision at Columbia Journalism School.”

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in computer science in 2002, Gonçalves worked as a software developer in Brazil for eight years. He got a second bachelor’s in social communication and worked at a Brazilian newspaper as a science journalist for four years.

In 2011, Gonçalves received the Visionary Journalist Fellowship, a $55,000 prize toward a master’s degree in communication abroad. The following year, he won a Person of the Year Fellowship, a $10,000 award given by the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce to young professionals pursuing graduate studies in the U.S.

Eventually, Gonçalves began to focus on academia—teaching numerous courses in data science, public speaking, journalism ethics, and science reporting—and research, using computational methods to study digital communication.

His focus on understanding social dynamics through data-driven insights helped him obtain an $82,500 Brown Institute Magic Grant for the development of a platform to make defense contracting data searchable by journalists and transparency activists.

Currently, Gonçalves is working on turning his dissertation into a book, with plans to publish in the U.S. and Brazil, which examines the role of social media in the rise of the New Right in Brazil.

Though his roles have varied throughout his career—from software developer and reporter to scholar and educator—the interplay of communication and technology, and a desire to share knowledge with others, have been common threads.

“I believe education is a privileged space for real communication. I love seeing my students making use, in practical settings, of the knowledge that I shared with them,” Gonçalves said. “Occasionally, I get emails from former students of mine telling me that something I shared with them has become very useful in their professional lives. That makes me very happy.”

New journalism lecturer and science writer Nancy Averett strives to highlight humanity behind research

August 21, 2023 | Kelly Youngblood

As an independent science journalist for the last 17 years, Nancy Averett has dedicated her career to writing about the intersection where science and humanity connect.

The award-winning reporter, who has a passion for the “sociological side of science and putting a human face on it,” says her secret weapon as a science writer is simple—she’s not a scientist. Instead, she views herself as a translator, reaching into the minds of scientists, engineers, and doctors to explain how their research will impact people.

She’s looking forward to sharing that passion with students and fellow faculty this fall as a new lecturer in the Department of Journalism.

Averett, who has been published in Scientific American, Discover, The Nation, and other magazines, will teach three courses this fall: Science Journalism, Intro to Journalism, and Newsgathering across Platforms.

Averett will bring a breadth of experience to the classroom, having served as an adjunct instructor at Miami University of Ohio, where she designed and taught courses in news writing, editing, and feature writing.

In addition to teaching and mentoring young journalists, Averett was one of five journalists selected by a national nonprofit in 2019 to teach a workshop for scientists on how to communicate better with the press. She has always found teaching to be a worthwhile pursuit.

“I just found all of those [teaching] experiences pretty rewarding,” said Averett, who is a member of the National Association of Science Writers and Society of Environmental Journalists.

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in international affairs at the University of Colorado, Averett went on to obtain a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri.

For the next 10 years, Averett worked as a reporter at three daily newspapers including the Columbia Daily Tribune in Missouri; the North Jersey Herald & News in New Jersey; and the Morning Call in Pennsylvania. She was recognized with awards for her writing at each post.

With aspirations to write more long-form articles for magazines, Averett ventured into freelance writing, publishing her first articles in Runner’s World. Soon after, she attended an American Society of Journalists and Authors conference where she met other freelance writers and learned many of them were covering science news.

“After a while [I thought], I want to do what they’re doing. Their stories are really cool,” she said.

Averett started to pitch story ideas to Audubon magazine and “did a lot of writing about birds.” She also began to write for university publications.

From there, Averett focused on writing about wildlife, climate change, and environmental science, gaining recognition at top national publications including Sierra, Undark, and Mother Jones.

Her extensive journalism experience also includes working as the Midwest Climate Reporting Fellow for the Food & Environment Reporting Network, writing breaking news and long-form stories about climate change and agriculture, food production, and land rights issues.

In 2020, she won first place for Outstanding Feature Story from the Society of Environmental Journalists for an article on air quality and industry titled “Undone Science: When Research Fails Polluted Communities.” That same year she also won the Robert G. Fenley Writing Award (silver) from the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Averett says she will likely cut back on freelance work to focus on teaching, and perhaps, to pursue a long-held dream of writing a book.

For now, she’s thinking about ways to help students realize the importance of effectively communicating science.

“We’ve got to find a way to excite people about science and understand really how science works,” Averett said. “I think being science literate would basically save lives.”

Investigative journalist and Media alum Tim Schwab to publish first book

Tim Schwab (MS ’06, journalism), an investigative journalist based in Washington D.C., has written The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire, which will be published in November by Henry Holt (Macmillan).

Schwab’s book investigates Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation, “showing how he uses philanthropy to exercise enormous political power without accountability.”

The book has foreign rights/translation deals to be sold in more than a dozen different markets, allowing it to reach readers in the UK, Germany, South Africa, India, China, and beyond.

Schwab was previously honored with an Izzy Award and a Deadline Club Award for his groundbreaking reporting on the Gates Foundation for The Nation, Columbia Journalism Review, and The British Medical Journal.

Alum Rick Sallinger inducted into National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Silver Circle

Rick Sallinger (BS ’71, MS ’72, advertising) was inducted into the Heartland Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Silver Circle.

The Silver Circle honors media professionals who have contributed 25 years or more to the television industry, and who also have made a meaningful and significant contribution to broadcasting and/or new media.

Sallinger, who worked at WPGU from 1967-71 as an announcer, music and program director. He was inducted into the Illini Media Hall of Fame in 2022.

After working as a radio reporter in Cleveland and Chicago, Sallinger moved on to television news working at stations in Indianapolis, Denver, and Chicago.

In 1990, Sallinger became a foreign war correspondent for CNN based in London covering events like the Gulf War, the war in Yugoslavia, and the reunification of Germany.

He settled in Colorado, joining KCNC-TV, a CBS affiliate in Denver, in 1993 where he continues to work today. (Update: He retired in December 2023.)

Sallinger has covered nearly every major Colorado story in recent years including the Columbine High School shootings, the Oklahoma City bombing trials, and the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. In 2005, Sallinger won the George Foster Peabody Award for a series he did on Army recruiting.

This video from CBS Denver highlights Sallinger’s career and recent honor:

Kissel leads global advertising company named Network of the Year at Cannes Lions Festival

Dave Kissel (BS ’85, journalism), global business lead at DDB, announced the worldwide advertising company was recognized as Network of the Year at the 2023 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is held annually in Cannes, France. The global event celebrates creativity, effectiveness, and innovation and is considered the largest gathering of the advertising and creative communications industry.

In addition to the Network of the Year award, DDB Worldwide won one Grand Prix in Film, one titanium, 12 gold, 25 silver, and 50 bronze trophies.

Kissel has been the global business lead for McDonald’s, DDB’s biggest multi-national client, since 2017. Since Kissel began, DDB has won more marketing effectiveness awards for McDonald’s than any other creative agency.

Kissel is a member of DDB Worldwide’s Executive Leadership Team and Omnicom’s Global Client Leaders team. He is also a member of the College of Media Alumni Leadership Council.

Journalism master’s student Herbert DaCosta awarded fellowship to help educate public about climate change

July 10, 2023 | Kelly Youngblood

Herbert DaCosta, a graduate student in the journalism master’s degree program, was awarded the 2023-24 Thornton Tomasetti Foundation Technical Literacy Fellowship for his exceptional submittal to help the wider public understand and connect with climate change. DaCosta is a research development manager at the University of Illinois Office of Proposal Development.

The fellowship offers up to $5,000 in funding for projects that further the public’s technical literacy on environmental issues and other topics. Submittals were reviewed by Jim Glanz, New York Times international investigative reporter; Richard L. Tomasetti, consultant and founding principal; and Elisabeth Malsch, managing principal of Thornton Tomasetti, Inc.

DaCosta said he plans to use the fellowship to carry out the research needed to write about climate change in a way that a broader audience can understand.

“The fact that there is a significant percentage of the population who believes that climate change is a hoax means that we still have a large gap to reach when it comes to the academic community to reach [people’s] minds and hearts,” DaCosta said. “It is possible that although the academic community has sent out the message, it was not in a way in which the public could relate and understand. My goal is to give a small contribution to narrow that gap.”

“We’re extremely proud of Herbert for earning this fellowship where he can make an impact by improving how journalists communicate environmental issues to the public,” said Mira Sotirovic, associate professor and Karin and Folke Dovring Scholar in Propaganda, and head of the Department of Journalism. The Department of Journalism has prioritized the study of science and technology journalism, creating an online curriculum that begins Fall 2023.

In his current job, DaCosta supports the Illinois research community in the development of large and multidisciplinary grant proposals. The position, which he’s held since 2017, has been a great fit for DaCosta, who is a trained scientist with a passion for writing.

After obtaining a PhD in chemistry with minors in physics and computer engineering from the University of Florida and a Doctor of Science in chemistry from the University of São Paulo, Brazil, DaCosta worked as an industrial research engineer. He developed novel catalytic converters to decrease regulated emissions from diesel engines and new technologies to capture carbon dioxide and to convert it into useful products.

Realizing he liked writing more than research and development, DaCosta found a career in research development that allowed him to combine his science skills and his interest in writing.

DaCosta plans to complete his master’s degree in journalism at Illinois next year. He said his goal is to be able to “write about science for the wider community and to become better at assisting the Illinois research community in the development of large grant proposals.”

DaCosta feels it’s important to be able to communicate science and technology concepts clearly to educate others.

“Learning is more effective when the new lessons learned are built on previous knowledge,” he said. “Also, learning is enabling, in many ways. The more one learns, the more one can learn.”

Journalism student takes on producing role for 217 Today podcast

June 2, 2023

Sydney Wood, a senior in journalism, explains their role as a producer for the 217 Today podcast with Illinois Public Media, and creating audio stories for Illinois Student Newsroom at Illinois Public Media. Through JOUR 400: Newsroom Experience, Wood gained audio journalism skills, got stories aired on IPM, and assisted students in JOUR 280: IPM Radio Practicum.

Hear more from Wood in this College of Media video series where students discuss their roles in campus and community engagement projects.

Learn more about the 217 Today podcast: https://will.illinois.edu/217today/

Learn more about the Illinois Student Newsroom at Illinois Public Media: https://will.illinois.edu/studentnewsroom

Jim Schlueter, generous donor and retired Boeing communicator, receives 2023 College of Media Distinguished Alumni Award

May 18, 2023 | Kelly Youngblood

When it comes to career accomplishments, Jim Schlueter (BS ’80, journalism) could name a few, but none are quite as important to him as his ability to build up others.

It’s an honorable trait Schlueter has carried with him throughout his life—as an undergraduate student at Illinois, during his 33-year career in corporate communications, and more recently, as a very generous and passionate alum.

“If I think about accomplishments, really, it’s about helping people develop and grow and watching what they do,” Schlueter said.

Thanks to Schlueter’s contributions to the college, as well as his notable career achievements, the college’s leadership team agreed no one was more deserving of the 2023 College of Media Distinguished Alumni Award.

“Jim Schlueter has made many investments in the College of Media to benefit students now and in the future,” said Dean Tracy Sulkin. “We are so grateful for his engagement and for his desire to help make Illinois the number one destination for those who want to be part of the dynamic field of media.”

Schlueter is passionate about ensuring students stay ahead with new innovations and changing trends. In 2019, he and his wife, Amy, gave a generous gift to launch the Media Innovation Fund, which supports a wide range of activities that celebrate faculty excellence, faculty and student research, technology advancements, and cutting-edge pedagogy.

Schlueter said he felt humbled and honored when he learned of his nomination.

“I don’t do what I do to get awards, but to be recognized is a very, very special feeling because of [how I] feel about the University and the College of Media, the students, and the folks who have come before me and after me,” he said.

Schlueter, who grew up in rural Edwardsville, Illinois, and had always loved writing and sports, came to Illinois with a plan to study journalism. He joined the staff at The Daily Illini his sophomore year, covering women’s rugby, women’s cross-country, and men’s track. He became an executive reporter in sports his senior year covering football and basketball, and worked as a local stringer for the Associated Press.

“As much as I was looking forward to [attending the University of Illinois] … it was even better than I thought,” he said. “I met all my best friends there, I got to do experiences and things I couldn’t believe I was able to do, and I really stretched and learned a lot from my fellow students.”

After graduation, Schlueter worked as a reporter at a few newspapers, mostly covering the sports beat, and eventually earned his MBA in marketing from SIU-Edwardsville. In 1985, he went to work for an employee newspaper at McDonnell Douglas, an aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor that eventually merged with Boeing in the late ’90s.

Schlueter said his career offered him a variety of opportunities that allowed him to support different fields within the aircraft industry including international communications, military products, and commercial airplanes. He spent the last six years of his career in Boeing’s corporate office in Chicago as the director of technology communications, finally retiring in 2018.

“I got to do a lot of things at an amazing company, so many different things that I can’t believe, from military programs and products to the space programs. I even worked a few shuttle launches, which is incredible,” he said.

Schlueter gives credit to his experience at Illinois, learning from some of the best professors alongside some of the brightest students, as well as his time at The Daily Illini for helping to shape his future career endeavors. He expressed gratitude for the journalism skills he gained that contributed to his success as a corporate communicator.

“When you’re a communications person at a company like Boeing, it behooves you to be able to write like a journalist writes and edit and dive into complicated questions and issues that really get to the heart of the matter,” he said.

Schlueter currently resides in Iowa with his wife, and they also have an apartment in Champaign. As lifelong season ticket holders, they come back to campus often for football and basketball games, and to visit the college for alumni commitments and events. Schlueter has served on the College of Media Alumni Leadership Council for more than a decade, sharing his professional insights and resources with faculty, staff, and students.

“It’s always been part and parcel of me, I guess, to stay connected and involved,” Schlueter said. “That feeling of being part of something bigger than yourself, and that you belong amongst it, is a big deal to me.”

In addition to kickstarting the Media Innovation Fund, a $50,000 donation from the Schlueters helped build the Media Technology Center, which offers a variety of technology and resources that students can check out or access online. The center opened in Fall 2022.

The couple also created the Schlueter Family Endowed Fund for Internships in Journalism to support students seeking real-world experience. Schlueter hopes their contributions will make a difference for Media students by enriching their education and preparing them to become future leaders in their field.

“I want Illinois to be on the forefront of the people who are coming up with the new ideas, the folks who are going to figure out how to do journalism for this century,” he said. “It’s going to be the students. They’re going to be the ones who figure it out.”