Journalism 9 | College of Media

College of Media to hold three-part webinar series, ‘Bridging Divides: Conversations on Media and Disagreement’

October 1, 2024

How are we teaching students, and the broader community, to disagree? It’s a question the College of Media hopes to address in a new three-part series, “Bridging Divides: Conversations on Media and Disagreement.”

Update 11/13/24: Read excerpts from the Q&As:

Faculty from the Departments of Advertising, Journalism, and Media & Cinema Studies will host free webinars exploring how productive discussions occur across lines of disagreement and difference. All take place on Fridays at noon via Zoom, on October 18, October 25, and November 1.

“The College of Media’s ‘Bridging Divides’ series is an opportunity to foster civic preparedness through expert-led dialogues,” said Dean Tracy Sulkin. “We look forward to welcoming students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members to these important conversations.”

The talk topics and panelists include:

Reaching across the Aisle: Advertising and Messaging in an Age of Polarization

October 18, 12-12:45 p.m.
Register to join via Zoom.

Jason P. Chambers, Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Professor, Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising; author of Advertising Revolutionary: The Life and Work of Tom Burrell

Michael Strautmanis (BS ’91, advertising; JD ’94, law), Executive Vice President for External Affairs, Obama Foundation

What Does It Mean to Be an Informed Critic?

October 25, 12-12:45 p.m.
Register to join via Zoom.
Learn how to give criticism a good name. During this session, the panelists will share a how-to for every kind of writer.

Jenny Oyallon-Koloski, Assistant Professor, Department of Media & Cinema Studies; author of Storytelling in Motion: Cinematic Choreography and the Film Musical

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune Film Critic; College of Media Ebert Fellows Mentor

Engaging with People, Perspectives, and Policies When You Don’t Agree: Lessons from Journalism

November 1, 12-12:45 p.m.
Register to join via Zoom.

Leon Dash, Professor and Swanlund Chair, Department of Journalism; 1995 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Explanatory Reporting

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 11^th Hour with Brian Williams

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Journalism alum Thomas Winski receives IJEA Lifetime Achievement Award

Thomas Winski (MS ’75, journalism) was selected to receive the 2024 Illinois Journalism Education Association Lifetime Achievement Award. Winski accepted the award on September 20 at the annual IJEA conference at Illinois State University.

Each year, the IJEA seeks to honor retired individuals for a lifetime of dedication to scholastic journalism.

Winski was an assistant professor of journalism at Lindsey Wilson College in Kentucky for four years before joining the faculty at Emporia State University in Kansas. There, he served as assistant professor of journalism for 16 years and co-director of the journalism program until his retirement.

Alumna Cheryl W. Thompson to receive Washington Association of Black Journalists Legacy Award

Cheryl W. Thompson (BS ’82, LAS; MS ’84, journalism), investigative correspondent and senior editor at NPR, and associate professor at George Washington University, will receive the 2024 Washington Association of Black Journalists Legacy Award.

This award recognizes a current or retired journalist or journalism educator in the Washington, D.C., area who has broken barriers and/or provided distinguished leadership in increasing access and opportunities to people of color in journalism.

Thompson will be honored at the third annual WABJ Special Honors & Scholarship Gala on Saturday, Dec. 7, at the Blackburn University Center, Howard University.

“As the first elected Black president of the Investigative Reporters and Editors organization, and as an associate professor of investigative reporting at George Washington University, where she founded and also advises an NABJ student chapter, Cheryl has forged an exemplary pathmaking career rooted in strengthening the next generation qualifying her as a worthy recipient of WABJ’s Legacy Award,” the WABJ Awards Review Committee said. The Investigative Reporters and Editors is a 6,000-member organization dedicated to enhancing the quality of investigative journalism.

Thompson has worked at Champaign-Urbana’s News-Gazette, Chicago Tribune, The Kansas City Star, Los Angeles Daily News, The Gainesville Sun, and The Washington Post, where she wrote extensively about law enforcement, political corruption and guns, and was a White House correspondent during President Barack Obama’s first term.

She has received numerous awards for her investigative reporting, including an Emmy, three sharedPulitzer Prizes, and five awards from the National Association of Black Journalists, one awarded in 2019 for a Washington Post Sunday Magazine story on the nearly 50-year-old unsolved murders of six little black girls in D.C.

Thompson is a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and received the NABJ Educator of the Year Award in 2017. She’s also a founding and current board member of the Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism, which focuses on cross-border investigations.

Journalism alum Mike Carpenter writes book about Illinois basketball

Mike Carpenter (BS ’09, journalism) has written a book about the last 30+ years of Illinois basketball, The 200 Level: An Illinois Fighting Illini Basketball Fan’s Journey, which will be released on October 3.

The book is a mix of personal narrative and sports journalism, charting the ups and downs of the program while reflecting on Carpenter’s own personal experiences as a fan.

Carpenter was a sports talk broadcaster and podcaster for ESPN 93.5 from 2011 through 2019. He’s hosted his own podcast on Illini sports, The 200 Level, for the past five years.

Learn more.

Media faculty and TAs make list of teachers ranked as excellent

September 4, 2024

Congratulations to all the College of Media faculty and teaching assistants who were ranked as excellent by their students!

This list is based on Instructor and Course Evaluation System questionnaire forms completed by students during the Spring 2024 semester. Only those instructors who distributed ICES forms at least once during this time period and who released their data for publication are included in the list. View the complete list.

Note: * denotes that the instructor ratings were outstanding.

ADVERTISING

ANDREW GLEASON – ADV 490

STEVE HALL – ADV 150

TERRY KASDAN – ADV 409

EWA MASLOWSKA – ADV 594

SHACHAR MERON – ADV 250

MICHELLE NELSON – ADV 582

*MARISA PEACOCK – ADV 290, ADV 498

*ALLISON VANCE – ADV 350

CARRIE WILSON-BROWN – ADV 393

KEVIN WISE – ADV 588

*MIKE YAO – ADV 461

JOURNALISM

*CHRISTOPHER BALL – JOUR 430, JOUR 451

STEPHANIE CRAFT – JOUR 205

*ALISON DAVIS – JOUR 215, JOUR 340

COLLEEN KING – JOUR 313

VINCE LARA-CINISOMO – JOUR 220

CHARLES “STRETCH” LEDFORD – JOUR 335

*CAROL LOMBARDI – JOUR 220

MARGARET NG – JOUR 425

MEDIA & CINEMA STUDIES

ANGELA AGUAYO – MACS 391

VICTOR FONT – MACS 480

JONATHAN KNIPP – MACS 282

SUSAN MUIRHEAD – MACS 372

M. QUINONES-RIVERA – MACS 375

STRATEGIC BRAND COMMUNICATION

EWA MASLOWSKA – SBC 505

RICH PIECZYNSKI – SBC 504

TEACHING ASSISTANTS

K. COOK – ADV 284

X. DONG– ADV 250

W. DU – ADV 150

*N. FAISAL – ADV 250

M. FUKADA – ADV 284

*Y. LEE – ADV 360

A. LIU – ADV 150

*M. LYERLA – ADV 150

*S. PARK – ADV 360

Z. RANDOLPH – ADV 284

*J. CINTRON – MACS 100

Y. GAO – MACS 101

*Y. KANG – MACS 101

J. OH – MACS 100

*J. ZHANG – MACS 260

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New journalism professor Cassandra L.C. Troy examines role of solutions journalism to address environmental issues

August 21, 2024 | Kelly Youngblood

Growing up, Cassandra L.C. Troy was encouraged to be environmentally aware, especially by her grandmother and mother who taught her to care for the planet. But it wasn’t until she worked at a university sustainability office that she considered a career in environmental communications.

“In that role, I got a taste of how varied environmental issues are, how complex it is to communicate about different environmental issues,” Troy said. “[What’s] really interesting to me is making that relevant to large portions of the public.”

Troy will be teaching environmental journalism at the College of Media this fall as an assistant professor of journalism with an appointment in the Institute of Communications Research.

She’s excited to connect with students interested in environmental topics and to continue her research on solutions journalism to raise public awareness and engagement on environmental issues.

Troy said solutions journalism takes the approach to reporting that solutions to problems are newsworthy, rather than just the problems themselves.

Illinois is a place that is committed to research, not just generally, but research related to environmental topics. The institutional commitment to examining climate change from an interdisciplinary perspective is really encouraging.

Cassandra L.C. Troy

Assistant Professor of Journalism

“In the minds of solutions journalists, in addition to giving the public information on serious complex issues, you also want to talk to them about solutions that are working, or maybe that could work, to address those problems,” she said.

Troy, who is passionate about the impacts of climate change, added that “environmental challenges are so pressing, and they do impact everyone. You don’t have to just be altruistic and really into nature to care about the environment. We all should want to care about clear air or clean water, and what’s happening in the world around us.”

Troy’s position is part of an interdisciplinary faculty “cluster” on climate impacts, risks, and inequality that was approved as part of the Provost Office’s Strategic Hiring Initiative. The other participating units, in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, include the Department of Climate, Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences; Department of Earth Science & Environmental Change; and the Department of Geography & Geographic Information Science.

“Illinois is a place that is committed to research, not just generally, but research related to environmental topics. The institutional commitment to examining climate change from an interdisciplinary perspective is really encouraging,” she said.

Troy earned undergraduate degrees in communication arts and foreign language from Virginia Commonwealth University and initially planned to pursue a career in visual communications and graphic design.

But in her first job after graduation, she was introduced to a broad range of communication work including branding, social media, and content management, which inspired her to get a master’s degree in communication from Purdue University.

During her time in graduate school, Troy loved the research process and realized much of her interest lies behind the why of messaging.

“As I reflected on the direction that I wanted my career to take, I wanted to have the time and space to determine the questions that I wanted to ask, and the time and space to evaluate how different communication strategies were working, which is not always something you have the luxury of doing in a workplace,” Troy said. “You cannot stop and evaluate every single piece of messaging that you put out there and so that is what motivated me to apply to a PhD program versus just continuing in the industry.”

Troy went on to earn a PhD in mass communications from Pennsylvania State University. Her dissertation, “The potential of solutions journalism for climate risk mitigation: A mixed methods investigation,” examined the role of solutions journalism in climate risk mitigation from the perspective of journalists and the general public.

Using both a quantitative and qualitative perspective, Troy studied how to design media messages that support positive results for people and the planet, especially when it comes to climate change. Learn more about Troy’s research.

Through writing about environmental topics in class, Troy’s students will gain an understanding of the unique challenges associated with environmental communication.

“Similar to science journalism, you’ve got the scientifically complex topics and some of the topics are going to be politically polarized. Members of the public might be encountering disinformation or misinformation in relation to these topics and so you have to be really thoughtful in how you cover these issues,” she said.

Helping her students embrace challenges is just one of Troy’s teaching philosophies. She also aims to cultivate curiosity and prepare students for success beyond the classroom.

“My ideal scenario is that everyone can take away at least one thing that’s going to be really valuable when you are given a task in a future professional environment,” she said.

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Legacy of late journalism alum James Urbanski recognized with honorary street name

The City of Tampa recently recognized the legacy of the late James Urbanski (BS ’50, journalism), who worked with the Tampa Tribune for over three decades, with an honorary street in his namesake near the site of the former newspaper building.

Urbanski, who passed away on April 16, 2021, at the age of 93, served as president and general manager at the Tampa Tribune.

A lifetime civic leader, Urbanski also served as CEO of the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce, director of the Straz Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, director of the Museum of Science and Industry, president of the Florida State Fair Authority, president of the United Way of Greater Tampa Bay, and director of the Tampa Metropolitan Area YMCA.

Urbanski was also the recipient of the Boy Scouts of America Silver Beaver Award and 1989 Civitan Tampa’s Citizen of the Year Award. He was an avid booster of making Tampa “America’s Next Great City.”

Read more from Fox 13 News Tampa Bay and Tampa.gov.

A One-Man Telemundo on TikTok

July 18, 2024 | New York Times

You’re seeing some of the same trends that we see in the English-speaking community, but they’re much more pronounced in the Latino community, especially the immigrant community.

Melita Garza, Associate Professor and Tom and June Netzel Sleeman Scholar in Business Journalism

Melita Garza, associate professor and Tom and June Netzel Sleeman Scholar in Business Journalism, was quoted in a New York Times article about Carlos Espina’s social media influence in the Latino community regarding political and immigrant issues in the United States.

Garza said Latinos are tuning in less to legacy Spanish-language television networks like Telemundo and Univision and turning more to social media for news.

“You’re seeing some of the same trends that we see in the English-speaking community, but they’re much more pronounced in the Latino community, especially the immigrant community,” she said.

Read full article

CU-Citizen Access News Outlet Gets Students Their Clips, and the Community Their News

July 18, 2024 | University of Vermont

If you pick up the 2023 book Changing Models for Journalism by Brant Houston, Knight Chair Professor in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting in the Department of Journalism, you would read about the collapse of traditional media and the changes in the news landscape over the past decade, written by an award-winning journalist who has spent years researching journalism models.

You would learn about the digital age, blogging, nonprofits, investigative centers and the rise in university-led student reporting programs—which is fitting because Houston founded his own such program in 2009 at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The watchdog community reporting outlet, CU-CitizenAccess, is run entirely by him and his managing editor, Dylan Tiger, as well as a cadre of student journalists.

Read full article

Journalism alum, film projection pioneer Bob Endres passes away

Robert “Bob” Endres (BS ’62, MS ’63, journalism), a pioneering figure in film projection and a generous University of Illinois donor, passed away on June 25, 2024. He was 85.

During college, Endres worked at WILL as an engineer and a film critic. Endres said the valuable experience he gained at WILL served him well in his first job after college as a radio talk show host and DJ in his hometown of Streator, Illinois.

Endres would go on to work as head projectionist at the Kankakee Theater until moving to New York City in 1974 to fulfill a lifelong dream as head projectionist at Radio City Music Hall. In 1999, he became a projection technician in Dolby’s New York City screening room where he worked for the remainder of his career.

Endres was a member of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers and worked as a projectionist for advertising agencies, film laboratories, and movie studios. He also acted as background projectionist for CBS on the television shows Search for Tomorrow, As the World Turns, and Captain Kangaroo.

His career highlights include Abel Gance’s Napoleon, with its three-screen triptych at Radio City; the 25th anniversary celebration of the Metropolitan Opera; running “dailies” screenings for Sydney Lumet on seven of his pictures, including his last; and working for director Otto Preminger in his home screening room in Manhattan.

In 2017, Endres created the Robert O. Endres Endowed Internship at Illinois Public Media to support student internships with WILL. Since it began, the fund has helped a total of seven Media students further their education and gain real-world experience through internships.

Endres was named a member of the President’s Council, the University of Illinois Foundation’s donor-recognition program for those who give at the highest levels (totaling $50,000 or more) and a member of College of Media’s Dean’s Society, for donors who give $10,000 and above.

Read his obituary.

Read his essay “25 Years at Radio City.”