Washington Post editor wraps up Pollner class

By Tyler Christensen
J-School Web Reporter

photo by Luke George

Nancy Szokan discusses the media with six of her seven Pollner Seminar students in the J-School library.

The University of Montana scored a Washington Post editor for its newest Pollner professor this fall, but now it’s time for School of Journalism students to say goodbye.

Nancy Szokan, an editor at The Washington Post and the fourth Pollner professor to visit the J-school, will wrap up her seminar, titled “Truth-telling in an Age of Opinion,” at the end of the semester.

“I think journalists have better parties,” Szokan said about her decision to become a journalist and about working with journalists today. “They have more interesting lives. They have more interests. They more easily get interested in other people and other things.”

Szokan’s journey to Missoula began when Jonathan Krim, a business reporter at the Post and graduate of UM’s J-school, approached her to ask if she’d ever thought about teaching. He told her about the T. Anthony Pollner Distinguished Professorship, which honors Anthony Pollner, a 1999 graduate of the J-school. After Anthony Pollner’s death in May 2001, his friends and family started an endowment that brings a working journalist to UM for one semester each academic year. Szokan, who re-arranged her work schedule some years ago so she could work “in spurts” in different departments at the Post, said she jumped at the chance.

“I went around the Post newsroom before I came,” she said. “I probably interviewed – sort of – at least 20 people to say, ‘What do you think kids should learn? What should we be talking about?’ and everybody, when I do this process, they sort of say, ‘Hmm, can I do this next?’ ”

The Pollner professor teaches a seminar, gives a lecture, and advises UM’s student-run newspaper, the Montana Kaimin.

 “It’s always nice to have another professional opinion in addition to other professors’ opinions,” said Jessica Wambach, editor of the Kaimin.

Students say they got a two-for-one deal with Szokan because she brought her husband, Rick Nichols, to Montana with her. He served on the editorial board of the Philadelphia Inquirer, where Szokan once worked as well, for 12 years and is currently a columnist there. Nichols, who once taught journalism classes at Philadelphia’s Temple University, is a common sight in Szokan’s class and in Kaimin meetings.

“When (Nichols) sees something and he has something to say he will definitely chase you down, and it’s always good advice,” Wambach said.

In contrast to Nichols’ experience, this semester was Szokan’s first foray into the world of teaching in a classroom setting, she said.

“As I said when I came here, when I walked into the class the first week on August 29, it was the first time I’d been in a journalism classroom for 31 years,” she said, wide-eyed. 

She credits the entire J-school faculty with helping her organize and troubleshoot the class, especially professors Carol Van Valkenburg, a Kaimin adviser and chair of the print department, and Denny McAuliffe, whom she knew from her days at the Post.

In addition to teaching and advising the student newspaper, the Pollner professor must give a lecture on an issue relevant to journalists. Szokan’s October lecture was titled “What Are We Doing Here?” and examined the decline of mainstream American media.

It sounds like a lot of work, but Szokan contends that her load has been relatively light.

“It’s a very light workload in a place where your brain keeps working, where there’s interesting people and stimulating discussion, things going on,” Szokan said. “You know, you stay awake without being overworked.”

Szokan, who has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Northwestern University, said she didn’t originally intend to be a journalist. She wanted to major in foreign languages so she could become a translator in Russian, French and Spanish. However, the journalism students she met made a big impression.

“I had not been there long before I realized that everybody who I thought was aware, was smart and fun to talk to, and just cool, was in journalism,” Szokan said. “And I transferred in completely for that reason. I had no higher goals – it was the environment I wanted to be hanging in for four years.”

Szokan said her favorite class project has been one involving a class interview with Weymouth Symmes, who became a national figure during the presidential election because of his involvement with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

“When we first got here, I learned that the treasurer of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which, as you know, is the privately funded organization that did the attack ads on John Kerry and his Vietnam record – that the national treasurer lived here in Missoula,” Szokan explained. “What we decided to do was to invite this guy to class, have the students do readings and then run what’s like an editorial board meeting.”

Students in Szokan’s class held a mock editorial board meeting – a meeting between newspaper editors and a newsmaker designed to help editors develop an editorial stance, then researched the issues and developed their own opinions.

Szokan said she used the presidential race as a learning experience for the class, and the Swift Boat Veterans controversy provided a particularly interesting example.

 “If presidential campaigns are the Super Bowl of Spin, I would say the Swift Boat campaign was like an 80-yard touchdown,” Szokan said. “They did it and it worked exactly the way it was supposed to work, and it was incredibly effective, and it was done on very little money, comparatively, and they got everything they wanted out of it – they absolutely, completely took away Kerry’s heroic, literally, medal-winning Vietnam career as any sort of support as a candidate.”

Szokan’s students were to write an opinion piece on another topic of their choice and submit it to three off-campus media as a mid-term project.  Although some students struggled at first, Szokan said she’s been amazed by their progress.

Some students appreciate in particular her real-life approach to teaching.

“The reason that I appreciate Nancy Szokan above and beyond all other professors in (the J-school) is she really cares about helping us get our stuff published,” said Natalie Storey, a student in Szokan’s class and news editor at the Kaimin.

Nate Biehl, an R-TV major, said he’s grateful for Szokan’s seasoned approach to sensitive issues. A sergeant in the National Guard, Biehl wrote his piece about drawing on national reservists for the war in Iraq, but had some reservations about submitting his raw opinions. Szokan helped him write an opinion that was really his, not just what he thought she wanted to read, he said.

“How valuable is that, to have someone with that recent, important experience?” Biehl said of Szokan, who was assistant editor for national security issues at the Post during the early days of the Iraq war.

The seminar has given him an insight that other R-TV majors don’t have, Biehl added. He’s been able to step inside the print world and take a look at journalism issues from another perspective.

“It’s been extremely beneficial for me to look once a week really, really hard at issues that are going to affect my profession,” he said. “It’s been both incredibly difficult and very fun.”

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