More J-School News

• April groundbreaking; Regents approve name
• CNN reporter to teach UM course
• Journalism grads win in latest Hearst round

New building:
April groundbreaking, Regents approve name

Construction of the new journalism building will officially begin April 22, when shovels will first dig into the grass behind Jeannette Rankin Hall, Journalism Dean Jerry Brown has announced.

Don Anderson

In addition, the state Board of Regents has approved naming the new building after Don Anderson, a newsman who negotiated the Lee Enterprise purchase of five Montana newspapers in 1959. Lee bought the papers from the Anaconda Co., the mining company that not only controlled the Butte mines but also kept a tight fist around the news columns of its papers.

Lee Enterprises has pledged $1 million to the cost of the $12 building. Several other donors have made pledges in Anderson’s name, and Anderson’s daughter and son in law, Susan and John Talbot, have promised $2 million. Talbot, a former publisher of the Missoulian, taught a class in media management at the school for several years.

The April 22 groundbreaking will coincide with the annual Dean Stone celebration. On April 22, former Baltimore Sun editor Bill Marimow will deliver the Dean Stone lecture. On April 23, students, faculty and scholarship donors gather for the annual Dean Stone banquet.

CNN reporter to teach UM course

photo courtesy of Thomas Nybo

Thomas Nybo, UM J-School '95, who reported from Iraq for CNN, will teach a summer class at UM.

A graduate of the University of Montana and embedded war reporter for CNN will teach a special course this summer at UM.

Thomas Nybo, a 1995 graduate in print journalism, was a one-man reporter for CNN early in the Iraqi war. He reported, edited, took photographs and involved himself in all aspects of journalism while in Iraq.

“He’ll get into the realities of reporting,” said Denise Dowling, a UM broadcast professor.

Nybo’s class will involve the technical aspects of war reporting and will also get into how he dealt with one–man reporting.

“It’s going to be real hands on kind of stuff,” Dowling said. The class, called “One-man band reporting,” will be offered as a special session course and will start after Memorial Day. It will be a three-credit upper division journalism class and will last three weeks.

-Matt Pritchard

Journalism grads win in latest Hearst round

Two recent J-School graduates have won top prizes in the most recent round of the Hearst Journalism Awards Program.

Jessie Childress

Danielle Cross

Jessie Childress, a print student who graduated in December, took fourth place in the editorial category. Danielle Cross, who graduated last December from the Radio and Television department, took sixth place in the television feature category.

Childress won a $750 scholarship for a column she wrote in the Montana Kaimin, the UM newspaper.

“I’d had Jessie’s column in mind for almost a year,” said Carol Van Valkenburg, a print journalism professor who submitted Childress’ column.

The column, which ran on Jan. 30, 2003, targeted an industry attack on the UM’s environmental studies program. Last year the Legislature redirected $700,000 from the University budget in an attempt to kill the program. Childress attacked the move in her column.

“Her column was well researched, well reasoned and well written,” Van Valkenburg said. These are the criteria Van Valkenburg said she looks for as she reads through a year’s worth of Montana Kaimin articles.

Childress, who was recently married, was editor of the Kaimin in the 2002-2003 school year and said she is thinking about going back to school.

“It’s nice to have a weekly column where you usually get a little feedback, to get recognition from a big organization and the honor of the award,” she said.

Cross’ new award, which comes with $500, is her second Hearst prize; the former broadcast student has now collected a total of $8,000 for excellence in college journalism.

Last spring Cross took first place in the national radio finals held in San Francisco. She finished school during the fall semester and is currently working at an internship at KHQ-TV in Spokane.

Denise Dowling, a broadcast professor at UM who worked with Cross on both her submissions, was not surprised by her success.

“Danielle does consistently hard work,” she said. And the category she took sixth in this time, television features, is one of the most difficult and competitive in the nation, Dowling said.

Cross downplayed her second round of success. “I’m glad to get the money,” she said. “But I really haven’t told anybody.”

The Hearst awards are sponsored by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation in conjunction with the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication (ASJMC). The contests allow the nation’s best students in print, photo and broadcast journalism to compete for scholarships and money.

“This is the college Pulitzer Prize,” said Dowling. “It is the most prestigious award for a college student.”

-Peter Coyle

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