Longtime editor chosen as next Pollner prof

By Brad Fjeldheim
J-School Web reporter

Nancy Szokan will be the fourth Pollner professor at the UM School of Journalism.

Nancy Szokan, an editor at the Washington Post, will teach a seminar and work with the Montana Kaimin staff as next fall’s Pollner Professor.

“She is just an extraordinary editor, and all of her references showed that sentiment,” said Carol Van Valkenburg, head of the print department and of the Pollner selection committee.

Szokan, 52, has edited stories ranging from food to foreign wars. She has been editing for over 20 years and worked with Pulitzer Prize-winning staffs at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Most recently, she was co-editor at the Post for reporters covering the Pentagon, State Department and CIA during the war in Iraq.

“The most important thing about good editors is to have respect for the writer,” Szokan said. It’s also important to realize you are helping a person who knows more than you do about what they are writing, she said.

The T. Anthony Pollner Distinguished Professorship brings a working journalist to teach a class and help with the Kaimin during the fall semester each year. Family and friends of 1999 J-school graduate Anthony Pollner created the endowment to honor his memory after his death in a 2001 motorcycle accident. Pollner helped create the Kaimin web page and worked as a Kaimin reporter.

There have been three previous Pollner professors, but Szokan will be the first woman.

“I think it is important for women students to see that there are women at the top levels of journalism,” Van Valkenburg said. “I am grateful that we had a woman as our best applicant this year.”

Szokan became an assistant editor of the Washington Post’s “Outlook” section five years ago and has also found a passion for teaching. For a long time she didn’t have to teach because the reporters she worked with were among the nation’s best, she said.

“Outlook” prints articles written by experts in certain fields or professions, she said. People writing in this section know a lot about what they are talking about but sometimes they have a hard time expressing themselves, she said.

“Outlook” has taught her how to explain the story process from scratch, Szokan said. She didn’t have to do this with reporters, and breaking down the story was the driving force in her newfound excitement for teaching.

Katherine Seelye, a staff writer for the New York Times Washington Bureau, met Szokan more than 20 years ago while working at the Philadelphia Inquirer.

“Some editors are great line editors, and some are great concept editors, but Nancy is that rarity who is in command of all elements of a story,” Seelye said. She is a smart editor who cares about doing things right, she said.

Szokan works temporary assignments in various departments for the Washington Post. She worked full time for three years but her family lives outside of Philadelphia and, disliking the commute to Washington, she and the paper worked out a more flexible schedule.

The flexibility of her new job has given her the freedom to do different things. She is editing a book for Johns Hopkins University and a book on tax policy for Mount Holyoke College. The extra time of this new schedule, and her passion to teach, motivated her to apply for the Pollner professorship.

Szokan is interested in teaching and studying the role of opinion in journalism.

“Things are happening in the world of journalism,” she said. The structure is changing and the distinction between news and opinion is blurred. A journalism career is not the same as it used to be, and she wants to explore that with students.

Szokan will meet later with J-School faculty to decide the format of the class, but Szokan’s husband, Rick Nichols, will be in Missoula most of the fall semester and is interested in helping with the class.

Nichols is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and a 35-year veteran of the journalism profession who has taught journalism at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Szokan graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in 1973 and then rode her bicycle around Europe for a few months.

She first heard about Missoula when she came back to the United States and worked for a man mapping bicycle routes in North Carolina. Her boss was from Montana and he described Missoula in a way she still remembers.

“Missoula was one of those places that launched adventures,” she said. Teaching motivated her to apply, but to do it in a place like Missoula is even more exciting, she said.

Journalism Dean Jerry Brown, former broadcast newsman and UM alum Don Oliver, the Pollner family and former Pollner professors join Van Valkenburg on the selection committee.

Previous Pollner professors are Jonathan Weber, former editor of The Industry Standard; Tom Cheatham, NBC news producer; and Maurice Possley, a criminal justice reporter at the Chicago Tribune.

Possley, last year’s Pollner professor, was enthusiastic about Szokan.

“This is a no-brainer of a choice,” he said. “She sounds terrific."

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