Faculty News
Jeanni Atkins, Ph.D., associate professor, organized a Journalism Week panel on Freedom of Information moderated by Anita Lee, Mississippi Center for Freedom of Information president and Sun Herald staff writer. Panelists included Stan Tiner, executive editor of The Sun Herald; Leonard Van Slyke of Watkins Ludlam Winter & Stennis; David Hampton, editorial director of The Clarion-Ledger; and Frank Gibson, president of the National Freedom of Information Coalition and executive editor of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government. She has written two brochures for MCFOI: “The Open Meetings Law in a Nutshell” and “The Public Records Law in a Nutshell.” Her MCFOI secrecy series is to be published in Mississippi newspapers before the 2010 legislative session.
Joe Atkins, professor, recently completed a 4,000-word essay on workers and unions in the South for a United Auto Workers-distributed pamphlet, and he has proposed a panel on “Rediscovering the Working Class in the Labor Movement” for the How Class Works conference next June at New York University in Stony Brook. He has written monthly columns for the Jackson and Hattiesburg newspapers this fall on such issues as the national health-care reform debate and homelessness. He also profiled the “labor priest,” the Rev. Jeremy Tobin.
Garreth Blackwell, instructor and lab coordinator, came to terms with Kendall-Hunt Publishing for his first book, Design Your Own Magazine. His book will be a comprehensive look at the process of page design from paper choice to printed prototypes. Along with a step-by-step approach to design, his book will include historical information about the role of design, its place in modern society and tutorials on how to use InDesign to create a more efficient workflow. Design Your Own Magazine will be released in summer of 2010.
Mark Kenneth Dolan, Ph.D., assistant professor, organized and moderated a panel “The First Amendment: Tested and On Trial” at the Overby Center for Southern Politics and Journalism. The panel focused on Net Neutrality, the initiative that seeks to keep the Internet free of restriction on content and platforms from cable companies to ensure economic growth, media innovation and democratic participation. The panel also addressed misinterpretations of the First Amendment and Internet access to public records in Mississippi. Panelists included Marvin Ammori, Huffington Post and New York Times contributor and law professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Dwight Teeter, University of Tennessee professor of journalism and electronic media and co-author of Law of Mass Communications, 11th edition; and Leonard Van Slyke, Jackson media law attorney. In addition, he reviewed Douglas A. Blackmon’s Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, in the fall 2009 issue of The Southern Register, published quarterly by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at The University of Mississippi. Blackmon is Atlanta bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal. Dolan chaired and organized a peer review of the research-in-progress sessions at the annual convention of the American Journalism Historians Association held Oct. 5-7 in Birmingham, Ala. He organized and hosted a guest lecture on intellectual property and copyright by Dr. Gary Myers of The University of Mississippi School of Law. It can be viewed at: http://blip.tv/file/2807407.
Nancy McKenzie Dupont, Ph.D., associate professor, is serving as news division head for the Broadcast Education Association this year. She has spent much of the fall semester programming the 2010 convention. She was asked to step in as temporary head of the radio-television journalism division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication to help program the 2010 conference. In addition, she is serving on the board of directors for the Mississippi Associated Press Broadcasters Association.
Keith Havens, producer, assisted students in edit labs and instructed 376 students on proper shooting and editing techniques. He worked on a recruitment video for the school. Havens also produced a story for “Planet Forward” about an Amory man who converts used French fry oil to fuel his diesel vehicles for “Planet Forward.” Additionally, he took 6 hours of graduate journalism courses.
Samir Husni, Ph.D., Hederman Lecturer and Professor, presented a keynote address at the Brazilian Magazine Association Third Annual Forum in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Nov. 11. His presentation was entitled “The Road Map for Success: Do not promote the suicide of your print magazine.” Husni also wrote a cover story for the December 2009 issue of Folio: magazine on the 15 most notable magazine launches of 2009. Earlier in the semester he spent five days in Helsinki, Finland, conducting seminars on the future of the media industry and the role of print in a digital world. He was interviewed about the status of the industry and its future by media outlets including the Associated Press, The New York Times and USA Today.
Deidra Jackson, instructor, is technical editor for The Financial Review—the official journal of the Eastern Finance Association—which publishes original research concerning issues of importance in all areas of financial economics. She also is a columnist for the Triangle Tribune, a monthly newspaper that serves Dothan, Ala., and surrounding areas.
Keith Kimmons, producer/director, provided tutoring for students once a week. He offered technical support in the Bishop Hall studio and all the video labs. He led video editing workshops for Jour 376 students, who need help with editing beyond the lab time in class. (Oct. 29 and Nov. 10 sessions). He videotaped Jour 580 students’ “simulation live shots” during performance training with Nancy Dupont, associate professor. He assisted Jour 102 students with Flip Camera Edit Share Software and found alternatives for students with other brands of cameras. He took Jour 680 this semester (Special Topics in Journalism) toward graduate credit. He also took two insurance continuing education courses online: Long Term Care Fundamentals and Personal Life Insurance Planning. Kimmons is required to take 12 hours of continuing education courses each calendar year to keep current his State of Mississippi Insurance License. He also is working with Deb Wenger on a video project.
Mykki Newton, videographer/editor, produces videos of all the events at the school.
Videos produced for MCAST and YouTube:
*Each program can be viewed in its entirety at: www.mcast.blip.tv/
*Selected moments from some programs can be viewed at the address below the title.
Ron Farrar Ron Farrar Honored by Ole Miss
www.youtube.com/watch?v=giYQ7jtOOP4
Newspaper Wars, Ronnie Agnew and Otis Sanford
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lf4418SIKE
The Local Newspaper in a New Age, Myra Dean of The Panolian
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFLt2NJSjB8
The Changing World of Broadcast News, Matt Ellis of Ellis Strategies
www.youtube.com/watch?v=b26U5q20_-E
Broadcast News in the Mid-South—Bob Noonan
www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2C_b0VL0Hs
The Future of Print Journalism, Scott Coopwood of The Oxford Enterprise
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViKetRmq72c
Pursuing a Career in Broadcast News, Kalisha Whitman of WTVA-News
www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6jBY4-EVI4
2009 Silver Em Award Ceremony
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOHa_be974s
Music and Copyright Law, Gary Myers of the UM School of Law
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cup1dy6gQ7A
Freedom of Information Panel
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlEk5DVZzcQ
Roger Fransecky
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqVro5GowWE
Marty Russell wrote columns for the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal and assisted Ellen Meacham, internship coordinator, in making calls to regional newspapers inquiring about possible internships for journalism students.
Brad Schultz, Ph.D., associate professor, recently had papers accepted for publication in the International Journal of Sport Communication and the Journal of Communication Studies. He also had been invited to present papers at the fourth Summit on Sport Communication and the annual convention of the Broadcast Education Association. He will sit on two panels at BEA, including one featuring the journal he edits, the Journal of Sports Media. Next year, Schultz’s book Media Relations in Sport and a chapter in the book Sport Communication will be published.
Robin Street, APR, lecturer, was named to the 2010 board of directors of the Public Relations Association of Mississippi. She will serve as the northern district coordinator for Accreditation in Public Relations testing.
Kristen Alley Swain, Ph.D., assistant professor, wrote a chapter, “Moral Development Framing in Environmental Justice News Coverage,” for the new Routledge book Communicating Science: New Agendas in Communication. The chapter examines the rhetoric of polluting industries during the 1990s, when the U.S. environmental justice movement emerged and mobilized. Coverage highlighted tensions between economic development and social progress, and industries did not treat minority and low-income citizens as stakeholders in facility siting and policy processes unless weak public pressure evolved into organized protest.
She also was awarded a grant from the Ole Miss Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in an annual competition. Only 15 percent of the applications for the competition received funding. The funding will support a civic journalism sustainability project in her spring Public Opinion and the Mass Media course. Student teams will tap the concerns and ideas of citizens, experts, leaders and innovators about energy conservation issues, using online social media, focus groups, crowd sourcing and town hall discussion. Students also will produce multimedia news coverage about the process for PBS “Planet Forward” and other media outlets. The grant will purchase video cameras, tripods, digital recorders, microphones and video editing software licenses.
Sue Weakley, adjunct instructor, is helping to forge an agreement between Ole Miss and Pontifica Universidad Católica Argentina in Buenos Aires and is working with Dr. Gustavo Said in Brazil to expand the Meek School of Journalism’s study abroad program. In her free time, she is the volunteer editor of the Andalusian, the magazine of the International Andalusian and Lusitano Horse Association.
Deb Halpern Wenger, Ph.D., associate professor, edited two training modules on the use of social media in journalism. The modules (http://www.spj.org/bbtraining.asp) were developed by Wenger and Jeff Cutler, a social media expert, for use in the Society of Professional Journalists’ Newsroom Training Program. Entitled “Follow the Noise: Social Media Listening Tools for Journalists” and “Connect and Communicate: Social Media Conversation Tools for Journalists,” the modules offer strategies for capitalizing on social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in reporting and audience-building efforts. Wenger and Cutler will deliver the training for the first time in January at the Herald Times in Bloomington, Ind., with several more training programs scheduled in 2010. The second edition of her textbook, Advancing the Story, will be out in January 2011.
Kathleen Wickham, Ph.D., associate professor, was successful in her nomination of The University of Mississippi campus as a national historic site in journalism by the Society of Professional Journalists. A dedication ceremony is scheduled for April. The selection is a result of Wickham’s research into the life and death of Paul Guihard, the Agence France-Presse reporter killed on campus during the 1962 Meredith crisis. Guihard was the only reporter killed during the civil rights era.
Curtis Wilkie, assistant professor and Cook Chair, arranged a fall series of programs at the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics that concluded in late November with a discussion of Willie Morris’ role as editor of Harper’s Magazine. Other sessions included Charles Eagles, author of The Price of Defiance; Howell Raines, former executive editor of The New York Times; Shepard Smith, Fox News Channel anchor; a reminiscence of the storied 1959 Ole Miss football team, moderated by David Kellum, the “voice of the Rebels” and featuring Charlie Flowers, Jake Gibbs, Warner Alford and Bobby Franklin; and a reflection on their editorial campaigns against the mayors of Jackson and Memphis by Ronnie Agnew, executive editor of The Clarion-Ledger, and Otis Sanford, editor of the editorial page of The Commercial Appeal. Wilkie also spoke on the Middle East at a weekly Wednesday night program at the First Presbyterian Church in Oxford and talked about Oxford as a literary community with a group of out-of-state visitors in Taylor.
Eric Williamson, producer/director, has been working with the 376, 378 and 480 classes on graphics, signs and special effects for their stories and final projects. He led two training workshops after hours on the editing systems for the 376 classes, and held after-hours individual training sessions for interested students. He conducted a survey that gathered information from new directors, production managers and station managers at television stations throughout the state of Mississippi about what editing software and platforms they use, what they look for in a student applying for a job or an internship and what skills are the most desirable in a potential hire for positions at their stations.
Marvin Williams, Ph.D., assistant professor, continues to recruit and represent the school. Recent events include Ole Miss DeSoto Day at the Fair, campus “Major Day” and the new journalism alumni tent (Northern Arizona, Tennessee and LSU games). During fall 2009, the broadcast news writing and reporting classes completed about 430 live news reports and 150 radio packages for the Student Media Center.