Terry Wimmer, who is retiring after a dozen years at the J-school, was honored on Dec. 6 by faculty and staff at Sinbad's. Susan Knight read testimonials from former students, some of which can be found at the "Wimmer stories" Facebook group page run by Dan Desrochers ('15) at tinyurl.com/ya9un44b (ask to be invited). Linda Lumsden organized a school gift for Wimmer, a photo by former Professor Jay Rochlin. Faculty thanked Wimmer for mentoring thousands of students since 2006. Watch a Facebook video of Jeannine Relly's tribute to Wimmer.

The Dec. 7 Tombstone Epitaph was the final issue for retiring adviser Terry Wimmer, who has an editor's letter on Page 2. Read the edition at tinyurl.com/y8f9ctyh.

An article by Carol Schwalbe, Jeannine Relly, Sally Ann Cruikshank and Ethan Schwalbe on “Human Security as a Conceptual Framework: The Case of Palestinian Journalists” was published in the online version of the academic journal Journalism Studies. This research focuses on the daily professional and societal constraints and pressures that Palestinian journalists face in one of the most challenging regions in the world for independently reporting the news.

Adjunct instructor Cynthia Lancaster and administrative assistant Andrés Domínguez visited Tucson High along with J-school student Nick Trujillo on a Nov. 14 recruiting visit. Lancaster gave a brief overview of the J-school and the opportunities available (concentrations, study abroad, internships, etc.) accompanied by a PowerPoint. Domíguez gave an overview of the school's summer diversity workshop and the benefits (free housing, campus experience). Domínguez, Trujillo and Tucson High journalism adviser James Bourland are all Tucson High graduates. Lancaster, who is helping the J-school with recruiting efforts statewide, also visited Pima Community College, where she used to be a journalism instructor and adviser of the campus newspaper.

Jeannine Relly and adjunct instructor Brett Fera of Arizona Student Media hosted media professionals from the Kyrgyz Republic in a Dec. 3 tour of the School of Journalism and the Arizona Daily Wildcat, KAMP Radio and UATV3.

Carol Schwalbe was invited to serve on the committee to recommend the next Leicester and Kathryn Sherrill Creative Teaching Award to Provost Jeff Goldberg. This UA award recognizes excellence in the art of teaching, especially at the undergraduate level.

Susan Knight and students from the school's Society of Professional Journalists chapter organized "Satire in the Age of 'Fake News,'" on Nov. 14, a panel discussion with cartoonists David Fitzsimmons (Arizona Daily Star) and Chris Britt, and Nancy Stanley and Derek Bambauer of the UA College of Law. Click here to watch the Facebook Live video.

Adjunct instructor Cathalena Burch invited conductor Keitaro Harada to speak with her advanced reporting class on Nov. 15. Harada, a UA alum who was in town to conduct the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, talked about his experiences with journalists in his native Japan, where he is a regular guest conductor. He is the associate conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony.

About 300 people attended the Nov. 18 Journalism on Screen showing of "All the President's Men" at The Loft, organized by William Schmidt and Nancy Sharkey. The film was followed by a Q&A with Arizona Daily Star columnist Tim Steller and Tucson Weekly Editor and former adjunct instructor Jim Nintzel. See part of their Q&A at youtu.be/Fe5eYd4_NBw. Up next is "The Post," Feb. 17, at 2 p.m. (journalism.arizona.edu/Loft).

Adjunct instructor Joe Sharkey is writing a new column for Lola.com, a startup business travel site by Paul English, who founded Kayak. He also writes for Business Jet Traveler and Johnnyjet.com. Sharkey is still awaiting the U.S. release date for the movie "Above Suspicion," which is based on his nonfiction book and stars Emilia Clarke, but you can see the trailer by a distributor for the Middle East at tinyurl.com/y7mzl3mu.

Nov. 9, 2018

Jeannine Relly and Rajdeep Pakanati's manuscript titled, "Freedom of Information Lessons from India: Collaboration, Coproduction and Rights-based Agenda Building" was accepted for publication in Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism. The study included interviews with 110 journalists, civil society organization leaders, and social activists in 20 cities and towns across India.

Susan Swanberg's article, "Psychological Armor: The Science News-Letter Warns Against Propaganda (1926-1965)," was accepted for publication in Journalism Studies. The work was supported by Swanberg's 2017–2018 fellowship from the UA's Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy.

Linda Lumsden participated on a panel, “Civil Rights and Human Rights: Digital and Oral Histories in the US-Mexico Borderlands,” at the 2018 Oral History Association Annual Meeting on Oct. 9-12 in Montreal. Lumsden discussed how she created the "Sonoran Desert Journalists Oral History" project with her 2017 American Press History class. 

Linda Lumsden discussed her  "Historiography" on Oct. 8 as part of  a panel that discussed  the upcoming American Journalism “Woman Suffrage and the Media” Special Issue at the American Journalism Historians Association convention in Salt Lake City.  

Irene McKisson, an adjunct instructor, and her editing class students prompted AP Stylebook editors to change an entry on "hedging" that "presumed maleness." Check out the new and old versions below at https://tinyurl.com/yblk7ldu.

Andrés Domínguez, administrative assistant, received news that his proposal for the Donald W. Carson Journalism Diversity Workshop for Arizona High School Students was selected by the Office for Diversity and Inclusive Excellence (ODIEX) review committee to receive $3,000 in funding. Domínguez is director of the workshop. Business staff members Martha Castleberry, Kris Hogeboom and Veronica Peralta also helped with the proposal.

Celeste González de Bustamante was interviewed Nov. 7 by Univision national correspondent Luis Megid about the effect of anti-immigrant discourse on the midterm elections. Go to tinyurl.com/yd876d84 to see Megid's report.

Jeannine Relly has been invited to join the Honors College Faculty Advisory Committee, which will provide guidance and advice in a collaborative context to discuss the future direction of the Honors College. 

Susan Knight is helping the school's Society of Professional Journalists chapter sell buttons to promote the values of press freedom and raise funds for the club. The buttons are $2 each, or three for $5. To order, go to PayPal.Me/SpjUAChapter. In the notes section, signify which buttons (below) you want, your shipping address and an email to contact you with questions. Email Spjuniversityofarizona@gmail.com or albright1@email.arizona.edu if you have questions.

Celeste González de Bustamante was interviewed about the dangers journalists face in Mexico as part of the Oct. 26 Arizona 360 profile, "Journalist Carmen Aristegui honored," by Nancy Montoya of Arizona Public Media. Aristegui was the school's Zenger Award winner. Montoya emceed the dinner.

Susan Knight wrote Homecoming profiles of recent graduates Brandon James and Michelle Floyd for the school's website. Both commented on how much their J-school education has helped them after graduation.

Eric Gibson of the Wall Street Journal talked to students in Susan Knight's feature writing class and Nancy Sharkey's Principles of Journalism class. Gibson is editor of the Journal's Leisure & Arts page. Read his work at www.wsj.com/news/author/5670.

Oct. 20, 2018

Led by adviser Terry Wimmer, the El Indpendiente staff placed third nationally in the 2018 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Student Magazine Contest with its spring 2018 issue, "Equality. The Status of Women in Arizona." Click here to read the issue.

Susan Swanberg received the American Journalism Historians Association 2018 Rising Scholar Award at the AJHA convention in early October in Salt Lake City. She was lauded for her project titled, “Spinning Science: Journalism’s Role at the Interface of Science and Public Policy During the Birth of the Atomic Age.”

Linda Lumsden was first runner-up for Outstanding Research on a Minorities Topic for her paper, “‘Don Sotaco’ Finds His Voice: Visual Rhetoric and Farm Worker Identity in El Malcriado, 1964-1967,” which she presented at the American Journalism Historians Association convention Oct. 6 in Salt Lake City.

Adjunct instructor Irene McKisson's editing students prompted AP Stylebook editors to change an entry on "hedging" that "presumed maleness." Click here to check out the new and old versions.

Jeannine Relly and Myiah Hutchens saw their study, "The influence of "dark networks" on citizens' confidence in democratic institutions in Mexico," accepted for publication in The Social Science Journal. The research used secondary public opinion data and government data to study the influence of violence and knowledge of corruption on citizens' attitudes toward democracy and confidence in democratic institutions over the three most recent Mexican presidencies.

Carol Schwalbe, Jeannine Relly, Sally Ann Cruikshank and Ethan Schwalbe's manuscript titled, "Human security as a conceptual framework: The case of Palestinian journalists," was accepted for publication in the academic journal, Journalism Studies. The fieldwork, conducted in the West Bank and Gaza, started in May 2017 and ended  in December of that year.  A trained Palestinian-American research associate interviewed  23 journalists based in Bethlehem, Gaza City, Hebron, Jenin, Jericho, Jerusalem, Nablus, and Ramallah. The study was funded in part by  the Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute at The University of Arizona.

About 190 people attended the Zenger Award for Press Freedom dinner honoring Carmen Aristegui on Oct. 12 at the Westward Look. Director Carol Schwalbe delivered a "School Spotlight," and Celeste González de Bustamante introduced Aristegui. Nancy Montoya of Arizona Public Media was the emcee, and Jaime Fatás-Cabeza acted as a translator during the Q&A. Gonzalez de Bustamante and Jeannine Relly spoke about the Center for Border & Global Journalism. Outreach coordinator Mike Chesnick organized the event with help from staffers Debbie Cross and Andrés Domínguez, and business staffers Martha Castleberry and Kris Hogeboom. Ethan Schwalbe also pitched in, while Kim Newton oversaw the NPPA photo auction. Click here to read more. Clck here for the Facebook Live video and here for a photo gallery.

Renée Schafer Horton, internship coordinator, organized the all-day Fall Internship Fair with more than a dozen recruiters — including Courtney Vinopal of PBS Newshour, Tom Arviso Jr. of The Navajo Times, Phyllis Braun of the Arizona Jewish Post, Sarah Gassen of the Arizona Daily Star, Anthony Gimino ('90) and Steve Rivera of All Sports Tucson. See the photos by Debbie Cross and Andrés Domínguez.

William Schmidt (and his dog, Houston) participated in the James W. Foley Freedom Run/Walk on Oct. 20, while Susan Knight helped staff the Society of Professional Journalists' table. Schmidt gave students some background on Foley, a freelance journalist who was slain by ISIS. The event was sponsored by the Center for Border & Global Journalism and the school's SPJ chapter. See the photos and watch the video.

Celeste González de Bustamante coordinated a visit to the school by Dallas Morning News border correspondent Alfredo Corchado, who talked to students and faculty about his reporting and books, "Homelands" (2018) and "Midnight in Mexico" (2014). His visit was co-sponsored by the school's Center for Border & Global Journalism, the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice and the Office for Diversity and Inclusive Excellence (ODIEX).

Grad students gathered at Gentle Ben's on Oct. 9 as part of another successful Talk & 'Tizers' event, organized by Debbie Cross, program coordinator. Earlier, Prof. Jeannine Relly's theory and practice class participated in a lively Q&A about journalism ethics with Nancy Sharkey, then listened to Beth Stahmer, director of the UA's Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute, and Shelley Hawthorne Smith, assistant director of the Graduate College Office of Fellowships and Community Engagement. They talked about funding opportunities for graduate project and research work.

Students received job tips Oct. 3 from professionals and professors at Pizza & Portfolios, organized by internship coordinator Renée Schafer Horton. The panel included Debbie Kornmiller (Arizona Daily Star), Jordan Glenn ('17, KOLD TV), Dylan Smith (Tucson Sentinel), Damien Alameda (KOLD TV), Andrea Kelly ('05, AZPM) and Curt Prendergast ('11 M.A., Star). Profs. Susan Knight, Nancy Sharkey, Maggy Zanger, Rogelio Garcia and Kim Newton reviewed students' resumes and portfolios.

More than 60 parents, students and faculty attended the school's Family Weekend get-together on Oct. 6, with Director Carol Schwalbe welcoming everyone. Profs. Mike McKisson, Bill Schmidt and Susan Knight joined academic adviser Paloma Boykin and staff members Andrés Domínguez and Mike Chesnick in chatting with parents and students.

David Cuillier and Jeannine Relly (moderator) were part of the inaugural UA Debate Series' free event, “Your Government: Rights to Information,” on Sept. 28 at McClelland Park on North Park Avenue. Security expert Volodymyr Lysenko and Arizona Public Media’s Christopher Conover and Nancy Montoya joined the panel to address whether the government has the right to protect information for national security, and whether journalists have the right to protect their anonymous sources.

Mike McKisson contributed to the drone photography for this Arizona Public Media story on Tucson nurse Sarah Sellers, who finished second in the Boston Marathon.

Sept. 21, 2018

Susan Knight coordinated a proclamation with the County Board of Supervisors and Chairman Richard Elías, who deemed October "Freedom of the Press Month" and honored the UA School of Journalism for its "vital role in training those who report the news." Elías presented the framed proclamation on Sept. 19 to student Pascal Albright. Also at the board meeting were Mike McKisson, Susan E. Swanberg, Susan Knight, Rogelio Garcia, Kim Newton and Celeste González de Bustamante, Director Carol Schwalbe, Arizona Daily Star reporter Joe Ferguson ('06) and outreach coordinator Mike Chesnick. Go to tinyurl.com/yd8zqxhp for photos.

David Cuillier will lead two training sessions at the national Society of Professional Journalists conference in Baltimore Sept. 27-28, one on suing for public records and the other on records resources for journalists. He gave a talk on why copy fees should be eliminated at the National Freedom of Information Coalition in Cincinnati Sept. 22, and a keynote talk about the psychology of access at the New England First Amendment Institute in Boston Sept. 18. He completed the second edition of The Art of Access: Strategies for Acquiring Public Records, which will be available from Sage Publishing in August 2019.

Paloma Boykin (academic adviser) and Debbie Cross (program coordinator) staffed the journalism table at the Sept. 18 Meet Your Major Fair at the Student Union. Mike McKisson also talked to prospective journalism students and showed off the school's drones and 360-degree cameras.

Susan Knight organized the Sept. 15 all-clubs leadership retreat, attended by more than 15 students and club advisers Celeste González de Bustamante (NAHJ), Jacelle Ramon-Sauberan (NAJA), a Ph.D. journalism minor, and Mike Chesnick (sports).

Mort Rosenblum's story, "Range Wars: A copper rush sparks last-ditch battles for Arizona’s soul," was published in the September issue of Harper's magazine.

Kim Newton presented images from his sabbatical project, “The Changing Face of Britain,” during the American Society of Media Photographers' “Pints & Pixels” meeting at the Shanty on Sept. 20. Newton identified up to 30 paintings by his grandfather, British landscape artist Algernon Newton, and photographed those exact scenes as they are today — including the Paddington Basin.

Mike McKisson and adjunct instructor Irene McKisson attended the Online News Association annual convention in Austin, Texas, Sept. 13-15. Irene, editor of the Arizona Daily Star's "This is Tucson," was part of a panel, "Career Advice From the Women’s Leadership Accelerator." 

Linda Lumsden received an ODIEX (Office of Diversity and Inclusive Excellence) grant to help cover travel expenses to attend the Oral History Association’s convention in Montreal.

Maggy Zanger also received an ODIEX grant to help pay for the visit of journalist Alfredo Corchado, high school recruitment, activities by diversity clubs and a student town hall on diversity and inclusion.

Mike McKisson and student Simon Asher provided drone footage for the Arizona Illustrated story, "Monsoon Mushrooms." Go to reportingservices.arizona.edu for more info on the school's digital services.

Jeannine Relly was invited to be featured on the Graduate Human Rights Practice Program website, the first in a series. Read her bio at https://humanrightspractice.arizona.edu/users/jeannine-relly

Valerie Trouet, a Tree-Ring Lab faculty member, talked to adjunct instructor Tom Beal's science journalism class Sept. 12 and Carol Schwalbe's master's reporting class (JOUR 506) for an assignment Sept. 19. Trouet received a Distinguished Scholar Award from UA in the spring. Read more about Trouet's research at trouetlab.arizona.edu.

Aug. 31, 2018

Carol Schwalbe began her first school year as director on Aug. 20. She and the rest of the faculty met downtown at the College of SBS loft, 44 Broadway, on Aug. 16 for their annual retreat. Click here to read more about Carol.

Susan E. Swanberg presented her paper "Farming Outside the Lines: Rain Follows the Plow in 21st Century Art and Popular Culture," at the Society for the Social Studies of Science's annual conference on Aug. 31 in Sydney, Australia. She also teamed up with Steve Coffee (below) on a musical collaboration on "Pseudoscience in Popular Culture." He played a selection of songs, and Swanberg offered perspective about climate change misinformation and disinformation. Read the abstracts at tinyurl.com/ycnxvwub.

Kim Newton saw the South Korean documentary he's featured in — "Mother and Photographer" (English title: "Witnesses to Democracy") — awarded the best documentary of the month for June 2018 by the South Korean government (tinyurl.com/y99gzfw8). View the trailer at tinyurl.com/yacdsaw2.

Mike McKisson and Jeannine Relly kicked off their Al Litzow faculty engagement grant project, "The PreReq Podcast: An inside look at being a student in 2018." Students met with Andrew Brown of Arizona Public Media on Aug. 13 and Aug. 31, practicing with the new audio equipment and talking about episodes.

Celeste González de Bustamante's Reporting in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands class took a tour of Nogales, Sonora, with Cesar Barrón from Radio XENY. Check out this video summary, shot and edited on an iPhone 7 Plus by González de Bustamante. Earlier, students were welcomed by Santos Yescas, with Nogales Community Development at the school's Nogales news bureau, a space at a senior residence where students can report and work on projects every Monday.

Michael McKisson arranged for Kellen Henry, assistant editor for digital platforms at The New York Times, to speak to his product development class via Skype about how her team used product development to redesign The Times’ homepage. The class is being funded by a Knight/ONA Challenge fund grant.

Linda Lumsden, new Graduate Studies director, and Debbie Cross, Grad Studies Program Coordinator, welcomed 13 new master's students on Aug. 17. The students met returning grad students, faculty and staff, and took a tour of the labs and school. Go to journalism.arizona.edu/grad.bios to meet some of the grad students.

Renée Schafer Horton wrote a guest column for the Arizona Daily Star's op-ed page, "Stop donating to the Catholic Church. Now." She is scheduled to appear on KVOI 1330-AM’s "Wake Up Tucson" show to discuss the column on  Sept. 12 at 8 a.m.

Mike Chesnick, outreach coordinator, updated the display cases with new student articles and photos.

Stephanie Innes, a J-school adjunct instructor from 2003-11, started a new job as a health reporter for the Arizona Republic and azcentral.com in Phoenix after an 18-year career at the Arizona Daily Star. Innes was named the 2017 Virg Hill Journalist of the Year by the Arizona Press Club and worked for the Tucson Citizen for three years before going to the Star in 2000.

Aug. 10, 2018

Three faculty members attended the 2018 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Conference in Washington, D.C., from Aug. 6-9. Read more here and below:

 

Celeste González de Bustamante presented her work with Jeannine Relly on a panel titled “Under Attack: Threats, Challenges and Gender Bias Facing International Female Journalists. The title of the paper is "Resistance and Resilience: How Female Reporters and Editors Along the U.S.-Mexico Border Respond to Violence Against Journalists" and was sponsored by the Commission on the Status of Women and the AEJMC Council of Affiliates.

Carol Schwalbe presented "Artful Storytelling," part of a "Teaching Marathon" panel session, sponsored by the Magazine Media and Visual Communication Divisions.

Celeste González de Bustamante, with Christa Reynolds, presented "Tsunamis on the U.S.-Mexico Border? Use of Metaphors in News Coverage of Unaccompanied Minors," part of the panel session, "Making Sense of Media in the Trump Era ," sponsored by the AEJMC Cultural and Critical Studies Division.

Carol Schwalbe presented "Preparing for Next Semester," part of a teaching panel session, "Doctors are In," sponsored by the AEJMC Elected Standing Committee on Teaching.

Jeannine Relly presented a talk titled, "Media, Propaganda, and Terrorism" on a panel sponsored by the International Communication and Law divisions of the AEJMC at the annual conference. The panel was titled "State-Sponsored Messaging and Freedom of Speech."

Christopher Conover, an adjunct instructor and Arizona Public Media reporter-producer, saw Newsweek publish his border photo in its Aug. 10 issue. The image, of Reps. Martha McSally and David Schweikert with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Neilsen in Nogales, is part of Nina Burleigh's story on how President Trump's immigration policies could affect the 2018 midterm elections.

The J-school will be well-represented in this fall's College of Social and Behavioral Sciences' Community Classroom series, with adjunct instructors Irene McKisson ('03) and Mike Christy ('11) of the Arizona Daily Star each teaching lifelong learning courses. Irene's class, "Build a Social Media Strategy that Works," will be held downtown from Oct. 12-Nov. 9. Christy's class, "Find Your Focus: Camera and Photography Basics," will run Sept. 5-Oct. 3 at ENR2 on campus.

Did you know?

A 14-story boutique hotel — with retail, restaurants, apartments and a public plaza — is set to be built in the parking lot west of the Marshall Building by July 2020. Ground could be broken this fall next to the nine-story University Marriott. Read the Arizona Daily Star story.

 

July 20, 2018

Celeste González de Bustamante was selected as a faculty fellow by the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice for 2018-2020. The program names two fellows each spring to reward outstanding early- to mid-career faculty, including researchers, at the University of Arizona. The two-year award provides $38,000 a year to further each fellow’s scholarship in the areas of environment, social justice, Southwest peoples and cultures, international cooperation and human rights. Click here for a story.

Linda Lumsden delivered copies of the school's ZooView magazine to Mohamed Taru, an official of Tanzania's national parks, while on safari at Tarangire National Park in early July. In the magazine, student Marissa Heffernan's story on elephant conservation sheds light on Reid Park Zoo's contribution to the work of Charles Foley in Tanzania. The zoo's elephants are acclimated to Tucson's climate because it's similar to Tanzania's. Read ZooView.

Celeste González de Bustamante traveled with students on their UA International Journalism Study Abroad Program trip to Costa Rica. The students reported on environmental issues and social justice.

Mort Rosenblum was interviewed by Kim I Plyler, a communications specialist based in Bethlehem, Pa., on her "Master Your Story" podcast. The two talked about reporting, the current state of journalism and The Mort Report. Listen here to the podcast.

Michael McKisson was interviewed by KOLD TV for a July 12 story on rainwater harvesting. "Now if we'd only get some rain in our neighborhood," he joked on Facebook.

June 28, 2018

Susan E. Swanberg received the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA) 2018 Rising Scholar Award for her project, “Spinning Science: Journalism’s Role at the Interface of Science and Public Policy During the Birth of the Atomic Age.” The award presentation will be at the AJHA convention Oct. 4-6 in Salt Lake City.

Jeannine Relly and Student Media Director Brett Fera traveled to Tunisia, exchanging experiences and ideas about journalism in democracies. They held a mobile journalism bootcamp and visited various cities in the North African country. The two are returning to Tucson on July 4. "Thank you for bridging the world and making it all the way to Tunisia," says Saoussen Ben Cheikh, who led a group of Tunisians to Tucson and the J-school back in April. Check out a Facebook Live forum from Tunisia. Grad students Zeina C. Peterson and Dalal Radwan, and Daily Wildcat staffers Pascal Albright, Marissa Heffernan and Jasmine Demers answered questions from the students via an Al-Jisr Exchange Program Facebook page. Read an earlier Internews story on the Tunisians.

Andrés Domínguez, administrative assistant, directed the 2018 Donald W. Carson Diversity Workshop for Arizona High School Students, June 3-9, with help from writing coach Susan Knight. Speakers included Journalism Advisory Council Vice Chair Frank Sotomayor (diversity), adjunct instructor Brett Fera (student media), Jeannine Relly (fundamentals of reporting), Susan Swanberg (media law and ethics), Arizona Daily Star reporter and former adjunct instructor Stephanie Innes (health reporting), Michael McKisson (drones, 360-degree photography), Cecil Schwalbe and Carol Schwalbe (environmental journalism) and academic adviser Paloma Boykin. Others included Minnie Almader (Campus Health), Jacob Shirley (UA Admissions) and Robin Tricoles, Gisela Telis and Steve Jess (Arizona Public Media). Students produced The Chronicle newspaper and website. Click here to read a story about the workshop.

Kim Newton was featured in a South Korean documentary, "Mother and the Photographer," that aired June 9 on television in Seoul. The film chronicles the 1987 student-led democracy uprising, which Newton photographed as a freelancer in South Korea. "All very exciting," says Newton, who hosted the film's director, Man-jin Kim, and his crew in March on their visit to Tucson. An English subtitled version should be available by the fall. Click here to see the film's trailer.

Sarah Gassen, an adjunct instructor, wrote a column — "Journalists aren't the 'enemy of the American people'" — in the aftermath of the five killed at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland.

Renée Schafer Horton, internship and career development, was one of five storytellers for the Star's Storytelling event on June 19. Click here to see Renée's talk about how cake always saves the day.

William Schmidt moonlighted as a New York Times Journeys guide at the end of May, helping accompany 18 travelers on an eight-day trip into the Canyons of the Southwest — including tours and hikes into Zion and Bryce National Parks, the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and the Grand Canyon. Schmidt spoke about the Downwinders, or the people in southern Utah and northern Arizona, mostly, who were exposed to radioactive fallout during the A-bomb tests of the 1950s. He also talked about the Colorado River and, more broadly, the issue of drought and water in the Southwest, and public land policy and politics in the Southwest — including the Sagebrush Rebellion and other resistance groups opposed to federal oversight. Bill, former deputy managing editor at The Times, is signed up to be a guide again next year.

Kim Newton and his wife, Cheri Newton, worked together on a story about canal boating in England, "Journey into the Really Slow Lane," for the June issue of Desert Leaf magazine.

Jenni Monet, a UA J-school adjunct instructor last semester, was found not guilty of criminal trespass after being arrested last year while covering the Dakota Access protest. "It's a great day for journalism and for North Dakota in recognizing the essential role that reporters play in shaping our democracy," Monet said after the trial in early June. Click here to read a story.

Nancy Sharkey was interviewed by KGUN 9 TV for a story about protecting pets from dangerous toads and snakes. Click here to see the interview (starts at one-minute mark) and her dog, Ragtime.

In memoriam

Jim Patten, former UA journalism department head, died June 5 in Prescott — just a few weeks after being diagnosed with lung cancer. He was 83. Patten led the J-school from 1991-2000 and helped save it from elimination. "He was a pillar of strength when the then journalism department was threatened with closure in the mid-1990s," retired Prof. Jim Johnson said. "That the department, now school, is still thriving is a tribute to his leadership." Patten was a professor at Nebraska and UTEP before coming to UA as a professor in 1983. Click here to read his obit on the school's website, and check out his 2016 Cursor essay about "Saving the program." Recent grad Shaq Davis also wrote an obit for the Arizona Daily Star, and the Omaha World-Herald also published an obit.

 

 

June 1, 2018

Carol Schwalbe was officially appointed the next director of the UA School of Journalism, becoming the second woman to lead the school since its inception in 1951. She will replace David Cuillier, who is returning to his associate professor duties full-time after being director since 2011. Schwalbe will start her new job July 1. Read our website story.

Jeannine Relly presented her research done with Maggy Zanger at the International Communication Association Conference in Prague. The fieldwork, which looked at influences on Kurdish journalists, was conducted in Kurdistan, Iraq, by Zanger. The research has been supported by the school's Center for Border & Global Journalism and UA's Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

Celeste González de Bustamante traveled to Barcelona for the Latin American Studies in a Globalized World Conference, and then moved on to Prague for the Conference of the International Communication Association. In Spain, González de Bustamante talked about resilience and innovation in journalism in violent environments. In the Czech Republic, her talks included "The U.S.-Mexico Borderlands: Shifting Realities in Contested and Collaborative Terrain" and "USA Mexican Youth Online: The Potential for Social Change."

Jeannine Relly will serve as co-chair of the Equity and Mentoring Workgroup with the Commission on the Status of Women at the university for 2018-19. Her co-chair is Lydia Kennedy, director of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at The UA Health Sciences. Relly also will serve as co-chair of the College's Diversity and Inclusion Committee with associate professor Farid Matuk.

Kim Newton is teaching in Orvieto, Italy, with a dozen students: Kayla Belcher, Hannah Dahl, Devyn Edelstein, Rosalina Emnace, Olivia Ledford and Caleb Villegas (497B advanced photojournalism); and Dymond Bradley, Dani Cropper, Carmel Gisslow, Sydney Kenig, Tobias Kochenderfer and Maddie Viceconte (203 beginning photojournalism). See their photos and multimedia projects at pjinitaly2018.wordpress.com. And check out some photos of the students, taken by Newton.

May 11, 2018

With David Cuillier in attendance, the ACEJMC Council unanimously approved the School of Journalism's re-accreditation April 27 in Chicago. It's the first time in 30 years the school passed with all nine standards in compliance — "a testament to the great work by faculty, staff, students and alumni," Cuillier said. The next round is 2024.

 

Linda Lumsden is now a tenured full professor with the School of Journalism. "Many thanks for the valuable contribution you make to learning and scholarship at the University of Arizona," wrote Jeffrey B. Goldberg, acting senior vice president for Academic Affairs and Provost.

 

Jeannine Relly has been selected as a fellow in the 2018-2019 class of the AEJMC Institute for Diverse Leadership in Journalism and Communication.​ She also was selected as the winner of the Excellence in Mentoring Award, a newly-created award sponsored by the university's Office for Diversity and Inclusive Excellence.

 

Susan E. Swanberg gave her Udall Fellowship talk, "Nuclear Shadows: The Impact of Three Journalists (and a Priest) on Public Understanding of the Atomic Age," on April 25 at the Udall Center. She is studying World War II-era journalists William Lawrence, Marjorie Vandewater and John Hersey — and Father John A. Siemes, a German Jesuit priest who filed an eyewitness account with the Vatican of the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima. Read more about her research.

 

Linda Lumsden was quoted in the current Quill magazine, and her Social Justice Journalism class also was mentioned in the story, "Parkland students embrace advocacy journalism." 

 

William Schmidt was one of four "distinguished readers" at the SBS Undergraduate Convocation Recognition Ceremony at McKale Center on May 10.

 

Susan Knight helped coordinate a Skype interview session April 30 with UA Comm grad Michael Bloom, president of First Look Media, and students in her "Inside the Beltway" class. First Look is the independent media company behind the Oscar-winning film "Spotlight." Bloom, who helped fund the students' spring break trip to D.C., finally got to meet the group after a snowstorm kept him from attending a reception in D.C. Deborah Kessler, who works for the UA Foundation, joined Bloom during the Skype interview.

 

Linda Lumsden moderated a faculty panel talk, "Journalists Working in Dangerous Places," organized by Program Coordinator Debbie Cross. Professors described how journalists cover the news in a conflict zone (Maggy Zanger, Iraqi Kurdistan), in a lawless area with organized crime (Celeste González de Bustamante, Mexico) and during protests (Jenni Monet, Standing Rock), along with new approaches to support reporters in challenging situations (Jeannine Relly). Afterward, grad students and faculty enjoyed appetizers at Gentle Ben's as part of our final "Talk & 'Tizers" of the semester.

 

Debbie Cross, Andrés Domínguez and Mike Chesnick organized and coordinated the Just Desserts student awards ceremony at the Arizona Historical Society. About 175 people attended. Kris Hogeboom and Martha Castleberry in the Business Office, as well as Michael McKisson and Paloma Boykin, helped out with the ceremony.    

April 20, 2018

Celeste González de Bustamante was awarded the 2018 faculty research grant from the school's Center for Border & Global Journalism. Her research proposal is to study the role inside Mexico of journalistic "fixers," or the local experts who are often hired by international journalists working on stories about drug and gang violence in the country.

Jeannine Relly and adjunct instructor Brett Fera, adviser for UA Student Media, are helping host a contingent from Tunisia: Internews country manager Saoussen Ben Cheikh, Manal Issa, Basheer Al Dhorai and Seyf M'Rabet. The four are learning mobile journalism, ethics and other journalism skills from Michael McKisson, Susan Knight, Linda Lumsden and other professors. Maggy Zanger obtained a grant, partly through Internews and our Center for Border & Global Journalism, to help fund the trip. The group is visiting journalism classes and the Wildcat and will attend the April 26 Talks & 'Tizers on "Journalists working in Dangerous Places" with adjunct instructor Jenni Monet and Lumsden, Zanger, Bustamante and Relly. The group attended a taping of the Arizona Daily Star's "The Point Being" podcast that included editorial cartoonist David Fitzsimmons and adjunct instructor Sarah Gassen. 
 
Jeannine Relly and Maggy Zanger received a 2018 Center for Middle Eastern Studies Research Grant. The $2,000 will support translation and transcription work related to  interview fieldwork in Kurdistan, Iraq. 

Maggy Zanger presented a talk and slideshow on "Can Democracy Thrive Without a Free Press?" on April 13 to about 80 members of the Great Decisions Association in Tucson.

Susan E. Swanberg served as a judge for the American Society for Human Genetics (ASHG) DNA Day Essay Contest. This year National DNA Day is celebrating the 15th anniversary of the completion of the Human Genome Project. The international essay contest for K-12 students is organized by ASHG, the primary professional membership organization for specialists in human genetics worldwide. The winners will be announced on April 25. Click here to read more about ASHG, the human genome project and DNA Day.

Susan Knight organized the April 16 Mark Finley Gold Pen Award contest for the best beginning newswriter. Knight and adjunct professors Tom Beal, Joe Ferguson and Brett Ferajudged the contest. The three winners — Betty Hurd (first), Trent Anderson (second) and Eva Halvax (third) — were all students in adjunct instructor Fred Brock's JOUR 205 classes.

Nearly 200 people attended the school's inaugural Hall of Fame induction brunch and ceremony April 7 at the Center for Creative Photography, including UA President Robbins, who said in a note to David Cuillier: “Absolutely one of the most inspiring events I have attended. Congratulations. I am so impressed with your school.” Mike Chesnick  (outreach coordinator) organized the event and produced the 36-page program, individual web pages, plaques and PowerPoint slides. Debbie Cross (program coordinator) and Andrés Domínguez (administrative assistant) assisted Chesnick with the event and editing. Rogelio Garcia produced the slideshow and oversaw the video filming. Adjunct instructor Daniel Ramirez designed the program and plaques, and Journalism Advisory Council member Bobbie Jo Buel also helped organize the event.

Jeannine Relly served as a judge in a UA Center for Middle Eastern Studies competition for funding for Middle East student internships.

Andrés Domínguez (administrative assistant), Paloma Boykin (academic adviser) and Susan Knight talked to students from Pueblo High School and journalism adviser Rana Medhi on April 20. 

Rogelio Garcia is director of photography for a documentary, "Is Your Story Making You Sick," that was shown April 7 at The Loft Cinema. The film features eight people from all walks of life who suffered from a variety of stress-related illnesses. Cllck here to read more.

Michael McKisson and student Simon Asher provided drone footage for Arizona Public Media's Arizona Illustrated show on April 1 on the completed Tucson bike loop. The public can hire our students and McKisson through reportingservices.arizona.edu.

The school joined others in speaking out against the Sinclair Broadcast Group for ordering news anchors at its TV stations to read identical scripts backing President Trump's opinion about "fake news." Read the letter.

Mike Chesnick, program coordinator for outreach, received the 2018 Staffer of the Year Award from the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences at a luncheon on April 18. SBS, faculty and staff surprised him with the announcement on April 11.

March 30, 2018

Kim Newton introduced the South Korean film, "1987 When the Day Comes," on March 21 at ILC 130 and participated in a panel talk afterward with East Asian Studies professors Sunyoung Yang and Nathaniel Smith and documentary film director Man-jin Kim of the Munhwa Broadcasting Corp. in Seoul. Kim's crew were on campus to film Newton for an upcoming documentary on the 1987 student-led democracy uprising, which Newton photographed as a freelancer in South Korea. Click here and here to see some photos of their visit and event, co-sponsored by the Center for Border & Global Journalism.

Celeste González de Bustamante and her Journalism, Ethics and Diversity class participated in a conversation on athletes, social movements and the media as part of the Arizona Daily Star's "The Point Being" podcast on March 22. Adjunct instructor Sarah Gassen and Luis Carrasco of the Star's editorial page were on the panel along with Bustamante. "The students were engaged and asked some great questions," the Star said. Click here to listen to the podcast.

Carol Schwalbe organized a March 16 environmental journalism workshop with Bruce Dorn, who has worked for more than 40 years as a documentarian, commercial photographer and filmmaker, and is known for his expertise in cinematography and SFX.

Kim Newton presented a lecture and image presentation on South Korean politics and press coverage of the 1987 student uprising and 2017 Impeachment of President Park Geun-hye to Professor Changhwan Kim’s East Asian Studies class, EAS 251 – Introduction to Korea through Film in Modern Languages 410 on March 27.

Linda Lumsden's review of Eddie Adams: Bigger than the Frame was published in the March 2018 issue of American Journalism, the journal of the American Journalism Historians Association.

Renée Schafer Horton, internship coordinator, organized the 2017 Spring Internship Fair on March 16. The Associated Press, Arizona Daily Star, Arizona Public Media, Tucson Weekly and Tucson Sentinel were among the employers interviewing students. Click here for some photos.

Irene McKisson ('03), an adjunct instructor who leads the Arizona Daily Star's #ThisIsTucson team, spoke about newsroom analytics, design thinking and audience data at the March 29 "Talk & ’Tizers" in Marshall 342. Grad students and faculty then talked more about how newspapers can better understand their audiences and make decisions about content over appetizers at Gentle Ben's, where Star product manager Becky Pallack also joined them. The event was organized by Debbie Cross, program coordinator.

Michael McKisson's multimedia class practiced their drone videography skills on a field trip to Mercado San Agustín. Students had some fun with the intelligent flight controls, following Ian Green wherever he ran in the parking lot. Click here to see a short video.

Michael McKisson and student Simon Asher provided drone footage for the Arizona Illustrated's April 1 segment on The Loop, a 123-mile bike path around the city. The public can hire our students and McKisson to film video. For more info, go to reportingservices.arizona.edu.

Renée Schafer Horton, internship coordinator, coordinated a March 12 visit from Liza Eaton, director of talent development and recruitment for NBC Universal, who told students about the network's Summer Fellows Program and the NBC News Associates Program. After the presentation, Eaton interviewed students individually.

Rogelio Garcia is the director of photography for the documentary, "Is Your Story Making You Sick," which features eight people from all walks of life who suffered from a variety of stress-related illnesses. Click here to read more about the April 7 film, which will be shown April 7 at 2 p.m. at The Loft Cinema.

Jenni Monet, an adjunct instructor, traveled to U.N. headquarters in New York to participate in a March 14 roundtable on how to combat the violence and dangers facing women journalists. France, Greece, Lithuania and the Committee to Protect Journalists convened the panel at the Commission on the Status of Women conference. Monet, a Native American freelance multimedia reporter, was arrested at Standing Rock in 2017.

March 9, 2018

Susan Knight traveled with students from her "Inside the Beltway: Press, Politics and Power in D.C." class to Washington over spring break. They met with journalists and government officials for five days, including UA journalism alums. Click here to see a sampling of photos.

Celeste González de Bustamante gave a talk, “Reporting the environment along the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands in the 21st century,” for members of the the Environmental Breakfast Club at the UA James E. Rogers College of Law.

Kim Newton, a photojournalist during South Korea's democracy movement, will talk after a free screening of "1987 When the Day Comes" on March 21 from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at ILC 130. Our Center for Border & Global Journalism and the Department of East Asian Studies are helping sponsor the event.

Susan E. Swanberg will participate in a March 17 roundtable, "Social, Political, and Economic Theory as Policy ‘Relevance-Makers’ for Environmental History," at the American Society for Environmental History in Riverside, California. She just presented a research paper in New York at a panel event, "Propaganda, Alternative Facts & Fake News: The Influences of Mass Communication," at the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference at the NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. While there, she also moderated a panel, "Technology as a Disruptive Force in Mass Communication."

Andrés Domínguez, administrative assistant, organized and hosted 11 students from Hopi High and adviser Stan Bindell on March 1. Susan Knight, adjunct instructor Jenni Monet and Director David Cuillier spoke to students.

Renée Schafer Horton, internship coordinator, organized a job panel of media professionals on Feb. 27, when students packed Marshall 340 to get hiring and career tips. The panel, some UA journalism grads, included Anna Augustowska ('14 M.A.), documentary filmmaker and UA College of SBS multimedia designer; Scott Coleman, KOLD-TV assignments manager; Peter Michaels, Arizona Public Media radio producer and interim news director; Brandi Walker ('17), KGUN9 assignment editor/digital producer; Ginger Rough, Arizona Republic features editor; and Brandon Mejia ('17); Arizona Public Media radio producer/reporter.

Prof. Emeritus Jim Johnson talked about his new book, "The Black Bruins," at the Tucson Festival of Books during a "Breaking Barriers" panel with former L.A. Times reporter Terry McDermott and Erica Westly, author of "Fastpitch: The Untold History of Softball and the Women Who Made the Game."

To honor the late Donald W. Carson, the UA School of Journalism is naming its high school diversity workshop after the revered emeritus professor. Click on the March e-Cursor to read more.

IN MEMORIAM
Retired Professor Bick Lucas, 88, died March 5 in Tucson. Sports editor at the Denver Post from 1968-1982, he introduced a sportswriting course at UA, taught reporting, editing and design, and was the undergraduate and Tombstone Epitaph adviser before retiring in 1994. At The Denver Post, he helped start and run the Associated Press Sports Editors. A memorial is pending. Read his obit and student remembrances on our website.

Feb. 23, 2018

David Cuillier gave UA President Robert C. Robbins a tour of the J-school on Feb. 21, followed by a meet-and-greet with faculty and staff in Marshall 340. Robbins also chatted with students such as fellow doctor Dominika Heusinkveld, a dual master's candidate in journalism and environmental science. Calling us "rock stars," Robbins invited input from the school on student retention — and liked our ideas for new degree programs and courses in digital and science/health journalism. "Words are more powerful than the scalpel," the cardiac surgeon quipped.

Mort Rosenblum moderated a Feb. 13 panel, "Len's on Mexico's Mean Streets," with AP photojournalists Bernandino Hernández and Enric Martí and photographer Enrico Dagnino that drew more than 100 people to the UA Main Library's IC 212A. William Schmidt, co-director of the Center for Border & Global Journalism with Rosenblum, introduced the talk. Program coordinators Debbie Cross and Mike Chesnick helped organize the Center-sponsored event with help from translator Juan Radillo and Mary Feeney and Kenya Johnson of UA Libraries. The night before, the panelists held a talk/reception for Hernandez's photos at MOCA downtown. Catch the full Facebook Live video of the event, and see Bernandino's photos on the third floor of the J-school, courtesy of Kim Newton, who curated and mounted the photos for the MOCA exhibit. Hernandez also talked to Maggy Zanger's class on media coverage of international crises (see photos) and Rosenblum's reporting the world class. Also, read Perla Trevizo's preview in the Arizona Daily Star and the school's preview.

Susan E. Swanberg appeared on the Feb. 12 "Arizona 360" on PBS 6 with host and adjunct instructor Lorraine Rivera. With recent lawsuits filed by women against the UA alleging harassment and discrimination, Swanberg addressed the ethics that guide journalists as they decide how much detail to publish when they might not have all the facts. Watch the segment.

Susan E. Swanberg made a research presentation at the 2018 Southwest/American Popular Culture Association Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Feb. 18. The title was: “'Rain Follows the Plow' - A Debunked Nineteenth Century Theory of Climatology Persists as a Trope in U.S. Popular Culture." Here's a link to the program. 

Brett Fera, adjunct instructor and director of Student Media, interviewed New York Times sports reporter Joe Drape about sports journalism and horse racing Feb. 18 after the Journalism on Screen film, "Seabiscuit," at The Loft Cinema. See part of the Q&A here. Drape spoke to students in William Schmidt's feature writing class Feb. 19. Schmidt introduced the film at The Loft.

Susan E. Swanberg will present a research paper March 10 as part of a panel on "Propaganda, Alternative Facts & Fake News: The Influences of Mass Communication" at the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference at the NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. The paper title is: "Psychological Armor: The Science Service Warns Against the Dangers of Propaganda in its Science News Letter (1929-1965)." At the same conference, she'll be moderating a panel titled: "Technology as a Disruptive Force in Mass Communication." Here's a link to the conference website. 

New York Times Supreme Court reporter Adam Liptak talked to Susan Knight's Principles of Journalism class on Feb. 13, and toured the school with Nancy Sharkey. He delivered the University of Arizona Law's annual McCormick Society Lecture at the James E. Rogers College of Law on Feb. 12. Read his work.

Jeannine Relly invited UA Anthropology Prof. Thomas Sheridan to talk Feb. 21 to her master's class on survey and research methods. Sheridan, a research anthropologist at the Southwest Center, has conducted ethnographic and ethnohistoric research in the Southwest and northern Mexico since 1971. He is involved in land-use politics and is the author of 14 books. Read more about him here and at here.

IN MEMORIAM
Prof. Emeritus Donald W. Carson, former director of the school, was remembered Feb. 23  at a memorial service at St. Odilia Catholic Church and celebration of life at Hacienda del Sol. Here's a link to the program and a slideshow of Don's family memories. You also can read more on our website. Don will be among 14 people and two couples inducted into the school's inaugural Hall of Fame on April 7. Tickets are available here.

Feb. 9, 2018

A three-member site team for the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications recommended Jan. 24 that the UA School of Journalism be re-accredited for its experienced faculty, tight-knit students, out-of-class opportunities and strong internship program. The school has been nationally accredited every six years since 1964, but this is the first time in 30 years it has passed all nine key standards. Director David Cuillier, who compiled the school's self-study, thanked everyone who participated in the process. He and the school received props from UA President Robbins on Twitter, with Robbins saying the program has a "bright future." Click here for more details.

Michael McKisson and Jeannine Relly were awarded the Al Litzow Teaching Engagement Grant for a podcast project proposal as an extracurricular activity called "The PreReq Podcast: An inside look at being a student in 2018." The other submission was a class project by Carol Schwalbe called, "Home on the Range," a special field trip to the Altar Valley that would result in a custom-built website showcasing stories, photos, podcasts and videos of students. A committee of SBS student engagement director Jesse McCain, Star reporter Caitlin Schmidt ('14) and former Arizona Daily Star Editor Bobbie Jo Buel ('79) voted 2-1 for the McKisson-Relly proposal, which will let students work with a producer from Arizona Public Media and provide equipment and skills that can be integrated into the curriculum and clubs moving forward.

Linda Lumsden will present a paper on “Social Justice Journalism: The Literature of Exposure” at the Arizona Writing and Social Justice Conference at Arizona State University on Feb. 14.

Mort Rosenblum, William Schmidt, Kim Newton and Maggy Zanger (moderator) talked to graduate students about their experiences as foreign correspondents at the school's monthly "Talk & 'Tizers" on Feb 1. The group had appetizers at Gentle Ben's afterward. The event was organized by Program Coordinator Debbie Cross.

Maggy Zanger gave a talk, "The Good, the Bad & the Ugly: A Report from Iraqi Kurdistan at a Historic Turning Point" on Feb. 9 in Marshall 490, part of the Middle Eastern and North African Studies (MENAS) Colloquium Series. The talk was co-sponsored by the Center for Border & Global Journalism and the UA School of Journalism.

Celeste González de Bustamante gave the keynote address on violence against journalists at the U.S./Mexico border on Feb. 9 at the symposium, "Violence, Trauma, and Resilience: A Community Conversation" at the Student Union's Sonora Ballroom. The symposium was sponsored by the UA College of Social and Behavioral Sciences and the College of Medicine.

Celeste González de Bustamante will oversee the Diversity and Inclusive Excellence's new Faculty Mentoring Program. Read alum Kyle Mittan's story on the program for Lo Que Pasa.

Susan Knight's apprentice class hosted five Arizona Daily Star staffers in recent weeks — from two recent apprentices who’ve been hired to work and freelance at the Star to several senior staffers. Presenting on how to have a successful experience in the newsroom were: Caitlin Schmidt ('14), who has  been both an apprentice as a student and, more recently, an apprentice mentor in her role as a legal affairs reporter at the Star; Shaq Davis, who was hired to work night cops after his apprenticeship last semester; and Gloria Knott, a recent apprentice who was invited back to regularly freelance for the features and arts sections. Alum Ryan Finley ('02), Star sports editor, told students about finding story ideas and making successful story pitches, and adjunct instructor Tom Beal, a recent retiree after more than 40 years at the Star, talked to the apprentices about interviewing for engagement with sources instead of just information seeking.

Carol Schwalbe's environmental journalism class hosted UA researchers Jonathan Derbridge, Taylor Edwards, Melissa Merrick, Cecil R. Schwalbe and Bill Shaw on Feb. 8. Each student read a journal article from one of the five beforehand, drew up questions and interviewed the scientist for about 15 minutes. The scientists then gave each student feedback on his/her interviewing skills (body language, questions, etc.). Students aren't done yet: They must write a Q&A based on their interview.

Susan Knight organized an all-clubs event in the Reading Room on Jan. 26, letting students talk about ideas and upcoming events. Jeannine Relly and Susan E. Swanberg also participated.

A new, updated edition of adjunct instructor Joe Sharkey's 1991 book, "Death Sentence," has just been published in print by Open Road Media — an example of long-form narrative journalism for students. Another of Joe's books, "Above Suspicion," is now a film with Emilia Clarke and should hit theaters in late summer.

Retired Prof. Jim Johnson's new book, "The Black Bruins," is now available on Amazon. The book, Johnson's eighth, looks at five African-American athletes who faced racial discrimination as teammates at UCLA in the late 1930s, including Jackie Robinson.

IN MEMORIAM

Don Carson, a beloved professor emeritus and former director of the school, died on Feb. 1 at 85. A memorial will be held held Friday, Feb. 23, at 11 a.m. at St. Odilia's Catholic Church, 7570 N. Paseo Del Norte, with a celebration of life at 1 p.m. at Hacienda del Sol, 5501 N. Hacienda Del Sol Road. He will be inducted into the inaugural UA School of Journalism Hall of Fame on April 7. Read the school's obit and remembrances from students. Carmen Duarte ('80) wrote the Arizona Daily Star obit.

Jan. 19, 2018

Kim Newton gave a radio interview with TBS eFM This Morning in Seoul, South Korea, on Jan. 11. The interview centered on the release of the South Korean film 1987, "When the Day Comes." The film, based on events surrounding the 1987 South Korean Democracy movement was recently released in Seoul and Los Angeles. The film centers around a South Korean journalist investigating the torture death by South Korean National Police in January 1987 of South Korean student activist Park Jong-chul. The director of the MBC documentary that Newton has been working on since March is planning on bringing the film to campus in March. Click here to hear the podcast.

Linda Lumsden received a UA Student-Faculty Interaction grant to take more than 70 students to see "The Post," the new film about the Washington Post's decision to publish the Pentagon Papers. The students are enrolled in her gen-ed class, JOUR 150C News in a Digital Age.

Susan Swanberg passed her third-year review.

In honor of "The Post" being released in theaters, Professor Emeritus George Ridge pointed out that the UA J-school was among the first to recognize Katharine Graham for publishing The Pentagon Papers and the Post's Watergate coverage. Ridge, a former department head, presented the 1973 Zenger Award for Press Freedom to Graham at the Phoenix airport on Jan. 12, 1974. Click here to see the Phoenix Gazette story.

Jan. 12, 2018

Adjunct instructor Irene McKisson, editor of the Arizona Daily Star's This Is Tucson, was named one of the nation's top 20 innovators in digital media by MediaShift.

 

Maggy Zanger returned after four months in Iraqi Kurdistan, and gave a talk, "Is Iraq in Turnaround?” on Jan. 10 at Revolutionary Grounds on North Fourth Avenue.

Adjunct instructor Lorraine Rivera of Arizona Public Media is hosting a new news show, "Arizona 360," every Friday on PBS 6. She interviewed Gov. Ducey about education and water in the first episode. Click here to see past shows.

Mike McKisson invited Rob Wisner of the Arizona Daily Star to speak to his Mobile App Development class on Jan. 11. Wisner is director of digital innovation at the Star.

 

Dec. 15, 2017

Susan Knight led a Dec. 11 community conversation hosted by the League of Women Voters about news ethics, “fake news,” and free press in a democracy.

Rogelio Garcia and adjunct instructor Lorraine Rivera oversaw production of the fall 2017 Arizona Cat's Eye episode. Watch it here.

Dec. 8, 2017

Terry Wimmer oversaw the fall 2017 El Independiente, "Racism in Arizona," a 64-page issue with each story translated by the UA Spanish Translation and Interpretation Program.

Celeste Bustamante and Jeannine Relly gave a talk, "Basta Ya: Grassroots and Global Efforts to Stop Violence against Journalists in Mexico," as part of the UA Center for Latin American Studies' fall lecture series. The two have traveled the entire U.S.-Mexico border twice and published several research articles, including one on the changing news practices among journalists and social media use as a result of increasing threats of violence.

Professors Susan Knight and Jeannine Relly, and adjunct instructors Tom Beal and Brett Fera judged the school's fall 2017 Mark Finley Gold Pen competition for best beginning news writing contest for JOUR 205 students on Nov. 28. See more details.

Nancy Sharkey interviewed Bruce Weber, a retired obituary writer for The New York Times, after a packed house of 300 watched "Obit" on Dec. 3 at The Loft Cinema. Prof. Bill Schmidt introduced the 2016 documentary and Weber. See a video of the Q&A and go to journalism.arizona.edu/loft for more info on the series.

Director David Cuillier wrote a story, "UA Journalism graduates happier, better prepared for life, and get jobs" for the journalism website, based on a national study this year by Gallup.

Jeannine Relly presented her co-authored paper, "A Thematic Meta-Analysis of Big Data Research in Communication and Journalism Research," to an international conference on Nov. 20 at Fudan University in Shanghai. Click here for more info on the conference.

Author and adjunct instructor Joe Sharkey talked to Jeannine Relly's master's theory class on Nov. 28 about writing nonfiction books and the process of seeing that work be adapted to the big screen. Sharkey's book, "Above Suspicion," is an upcoming film starring Emilia Clarke of "Game of Thrones."

Nov. 17, 2017

Jeannine Relly is presenting a co-authored paper titled "A Thematic Meta-Analysis of Big Data Research in Communication and Journalism Research," on Nov 20 at The Future of Media and Communication Research: Media Ecology and Big Data – International Conference. The conference is at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. Relly was lead author on the paper with co-authors Luo Yunjuan, South China University of Technology; Sally Ann Cruikshank, Middle Tennessee State University; and Wellars Bakina, Institut Catholique de Kabgayi, Rwanda. Relly's graduate Journalism and Theory course students contributed to the study and are acknowledged in the paper.

Maggy Zanger, on professional leave in Iraqi Kurdistan, was the opening presenter Nov. 9 at a student-organized conference at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani, on the United Nation’s International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists. In Kurdistan, she also organized editing and design workshops for the student newspaper, The Voice, and wrote a grant proposal for training on hate speech with a local independent newspaper.

Celeste González de Bustamante was an invited speaker and participant at a Nov. 9-12 conference held in Minneapolis at the University of Minnesota titled, “Journalism and Refugees: Media coverage and public discourse about refugee flows and integration into the European Union and the Americas.” González de Bustamante’s talk was titled, “The US-Mexico Borderlands: Shifting Realities in Contested and Collaborative Terrain.”

Jeannine Relly was invited to serve this year as chair of the AEJMC Emerging Scholars Steering Committee, which reviews junior scholar research grant proposals each year.

Internship coordinator Renée Schafer Horton, professors Susan Knight and Nancy Sharkey, and program coordinator Debbie Cross talked to university students about journalism, study abroad, courses and clubs with community involvement at the Undergraduate Student Engagement Fair. The event, sponsored by the UA College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. was held Nov. 15 at the ENR2 Building courtyard.

Nov. 10, 2017

Rogelio Garcia is the director of photography for "The Long Shadow," a documentary on the roots of racism that was on tap for The Loft Film Fest on Nov. 12. J-school alums Sandra Westdahl ('12) and Allison (Mullally) Taylor ('11) also worked on the film, which also will be shown Tuesday, Nov. 14, at 7:30 p.m. at The Loft Cinema. Click here for more information.

Terry Wimmer and Carol Schwalbe shared their stories as first-generation college students on Nov. 9, part of the panel, "Everyone has a story," with Zac Ziegler of Arizona Public Media and freshman Pascal Albright. First Gen club adviser Susan E. Swanberg and professors Jeannine Relly and Susan Knight also attended the event. Click here to see the Facebook Live replay.

Celeste Bustamante participated in the UA Center for Latin American Studies' 13th Annual Tinker Symposium on Nov. 9. She spoke on "Writing, Media, & Representation" during the event, which highlighted graduate student field research in Latin America and featured master's student Emily Ellis.

David Cuillier wrapped up self-study reports, with input from faculty and staff, for the school's academic program review of its master’s program (Nov. 29-30) and re-accreditation for the undergraduate program (Jan. 21-24).​ "It’s a great opportunity to see what this school has accomplished not in just the past six years, but in its 66 years of serving journalism and democracy!" the school director says. If you see errors or have questions, feel free to reach out, Cuillier says. 

Andres Dominguez, a 2013 UA journalism and political science graduate, began his job as the school's new administrative assistant and helped program coordinator Debbie Cross and interim administrative assistant Ethan Schwalbe with accreditation self-study materials. For two months, Schwalbe kept the journalism office running smoothly after filling in for Celina Centeno.

Sarah Garrecht Gassen, an adjunct instructor and 1995 undergrad and 2019 master's alum, was elected to the Journalism and Women Symposium (JAWS) board of directors. She's the Arizona regional captain for JAWS, which supports women journalists' personal and professional growth at all levels.

Susan Knight and adjunct instructor Brett Fera, director of UA student media, selected four students to receive complimentary memberships in the Investigative Reporters and Editors, generously funded by alum and award-winning investigate reporter Ryan Gabrielson.

Celeste González de Bustamante invited international journalist Franc Contreras to talk to students on Nov. 1. Contreras, who is based in Mexico City and working for China Global Television (CGTV), covered the earthquakes in Mexico and NAFTA negotiations.

Carol Schwalbe's Science Journalism class went on an overnight field trip to Biosphere 2 in early October.

Celeste González de Bustamante visited Jeannine Relly's master's theory class on Oct. 31, talking about media and race and touching on the school's bordering110.com project. Relly said the class learned a lot from "Latin@s - Underrepresented Majorities in the Digital Age," the chapter González de Bustamante co-authored with Dr. Jéssica M. Retis in the "Routledge Companion to Media and Race."

Oct. 27, 2017

Mort Rosenblum will be inducted into the school's inaugural Hall of Fame class on April 7, 2018. Rosenblum, co-director of the Center for Border & Global Journalism, is a former bureau chief and special correspondent for The Associated Press and editor of the International Herald Tribune and has written a dozen books. Read about the induction class of 16.

Michael McKisson helped the school secure a $35,000 Challenge Fund grant from the Online News Association — one of only 10 universities to receive the grant, which will let students work with the Arizona Daily Star and This Is Tucson on developing new products to engage with readers. The grant was announced in Washington, D.C., where McKisson participated in the ONA conference. Read more.

Michael McKisson and the school have launched Digital News Production and Consultation Services — reportingservices.arizona.edu — to help the state's newsrooms use drone videography and 360-degree cameras in immersive journalism projects. Read more.

Nancy Sharkey interviewed New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet before a full house at the Fox Tucson Theatre on Oct. 19. "Redefining Journalism in the Post-Truth Era" was part of the College of Social & Behavioral Science's Downtown Series, "Truth and Trust in the Global Scene." Watch the Q&A, which was broadcast live on PBS 6 by Arizona Public Media. Sharkey also helped organize Baquet's visit, including three talks to students on Oct. 19: William Schmidt's advanced reporting, Sharkey's Principles of Journalism and Susan Knight's ethics classes. Sharkey and Schmidt also took Baquet to Nogales and Amado, where he visited the ranch of Jon and Peggy Rowley. 

William Schmidt introduced New York Time Executive Editor Dean Baquet, who received the  school's Zenger Award for Press Freedom on Oct. 20 at the Westward Look. AZPM's Lorraine Rivera, an adjunct instructor, emceed the dinner and interviewed Baquet with help from school Director David Cuillier roaming the audience. School staff, led by Mike Chesnick, Ethan Schwalbe and Debbie Cross, organized the event, which drew 170 people and helped the school clear a profit. Watch the video of the Q&A, produced by Rogelio Garcia. See the Facebook Live replay, which includes Cuillier's student-faculty spotlight and speeches by Schmidt and Baquet. Read the Oct. 8 Arizona Daily Star Q&A with Baquet, conducted by adjunct instructor Sarah Gassen, the Star's editorial page editor.

Celeste González de Bustamante gave an invited lecture Sept. 21 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln titled, “Reporters Under Fire: Violence Against Journalists in Mexico and the United States.” Her talk was part of a visiting distinguished fellowship at the Institute for Ethnic Studies at UNL.

Celeste González de Bustamante gave an invited lecture on Sept. 26 titled, “Politics, Media and the US-Mexico Borderlands.” Her talk was one of five lectures that made up the “Voices of Mexico Week,” which celebrated the second anniversary of the UNAM (Mexico’s National Autonomous University) Center for Mexico Studies. The research on which the talks were based was published in the distinguished Voices of Mexico magazine. Here is a link to the articles: http://www.revistascisan.unam.mx/Voices/no102.php

Jeannine Relly and a colleague's work was presented at the  Southeastern Conference for Public Administration,  Defending Public Administration in a Time of Uncertainty, on Oct. 6. The paper title is "Protecting whistleblowers as an anti-corruption strategy: A multi-dimensional approach. Co-authors in this order are Rashmi Chordiya, doctoral candidate and Dr. Meghna Sabharwal at University of Texas at Dallas; Dr. Jeannine E. Relly; The University of Arizona, and  Dr. Evan M. Berman, Victoria University of Wellington.

Sarah Garrecht Gassen, editorial page editor of the Arizona Daily Star, and editorial writer Luis Carrasco talked to Jeannine Relly's master's theory class on Oct. 3 about the Las Vegas shooting, getting different voices into the newspaper and their podcast, "The Point Being."

Paloma Boykin, academic adviser, led the school's participation in the UA's Meet Your Major Fair at the Student Union Ballroom on Oct. 4.

Susan Knight organized the well-attended student-faculty mixer for the school's journalism clubs at Magpies on Oct. 5. She introduced some of the club officers, who gave a rundown of their plans for the school year and upcoming events.

William Schmidt introduced the school's Oct. 8 showing of "Bill Cunningham New York," part of the Journalism on Screen series at The Loft Cinema. The event included a Q&A with New York Times critic Guy Trebay and screenwriter Will Conroy. Trebay also talked to Carol Schwalbe's master's students on Oct. 9. The next film is "Obit" on Dec. 3 at 2 p.m.

Renée Schafer Horton organized the fall internship fair, lining up 17 employers for students to interview with on Oct. 13.

Celeste González de Bustamante organized a talk to students on Oct. 20 by Hillary Frey, director of editorial strategy at the HuffPost. Frey was on campus as part of HuffPost's "Listen to America" road trip to interview people in 25 cities about their hopes, dreams, fears and definition of "being American."

Daniel Ramirez, an adjunct instructor, designed the school's fall 2017 alumni magazine, The Cursor. Mike Chesnick, outreach coordinator, wrote and edited the 32-page magazine, which went out in early October. Read The Cursor. 

Jeannine Relly invited Arizona Daily Star investigative reporter Perla Trevizo, who spoke to Relly's master's theory class on Oct. 19 about the challenges of covering immigration, organized crime and other topics. Trevizo recently returned from a Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship in Germany.

Mike Christy, an adjunct instructor, invited Arizona Daily Star photographer Kelly Presnell to talk to Christy's 203 class on Oct. 25. Presnell showed images and talked about covering Hurricane Katrina, and he shared several sports photos and how to cover games. Christy also is a Star photographer. 

Jeannine Relly arranged for Beth Stahmer, director of the college's Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute, to talk to her master's students on Oct. 24. Stahmer and Anthropology grad student Elizabeth Eklund gave students tips on funding sources for projects and academic work. Go to sbsri.sbs.arizona.edu for more info.

William Schmidt participated in the James Foley Run on Oct. 14, giving students a short history on the journalist who was kidnapped and slain by ISIS in 2014, while Susan Knight staffed the Society of Professional Journalists table and handed out info on SPJ and Foley.

Celeste González de Bustamante and Anthropology Prof. Linda Green accompanied students to the El Paso/Ciudad Juárez area Oct. 13-15 as the grad students worked on multimedia reports comparing the border there with Nogales.

Paloma Boykin, Nancy Sharkey and Mike Chesnick hosted the Family Weekend mixer with parents and students on Oct. 14 at the Reading Room.

Sept. 29, 2017

Renée Schafer Horton organized the Sept. 27 Pizza & Portfolios in Marshall 344, where eight local journalists gave job-preparation tips and reviewed students' resumes, cover letters and clips. The panel included Dylan Smith (Tucson Sentinel), Johanna Willett ('13, Arizona Daily Star), Myles Standish (Star), Danyelle Khmara (Tucson Weekly), EJ Junker (KOLD-TV), Caitlin Schmidt ('14, Star), Luis Carrasco (Star) and Samantha Cortese (KGUN 9-TV).

Susan Knight moderated a Q&A with Arizona Daily Star editor Jill Jorden Spitz ('88) after the school's Journalism on Screen showing of "Shattered Glass" at The Loft on Sept. 17. Click here to see the Q&A on the school's Youtube channel. See upcoming films at journalism.arizona.edu/Loft

Carol Schwalbe touted the school's environmental journalism program Sept. 26 at the Institute for the Environment's Fall Fest '17 with UA President Robert Robbins. She told students about courses, while her husband, herpetologist Cecil R. Schwalbe, showed off a gila monster, a snake and two desert tortoises. Click here to see the school's science journalism webpage.

Michael McKisson and students Amanda Oien and Erik Kolsrud gave UA President Robert Robbins the lowdown on drones, 360 cameras, virtual reality journalism and the school's bordering110.com project at the Sept. 22 SBS Showcase at the Student Union rotunda. Director David Cuillier introduced the three to Robbins, and McKisson helped Dean JP Jones III fly the drone on the UA mall. Click here for photos.

Susan Knight oversaw the all-clubs leadership retreat on Sept. 16. Susan E. Swanberg worked with students as adviser of the new First Gen club. Other faculty members attending the lunch were Celeste Bustamante, Mike McKisson and Sarah Garrecht Gassen.

Linda Lumsden has been elected to a three-year term on the SBS Faculty Advisory Committee, which offers faculty input to SBS Dean J.P. Jones III.

The UA selected Susan Knight as an Honors Professor for the 2017-2018 school year. She is teaching a freshman seminar, "Media Ethics: The Journalist in American Film." Click here to read about the 60-plus Honors College professors. Knight follows Nancy Sharkey, an Honors Professor last year.

Sept. 15, 2017

Kim Newton, on professional development leave in London, was granted rare access to a balcony at Buckingham Palace from where his grandfather, Algernon Newton, painted a landscape scene in 1934. Newton is using an archive of his grandfather’s notes, writings and sketches to locate and photograph the landscapes depicted in the artist’s paintings – each from the same position, lighting and time of year. Just before his visit to the palace, Newton had a scare when a bomb on a subway train headed his way exploded one stop from where he planned to board, injuring dozens. “I was extremely fortunate,” he said.

Susan E. Swanberg has been invited to participate in a roundtable panel titled "Social, Political, and Economic Theory as Policy 'Relevance-Makers' for Environmental History" to be held at the March, 2018 meeting of the American Society for Environmental History in Riverside, California. She will present her research on a long-debunked 19th century theory of climatology best know by the phrase "rain follows the plow." Swanberg will focus on the role journalism played in using the debunked theory to promote settlement of the Great Plains. Her hypothesis, for which she's found evidence, is that the cultural impact of this debunked theory continues and has made the public less receptive to modern climate change theory.
 
Susan Knight organized an All-Clubs Leadership and Planning Retreat for Sept. 16. Nearly 30 students signed up, from freshmen to graduate students, with some joining the new First-Gen club under adviser Susan E. Swanberg. 

Susan E. Swanberg will moderate a paper session titled "Propaganda and Persuasion in War and a Workers' Union" at the October 2017 meeting of the American Journalism Historians Association to be held in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Ethan Schwalbe, co-director of the school's Journalism Diversity Workshop in June, is filling in as the school's administrative assistant after Celina Centeno left Sept. 6. Centeno spent two days bringing Schwalbe up to speed, and she said goodbye to faculty and staff at a get-together at Gentle Ben's.

Sept. 1, 2017

Michael McKisson was one of 17 professors in the nation chosen to be a "Disruptive Educators Fellow" by the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism. McKisson will give insights about easy-to-launch online news projects that excite students and faculty at the Oct. 4-7 Online News Association conference in Washington, D.C. Read more here.
 
Jeannine Relly was invited to participate on the Scientific Committee in advance of the Future of Media and Communication Research: Media Ecology and Big Data 2017 International Conference, which will be held in Shanghai, China. The conference is organized by Fudan Information and Communication Research Center & Fudan Journalism School (Fudan University) and the Institute for International Journalism in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. The conference is Nov. 19-21.
 
Susan Swanberg attended a reception Aug. 31 for the Udall Center's new faculty fellows, a get-together also attended by Director David Cuillier. Her project is titled “Spinning Science: Science Journalism’s Role at the Interface of Science and Public Policy During the Birth of the Atomic Age.” See a story.
 
Adjunct instructor and alum Joe Ferguson, a political reporter for the Arizona Daily Star, tweeted from President Trump's rally and protests in Phoenix on Aug. 22. Follow him at twitter.com/joeferguson.
 
Director David Cuillier's reaction to President Trump's rally in Phoenix aired Aug. 27 on Arizona Week on PBS 6. View the segment here. Lorraine Rivera ('04), a J-school adjunct instructor, is host of the show.
 
Celeste González de Bustamante's Reporting in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands class watched the partial eclipse in Nogales, where students will meet each Monday to cover border issues. Master's grad Kendal Blust of the Nogales International also spoke with students! Last fall's class produced an award-winning project, Bordering110.com.
 
Mike Christy ('11), a photographer for the Arizona Daily Star, took shots of the solar eclipse on Aug. 21 with a special telescope filter while people gathered in front of the J-school's Marshall Building. Christy, an adjunct instructor, is teaching Kim Newton's photojournalism class this fall. See some of his eclipse photos here.

Aug. 18, 2017 

Linda Lumsden won the Best Faculty Paper in the History Division at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Conference in Chicago. She presented the paper, titled: "Abolitionist Aggregator: Collective Action Frames in the British Anti-Slavery Monthly Reporter, the World’s First Social Movement Periodical, 1825-1833." Read the abstract here. She also participated in the conference's editorial board meeting for the American Journalism journal's special issue on Suffrage and the Media, choosing selections for the Spring 2019 issue in commemoration of the centennial of the Aug. 26, 1920, signing of the 19th Amendment granting women the vote.

Celeste González de Bustamante presented the school's digital-winning Bordering110.com project to the AEJMC Conference in Chicago. Michael McKisson helped Bustamante oversee the project, which was reported on by 10 students last fall. Read a story about the conference.

Jeannine Relly presented her paper, a collaboration with political scientist Rajdeep Pakanati, at the AEJMC Conference in Chicago: “Toward a global model of agenda building and gatekeeping: Collective action and Right to Information legislation in the India case.”

Carol Schwalbe moderated two panels — "Going Mobile in the Classroom: How to Turn a Teaching Distraction into a Teaching Tool," and "Beyond the Ethics Lesson: Creative Ways to Incorporate Ethics in the Classroom" — at the AEJMC Conference in Chicago. In addition, she presented Bakina Wellars' master's paper. She also presented a teaching tip at the Teaching Marathon, sponsored by the Magazine Media and Visual Communication Divisions, and was selected as a finalist in the GIFT (Great Ideas for Teachers) competition.

Susan Swanberg will present and participate in a September panel discussion for the APHL (Association of Public Health Laboratories) on the CDC campus in Atlanta. She'll discuss how to write science stories for the public about complex issues in molecular biology. More details. 

Michael McKisson presented "Journalism 360: Using immersive technology to transport the audience to the story," at the Aug. 7 "Virtual Reality Summit" at the UA Science-Engineering Library. Go here for more details from University of Arizona Libraries.

Celeste González de Bustamante was a visiting invited faculty member at the NEH Summer Institute titled: Tales from the Chihuahuan Desert from July 25-27. She gave several lectures that focused on her research on violence against journalists in Mexico and the history of the news media and the US-Mexico borderlands. Here’s a link to the institute.

Susan Swanberg's essay on teaching science and environmental journalism, "Notes From An Undercover Literary Journalism Fan: Using Techniques from science writing classes to help students see," was published in the summer, 2017 issue of Literary Journalism, the Newsletter of the IALJS (International Association for Literary Journalism Studies).

Internship coordinator Renée Schafer Horton wrote an Aug. 15 op-ed column in the Arizona Daily Star, "Five Tips for college freshmen and their parents."

Susan Swanberg wrote an invited review about the anthology of essays, "Kept Secret: The Half-Truth in Nonfiction," which will be published in the fall 2017 issue of Literary Journalism Studies, the scholarly publication of the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies. Read about the essays.

Open Road Media published the 2017 revised editions of adjunct instructor Joe Sharkey's three true crime books in an ebook 3-pack: "Above Suspicion," "Deadly Greed" and "Death Sentence." The "Above Suspicion" film, starring Emilia Clarke, should hit theaters later this year. Also, "Deadly Greed" has been optioned for a movie, and "Death Sentence" is in screenplay pre-production.

Aug. 4, 2017

Susan Swanberg talked about her paper, “Writing While Under the Influence: John Hersey and the Writings of Hiroshima Eyewitness John A. Siemes, S.J.,” to the American Journalism Historians Association blog, The Intelligencer. Read it here. She presented the paper at the recent International Association of Literary Journalism Studies conference held in Canada.

Michael McKisson's drone videography accompanied a story about trains — and why there are so many engines parked east of Tucson — on Arizona Public Media's "Arizona Week" on PBS 6. Watch the episode.

Joe Sharkey, an adjunct instructor, wrote his first piece for the travel website JohnnyJet.com on his five-country African Safari trip with his wife, Prof. Nancy Sharkey, who provided photos and video. Read it here.

July 21, 2017

Jeannine Relly led a workshop on qualitative research for the Study of the U.S. Institutes (SUSIs) for Scholars at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University on July 13. The SUSI program at Ohio University is led by the Institute for International Journalism and this year includes academics and journalists from 17 countries.

Linda Lumsden joined the editorial team of a new website and database, Suffrage and the Media. It is a companion site to a planned April 2019 publication to commemorate the 2020 centennial anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States. "I'm honored to be a small part of this fantastic new resource," she says.

Jeannine Relly was interviewed for a piece written about an initiative launched in Mexico by hundreds of Mexican journalists to work toward improving the security environment in the country for those in the profession. Relly also spoke about the findings of fieldwork that she did with Celeste González de Bustamante in 2013-2014. That work was published in June in a monograph. Click here to read the post published by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.

Tom Beal retired on July 14 after 43 years of working for the Arizona Daily Star. Tom, an adjunct instructor who is teaching advanced reporting in the fall, celebrated July 15 with family, friends and co-workers at Borderlands Brewing and wrote a farewell column in the July 16 newspaper. "My colleagues and editors at the Star have taught me, nurtured me and given me many opportunities to practice a craft I have loved from the moment I first walked in the door on July 16, 1974," Beal said. In turn, the science reporter and former editorial page columnist and editor mentored many co-workers and apprentices through the years.

June 30, 2017 

Kim Newton presented new South Korean President Moon Jae-in with a signed photo that Newton took 30 years ago during the country’s democracy movement in a June 10 ceremony in Seoul. Newton also wrote Moon with a letter explaining the July 1987 photo, which shows two students mourning the loss of a classmate killed during the student movement. Click here for a full story. UANews picked up the story here and included a Seoul radio interview with Newton and a Facebook post from Moon thanking the professor. Newton was teaching his photojournalism class in Italy when he was summoned by the director of a documentary to attend the June 10 ceremony.

 

Jeannine Relly and Celeste González de Bustamante saw their study on violence against journalists picked up by UANews. Click here to see the story.

 

C-SPAN ran a 13-minute interview with J-school Director David Cuillier about his book, "The Art of Access," on how journalists and citizens can acquire public records. Watch it here.

 

More than 1,500 attended the June 22-25 Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in Phoenix, including alums and J-school Director David Cuillier, who spoke about "The art of access: Strategies for acquiring public records in an increasingly anti-media world." Read more about the IRE in this Arizona Republic preview.

 

Carol Schwalbe and Ethan Schwalbe co-directed the Journalism Diversity Workshop for Arizona High School Students at the School of Journalism, helping students publish the Chronicle newspaper and a website. Eleven students learned reporting and writing basics, media ethics, broadcast and multimedia journalism, design and editing, and different storytelling techniques. Speakers included professors Jeannine Relly, Susan Swanberg, Susan Knight and Michael McKisson, and academic adviser Paloma Boykin. Read a full story to see the other alums, speakers and students who helped out.

 

Adjunct instructor and alumna Sarah Garrecht Gassen (B.A. '95, M.A. '10) is the new editorial page editor of the Arizona Daily Star. She runs the Star's apprentice program with our students. Read alumna Jill Jorden Spitz's story on Gassen.

 

The UA Foundation honored retired professor Edith Sayre Auslander at the Women's Plaza of Honor on Friday. She is a J-school alumna and a former Arizona Board of Regents president. Click here for her Plaza of Honor webpage.

June 2, 2017 

A new study by Jeannine Relly and Celeste González de Bustamante, “Global and Domestic Networks Advancing Prospects for Institutional and Social Change: The Collective Action Response to Violence Against Journalists,” was published online and will appear in the June issue of Journalism & Communication Monographs. Click here for more details.

Jeannine Relly presented her research with Lindita Camaj and Rajdeep Pakanati on a panel at the International Communication Association conference in San Diego on May 29. The work is titled, "The impact of Freedom of Information laws on journalists’ news production: FOI laws as channels of newsgathering in Bulgaria and India." Relly also served as a judge in the International Communication Division of AEJMC's multimedia story competition.

Celeste González de Bustamante and Jeannine Relly presented their research paper, “When Violence Enters the Workplace: A Qualitative Look at Gender Roles Among Journalists in Northern Mexico,” at the
ICA and Binational Association of Schools of Communication pre-conference in San Diego. The paper is part of the scholars’ larger book project on violence against journalists in Mexico.

Also in San Diego, Celeste González de Bustamante moderated and was a panelist in the session titled, “Pushing pedagogical frontiers: Teaching border journalism in the age of nativism," at the ICA preconference “Research, Intervention and Exchange Across the U.S./Mexican Border,” sponsored by the BINACOM (Binational Schools of Communication)/

Linda Lumsden presented her paper, “Moral Shock And Muckraking In The Congo Free State: A Framing Analysis of E. D. Morel’s West African Mail Through the Prism of Social Movement Theory,” to the History Division of the International Communication Association conference on May 26, 2017 in San Diego.

Jeannine Relly has been invited to participate in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Consortium – Summer Research Institute at The University of Arizona this summer. Relly will work with a student from Kansas who will assist with academic research this summer. The student also will work on an academic research paper this summer, as well.

Debbie Cross began May 22 as the school's senior program coordinator for course scheduling, graduate studies and the Center for Border & Global Journalism. For 20 years, Debbie had a key role at Tucson's Antigone Books, where she did event planning, training, buying and purchasing and bookselling for the independent bookstore. She also worked at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and has a master's in creative writing from UA.

May 19, 2017 

Susan Swanberg was one of four UA faculty members selected as Udall Center Fellows for 2017-18. She will do her fellowship in the spring, with her project titled “Spinning Science: Science Journalism’s Role at the Interface of Science and Public Policy During the Birth of the Atomic Age.” Click here to read more.

Linda Lumsden's paper titled "Abolitionist Aggregator: Collective Action Frames in the British Anti-Slavery Monthly Reporter, the World’s First Social Movement Periodical, 1825-1833​" was accepted for a Best Faculty Papers panel presentation by the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) conference Aug. 9-12 in Chicago.

Jeannine Relly and political scientist Rajdeep Pakanati's paper titled "Toward a global model of agenda building and gatekeeping: Collective action and Right to Information legislation in the India case" was accepted for a panel presentation in the International Communication Division of the AEJMC conference in Chicago in August.

Carol Schwalbe and Jeannine Relly received a $3,500 grant from the Social & Behavioral Sciences Research Institute for research focused on Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza. 

Susan Swanberg attended the annual conference of the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies (IALJS) in Nova Scotia, presenting May 13 her research, "Writing While Under the Influence: John Hersey and the Writings of Hiroshima Eyewitness John A. Siemes, S.J." It was the fifth conference Swanberg has presented at since late February.

Linda Lumsden is among a team of journalism historians awarded a New York Humanities action grant for its Women's Suffrage and the Media database and website project commemorating the centennial of the final campaign that culminated in 19th Amendment granting women the vote on Aug. 26, 1920. Brooke Kroeger of New York University heads the effort; other members include journalism history professors Jinx Broussard, Kathy Roberts Forde, Linda Steiner, Ford Risley Jane Rhodes, Jane Marcellus, Carolyn Kitch and Maurine Beasley. The site is a companion to the anticipated April 2019 special issue of American Journalism on Women's Suffrage and the Media that the women will edit. Lumsden is on the journal's editorial board.

Rogelio Garcia oversaw the production of the Spring 2017 "Arizona Cat's Eye," with help from adjunct Lorraine Rivera. Click here to watch the episode.

Linda Lumsden will appear on C-SPAN's 'Book TV' show on Sunday, May 21, at 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. AZ (PDT) time to discuss her book, INEZ: The Life and Times of Inez Milholland. The glamorous suffragist's death while campaigning for suffrage in 1916 set off the final, militant phase of the  votes-for-women movement. After May 21, click here to watch the taped version.

Adjunct instructor Jim Nintzel was named interim editor at the Tucson Weekly while it looks to replace Mari Herreras.

Director David Cuillier was interviewed about the media cycle in the Trump era and other journalism topics on the "Bill Buckmaster Show" on May 18. Ray Allen filled in as the guest host. Click here to hear the podcast (31:00 mark).

May 5, 2017 

Carol Schwalbe, director of graduate studies, won the Hugh and Jan Harelson Excellence in Teaching Award, as voted on by students and faculty. She was honored May 4 at the Just Desserts student awards ceremony at the Arizona Historical Society. Mark Woodhams, Anne Segal and Jo Marie Barkley of the Journalism Advisory Council judged the awards. See story and video. 

Celeste González de Bustamante organized "Mexico: The Storytellers," a presentation by her U.S. Press and Latin America class at UA Special Collections on April 25. Lenin Martell, a professor from Mexico, was the keynote speaker at the event, co-sponsored by the Center for Border & Global Journalism, UA Libraries Special Collections and the school. Photos

Terry Wimmer oversaw his classes' publication of the spring El Independiente: "Living in Shadows: The Long-Term Undocumented." Adjunct instructor Daniel Ramirez helped students with the design of the magazine, which included well-reported stories and double-truck graphics. Read the issue.

Carol and Ethan Schwalbe spoke to Eva Lange’s journalism class at Sahuaro High School. They told the students about the Dow Jones Diversity Workshop for Arizona High School Students. They also talked about the UA journalism program and showed videos about the school, the border class and summer study abroad in Costa Rica.

Michael McKisson and Celeste González de Bustamante, with help from grad student Jenny Hijazi, chatted with donors April 26 at the Magellan Circle Reception at Hacienda del Sol, sponsored by the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. The three talked about drone and virtual reality journalism, including the Bordering 110 project.

Jeannine Relly invited Bethany Barnes, a reporter for The Oregonian and a 2013 master's grad, to talk via Skype to Relly's research methods class about investigative reporting.

Adjunct instructor Cathy Burch of the Arizona Daily Star surprised her 205 class on May 3 with a guest: Star cartoonist David Fitzsimmons. "I loved the students' reaction," she said. "They thought I was going to make them do a turnaround in-class assignment for the final. Instead, they got to laugh for 90 minutes."

Celina Centeno, administrative assistant, organized the 51st annual Just Desserts student awards ceremony at the Arizona Historical Society on May 4, with help from Mike Chesnick, Martha Castleberry and Kris Hogeboom (from business office), Paloma Boykin and Renee Schafer Horton.

Mike Chesnick, outreach coordinator, was named a finalist for the 2017 SBS Outstanding Staff Award and was recognized at the SBS annual appreciation luncheon on April 26 at the Tucson University Park Hotel.

April 21, 2017

Kim Newton was recognized for his 10th year with the School of Journalism at the annual UA Service Awards reception on April 20 at the Student Union Grand Ballroom.

Celeste Bustamante and Michael McKisson oversaw the release of "Bordering 110°," a multimedia project from their fall 2016 U.S.-Mexico border reporting class that compares the towns of Nogales with two in Montana/Alberta. Click here to see the project.

David Cuillier was a panelist for the student SPJ-sponsored discussion, "The Future of Press Freedom in an Era of Fake News," on April 12 at the UA Main Library. Susan Knight helped organize the event. Other panelists included alums David Fitzsimmons (Arizona Daily Star), Linda Valdez (Arizona Republic) and Dylan Smith (Tucson Sentinel) and UA librarian Mary Feeney. Click here to see the Facebook Live video. 

Michael McKisson talked about drones at the iSpace Tech's "Friday Tech Talk" on April 14 at the Science and Engineering library. He covered safe flying, best practices, FAA certification, and showed clips from reporting projects.

Nancy Sharkey moderated a Skype conversation with students and Savannah Guthrie ('93), co-anchor for NBC's "Today Show," on April 20. See photos here and stay tuned for a video.

Adjunct instructor Megan Kimble's food journalism class took a tour of Mission Garden on April 10.

April 7, 2017

Maggy Zanger won the Center for Border & Global Journalism's inaugural faculty research grant to for her proposal to study the effect of violence, economic crisis and extremist religious ideology on Iraqi Kurdistan's journalists. An outside review panel did the judging. Click here for a full story.

Michael McKisson and William Schmidt won a $3,000 engagement grant from the UA School of Journalism for a proposal to combine their advanced reporting and advanced multimedia courses — and take their teaching out of the classroom and into the field while using cutting-edge technology. Alum Al Litzow funded the grant. Click here for a full story.

Jeannine Relly and Rajdeep Pakanati have been invited to present their research paper titled "Pressing for public accountability: Civil society organizations, social activists, journalists & the Indian Right to Information Act" at the Fifth Global Conference on Transparency Research being held at the University of Limerick in Ireland from June 19-21.

Kim Newton showed some of his photos from his trip to South Korea at "Pints & Pixels," a March 28 event at The Shanty hosted by the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP).

March 24, 2017

David Cuillier's study for the Knight Foundation, "Forecasting Freedom of Information," came out on March 12, and he presented the findings that day to a crowd of journalists at SXSW in Austin. Cuillier was interviewed by CSPAN about the study.

Susan E. Swanberg presented her conference paper, “Borrowed Chronicles: New York Times Science Journalist William L. ‘Atomic Bill’ Laurence and the Reports of a Hiroshima Survivor,” and participated in a panel discussion presented at the Legacies of the Manhattan Project at 75 Years conference in Hanford, Washington on March 16.

Celeste González de Bustamante took 12 students from her U.S. Press and Latin America class on a spring-break trip to Mexico City, where they interviewed journalists and foreign correspondents, and toured media outlets and Prof. Lenin Martell's Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Mexico (UAEM).

Nancy Sharkey took nine honors students to New York City during spring break to visit the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, First Look Media, and NBC and "The Today Show." The trip also included visits to the 9-11 Memorial Museum, along the Hudson River and in front of the N.Y. Stock Exchange, in addition to "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah," "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," and a new play, "Church and State." Snow forced adjunct instructor Joe Sharkey to take students on an "abbreviated version of my Forced March through Lower Manhattan."

Susan E. Swanberg presented her conference paper, “Nuclear Shadows: The Legacy of New York Times Science Journalist and War Department Propagandist, William L. ‘Atomic Bill’ Laurence,“ and participated in a panel discussion on propaganda at the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference (JJCHC) at New York University on March 11.
 
Jeannine Relly was invited to serve on the Faculty Advisory Board and as an affiliated faculty member of the College's Center for Digital Society and Data Studies.  She also participated on Friday on a SBSRI panel featuring Fulbright Scholars and Fulbright Specialists.
 

Susan E. Swanberg presented her conference paper, “Walt Disney’s ‘The Living Desert’: Documentary or Docufiction?“ at the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association's 38^th Annual Conference in Albuquerque on Feb. 18.

March 10, 2017

Kim Newton traveled to South Korea to participate in a documentary for the 30^th anniversary of the country's democracy movement, and he took photos after a court upheld the impeachment of South Korea’s president. Newton met Opposition Democracy Party Floor Leader Woo Sang-ho, who has a 1987 photo taken by Newton hanging in his office. The image, in which Mr. Woo is holding a picture of slain student Lee Han-Yeol, helped a broadcast company find Newton to be part of the documentary. Story. 

Linda Lumsden has received an SBSRI Research Professorship for Fall 2017. The grant will fund a course release to complete the manuscript for her book, “Journalism for Social Justice: A Cultural History of Social Movement Media from Abolition to #womensmarch.” The book will be published by Peter Lang Ltd. at the end of 2018.
 
Maggy Zanger spoke March 3 about working safely in the field on a panel about mental and physical health and safety for a half-day workshop at the Student Union on “Preparing for International Trips, Programs & Research,” sponsored by Global Initiatives. 
 
Maggy Zanger organized and facilitated a panel of Tucson women for a one-hour live radio program to talk about the the status of women of color and migrants for International Women's Day on KXCI radio, 91.3 FM. The community radio station rebroadcasted the show March 8. Click here to hear the podcast.
 
Jeannine Relly served this week on the Center for Middle Eastern Studies governing board committee that reviewed more than 50 applications for the Foreign Language and Areas Studies (FLAS) Program. She also participated on the university committee for the Commission on the Status of Women that selected campus-wide awards among more than 20 nominations.

Jeannine Relly was recognized with 10 other scholars across the UA campus at an "esteemed faculty reception" for being selected to a national academy or association as a scholar/fellow in 2016.
 
Mort Rosenblum wrote a guest column for the Arizona Daily Star on Feb. 24: “Trump’s biggest enemy is the truth.”
 
Renee Schafer Horton, internship coordinator, organized the Spring Internship Fair on March 3. More than 15 publications participated, including alum John D’Anna with the Arizona Republic and Gannett. Photos.
 
Adjunct instructor Joe Sharkey and former New York Times foreign correspondent/editor Craig Whitney participated in a Q&A after the March 5 showing of “The Killing Fields" at The Loft Cinema, our final Journalism on Screen film of the spring.  About 200 people attended the event, organized by William Schmidt and Nancy Sharkey. Whitney also spoke to several journalism classes on March 2.
 
Susan Knight and the UA Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists hosted a meeting for all journalism students interested in learning more about the school’s nine clubs on March 8 in the Reading Room. SPJ is planning a forum this spring on attacks on freedom of the press.
 
Nancy Sharkey arranged for former Boston Globe editor and reporter Walter V. Robinson to speak to her  “Inside the N.Y. Times” class on March 9. He told students they "can do investigative reporting — even on deadline.” Robinson led the Globe's Pulitzer-winning series on the Catholic Church scandal, and Michael Keaton played him in “Spotlight.”
 
Director David Cuillier testified before the state House Education Committee on March 6 in support of a bill that protects the rights of student journalists and advisers from censorship and punishment in high schools, community colleges and universities. The bill passed the panel and now will go up for a full House vote.
 
Students from Hopi High in Northern Arizona, led by adviser Stan Bindell, visited the J-school on March 4. Director David Cuillier gave them a tour and answered questions; Professor Michael McKisson showed off our drone and 360 camera; UA senior Maxie Ruan played her video on Native American students; and Professor Carol Schwalbe and her son, Ethan, talked about our High School Diversity Workshop. Before the students went home, outreach coordinator Mike Chesnick took them to the turtle pond and Old Main.
 
Director David Cuiller was the keynote speaker at FOIA Fest in Chicago on Feb. 25, and the Arizona Republic published his Feb. 26 guest column on President Trump's attacks on the media. The Arizona Daily Wildcat also interviewed Cuillier for a story on the Arizona Board of Regents' secrecy regarding the UA president search.
 
At least 10 students, professors Celeste Bustamante and Mort Rosenblum and visiting scholar Ana Arana participated in security training for border journalists Feb. 24-25 in Nogales, Sonora. William Schmidt and the Center for Border & Global Journalism sponsored a dinner for organizer Jorge Luis Sierra. Photos
 
Rogelio Garcia arranged for alum Marcy Jones ('10), a reporter at Fox 10 in Phoenix, to speak about live reporting and her career to his broadcast class on March 9. Garcia also brought in KGUN9 multimedia journalist Max Darrow to talk about interviewing people on camera, the importance of visual storytelling and how to get your first job in news.

 

Feb. 24, 2017

The Center for Border & Global Journalism hosted a free screening of the documentary, “Finding Oscar” on Feb. 22, with William Schmidt introducing the film and Celeste González de Bustamante moderating a panel discussion afterward that included visiting scholar Ana Arana, director Ryan Suffern and co-producer Scott Greathead. The Steven Spielberg-executive-produced film, about the 1982 Dos Erres massacre in Guatemala, drew on co-reporting from Arana and will be available for streaming this summer. Watch the trailer.

Director David Cuillier's article, “Trump to make FOI great again,” ran in the latest Quill magazine (pages 19-20). He also did an interview with Arizona Public Media on Trump and the media (8:45 mark). His IRE Journal column in latest 2016 Fourth Quarter issue, “Pro se power: How to sue for public records on your own” (pages 32-33). The Arizona Republic also plans to publish a guest column from Cuillier about Trump’s attacks on the media on Sunday, Feb. 26.
 
Jeannine Relly was featured in a Global Initiatives story, “UA professors teach and research in India as part of Fulbright experience.” In the fall, she visited newsrooms and startups in various Indian cities as part of her Fulbright research on the country’s Right to Information Act.
 
Internship coordinator Renée Schafer Horton organized a Feb. 21 panel of five media professionals, who gave seniors and grad students advice on landing a job. Michael Chihak (Arizona Public Media), alum Ann Brown (Arizona Daily Star), Tom Burke (KGUN 9), alum Maggie Driver (Lavidge) and Mari Herreras (Tucson Weekly) spoke and took questions for more than two hours, and accepted résumés from 16 students.
 
Michael McKisson helped host News Hack Arizona 2017 on Feb. 18-19, focusing on sensor journalism. More than 80 people registered for the event. Yoohyun Jung (’15) of the Arizona Daily Star wrote a story on the two-day event.
 
Nancy Sharkey and William Schmidt organized the Journalism on Screen showing of “The Insider” on Feb. 12 at The Loft Cinema, with a Q-and-A with former "60 Minutes" producer Lowell Bergman and N.Y. Times lawyer David McCraw. Bergman, director of the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley, talked to classes on Feb. 13, and McCraw gave a talk on “fake news” at the Law College on the same day. Here's a video clip of Bergman talking about covering President Trump.

J-school visiting scholar Jessica Retis, an associate professor about Retis here.
 
Macarena Hernandez, a Baylor journalism professor, talked to students in five classes at the J-school on Feb. 14. Hernandez, a former San Antonio Express News reporter and Dallas Morning News columnist, has covered U.S. Latino issues extensively and her multimedia work has been featured on Frontline/PBS.at Cal State Northridge, spoke to students and faculty Feb. 15-16 about approaches to understanding transnationalism, Latinos and the media, and about teaching civic advocacy journalism in the digital era when covering diversity and minorities. Read more about Hernandez.

Feb. 10, 2017

Susan Knight and Elena Stauffer met with faculty and students in the journalism program at Tucson High Magnet School on Jan. 26. Elena discussed the UA School of Journalism’s high school journalism summer program and Susan talked about threats to high school journalism programs and worked with students on how to localize major national stories — the border wall, limit on Syrian immigration, and women’s reproductive rights issues — into stories for the Tucson High audience. Elena, senior program coordinator, left Feb. 1 for a similar position in History. She will be missed.
 
Jeannine Relly was an invited “expert” for Noam Chomsky and Marvin Waterstone's course, "What is politics?" Relly was asked to participate in a Q&A with Chomsky. Also, Relly, Lindita Camaj and Rajdeep Pakanati's comparative research work on access to information legislation in Bulgaria and India has been accepted for a panel titled “Access to Information in the Age of Digitally Networked Information and Communication” for the annual International Communication Association conference in San Diego. The project is titled, “The impact of Freedom of Information laws on journalists’ news production: FOI laws as channels of newsgathering in Bulgaria and India.”
 
Adjunct instructor Irene McKisson attended the Women’s Leadership Accelerator forum on digital journalism in Los Angeles this week. Irene, one of 25 women selected from 300-plus applicants, is editor of the Arizona Daily Star's This Is Tucson. 
 
Director David Cuillier testified before the state Senate education committee in support of a bill to expand freedom of the press protections for student journalists at public schools, community colleges and universities across Arizona. The bill passed the committee unanimously and moves to the full Senate. Read Christianna Silva's story.
 
Adjunct instructor Fred Brock was one of the star speakers on the trans-Atlantic crossing aboard the Queen Mary, as part of The New York Times’ “Times Journeys” program. He joined three other Times colleagues in lecturing to passengers about journalism and The Times.

Jan. 27, 2017

Linda Lumsden's paper, "Moral Shock and Muckraking in the Congo: E.D. Morel’s West African Mail,​ 1903-1906," has been chosen for presentation by the History Division at the International Communications Association annual convention in San Diego in late May. 

Celeste González de Bustamante and KGUN-TV anchor-reporter Valerie Cavazos spoke to Cholla High School students about journalism, fake news and coverage of Latinos, including historical events such as the Zoot Suit riots in the early 1940s in Los Angeles, on Jan. 27 in Marshall 340.
 
Jeannine Relly spoke about the importance of fact-checking at the Inauguration Day Teach-In on Jan. 20 at the UA Mall.

William Schmidt, with help from fall semester Epitaph adviser Joe Sharkey, saw five of his JOUR 306 students published in Arizona Sonora News: Danyelle Kharma, Genesis Lara, Liz O’Connell, Harrison Reed and Nicholas Johnson, all of whom did their stories originally as class assignments. Also, ASN published a story written last spring by Emily Ellis, who was a graduate student in Schmidt’s feature writing class.
 
Nancy Sharkey introduced Star sports columnist Greg Hansen before the school’s Journalism on Screen showing of “The Natural.” Hansen gave insight into the Alonzo Trier story, media access and the Baseball Hall of Fame steroid dilemma with screenwriter Will Conroy at the Loft. See the video.

Jan. 6, 2017

Susan Swanberg’s abstract, “Writing While Under the Influence: John Hersey and the Writings of Hiroshima Eyewitness John A. Siemes, S.J.,” has been accepted for presentation at the Twelfth International Conference for Literary Journalism Studies (IALJS-12), “Literary Journalism: From the Center, From the Margins” at University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada from May 11-13.

Susan Swanberg will present a conference paper, “Walt Disney’s ‘The Living Desert’ — Documentary or Docufiction?​” at the 38th Annual Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference to be held in Albuquerque from Feb. 15-18.
 
Jeannine Relly was invited to serve on the AEJMC Emerging Scholars Program Steering Committee during the fall 2016 semester. The committee work focuses upon the organization's junior scholar research.
 
Joe Sharkey’s audio book of his revised and updated “Above Suspicion” was released by Penguin-Random House. The print, e-book (published by Open Road) is out Jan. 17, and the movie starring Emilia Clarke is set to be in theaters in May. 

Dec. 16, 2016

Jeannine Relly and Celeste González de Bustamante's manuscript titled “Global and domestic networks advancing prospects for institutional and social change: The collective action response to violence against journalists” was accepted for publication in Journalism & Communication Monographs. The organization-level research focuses on global and domestic actors initiatives to curb violence in Mexico and other countries around the world. The 30,000-word monograph is slated for publication in 2017.

Maggy Zanger’s El Independiente class published its Fall 2016 magazine and distributed the 40-year anniversary issue to South Tucson restaurants and South Tucson and Tucson community centers and libraries. Adjunct Daniel Ramirez mentored students in design, and UANews ran a story on El Inde.
 
Celeste González de Bustamante was invited to participate in the Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration Short-term Faculty Exchange program in spring 2017. She will be collaborating on research and teaching with Professor Lenin Martell from the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México (UAEM). As part of the project, professor Martell will visit the UA campus and teach students who are enrolled in Dr. González de Bustamante’s, “U.S. Press in Latin America,” course, and Dr. González de Bustamante will visit the UAEM campus, where she will teach Prof. Martell’s students, and where the two professors will work on a joint-research project.
 
Jeannine Relly gave four talks last week in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The country adopted the Right to Information Act earlier this year and it is ranked among the top 10 in the world by legal experts. Her Dec. 6 workshop presentation at Wijeya Newspapers, one of the largest newsgroups in the country, was titled, “Right to Information legislation as a tool for investigative journalists.”  On Dec. 7, she presented a talk in a daylong workshop at the Sri Lanka Press Institute titled "A global perspective of media and Right to Information" with a team of Norwegian investigative journalists. Relly's Dec. 8 talk at the Sri Lanka College of Journalism was titled "Right to Information legislation and challenges for journalists." On Dec. 9, she provided training on use of Sri Lanka's Right to Information Act with journalists at the Daily Mirror and Sunday Times. Relly also met with the Right to Information Commission, the independent body that will monitor public information officer compliance with the access-to-information legislation. Here's a story by Sri Lanka's Sunday Times on one of the days.
 
Nancy Sharkey and William Schmidt helped host the school’s Journalism on Screen Dec. 4 screening of “Ace in the Hole” at The Loft Cinema, followed by a Q&A with New York Times Phoenix Bureau chief Fernanda Santos.
 
Joe Sharkey’s Tombstone Epitaph class published an issue on Dec. 9, with stories that included the future of Southern Arizona farming and water, the lagging Cochise County economy and a proposed bus route to connect Sierra Vista with Douglas, Bisbee and Benson.
 
Administrative assistant Celina Centeno helped organize a send-off for our Winter 2016 graduates at Gentle Ben’s on Dec. 8. Professors Nancy Sharkey, Susan E. Swanberg, Michael McKisson and Maggy Zanger attended.

Dec. 2, 2016

Linda Lumsden published a profile of suffrage martyr Inez Milholland in the “Longform” section of talkingpointsmemo.com. Lumsden's biography of Milholland, who died 100 years ago on Nov. 25 while campaigning for votes for women in California, came out in paperback this fall to commemorate the centennial. Lumsden will conduct a livechat  on the article next week. Article link.

Susan E. Swanberg’s invited book chapter titled “Telomeres and Telomerase in Birds: Measuring Health, Environmental Stress and Longevity,” is in press and expected to be published in the book Handbook of Models for the Study of Human Aging in 2017. She intends to use the manuscript in her spring 2017 environmental journalism course as part of her unit teaching students how to read scientific articles. Her invited book chapter, “Purple Prose vs. Literary Journalism: The WWII-Era Writings of New York Times Science Reporter William L. “’Atomic Bill’ Laurence and John Hersey,” is under review. She hopes the chapter will be published in 2017 as part of the book The Literature of Remembering: Tracing the Limits of Memoir.

Jeannine Relly received a grant from the U.S.-India Educational Foundation through the U.S. Fulbright Scholar South and Central Asia Program to provide training in Colombo, Sri Lanka, related to using the country's new Right to Information Act. Relly will be part of a team of trainers at the Sunday Times in Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka College of Journalism. During the week in Sri Lanka, Relly will be affiliated with the Sri Lanka Press Institute and the Sri Lanka College of Journalism, both of which are industry-based institutions that are working on an action plan for training journalists and the public about the RTIA. 
  
Maggy Zanger and Carol Schwalbe organized the Fall 2016 Mark Finley Gold Pen competition. Linda Lumsden helped them with the judging.

Susan E. Swanberg will present a panel paper called "Nuclear Shadow: The Legacy of New York Times Science Journalist and War Department Propagandist William L. 'Atomic Bill' Laurence" at the 2017 Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, New York University.

Maggy Zanger helped organize the School of Journalism Listening Tour, where students on Dec. 2 told Teresa Graham Brett, associate dean of students for Inclusion and Multicultural Engagement, their thoughts about the school in relation to inclusion, difference and climate.

Celeste González de Bustamante and Michael McKisson helped organize and introduce their students' “Reporting in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands” presentation at the Fall 2016 Student Research Symposium at Special Collections on Nov. 28. Click here to watch the Facebook Live video.

Nov. 18, 2016

Kim Newton saw two of his photographs on display in the Student Union Gallery as part of the annual study-abroad photo contest exhibit. The images of the Roman Colosseum at dusk and a girl in Pienza, Italy, were part of a new faculty feature picture display. The exhibit ran through Nov. 18. He also was also a judge in this year’s contest. One of the students in his Orvieto, Italy, course, Spencer Halliday, won the grand prize.
 
Susan Knight wrote a Nov. 1 op-ed piece, “I kept quiet when it happened to me,” for the Miami Herald.
 
Nancy Sharkey conducted a Q&A with David Cay Johnston, author of "The Making of Donald Trump," at the school’s Journalism on Screen series on Nov. 14 at The Loft. William Schmidt introduced Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, before the screening of “All the King’s Men.” Cay also spoke to nine classes at the school, thanks to Sharkey’s coordination. Watch the Q&A.
 
Maggy Zanger introduced Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer, who spoke Nov. 15 to her International Crises class and other students in the Reading Room. Omer, awarded the 2007 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, is a Research Scholar at Harvard University. His research focuses on culture and children TV production in Middle East. Follow him at twitter.com/Mogaza
 
Celeste González de Bustamante was interviewed and quoted in the Brazilian newspaper, Correio Braziliense, about the news media and Trump’s victory. For the record, she said she didn’t agree with the headline, which essentially says, “Why Donald Trump’s win means the defeat of the press.” She told the paper Trump’s victory had more to do with American voters’ frustration and anger than the power of the news media over public opinion, “but that quote wasn’t used."
 
Jeannine Relly spoke on Nov. 16 at the Times School of Journalism in Delhi about her Right to Information research and how journalists use the Indian Right to Information Act and the U.S. FOIA. The talk was titled, "Right to Information in India and the U.S. — A tool for Journalists."  The Times Group, which owns the largest English language daily in the world, The Times of India, runs the nonprofit Times School of Journalism, a post-graduate program.
 
Kim Newton had two photographs nominated in the professional categories of People and Fine Art at this year’s International Black & White Spider Awards. Click here to see the winning photographs.
 
Joe Sharkey’s “On the Road” column in Business Jet Traveler magazine won second place (or “Honorable Mention”) in the travel magazine category at the annual “Eddie” awards in New York, run by Folio magazine. He has done the column for three years.
 
Daniel Ramirez, an adjunct instructor, designed the 2016 Cursor, which came out this week. Outreach Coordinator Mike Chesnick wrote and edited the alumni magazine. Director David Cuillier, Senior Program Coordinator Elena Stauffer and Administrative Assistant Celina Centeno helped copy-edit. 
 
Sarah Gassen, an adjunct instructor and Arizona Daily Star opinion writer, spoke to some of Nancy Sharkey’s 105 Honors and transfer students who toured the Star newsroom, plateroom and pressroom — and attended a news meeting led by editor Jill Jorden Spitz (’88).
 
Director David Cuillier spoke to about 25 alums who attended the school’s Homecoming mixer on Oct. 29. He gave them a tour and a presentation. The group included the classes of Frank Sotomayor (’66) and H Darr Beiser (’76). Outreach Coordinator Mike Chesnick and Administrative Assistant Celina Centeno helped organize the event.

Maggy Zanger is putting together a draft update of the school’s diversity plan. Outreach Coordinator Mike Chesnick added materials to the diversity page on the school website.

Oct. 28, 2016

Jeannine Relly was an invited speaker on a panel at the two-day O.P. Jindal Global University-Stanford University Conference in New Delhi on “Deliberative Democracy: Institutions, Law and People.” The panel was titled  titled, “Strengthening Democracy Through the Right to Information.”

Maggy Zanger was interviewed about the recent offensive against ISIS in Mosul, Iraq, for CHQR News Talk 770 radio in Calgary, Canada.  
 
Elena Stauffer, Celina Centeno and Mike Chesnick organized the Oct. 21 Zenger Award for Press Freedom dinner at the Westward Look Resort, where Director David Cuillier also highlighted the school’s students and accomplishments. Kim Newton and his photography students also auctioned off student images. Watch honoree Dana Priest's speech and Q&A with emcee Nancy Montoya of AZPM and go to our website story to read how the Washington Post reporter hopes to partner with the school on a new website where students can report about the demise of independent news here and abroad, and the perils journalists face in Mexico and worldwide.
 
The school’s Center for Border & Global Journalism, led by co-director William Schmidt and Elena Stauffer, put on a happy-hour mixer Oct. 20 at the Marriott for Zenger winner Dana Priest. The center sold bracelets on behalf of Priest’s “Press Uncuffed” campaign for imprisoned journalists.
 
William Schmidt was part of a roundtable discussion nearby on Russian hacking and cyber espionage at the Integrated Learning Center on Oct. 18. Schmidt ran the Moscow bureau for Newsweek in the late 1970s, and “suddenly found myself in the middle of a cyber espionage story that later drew the attention of the White House ... which ordered tougher controls on computer diversion.”
 
The Center for Border & Global Journalism, led by Maggy Zanger and Elena Stauffer, helped host Asos Hardi, an independent journalist and publisher in Iraqi Kurdistan. He spoke to students about ISIS and other topics Oct. 12-13, and the center held a reception Oct. 13 for Hardi and students at Sinbad's near campus.
 
William Schmidt and students participated in the James W. Foley Freedom Run on Oct. 15 on campus to remember the journalist killed by ISIS.
 
Reneé Schafer Horton coordinated the Fall Internship Fair on Oct. 21, with recruiters from 16 publications and media groups on hand. Many students took part.
 
Director David Cuillier spoke Oct. 27 at the Arizona Interscholastic Press Association convention in Tempe about the "Art of Access" at high school campuses. He also participated in the College of SBS’ “Conversations on Privacy” series Oct. 26 with AP reporter Jack Gillum and Emma Llansó at the Fox Theatre. Gillum, an-ex Arizona Daily Star reporter, broke the story that Hillary Clinton used a private email server.
 
Susan E. Swanberg presented her research-in-progress, “Half Life: The New York Times' William L. "Atomic Bill" Laurence, Propagandist for the Atomic Age,” at the 35th annual American Journalism Historians Association convention in St. Petersburg, Florida, on Oct. 8.
 
Celina Centeno and Mike Chesnick organized a Family Weekend mixer Oct. 15. Director David Cuillier, internship coordinator Renee Schafer Horton and academic adviser Paloma Boykin chatted with parents, while SPJ students took parents on tours of the Marshall Building and showcased the school’s drone and a drone video by Celeste González de Bustamante.

Oct. 7, 2016 

Director David Cuillier won the Wells Memorial Key — the highest honor for a member of Society of Professional Journalists — at the Excellence in Journalism conference banquet in New Orleans. Cuillier, past president of SPJ, also spoke in Chicago at the Local Independent Online News Publishers conference. Watch one of his sessions. 
 
Jeannine Relly and Maggy Zanger saw their research on Afghanistan’s news media published online in the academic journal, Journalism. The study, with help from assistant Noorullah Dawari, details the perils and challenges faced in the profession in the country’s unstable environment. Read the study.
 
Celeste González de Bustamante and Michael McKisson led a trip to Sweet Grass, Montana, and Coutts, Alberta, with seven students to study the U.S.-Canada border and compare it to the border at Nogales. The students used drone videography in their reporting and interviewed Border Patrol agents and residents for the project.
 
Michael McKisson successfully completed the FAA’s Small Unmanned Aircraft pilot certification, which allows McKisson to fly a drone and oversee students as they begin incorporating drone videography into their reporting.

Celeste González de Bustamante's interview with Nancy Montoya about violence and journalism in northern Mexico was featured in the Community Interactive: Stories from the Border, which aired on Arizona Public Media on September 29. Go here to watch it.

Linda Lumsden presented a paper entitled, “Trial-blazing for Social Movement Media: The Sierra Club Bulletin’s Role in Building Modern Environmentalism, 1893-1970,” at the American Journalism Historians Association ​in St. Petersburg, Fla. She also presented her research-in-progress on her book manuscript, Social Justice Journalism: A Cultural History of Social Movement Media from Abolition to #yesallwomen, and participated in the annual meeting of the American Journalism editorial board.
 
Internship coordinator Reneé Schafer Horton organized Pizza & Portfolios to help students receive one-on-one critiques of résumés, clips, broadcast/multimedia packages and cover letters. She recruited a panel of journalists to speak and work with students: Joe Hengemuehler, Brett Fera ('05), Mike Christy ('11), Jade Nunes ('15),Yoohyun Jung ('15), Murphy Woodhouse, Karla Gómez-Escamilla and Zach Clark (’12).
 
Adjunct instructor Jim Nintzel of the Tucson Weekly won two first-place awards and two others at the Arizona Newspapers Association 2016 Better Newspapers Contest in Chandler. Read more.

Adjunct instructor Tom Beal held “analog Monday” in his 205 class, having students read the Sunday papers with coffee and donuts.

Sept. 16, 2016 

Professor Susan Knight organized the All-Clubs Leadership Retreat on Sept. 10, hosting groups of students in Marshall Rooms 340 and 341.  

Professor Maggy Zanger went this summer to Iraqi Kurdistan, meeting with students and faculty at the American University of Iraq in Sulaimani and presenting a workshop for independent journalists about online journalism and copyright issues. One of her workshop participants, Asos Hardi, the publisher of Awene news, will speak at UA in mid-October.
 
Professor Michael McKisson attended the Online News Association conference Sept. 15-17 in Denver with his wife, Irene McKisson, an adjunct instructor in editing and editor of #ThisIsTucson at the Arizona Daily Star.
 
Professor Celeste González de Bustamante’s border reporting class, with help from professor Michael McKisson this semester, visited a television/radio station in Nogales, Sonora, on Aug. 29. Students got a tour of the city from Cesar Barrón of Radio Xeny, including this street corner where teen Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez was shot to death in 2012 by a Border Patrol agent. Students also set up a 360-degree VR camera with McKisson’s help, and plan to fly a drone at the border later this semester.
 
Grad Studies Director Carol Schwalbe and Elena Stauffer, senior program director, organized Talk & Tapas at Casa Vicente, with five grad students giving presentations. Director David Cuillier welcomed about 30 people to the event.
 
Susan Knight invited former student Murphy Woodhouse and Alexis Huicochea, reporters at the Arizona Daily Star, to talk to her RPA class on covering politics, government accountability, and social justice on the education and county beats.

Aug. 26, 2016

Professor Nancy Sharkey won the 2016 SBS Dean’s Award for Excellence in Upper Division Teaching from the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences after being nominated by Director David Cuillier and student Elizabeth Eaton. Sharkey also received the Harelson Excellence in Teaching Award from faculty and students in May. Click here to read our website story.

Professors Jeannine Relly and Maggy Zanger's manuscript titled, “The enigma of news media development with multi-pronged ‘capture’: The Afghanistan case,” was accepted for publication in the academic journal, Journalism. The research, which was conducted in the Afghan capital, included 30 interviews with Afghan journalists.
 
Professor Nancy Sharkey and Director David Cuillier analyzed "The Witness" on Aug. 23 as our Journalism on Screen series kicked off its second season at The Loft. In the documentary, the brother of Kitty Genovese used public records and good journalistic skills to discover inaccuracies in a 1964 New York Times' story that asserted 38 witnesses watched her being murdered and did nothing to help. Watch the Q&A on our Youtube channel.
 
Adjunct instructor Joe Sharkey received a congratulations letter from University of Arizona President Ann Weaver Hart on news that his book, “Above Suspicion,” is being made into a major movie.
 
Arizona Daily Star opinion writer and adjunct instructor Sarah Garrecht Gassen wrote a column for the Star: "Teaching journalism in a fact-free environment." She is teaching advanced reporting this semester.
 
Professor Nancy Sharkey contributed to a New York Times story that won the July Sidney Award for "When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers."
 
Faculty members attended the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication annual conference in Minneapolis on Aug. 4-7, including Jeannine Relly, Susan Swanberg, Linda Lumsden, Celeste González de Bustamante, Carol Schwalbe and Director David Cuillier. “It was a great year at AEJMC, with all our research-active professors presenting,” Cuillier said.
 
Organized by Elena Stauffer, senior program coordinator, and professor Carol Schwalbe, some of our new graduate students toured the J-school and met with professors and current grad students. The students included Fred Pearson, Ashley Mikelonis, Hunter Fogel, Jake Feinberg, Shanshan Niu,Anna Ludlum, Nate Williams, Natalia Navarro and April Lanuza.

July 22, 2016

Professor Susan Swanberg’s research-in-progress, “Half Life: The New York Times' William L. "Atomic Bill" Laurence, Propagandist for the Atomic Age,” has been accepted for presentation at the 35th annual American Journalism Historians Association convention Oct. 6-8 in St. Petersburg, Florida.
 
On the 50th anniversary of the FOIA, associate professors Jeannine Relly and Carol Schwalbe published an article in Government Information Quarterly titled, "How Business Lobby Networks Shaped the U.S. Freedom of Information Act: An Examination of 60 Years of Congressional Testimony." Full story here.
 
Saying the FOIA “has become a tool of secrecy, not transparency,” Director David Cuillier urged Congress to consider five steps in making the 1966 law stronger in testimony July 12 before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington. Read our website story, with a link to the video of the hearing.
 
Associate Professor Celeste González de Bustamante gave an invited talk titled, “Killing the messengers: the case of Mexico and its northern border,” on July 7 at the University San Judas Tadeo in San José, Costa Rica, as part of the school's forum on freedom of expression. The talk focused on the research that she is conducting along with Associate Professor Jeannine Relly.
 
UA President Ann Weaver Hart singled out the Center for Border & Global Journalism in a blog post about ways UA and peers can position themselves as “agents of change” in the world. She praised co-directors William Schmidt and Mort Rosenblum and associate professors Celeste González de Bustamante and Jeannine Relly for their work on understanding “the complexity” of border regions and helping protect journalists. See story.

Adjunct instructor Joe Sharkey visited the Kentucky set of the film based on his 1992 non-fiction book, "Above Suspicion,” starring Emilia Clarke of "Game of Thrones" and Jack Huston of the "Ben-Hur" remake. Several media outlets did stories on Sharkey, including former students Rikki Mitchell('12) of KGUN-TV and Janice Yu ('13) of KOLD-TV. Journalism student Justin Spears interviewed Sharkey for KAMP Student Radio, too. For more details, click on our website story.

July 1, 2016

Professor Linda Lumsden beat out 16 other proposals nationally for a book contract from AEJMC for her project, “Journalism for Social Justice: A Cultural History of Social Movement Media from ‘Common Sense’ to ‪#blacklivesmatter." She's in London doing research on the book, thanks to an earlier $4,000 Senior Scholar research award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. She will report on her London findings at the AEJMC Convention in Minneapolis in August. Click here for a story.

Professors Jeannine Relly and Carol Schwalbe have received a travel fellowship to participate in a news media development seminar in the West Bank from July 15 through July 25. The seminar includes visits to newsrooms and universities with journalism programs. The Palestinian American Research Center is sponsoring the program, which will include competitively selected academics from across the U.S. Schwalbe and Relly plan to speak about the UA School of Journalism graduate program and seek collaborators during the seminar trip, which includes institutions in Bethlehem, Hebron, Jerusalem, and Ramallah.
 
Professor Nancy Sharkey contributed to a New York Times investigative piece on the privatization of emergency services, or the push to turn a profit while caring for people in their most vulnerable moments. Nancy is a former senior editor at the Times. Click here for the story.
 
Professor Celeste González de Bustamante's study-abroad students arrived in Costa Rica and began working on environmental stories for the Tico Times. Check out this video with students Maritza Dominguez, Ava Garcia, Moe Irish and Carmen Valencia.

June 10, 2016

Senior program coordinator Elena Stauffer ran the 2016 Journalism Diversity Workshop for Arizona High School Students as 10 teens put out a newspaper, website and blogs June 5-11. Speakers and tutors included Susan Knight, Nancy Sharkey, Susan Swanberg, Michael McKisson, Joe Sharkey and Paloma Boykin.

Kim Newton oversaw the 2016 Photojournalism in Italy classes, with students filing photos and multimedia projects to a blog at https://pjinitaly2016.wordpress.com/. The program runs until June 25.

Jeannine Relly and Celeste González de Bustamante's chapter titled "Global Violence Against Journalists: The Power of Impunity and Emerging Initiatives to Evoke Social Change" was accepted for publication in the Routledge Companion to Media & Human Rights.  The Companion will explore issues of freedom of expression, the right to know, and journalism work as a human right in parts one, two and three of the collection. The editors for the volume are Howard Tumber and Silvio Waisbord.

Jeannine Relly presented research titled, "The Mexican Press, Democracy, and Violence: Conceptualizing Resistance and Resilience in the Profession" at the Latin American Studies Association conference in New York on May 30. The presentation was based on her project with Celeste González de Bustamante, which includes more than 120 interviews along the Mexico-U.S. border, Mexico City and Veracruz.

Celeste González de Bustamante presented research titled, "Violence, the State and Impunity in Mexico: Why Crimes Against Freedom of Expression and Journalists Go Unpunished,” at the Latin American Studies Association conference in New York on May 28. It was based on her Mexico project with Jeannine Relly.

Celeste González de Bustamante also served as discussant on the panel titled, “Multiple crises in Mexican journalism, II: conformity and resistance in a violent democracy.”

May 20, 2016

Nancy Sharkey received the Hugh and Jan Harelson Excellence in Teaching Award, as voted on by faculty and students, at the Just Desserts celebration on May 13 at the Arizona Historical Society.

Jeannine Relly and Maggy Zanger’s research paper titled “News media development in the Afghan case: The enigma of news media ‘capture’ ” was accepted for presentation by the Cultural and Critical Studies Division of the AEJMC for this summer’s annual conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The interviews with 30 Afghan journalists were conducted in Kabul in 2015, the year after the U.S. military mission ended.

Administrative assistant Celina Centeno and professor Michael McKisson did most of the preparation work for the May 13 Just Desserts student awards ceremony. They received assistance from the awards committee of Celeste González de Bustamante, Susan Knight, Carol Schwalbe, Terry Wimmer and Maggy Zanger; the scholarship committee of Nancy Sharkey, Knight and Wimmer; event help from senior program coordinator Elena Stauffer; and photos by outreach coordinator Mike Chesnick.

May 6, 2016

Adjunct instructor Joe Sharkey's book "Above Suspicion" is being made into a major motion picture. The film will star Jack Huston and Emilia Clarke, directed by Phillip Noyce. Production will start May 23 in Kentucky, where Joe's book, a work of fact-based narrative journalism, was set. 

Professor Susan Swanberg’s science journalism class finished up production on “SciView” magazine, and seven of the students are to be featured on an “Arizona Illustrated” show on PBS 6 on Sunday, May 8, at 6:30 p.m. Swanberg hopes the partnership with Arizona Public Media will continue for the next “SciView.” Click here for a story.
 
Professor Celeste González de Bustamante gave a research talk titled, "Online and on the ground: Identifying resistance and resilience among journalists in Mexico,” based on her work with Jeannine Relly, on April 23 at the Binational Schools of Communication Conference (BINACOM) in San Diego.At the same conference, Dr. González de Bustamante also held a workshop with colleague Jessica Retis from Cal State University Northridge on data journalism focused on the Migrahack experience.  
 
Professor Celeste González de Bustamante, on April 25, gave an invited research talk titled, “On the ground and online in Mexico: Surviving threats and aggressions in one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists," at the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media and Communication at Cal State University Northridge. The talk was based on her work with Jeannine Relly.
 
Professors Jeannine Relly and Carol Schwalbe's research in the manuscript titled, "How Business Lobby Networks Shaped the U.S. Freedom of Information Act: An Examination of 60 Years of Congressional Testimony," was accepted for publication in the academic journal, Government Information Quarterly, with expected publication this year, the half-century anniversary for the law. 
 
Professor Nancy Sharkey took nearly a dozen of her Principles of Journalism students to the Pac-12 Networks "Television Production Student Training” on May 5 at Hillenbrand Stadium, where they learned how to run cameras and equipment in the production truck. The students also talked to sports broadcasters, including 2013 grad Kenzie Fowler, a former UA softball player.  
 
Senior program coordinator Elena Stauffer, professors Susan Knight and Susan Swanberg, academic adviser Paloma Boykin and professor Nancy Sharkey evaluated 176 stories on May 4 as part of the school's "outcomes assessment" — to see how far students advanced in writing, critical thinking, ethics, accuracy and numeracy between their beginning reporting class and senior year on Arizona Sonora News.
 
Professor/adviser Maggy Zanger distributed the spring 2016 edition of El Independiente after working with students on stories and production of the 44-page magazine. Click here to see the magazine.
 
Professor Kim Newton coordinated the Spring 2016 Drew Gyorke Photo Contest. The judges this semester were: Bill Hatcher, freelance photojournalist with the National Geographic; Mike Christy, staff photographer at the Arizona Daily Star; and Ryan Revock, staff photographer with the Statesville Record & Landmark in Statesville, North Carolina.
 
Senior program coordinator Elena Stauffer and outreach coordinator Mike Chesnick, working with Bill Schmidt and Mort Rosenblum, finished a new website for our Center for Border & Global Journalism — borderjournalism.arizona.edu — with stories, faculty bios and published work. The center is now featured on the hub page of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences — web.sbs.arizona.edu — under "units."
 
Professor Celeste González de Bustamante was quoted in a Christian Science Monitor story about innovative tactics Mexican journalists are using to tell their stories amid threats of violence. Click here to see the story.
 
Professor Susan Knight and Director David Cuillier attended the Society of Professional Journalists Western Regional Conference in Phoenix. Knight accompanied several student SPJ members.

April 29, 2016

Michael McKisson spoke with about 40 UA senior communicators about how journalists use press releases in the digital world and offered better ways to pitch their stories to working journalists across the country. He polled working journalists, and then utilized Clicker Response technology with the campus communicators, comparing their answers and offering insight into how to pitch future stories.

 
Professors Michael McKisson and Celeste González de Bustamante were featured in a UANews story about their planned Mexico-Canada border project, in which students will use drone technology and 360 virtual reality journalism in the fall to tell the story. https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/eye-sky-drone-help-students-tell-border-story?utm_source=uanow&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=biweekly-uanow
 
Professor Mort Rosenblum was honored at the MOCA Local Genius awards dinner on April 16 (see story at http://borderjournalism.arizona.edu/news/ua-professor-rosenblum-receives-local-genius-award), and he also did a radio interview with the Jake Feinberg Show (the interview starts at the 2:00 mark, http://www.jakefeinbergshow.com/…/the-mort-rosenblum-inter…/).
 
Adjunct instructor Jim Nintzel is one of three finalists for the Arizona Press Club's Arizona Community Journalist of the Year award. The other two candidates are former UA J-school students Hank Stephenson (Arizona Capitol Times) and Murphy Woodhouse (Nogales International ).
 
Professor Jeannine Relly served as a committee member on American Indian Studies graduate student Jacelle Ramon-Sauberan's thesis defense.  The thesis title is "Who is Dr. Bernard "Bunny" Fontana?" The chair of the committee was Regents' Professor Ofelia Zepeda. Dr. Benedict Colombi, American Indian Studies also served on the committee. Relly connected by Skype for the defense on April 28. Ramon-Sauberan holds a bachelor's degree from the UA School of Journalism. She recently was accepted into the American Indian Studies doctoral program and plans to minor in journalism.
 
Professor Jeannine Relly led a graduate workshop at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens, Greece, on April 20. The workshop focused on diversity issues with research design in a global context for journalism, new media, and cultural management studies students in the Department of Communication, Media, and Culture.

 

Professor Susan Knight and the Sports Journalists Club organized successful Q-and-A sessions with UA radio announcer Brian Jeffries and via Skype with ESPN college basketball analyst Jeff Goodman, a 1994 UA journalism grad. Goodman said the J-school gave him a "foundation for college basketball" and made him "understand how hard I had to work and the connections I had to make" to be a journalist.”

 
Adjunct instructor Joe Sharkey’s advanced reporting class published a website (“306 Today”), with stories that included rescuing hikers, football/cheerleader injuries, food waste on the border, Kitt Peak and a parrot sanctuary outside Tucson.
 
As part of an international travel panel, adjunct instructor Joe Sharkey helped pick the world's most scenic airport approaches. Malta's airport won, while LAX in Los Angeles was 10th. Joe wrote a business travel column for The New York Times for 16 years.

April 15, 2016

Susan Knight coordinated an itinerary for 1994 journalism alum Azhar Abdul-Salam, a former ESPN producer/reporter in Asia who now teaches at a university in Singapore. Azhar visited several journalism classes, talked to the Sports Journalism Club and had lunch with former school director Jacqueline Sharkey, fellow 1994 grad Sarah Tully and Knight. The College of Social and Behavioral Sciences did a story on Azhar at tinyurl.com/jchbfb8

Jeannine Relly spoke with Carol Schwalbe’s research methods class about “scraping” and social network analysis this week. The students completed mini-social network graphs as part of the instruction. Relly also completed the university's introduction to teaching online course.

Nancy Sharkey took some of her pre-journalism honors students on a tour of the Arizona Daily Star newsroom and pressroom with columnist Sarah Garrecht Gassen, a J-school alum and adjunct instructor.

April 1, 2016

Professor Michael McKisson moderated a panel on how social media has changed reporting for the Public Relations Society of America luncheon.

Internship coordinator Renée Schafer Horton’s article on the Cradle to Career Partnership recently launched in Tucson by educational, city and county leaders was published in the spring issue of Biz Tucson https://issuu.com/mcserres/docs/biztucsonspring2016/177?e=4938104/34518142. Additionally, Renée was recently asked by the Provost’s office to serve on a five-person academic program review committee for the first APR of academic advising. The committee will be reviewing the self-study the university conducted on the academic advising enterprise at UA, assessing the quality and challenges of academic advising and making recommendations for improvement. Renee will be one of two UA professionals on the committee, which will also include national experts and an alumnus.

Professor Linda Lumsden discussed her Udall Fellow research project,  Journalism for Social Justice: A Cultural History of Social Movement Media from ‘Common Sense’ to #blacklivesmatter​, at the Udall Center on March 30.

Director David Cuillier, outreach coordinator Mike Chesnick and administrative assistant Celina Centeno worked behind the scenes to help the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences present the sold-out “Conversation on Privacy” with Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, Noam Chomsky and Nuala O’Connor at Centennial Hall on March 25.

March 25, 2016

Professors William Schmidt and Nancy Sharkey organized the most successful “Journalism on Screen” series film yet, “Citizenfour,” which included a Q-and-A with Glenn Greenwald and attracted a sold-out crowd of 500 to The Loft on March 24. Director David Cuillier introduced the film and moderated the Q-and-A, while journalism staff members Elena Stauffer, Celina Centeno and Mike Chesnick helped out.

Professors Susan Knight and Nancy Sharkey led groups of students to Washington, D.C., and New York, respectively, over spring break as part of their “Inside the Beltway” and “Inside the New York Times” classes.

Professor Jeannine Relly helped author a paper titled, “Protecting whistleblowers: Role of ethical climate, ethical leadership and structural protections,” which was presented on March 18 at the Fred Riggs Symposium in Seattle for the Section on International and Comparative Administration of the American Society for Public Administration Annual Conference. Other authors were Rashmi Chordiya and Meghna Sabharwal (University of Texas at Dallas) and Evan M. Berman of Victoria University (New Zealand).

Professor Shahira Fahmy’s call for the Mass Communication and Society’s upcoming special issue, “Media Terrorism and Society,” was competitively selected. http://journalism.arizona.edu/sites/journalism.arizona.edu/files/u98/MC%26S%20special%20issue%20call-March%202016.pdf​

Professor Carol Schwalbe received a $200 Student/Faculty Interaction Grant for a day-long field trip to Saguaro National Park East with her Environmental Journalism class.  She also won the AEJMC Newspaper & Online News  $200 Teaching Grant, which will provide the remaining funds for food and transportation.

March 11, 2016

Internship coordinator Renée Schafer Horton coordinated a well-attended Spring Internship Fair at the School of Journalism on March 4. Recruiters from 16 publications/media groups interviewed students.

Professor Celeste González de Bustamante moderated a panel after the screening of the PBS Frontline documentary “Rape on the Night Shift,” on March 2 at the Gallagher Theater. Producers Andrés Cediel and Daffodil Altan and Nina Rabin from the Bacon Immigration Center participated in the panel event, sponsored by the UA School of Journalism, MAS and the Bacon center.

Professor Linda Lumsden received a Mary Lily Research Grant of $750​ from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture to conduct research at Duke University's Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. She will look at the papers of feminist journalist Robin Morgan, a founding editor of Ms. magazine, for a chapter of her book-in-progress,  Journalism For Social Justice: A Cultural History of Social Movement Media from ‘Common Sense’ to #blacklivesmatter.

Professor Celeste González de Bustamante received a $500 Student Faculty Interaction grant to hold “Pizza and Papers,” an informal research and writing session for students in JOUR150C1 at the UA Collaborative Learning Space in the Science and Engineering Library on March 23.

March 4, 2016

Professor Susan Swanberg has been invited to participate in a plenary session at the 2016 annual meeting of the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) to be held June 6-9 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The topic is, "Communicating Technical Subjects to a Non-Technical Audience." 

Professor Linda Lumsden received a SBSRI Small Grant to fund two weeks of research in the Sierra Club Archives at The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, and Sierra Club headquarters in San Francisco. The research will contribute to a chapter of her book-in-progress, Journalism For Social Justice: A Cultural History of Social Movement Media from ‘Common Sense’ to #blacklivesmatter.

Professor Celeste González de Bustamante oversaw a student multimedia project, “Security 360°,” that explores the effect of militarization in Ambos Nogales and the border at http://jourviz.com/security-360/ The Tucson Weekly is publishing a series of stories related to the project, with the first one March 3 at http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/mapping-security-in-ambos-nogales/Content?oid=6051732

Professor Susan Swanberg has been invited to serve as a judge for the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) 2016 DNA Day Essay Contest. This contest is open to students in grades 9-12 worldwide and asks students to examine, question and reflect on important concepts in genetics. ASHG is the primary professional membership organization for human genetics specialists worldwide. 

Feb. 26, 2016

Professor Jeannine Relly received a Fulbright in India to study reporters and civil society organization representatives' use of the Right to Information Act. She will be visiting newsrooms and start-ups for the research in six cities (Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, and Kolkata) from Aug. 15 to Jan. 15.

Professor Mort Rosenblum moderated a Feb 18 panel discussion, “Besieged Borders,” with reporters Rod Nordland (New York Times) and Perla Trevizo (Arizona Daily Star) about the global crisis of refugees and migrants. Senior program coordinator Elena Stauffer organized the event for the school’s Center for Border & Global Journalism, and professor William Schmidt introduced the panel. Administrative assistant Celina Centeno and outreach coordinator Mike Chesnick helped, too. Click HERE to listen to the full audio.

Professor Shahira Fahmy’s latest article with former UA grad student Rico Neumann — “War vs. peace journalism” — came out last week and was tweeted about by Journalism Research@JResearchNews. Here is the link to the article: http://journalismresearchnews.org/article-war-versus-peace-journalism/​

Professors Maggy Zanger and Jeannine Relly led a Feb. 19 discussion, “Iraq: The News Media Landscape in an Ongoing Warscape,” for the School of Middle Eastern & North African Studies' spring colloquium series.

Professor Celeste González de Bustamante coordinated a Feb. 23 visit to the school by Doug Mitchell, co-founder of NPR’s Next Generation Radio, who spoke to students about diversity and multimedia.

Elena Stauffer, the school’s senior program coordinator, hosted three students from La Cima Middle School on Feb. 23 for two hours as part of Pima County’s Career Shadow program. The three eighth-graders had many questions about interviewing, editing, and putting a story together and also got to meet outreach coordinator Mike Chesnick, adviser Paloma Boykin, and internship coordinator Renée Schafer Horton.

Feb. 12, 2016

Professor Shahira Fahmy received her second Fulbright Specialist Program award in the last 12 months: the first certificate supported her work for the United Nations in Africa and the second certificate supported her work with a NATO research center of excellence in Europe. Fahmy also was appointed to the board of Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly.

Professors William Schmidt and Nancy Sharkey helped organize and moderate a successful Q-and-A with journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Diane McWhorter at the screening of “Selma” on Feb. 6. The fourth film in our “Journalism on Screen” series attracted more than 250 people to The Loft Cinema.

Internship coordinator Renée Schafer Horton’s feature story on the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and its philanthropic work was published in the January 2016 Winter issue of BizTucson. The link to the issue is http://issuu.com/mcserres/docs/biztucsonwinter2016?e=4938104/32249386. She will have another piece in the Spring 2016 issue on the Cradle to Career Partnership, a big educational effort launched this month in Tucson.

Feb. 5, 2016

Professors Celeste González de Bustamante and Michael McKisson won the J-school's first engagement grant competition for a project in which students will use drone videography, 360-degree virtual reality and data journalism to study border regions in Nogales and Canada. Professor Carol Schwalbe and McKisson were runners-up for a proposal to use sensor technology in reporting. Alum Al Litzow will fund the drone project, and the school will fund the sensor project. Go to journalism.arizona.edu/drones for more info.

Professor Michael McKisson helped organize and run News Hack Arizona, a collaboration between the UA School of Journalism and the Arizona Daily Star, which provided training in data visualization and coding to journalists and students over the Jan. 30-31 weekend. Team Frog, which included alum Brenna Goth (Republic), took first place in the news hack competition with their project on OSHA. Go to journalism.arizona.edu/news/hack for more info.

Professor Rogelio Garcia is the director of photography and editor for "Ours is the Land," a film on the effect of mining on Tohono O'odham sacred burial grounds. A free screening of the documentary will be held  Friday, Feb. 19, at 6 p.m. at the Student Union's Gallagher Theater.

Jan. 22, 2016

Professor Terry Wimmer acquired a professional development leave for fall 2016 to visit newsrooms in examining editing practices today to keep the School of Journalism’s curriculum current. It is the first professional development leave for the school since the college started offering them a few years ago for non-tenure track faculty.

Coordinated by professor Kim Newton, images by 12 former JOUR 203 students are on display on the hallway wall opposite of Newton’s office (327) as part of the Drew Gyorke Photojournalism Contest. Student photographers are: Andy Alvarado, Brenna Bailey, Ciara Biscoe, Cherie Cole (third place), Taylor Dayton, Hailey Freeman, Erik Kolsrud, Sally Lugo, Monica Milberg, Jordyn Owen, Tobey Schmidt (first place) and Courtney Talak (second place).

Professor Mort Rosenblum wrote a column for the Arizona Daily Star last week, “Preserve historic Rillito Park and Tucson’s history.” http://tucson.com/news/opinion/mort-rosenblum-preserve-historic-rillito-park-and-tucson-s-history/article_1370c7c7-4fe2-5598-bdd5-5b519ee2c910.html

Jan. 15, 2016

Linda Lumsden received an AEJMC Senior Scholars Research Grant for 2016-17​ for her project, “Journalism for Social Justice: A Cultural History of Social Movement Media from Common Sense to #blacklivesmatter.” She will travel to London in June to examine the world’s oldest and newest transnational social movement media. The research involves a month of archival research in The Archives and Special Collections Library of the London School of Economics and Political Science​on on how British anti-slavery activist/journalist Edmund Dene Morrell used his West African Mail newspaper to expose slavery and atrocities committed by Belgium’s King Leopold II against the people of his Congo Free State more than a century ago.  Besides the $4,000 travel grant, the award includes $750 in travel assistance to report on findings at the 2016 AEJMC conference in Minneapolis in August.

Shahira Fahmy had an hour-long interview via Skype with Netherlands Public TV (http://backlight.vpro.nl) regarding her ISIS report supported by the State Department and the Fulbright Specialist Program last fall. The station plans to also to do an in-person interview in Tucson. She also just submitted a book chapter as an extension of the work to be published in a British book by Oxford this April.

Michael McKisson and students presented Tucson's first virtual reality journalism project, a feature on the All Souls Procession, to the project’s Kickstarter backers at Borderlands Brewing downtown on Jan. 13. They showed off the equipment, answered questions and helped people view the story with a Google Cardboard or mobile phone. Here are the links to the project for VRideo and YouTube: https://www.vrideo.com/watch/baYfYQU0 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d8CKRVlJz4

Jan. 8, 2016

Professor Jeannine Relly has been awarded a Kappa Tau Alpha Chapter Adviser Research Grant for 2015-2016. The funding supports work on an academic book.

Senior program coordinator Elena Stauffer and adjunct instructor Joe Sharkey helped volunteer in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences’ annual Holiday Giving Project. The Sister Jose Women’s Shelter and the Arizona Children’s Association received $4,300 in gift cards, clothes, food, books and other items.

Director David Cuillier and four other journalism representatives urged greater openness and transparency from the federal government in a meeting at the White House with Josh Earnest, press secretary for President Obama.

Dec. 18, 2015

Celeste González de Bustamante received a Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute (SBSRI) Faculty Small Grant for a research project that examines the factors that have influenced violence against journalists, and investigates how journalists have responded to attacks in Mexico. The research will result in an academic book.

Internship coordinator Renée Schafer Horton appeared on a “Crush Your Internship” podcast, giving advice to students on how to land internships in journalism. Check out her podcast page at http://crushyourinternship.com/2015/12/14/006-renee-schafer-horton-journalism/ or go directly to her tips at http://crushyourinternship.com/?powerpress_pinw=129-podcast

Carol Schwalbe co-authored and edited an article that appeared in the November newsletter of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The article describes the history of the Journal of Magazine & New Media Research, which was the first online divisional journal, and suggests avenues for future research. 

Maggy Zanger’s JOUR 412 class put out a 56-page El Independiente magazine that marked South Tucson's 75th birthday. It includes stories on Southside Presbyterian Church, the vanishing Chinese market, transgender detainees, a hotline for families of missing border crossers and the All Souls Procession.

Nov. 27, 2015

Maggy Zanger was the recipient of this years Excellence in Global Service by UA Office of Global Initiatives and the Center for English as a Second Language (CESL). Zanger also was an invited panelist speaking on the Kurdish media at a symposium on Freedom of the Press in the Middle East, Nov. 14, sponsored by Boston College and Peace Island Institute. Noam Chomsky was the keynote speaker.

Mort Rosenblum will be honored as a MOCA “Local Genius,” along with Andrew Weil, Ofelia Zepeda from Linguistics, and water harvester Brad Lancaster  https://www.moca-tucson.org/lga2016/. He will be honored at a black-tie dinner/auction in April ($275 a person). Rosenblum also saw his op-ed, “Stand up to the smear and fear peddlers,” about the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks, published in the Arizona Daily Star. http://tucson.com/news/opinion/mort-rosenblum-stand-up-to-the-smear-and-fear-peddlers/article_6ab9bba4-90df-58a8-aac6-f49c64671cc0.html

Linda Lumsden served as commentator on a panel about "The Nation in Southern History" at Southern Historical Association convention in Little Rock on Nov. 13. 

Bill Schmidt and Nancy Sharkey coordinated and oversaw the third film, “Broadcast News,” in our “Journalism on Screen” series at The Loft Cinema on Nov. 12. Alessandra Stanley, former television critic of The New York Times, answered questions after the movie and also spoke to some classes earlier in the day.

Bill Schmidt and alum Brett Fera, interim Student Media director, organized a free screening for students and faculty of “Spotlight” at the El Con theater Nov. 18. Alum Richard Gilman was publisher of The Boston Globe when its “Spotlight” team uncovered the Catholic church abuse scandal that won the Pulitzer Prize.

Oct. 26, 2015

Celeste González de Bustamante took part in three journalism events in the last month. On Oct. 5, she was a panelist in a discussion titled, “Brazil now/Brasil hoje: a conversation about the recent events and the crisis in Brazil.” She spoke about U.S. and Brazilian news media coverage at the event, organized by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Center for Latin American Studies. … On Oct. 14, she gave a public talk at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, titled, "To publish and die in Mexico: Violence against journalists south of the U.S.-Mexico Border," and also spoke to Latino Studies and history of Mexico students. … On Oct. 22, she was a panelist at the Association of Internet Research conference on "Examining the Digital Imaginary Across Cultures: A Roundtable on Researching Diversity, Journalism, and Social Media.”

Michael McKisson’s Online News Association club reached its Kickstarter goal to buy equipment to start making immersive videos. He and students tested their first piece, a 360-degree camera rig, and will do its first story on Tucson’s All Souls Procession. Additional funds raised will go toward travel expenses to send students to the U.S.-Mexico border to create immersive experiences documenting the borderlands.

Bill Schmidt gave a talk, “Covering Sadat: The Middle East After the October War,” on Oct. 30 for the Fall Colloquium Series, put on by the School of Journalism and School of Middle Eastern & North African Studies.

Kim Newton, Bill Schmidt, Elena Stauffer and the Center for Border and Global Journalism organized an exhibit of photos by the late Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus at the Union Gallery at the UA Student Union. A reception/auction was held Oct. 22 for the exhibit, which will continue through Nov. 6.

Mort Rosenblum introduced winner Kathy Gannon at the Oct. 23 Zenger Dinner, contributed to class discussions and talked at the reception for Niedringhaus. Thanks to Maggy Zanger for the class flier!

Susan Knight organized a Student-Faculty mixer Oct. 15 at Magpies Pizza, where students from various Journalism clubs introduced themselves along with faculty and staff.

Oct. 12, 2015

Director David Cuillier was elected to the board of the National Freedom of Information Coalition at its meeting Oct. 10 in Denver. He also was awarded on Sept. 26 a Sunshine Award by the Phoenix Valley of the Sun chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for his work in freedom of information.

Linda Lumsden received a $1,250 Joseph McKerns Research Grant from the American Journalism Historians Association. It will fund research at the Huntington Library on the Sierra Club Newsletter, founded in 1893, as part of her book project titled,  Journalism for Social Justice: A Cultural History of Social Movement Media from ‘Common Sense’ to #blacklivesmatter​

Jeannine Relly’s research with political scientist Rajdeep Pakanati will receive more than $4,000 in funding from O.P. Jindal Global University in India. The research will be conducted in cities throughout India and will focus on challenges facing journalists in the country.

Oct. 5, 2015

Professor Kim Newton was invited to present images of recent work taken in summer trips to Italy and the United Kingdom at the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) meeting in Tucson on Oct. 1.

Professor Jeannine Relly was invited by the Social Science Research Council’s Anxieties of Democracy Program to serve as a reviewer of JSTOR’s prototype “democracy workbench” tool, designed to facilitate the study of democracy.  Relly will be reviewing a draft taxonomy that is the foundation for the tool. http://www.ssrc.org/programs/anxieties-of-democracy/

Professor Bill Schmidt moderated a Q-and-A with New York Times editor and former restaurant critic Sam Sifton after the Oct. 8 showing of “The Paper,” the second film in the school’s “Journalism on Screen” series at The Loft Cinema. The next film is “Broadcast News,” on Thursday, Nov. 12, at 7 p.m.

Sept. 28, 2015

Dr. Susan Swanberg organized and hosted “With Conviction: Science in the Courtroom” on Sept. 26, a daylong workshop about questionable scientific evidence admitted in court. Speakers and panelists included journalists, exonerees, attorneys, prosecutors and a forensic scientist. About 50 students, faculty and community members attended. Susan praised Prof. Carol Schwalbe for her work as P.I. on the workshop grant and her help, and Prof. Rogelio Garcia for organizing the workshop videotaping efforts.

Dr. Celeste González de Bustamante gave a keynote speech titled, “Violence against journalists in Mexico: the case of the U.S.-Mexico Border,” at the Autonomous University of Chihuahua (UACH), in Chihuahua City, Chihuahua, Mexico. Her Sept. 22 talk was part of the Fourth International Communication Week at the UACH.

Dr. Shahira Fahmy was interviewed by Nieman Reports, Harvard's journalism magazine, regarding her views on the visual messages of DAESH (the Islamic State) and the coverage of the Syrian crisis. Fahmy, currently a research fellow at NATO Strategic Communication Center of Excellence sponsored by the State Department in Riga, Latvia, also saw a Turkey website tweet about her journalism work at http://bianet.org/bianet/ifade-ozgurlugu/167541-profil-shahira-fahmy

Professors Bill Schmidt and Nancy Sharkey have coordinated the school’s “Journalism on Screen” series at The Loft Cinema. More than 200 people attended the first film, “Absence of Malice,” on Sept. 20. Schmidt and Sharkey interviewed screenwriter Kurt Luedtke and moderated a Skype discussion with the former editor and audience after the movie. The second film, “The Paper,” will be shown Oct. 8 at 7 p.m., with New York Times editor and former restaurant critic Sam Sifton doing a live Q-and-A.

Sept. 7, 2015

Professor Maggy Zanger had her guest-opinion piece, “Americans must open arms to Syrian refugees,” posted on the Tucson Sentinel website Sept. 9. http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/opinion/report/090915_refugees_op/americans-must-open-arms-syrian-refugees/

Aug. 24, 2015

Associate Professor Jeannine Relly has been recommended for the Fulbright Specialist roster by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and the Institute of International Education's Council for International Exchange of Scholars for the 2015-2020 period.  The roster matches scholars by their expertise with incoming project requests from academic institutions abroad.

Relly also served as an external evaluator of the 2015 Study of the U.S. Institutes for Scholars on Journalism and Media Program, which had scholars visiting from 17 countries this year. The grant was funded by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Exchange Programs of the U.S. Department of State.

Aug. 17, 2015

Associate Professor Carol Schwalbe received the 2014 Scripps Howard Foundation Teacher of the Year Award at the AEJMC conference in San Francisco on Aug. 6.  The award included $10,000 as recognition of her body of work.

Associate Professor Jeannine Relly became the new head of the International Communication Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication at the AEJMC’s annual meeting Aug. 7 in San Francisco.

Professor Maggy Zanger wrote an Aug. 18 op-ed column for the Arizona Daily Star, “Higher purpose found in fighting distant war,” about soldiers, aid workers and journalists returning to northern Iraq or Syria as the war against IS continues.

Associate Professor Celeste González de Bustamante organized and participated on a panel for a pre-conference Migrahack workshop at the AEJMC conference on “How to bring a social justice hackathon to your university.”

Professors Jeannine Relly and Celeste González de Bustamante presented their paper titled "Transnational and domestic networks and institutional change: A study investigating the collective action response to violence against journalists in Mexico" on a panel in the Cultural Critical Studies Division at the AEJMC annual conference in San Francisco.

Aug. 10, 2015

Jesús Barrera recently published an article in the Tico Times News titled, “Toasting with turtle eggs: It’s legal in Ostional.” Barrera is a Journalism student who participated in a Study Abroad class in Costa Rica this summer with Prof. Celeste Gonzalez de Bustamante. http://www.ticotimes.net/2015/08/08/toasting-with-turtle-eggs-its-legal-in-ostional

July 27, 2015

Linda Lumsden's article, “Activist Journalism A Century Before The Internet: Lessons from the Career Of Socialist Muckraker John Kenneth Turner,” appears in the summer issue of American Journalism.

Kim Newton won first place in the photojournalism category at the International Art Exhibition and Competition Nit De L’Art S’Arracó in S’Arracó, Mallorca, Spain on July 30, 2015. The winning image, taken in Kashgar, China, shows a Uighur Muslim woman looking at a Polaroid picture. Newton was invited to enter the International exhibition and competition while visiting Mallorca this summer following his teaching of the Photojournalism in Italy study abroad program in Orvieto, Italy. The winning image can be viewed here under “Fotos:”  More information on the exhibit will be available here after Aug. 1.

June 22, 2015

Linda Lumsden spoke on “The Life and Legacy of Inez Milholland” on June 16 in Westport, N.Y. The talk followed a tour of the Meadowmount School of Music, formerly the Milholland family's estate, sponsored by Adirondack Architectural Heritage.

Many contributors with ties to the UA School of Journalism offered a hand during the Dow Jones News Fund Journalism Diversity Workshop for Arizona High School Students this year. The workshop ran from June 7-13. Included were mentors, instructors, speakers, and alumni, and their roles during the workshop: Elena Stauffer, director; Frank Sotomayor, diversity in journalism; Prof. Nancy Sharkey, Day 1 welcome; Prof. Susan Swanberg, mentor and media law instructor; Prof. Jeannine Relly, reporting/interviewing instructor; Prof. Joe Sharkey, words of wisdom; Amanda N. Martinez, lead mentor and dorm counselor; Anthony Avila, story development; Anna Augustowska, multimedia instructor; Cecil Schwalbe, photographing animals; Carmen Duarte, beat reporting; Paloma Boykin, going to college; Neto Portillo, Jr., column writing; Prof. Gawain Douglas, publication design; Andrea Kelly and Fernanda Echavarri, radio news; Stanley Throssell, keynote speaker; Prof. Don Carson, remarks at closing event.