Here are some of the past and current happenings from the faculty at the Meek School of Journalism and New Media
Jeanni Atkins, Ph.D., associate professor, represented the Mississippi Center for Freedom of Information at the annual conference of the National Freedom of Information Coalition in Minneapolis…. She attended the Mississippi Press Association annual convention in Biloxi and chaired a board of directors meeting of the Mississippi Center for Freedom of Information…. She attended the annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) in Boston and represented Ole Miss Kappa Tau Alpha chapter at the KTA luncheon…. She continued to research and report on problems of access to meetings and records in Mississippi and other states and collected information for the fall issue of FOI Spotlight…. Professor Atkins prepared a draft of a brochure: Mississippi Open Meetings Act in a Nutshell and Mississippi Open Records Act in a Nutshell. She began work on another publication, Mississippi: The Secret State. She has scheduled a panel on Freedom of Information to be held during fall Journalism Week. Anita Lee, Sun Herald and MCFOI President, will moderate…. Members of the panel: Frank Gibson, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government and a retired reporter and editor for the Nashville (Tenn.) Tennessean. He is a former national president of the Society of Professional Journalists who serves as Freedom of Information coordinator for the Tennessee Press Association and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Freedom of Information Coalition. David Hampton, editorial page editor, Jackson, (Miss.) The Clarion-Ledger; Stan Tiner, Executive Editor, Biloxi, (Miss.) Sun-Herald, and Leonard Van Slyke, attorney with Watkins Ludlam Winter & Stennis, complete the panel…. She began preliminary planning for a spring workshop for journalists to focus on people in government positions, including attorneys, and their relationship to those journalists. Mississippi participants have not been selected yet, but the following have said they would love to attend: Charles Davis, executive director of the NFOIC; Barbara Petersen, NFOIC president and president of the Florida FOI Foundation; Hollie Mannheimer, attorney and executive director of the Georgia FOI Coalition.
Joe Atkins, professor, taught Media Ethics & Social Issues (Journalism 575)…. He presented a paper: “Labor, Media, and the Economy” and chaired a related panel at the “Class Matters” 2009 Conference of the Working Class Studies Association in Pittsburgh. He was a finalist for a World Affairs Journalism Fellowship from the Washington, D.C.-based International Center for Journalism that would have sent provided funds for him to travel for a European perspective on the crisis in the automobile industry…. Professor Atkins served as chair of the search committee for the Ole Miss Student Media Center director, leading the committee in its consideration of nearly 80 applications for this position. Pat Thompson was selected, and the committee completed its work in the early days of the fall 2009 semester…. He was asked by the national office of the United Auto Workers in Detroit for input on labor in the South and to write a booklet on working conditions and union membership that will be distributed to workers throughout the nation. He began the project this summer. He also created a blog entitled Labor South (laborsouth.blogspot.com) that tracks labor developments throughout the region…. His columns in the Jackson (Miss.) The Clarion-Ledger, Hattiesburg American, and other publications, were on war in Afghanistan, the Mark Sanford controversy, the famous murals at St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Pittsburgh, and unsolved civil rights-era murders…. His recent book, Covering for the Bosses: Labor and the Southern Press, was called ‘compelling” and “vivid” in a review in the September issue of In These Times, a national magazine. Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine published his fictional short story, “Pickup on Route 66,” and called him a “writer to watch” in its lead editorial. The magazine submitted the story for the prestigious Edgar Awards.
Julie Baker, adminstrative assistant, spent the summer helping new and transfer students find alternatives to classes they needed that were either full or unavailable. She worked with the scholarship applicants, the UM Foundation and the College of Liberal Arts to help award the scholarships to the most deserving candidates as well as helping with the transition of the Department of Journalism to the School of Journalism and New Media. The rest of the summer was spent working to make the transition from department to school as seamless as possible.
Garreth Blackwell, instructor, spent the summer adjusting his photojournalism, advertising layout and design and magazine editing classes into a more cohesive unit. These classes were previously not integrated; students were required to learn the information in each class and then move on…. The changes he made to these classes now show students the actual connection between different parts of the industry. During each semester his classes will have a topic that the students will be working with in order to create a publication completely created by the work they do in their individual classes. The photojournalism students shoot the content, the magazine editing students design the publication, and the advertising layout and design students plan a marketing campaign for the book. The objective of this new structure is to provide students a more tangible goal at the end of each semester, while allowing them to see the final product of a group of scholars working together. They will also emerge with a better understanding of the dynamics of how groups work together in media for a common goal. He also advised the staff of the Daily Mississippian through a total graphic redesign.
Ken Boutwell, broadcast production coordinator and assistant professor, taught History of Mass Media (Journalism 301) … He continues to teach part-time at Northwest Mississippi Community College in Oxford. He works in the Library Resource Center as a media technology assistant, helping the faculty with a variety of needs. A good portion of his time is spent maintaining the library’s computer lab and A/V resources and converting media to various formats….He produced a video documenting construction of a new facility on campus and developing a Powerpoint presentation for the Fall 2009-10 Student and New Faculty Orientation.
Mark K. Dolan, Ph.D., assistant professor, co-produced two multimedia projects at the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute’s Multimedia Boot Camp for Journalism Professionals and Educators in Nashville, Aug, 9-14. These projects can be viewed at http://freedomforumdiversity.org/workshops-and-conferences/. In addition, he taught Communication Law (Journalism 371)…. He assisted Beth Fitts with the teaching of two sessions of the MSPA/Dow Jones summer workshop program, including one on legal issues facing student media advisers…. He worked with Alex Beene, a graduate student, on a literature review for his master’s thesis on film depictions of American journalists. In addition, Professor Dolan served as a committee member on Tomesha Johnson’s master’s thesis…. His book proposal on black entertainment in the Chicago Defender is under review at the University Press of Mississippi. He made revisions in his chapter on Samuel Chester Reid, a Civil War correspondent who wrote for seven different newspapers. The chapter will be in a book on Civil War correspondents, published by the Purdue University Press…. Professor Dolan worked on a draft of a paper on gender and black entertainment in the Chicago Defender…. He coordinated research for the annual convention of the American Journalism Historians Association, to be this fall in Birmingham, Alabama. He received more than 50 proposals that he sent out for peer review and then tallied the responses, notifying authors of their acceptance or rejection. He worked with the research chair to coordinate the session times and locations for the program. He served as student media advisor for colleague Nancy Dupont who was undergoing surgery.
Nancy McKenzie Dupont, Ph.D., associate professor, advised the Daily Mississippian during the first summer session and assisted incoming editor Alex McDaniel in the hiring new staff and setting new goals for the newspaper. In mid-August, Professor Dupont reassumed the role of faculty adviser to the DM. Professor Dupont continued her research on Mississippi newspapers taken over by Union forces at the end of the Civil War. She began researching a planned book on the role of faith-based organizations in the rebuilding of the Mississippi Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. Professor Dupont is a native of Gulfport, Miss., and began her career as a reporter at WLOX-TV in Biloxi and thus has a personal interest in the development of the Gulf Coast. In addition, Professor Dupont directed the programming for the Radio-Television Journalism division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and concluded her year as chair of the division. She conceived and oversaw the pre-conference session Moving the Story taught by Professor Deb Wenger of Ole Miss. At the same time, she began her year of service as head of the News Division of the Broadcast Education Association. Professor Dupont also continued her service as a member of the Mississippi Associated Press Broadcasters. She was a member of the search committee for the Director of the Student Media Center. She also served as a reviewer for research-in-progress for the American Journalism Historians Association and for the Lincoln commemorative edition of American Journalism. In addition, Dr. Dupont organized an appearance during Journalism Week by Peabody-award winning journalist Bob Noonan, who was praised internationally for his documentary on the murders of the civil rights workers in Neshoba County. Personally, Professor Dupont underwent two total hip replacement surgeries in a two-month span this summer. She remains in regular physical therapy as the fall semester begins.
Ellen Everett, secretary, spent the summer participating in Relay for Life, traveling and helping with the transition of the Department of Journalism to the School of Journalism and New Media. In the Oxford-University Relay for Life, she raised the most money individually, and her team was in third place overall. She traveled to Orlando in June where she swam with dolphins and stingrays. The rest of the summer was spent working from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. every day to make the transition from department to school as seamless as possible.
Stephen Goforth, radio and television station manager and assistant professor, began work on his Intro to Media textbook. He completed most of the of research and writing and expects to have it ready for publication in the next six months…. In addition to attending the annual gathering of the Mississippi Association of Broadcasters and a seminar on student sales at the University of Alabama during the summer, he solicited the ideas of eight CNN producers (including the head of CNN.com) to get their opinions as to where they believe journalism is headed. Several agreed to participate in video-conferencing chats with groups of students to explain their jobs as writers and producers for CNN and CNN.com. The first of these interactive learning opportunities will take place in the next few days at the Student Media Center and will expand if successful…. He taught Introduction to Mass Communication (Jour 101) and continued training students at SMC. With no equipment to do live shots the old fashioned way on the television newscast, he suggested, and then oversaw, the use of Skype for live shots.
Keith Havins, senior producer, assisted with the MSPA/Dow Jones summer workshop program for high school students….He worked with broadcast students in Advanced Broadcast Reporting (Journalism 480)…He researched topic ideas for packages to be submitted to the Planet Forward Web site…He developed edited and shooting exercises and culled examples from past student work for use this fall in Television Technology (Journalism 376)
Samir Husni, Ph.D., professor, Hederman lecturer and director of the Magazine Innovation Center, finished two books, Magazine Publishing in the 21st Century, published by Kendall Hunt and Samir Husni’s Guide to New Magazines, Volume 24. In addition to the two books he has been interviewed and quoted by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Fox Business News, The Associated Press, Folio, and Media Industry ?Newsletter among many other media outlets….He has formed the Magazine Innovation Center, a think tank, not for profit, organization to amplify the future of print. In addition, he has presented seminars and talks on the future of the magazine and newspaper industries at a host of trade and academic venues.
Deidra Jackson, instructor, served on the search committee for Director of the Student Media Center. She also taught two sections of the revamped Journalism 102 course – Introduction to Multimedia Writing. She served as the department’s primary academic adviser for incoming freshman journalism students during seven orientation sessions during May, June and July…. She continued to contribute a column and served as copy editor at the monthly Triangle Tribune newspaper, which serves readers in Dothan, Ozark and Headland, Ala. and surrounding areas…. She is editor-in-chief of I-Inspire Webzine, a bi-monthly news and human interest Internet magazine for “people of faith.”… She began plans to launch a publication for the African-American community in Oxford, Lafayette County and surrounding counties…. She interviewed long-standing members of the black community, including some who published the popular ?pamphlet, Soul Force Magazine, which folded in 2004. She is using data from the UM Center for Population Studies in planning the publication.
Darrel Jordan, chief engineer, familiarized himself with Final Cut Pro…. He helped students in editing labs during the second summer session…. He compiled a list of equipment needs…. He spent time exploring media storage possibilities for the video editing labs…. His duties at the Student Media Center include trips to the radio transmitter site every other week to perform routine maintenance…. He helps with the daily newscasts of Rebel Radio and Newswatch…. He reviews the radio station logs weekly to follow up on FCC regulations…. He evaluated equipment to upgrade the Bishop Hall studio. He installed a new scan converter in the studio to improve live shots for the television newscast.
Keith Kimmons, producer and director, assisted in the teaching of Television Technology (Journalism 376)…At a meeting of the National Association of Broadcasters in Las Vegas, he attended Adobe Education training sessions for the new CS4 Suite, a partnership with education… He taught basic interviewing and non-linear camera techniques to high school students during the MSPA/Dow Jones summer workshop… He is partnering with a journalism student on a project to focus on waste recycling.
Ellen Meacham, instructor, continued her research on a book manuscript about Robert Kennedy’s visit to the Mississippi Delta in 1967. She was recognized at commencement exercises with a Thomas F. Frist Award for Extraordinary Service to Students (by a faculty member). The awards, one for faculty and one for staff, were established with a gift from the late Dr. Thomas F. Frist Sr., of Nashville, a 1930 UM graduate. The award included a plaque and $1,000. Former editors and editorial staff members from the Daily Mississippian nominated her. Following is a link to the story issued by The University of Mississippi’s official press release: https://web20.olemiss.edu/news/wordpress/index.php/Ole-Miss-News/News Releases/grad_award050509.html)
Mykki Newton, videographer/editor, assessed minimal damage to video camera equipment last year. The older, JVC tape cameras took the hardest beating…. Mykki produced a dozen videos of lectures and presentations for Spring Journalism Week activities…. Pre-production of a 30-minute documentary on The Oxford Eagle is complete. This documentary will be made available as a teaching tool to Mississippi Public Broadcasting. Mykki is working with Frank Sesno and the production team at the Web site Planet Forward and at PBS and has began pre-production, generating story ideas with students. Mykki met with representatives from Academic Technologies about updating all Farley classrooms with projection equipment.
Marty Russell, instructor, wrote columns for the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, spent a lot of timing reading back issues of The Masthead in preparation for his editorial and opinion writing course, and taught Writing for the Media (Journalism 102).
Brad Schultz, Ph.D., associate professor, taught Introduction to Mass Communication (Journalism 101) and Advanced TV Reporting (Journalism 480)…. He presented two papers at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) national convention in Boston in August: “The future of news? A study of citizen journalism and journalists” and “Are blogs changing the news values of newspaper reporters?”… In August, he began a research project on Twitter’s role in journalism…. He led a broadcast workshop for high school students as part of the MSPA/Dow Jones summer workshop program…. He also led a workshop for MSPA advisers on how they can help their students become better sports writers…. He continues as the editor-in-chief (and founder) of the Journal of Sports Media, a scholarly journal published twice a year by the University of Nebraska Press. Volume 4, Issue 2 was published in August.
Kristen Swain, Ph.D., assistant professor, focused on teaching, grant work and ongoing research projects, while helping her husband Brent complete a passive solar home in Oxford he designed to promote green building in Mississippi. She taught Writing for the Media (Journalism 102), Introduction to Mass Communication (Journalism 101), and Media Ethics (Journalism 575)…. She designed a mass communication theory seminar in which graduate students will develop scholarly literature reviews and theory-based social marketing campaigns about energy conservation. In revising her advanced reporting course, she designed projects in which students will produce multimedia story packages about energy issues, contribute to a new science writing blog and submit work to the Planet Forward Web site and the Society of Environmental Journalists writing competition…. Swain served on a review panel for American Reinvestment and Recovery Act proposals submitted to the National Institutes of Health and developed three grant proposals of her own…. She began writing grant proposals for a minority church-based disease prevention program for the Delta Health Alliance and an online newspaper project for the Knight Foundation…. She also began revising a full NIH grant proposal for a national summit about public understanding of drug research, which would bring together scientists and journalists for problem solving and cross-disciplinary training…. Professor Swain completed final revisions of a chapter about news framing of the environmental justice movement for the forthcoming Routledge book New Agendas in Science Communication…. She and master’s student Brooks Smith co-authored a paper about news framing of rural and education issues in the 2008 presidential election, which Smith presented at the AEJMC convention…. Swain also began writing a new manuscript about time context effects in political news framing and a chapter about media framing of climate change for an interdisciplinary book…. She served on the new UM Hurricane Recovery and Policy Research workgroup. She also began initial development of a Web site for the UM office of research about broader impacts grant collaboration between the school and UM scientists and reviewed manuscripts for the International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters and Mass Communication and Society.
Robin Street, lecturer, taught the introduction to public relations course and the advanced class, which requires an accompanying public relations internship. Demand for the class has grown so much that all the students who want the class cannot be accommodated during the regular school year.
Sue Weakley, instructor, traveled a lot. Her travels included Georgia, Florida, Italy, Sicily, Greece and Turkey…. In between all the trips, she found time to write a few magazine articles, edit way more than a few articles for a horse magazine, ride her horses and spend time with her husband.
Deb Halpern Wenger, assistant professor, traveled to Washington, D.C., to prepare for a deposition in a false light case involving a major market television station. She is an expert witness in the case, which is expected go to trial later this year…. She organized a training session for faculty on the use of iMovie for simple video editing…. She and co-author Deborah Potter of Newslab will develop a second edition of their book, Advancing the Story: Broadcast Journalism in a Multimedia World…. She began talks with Robin Whitmeyer, news director of WSOC-TV in Charlotte, N.C., to be a consultant in a project to develop a hyper-local news site in conjunction with the station’s Web presence…. Professor Wenger completed a paper on the hiring practices of the nation’s 10 largest broadcast and newspaper companies. “Help Wanted: An examination of new media skills required by top U.S. news companies” has been accepted by the Future of Journalism Conference in Cardiff, Wales. She will be traveling there in September to make the presentation…. She helped coordinate and present a three-day workshop at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla. The SPJ Reporters Institute was geared toward enhancing the skills of broadcast journalists with no more than three years of experience…. She led the Journalism 102, Writing for the Media, committee in its revision of the core course…. At the AEJMC convention in August, she and Potter conducted a half-day training workshop, “Moving the Story from Platform to Platform.” The workshop was the brainchild of Ole Miss Professor Nancy Dupont, who heads the RTVJ division of AEJMC…. She conducted a day-long training workshop on basic video shooting for the school’s faculty.
Kathleen Wickham, Ed.D., associate professor, taught two summer school classes Writing for the Media (Journalism 102) and Media Ethics (Journalism 575), supervised two independent studies, handled admission applications for the graduate program, presented research, evaluated research done by her peers and participated in a public broadcasting radio show on the media. At the annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), she presented her research on Paul Guihard, the only reporter killed on campus during the Meredith integration crisis, and served as a discussant for other presenters in the Newspaper Division. She evaluated manuscripts for the American Journalism Historians Association and Newspaper Research Journal. She completed a handbook for all graduate students and graduate faculty, designed to assist in student advising and thesis writing. She also answered queries from potential graduate students, coordinated the admission committee and met with incoming students. She has been director of the campus chapter of Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) for 10 years. Last year, the chapter was awarded top regional honors for the fifth time in six years.
Curtis Wilkie, Cook chair and associate professor of journalism, completed the reporting and writing of a book based on the Scruggs case and attendant perils in the old network that has been fixing things in Mississippi. The manuscript, still untitled, goes to the publisher, Harmony Books, a division of Random House, just as the fall semester begins. As Overby Fellow, he has been putting together a slate of fall programs — with the help of others on the Journalism faculty — for the Overby Center. A series called “Gatherings Before the Grove” at 5 p.m. on Fridays before home football games. Charles Eagles, author of The Price of Defiance: James Meredith and the Integration of Ole Miss concerning the 1962 Ole Miss integration crisis, Sept. 18; Howell Raines, former executive editor of The New York Times, Oct. 9; Shepard Smith of Fox News, Oct. 16; a conversation with sports information directors from several schools to talk about football legends, Oct. 23; Ronnie Agnew of The Clarion-Ledger and Otis Sanford of The Commercial Appeal to talk about how their newspapers helped drive the mayors of Jackson and Memphis out of office, Nov. 13; a panel discussion of how Willie Morris helped revolutionize American magazines, Nov. 20. There will be other programs.
Marvin Williams, Ph.D., instructional assistant professor, advised 30 students including one study abroad student in Japan…. He conducted close to 15 meetings with prospective parents and students…. He wrote letters of recommendation for graduate school, scholarships, internships and the Washington Internship Experience…. Vanessa Cook, Ole Miss study abroad adviser, arranged for Professor Williams to meet with high school counselors from Venezuela and Ecuador to discuss the Journalism program…. He conducted a transfer orientation session early in the summer and then a transfer student orientation as well as a freshman student orientation at the end of the summer…. He taught Introduction to the Mass Communication (Journalism 101).
Eric Williamson, Producer/Director, worked this summer on stories and final projects with students from Advanced Broadcast Reporting (Journalism 480)… He helped with a broadcast workshop for high school students as part of the MSPA/Dow Jones summer workshop program and on a workshop for MSPA advisers on how they can help their students become better sports writers, as well as advising high school teachers and advisors on equipment and different formats that their students can use…. He conducted interviews and shot footage for a video to be aired on the Web site Planet Forward, and he also edited footage and completed the graphics, music, and interviews to be used for a video presentation on this Web site… He conducted presentations for Television Technology (Journalism 376) cameras, editing and reporting.