1. Why did you want to become a journalist?
This is actually a funny story. When I was in middle school, I may have talked back to my parents a time or two. Part of my punishment was that I could not watch TV, except for the news. So, I began watching the news. A LOT. I remember eating breakfast each morning while watching the TODAY Show. I thought it was cool how Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric got to talk to people about all kinds of interesting things and go around the world to do it. I was hooked.
My transition to teaching journalism took several years and started by chance. I had my master’s degree (from Columbia University’s famed journalism school) and was working as a reporter for the CBS affiliate in Waco-Temple-Killeen, Texas. My boss went to a meeting at Central Texas College and someone told him they were looking for someone to teach an Intro to Mass Comm class. He mentioned it to me and I have been teaching ever since. A couple years later, I was back in Dallas-Fort Worth and met with a former professor of mine at TCU. She mentioned they needed someone to teach a class. I did that for three years while I was working at the ABC affiliate for Dallas-Fort Worth. I started to get interest from universities about teaching full time and I felt like it was a great opportunity because I really enjoyed working with students. It was a great decision.
2. Do you think the disparagement of the media over the last several years has turned students off from considering the profession? Or do you think perhaps it’s helped reignite interest?
I think it’s a little of both. Certainly, if you grow up in an environment where you constantly hear that journalists are “the enemy of the people,” then it is unlikely you are going to consider that line of work.
If you grow up in the opposite political environment, I think it might be a situation where interest in journalism has increased, which survey data suggests.
Unfortunately, like so much of our society, it may be driven by politics. I think that is particularly unfortunate for journalism, where you need people from a wide variety of backgrounds and with an open mind to pursue the truth.
3. If journalism as we once knew it is dead, how do you think it can be (or is being) revived?
First, I should say that there is a lot of really good journalism out there, maybe more than ever, and we are able to share that information in more compelling ways than before. The biggest challenge news organizations have is figuring out their business models. It used to be pretty easy and newspapers and TV stations traditionally made a lot of money. Changes in media and the loss of advertising revenue (particularly classified ad revenue for newspapers) have made news much less lucrative.
I am a big fan of the nonprofit investigative and accountability news organizations like ProPublica, Investigative Post, the Center for Public Integrity, the Texas Tribune and more, which are doing great work.
The Washington Post, with the leadership of legendary editor Marty Baron and the money of Jeff Bezos, is doing great work, too. It shows that with smart investments and a commitment to doing thorough, important journalism, you can be successful.
The big news organizations like the Post, The New York Times and Wall Street Journal will be fine long-term. The bigger concern is in local news where small and mid-sized newspapers have been hit particularly hard. There has not been a lot of success in making those organizations financially stable and that’s worrisome because if those papers don’t exist, it leaves a lot of people in what are now being called “news deserts.”
4. What’s the biggest challenge in seeing that students hit the ground running when they graduate?
It’s important that students think broadly about how and where they can practice journalism. There are a lot of new news organizations that can allow students to bypass the traditional small town newspapers and television stations that are the traditional first jobs.
The skill sets we teach are in demand by virtually all employers, so a degree in journalism or communication is very valuable no matter what you want to do.
5. What is your vision of what journalism is becoming and what can educational institutions like St. Bonaventure do to help convince the outside world that good, ethical journalism is vital to our society?
One aspect I mentioned before is the non-profit news organizations that are taking on the important work traditionally done by newspapers. I am less concerned with the specific outlets than I am that that work continues. The great thing about these nonprofits is that their work is widely accessible via digital platforms.
For programs like the Jandoli School, we can do some of that work, particularly in a community here in Western New York where there aren’t a lot of news organizations and where the national news organizations rarely come.
Our local news website, TAPinto Greater Olean, led by faculty members Anne and Rich Lee, is a good example of how our students can fill the void and get great experience. The Lees and their students have also collaborated with the Olean Times Herald.
It’s also important for us to talk with the public about how to find good journalism. I have talked to groups in Cuba and Olean about “fake news” and how to be better news consumers.
There’s a lot we can do and it’s very important to keep doing it.
6. Why is accreditation so important for Bonaventure?
It’s really a way for people across the country – and the world – to know just how great of a program we have, including prospective students and their families. We know that this has been a very good program for 70 years. Now we have this relatively exclusive, outside validation that we are among the best. In fact, just 19 private universities in this country have accredited programs in this field, which puts us in the company of Syracuse, Columbia, NYU, Elon, USC, American University and other well-respected programs.
7. What is your vision for the Jandoli School?
First, I have to say the future of the Jandoli School is built on a great foundation that started 70 years ago with Russell Jandoli. His commitment to excellence and his focus on writing and ethics are still keys to what we do today. They are also what distinguishes our program.
Going forward, we need to expand what the school does and connect more broadly with campus and beyond. We need to be vital to St. Bonaventure and this community.
We have two new undergraduate majors, sports media and broadcast journalism, and we are also looking at graduate programs and opportunities there.
We also need to be more collaborative in what we do. One part of that is creating an environment where all of our students working on a variety of media can collaborate. Right now, students who work for the newspaper, radio station, newscast and the local news website all work in separate places and rarely work together. Media is much more intertwined now and the physical and organizational structure for our students needs to reflect that.
To achieve this goal, we would need to do a major renovation of the Murphy Building to create modern spaces.
8. Is social media making it impossible for consumers to determine what legitimate news is and what it is not?
For a long time it was clear what the media you were consuming was and where it was from. You got your news from your daily newspaper and the evening news. Now, everything is mixed together and coming at us in a flood of information. It makes it much harder to distinguish the good from the bad. It requires each of us to be our own editor – and that’s hard. It means we have to put our own biases aside to figure out what happened. It’s also why we should all consume a variety of sources of information.
9. How important is versatility now in educating and nurturing new journalists? There’s been so much emphasis on backpack journalism for resource-challenged newsrooms.
A year or so ago, someone asked me, what is the most important skill for journalists? I said adaptability. So, yes, versatility is important. It is key that people entering journalism have the mindset that the industry is changing rapidly. They have to be prepared to keep learning and they must meet the public where they are. That said, they also have to have just as good a foundation in reporting and writing as ever. It’s harder now. You have to be able to do many things well and those skills keep evolving, which is why adaptability is so important.
10. What do you see as the biggest opportunity to grow the Jandoli School?
There are many. I am excited about our new undergraduate majors and the growth of our strategic communication major. We also have two strong online master’s programs in integrated marketing communications and strategic leadership.
The stellar reputation of the school and our recent accreditation give us a lot of credibility as a program and my focus with the new programs and our marketing efforts is to help prospective students see why this program, with its personal attention and amazing alumni network, is such a great choice.
As I said earlier, the skills a student builds in our program is so valuable in the world today and allow graduates to be successful in many areas, especially when you combine them with the great liberal arts education you get at St. Bonaventure.
11. Coming from a school (TCU) four times the size of SBU in a city 100 times the size of Olean, what’s been the biggest adjustment for you?
TCU and Bonaventure are very similar in a lot of ways. Both are values-centered institutions that are welcoming and personal. It’s been a smooth transition in that regard. Of course, winter was definitely a big adjustment for us, moving from Texas. We’ve really enjoyed the small-town life here, but my wife, Bethanne, would really appreciate it if Target would open a store in Olean.