Latest Casualty in Battle With Administration
Dr. Christopher Campbell, the first director of the School of Journalism at Hampton University -- the result of a $6 million commitment from the Scripps Howard Foundation to upgrade journalism education at a historically black campus -- resigned Thursday, another casualty of the "authoritarian" nature of the university administration, he said today.
Campbell told Journal-isms he had accepted a job chairing a year-old journalism department at Ithaca College in Ithaca, N.Y."It's really been depressing. It's just sad," Campbell said. "A university needs to be a model for democracy for a journalism school to work. I just didn't have the support from Dr. Harvey to get done some of the things that needed to be done," he said in a reference to Dr. William R. Harvey, the Hampton president who was on sabbatical this year but who, Campbell said, was still running the university.
Among other things, Harvey's daughter, Kelly Harvey, a former reporter and weekend anchor at WTKR-TV in Hampton Roads, Va., joined the School of Journalism faculty."It was not that she wasn't qualified to be there, but she'd never been in academia, and I think that he relied very much on her for his perceptions of things. You typically don't have a junior faculty member with a line to the president. He was not getting the best sort of take on events in the school, and was making decisions based on that," he said, mentioning personnel decisions concerning his school with which Campbell disagreed.
The departure of an engineer he valued caused a broadcast instructor to change his mind about coming, said Campbell, who himself had just received tenure. Another faculty member, Sean Lyons, formerly of the Boston Globe, resigned over what Lyons said were academic freedom issues. Lyons told Journal-isms that he had left for Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., because "not only does this administration not embrace academic freedom when it comes to journalism, but they have open hostility." The students' opportunities "are being limited by the university's open hostility to the basic precepts of civic life."Campbell arrived July 1, 2003, after the head of what was then the department of media arts, former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Charlotte Grimes, had left in a public debate with Harvey over whether the school should pursue investigative journalism.
Then, in October, the school made national news when the acting president and provost, Dr. JoAnn Haysbert, seized and destroyed copies of the student newspaper, The Hampton Script, when it did not place an article on page 1 as she requested.
After condemnation from journalism groups, Haysbert formed a task force that recommended noninterference in the student newspaper, a recommendation that Haysbert accepted but that students and Campbell say has been circumvented.Meanwhile, Campbell was attracting to the school an array of well-known journalists who served as visiting professors, such as Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts, who went on to win a Pulitzer Prize; former Wall Street Journal editor Carolyn Phillips and former Time magazine columnist Jack E. White, who plans to teach there in the fall.
The school has 330 journalism majors and this year had a 25 percent increase in applications, Campbell said.Haysbert, who responded to a phone call placed to Harvey, told Journal-isms that the school planned to fill the vacancy "as quickly as possible," aiming for the start of classes Sept. 7. She appointed Dr. Joyce Jarrett, assistant provost for academic affairs, to handle administrative matters; said that as a private institution "we don't necessarily have to advertise [the vacancy] in the Chronicle [of Higher Education]"; and that a committee would be formed to advise on filling the job.
Dr. Judith Clabes, the chair of the Scripps Howard Foundation board who has shepherded through the Scripps journalism project at Hampton, told Journal-isms that she had already recommended an internal candidate, whom she did not name."I don't think there's any question" that the school will succeed, Clabes said. "Too many wonderful things are going on. The administrative part is the challenge. Someone who can deal in this culture that's unique to Hampton."
It's a culture that can be stifling, two journalism students told Journal-isms."We are just suffering because of our administrations," said Daarel Burnette III, who wrote stories about violations in the Hampton cafeteria that displeased the administration.
"I don't think that they see this as students trying to get an education in journalism, but students trying to expose their dirty laundry. Hampton has aspirations" to be one of the top 10 journalism schools in the country, "but you just see them kicking themselves in the butt. I've always felt that a School of Journalism on Hampton's campus is an oxymoron. It's so hard to fix the bad things because we're so busy focusing on the good things that the bad things get worse and worse."
Campbell confirmed that a committee formed after the confiscation controversy, rather than being an advocate for students, ended up as an administration tool. The committee denied Burnette an editor's job on the Hampton Script for this coming year, he said, in apparent retaliation for his role in writing about the cafeteria's problems."We're constantly losing great people," said Talia Buford, the student editor, also expressing the view that with the administration's present approach, Hampton will never become one of the top 10 journalism schools.
Lyons told a story of how the students were discussing the confiscation episode in his class and the students voted to write letters to the editor of the local paper. Eight weeks after some letters ran, Lyons said, he was called into the office of Jarrett, the acting provost, who said that some students said they were forced to write the letters. She "went into a diatribe, saying that letters only . . . fanned the flames of debate and make the university look bad."I dispute that any student showed up in the acting asst. provost's office to do so, 8 weeks after the assignment, in the middle of finals, and to someone who was sort of a mid-level bureaucrat," Lyons said.
Later, Lyons said, his colleagues on the faculty told him they were called into Harvey's office and asked whether "Sean Lyons was stirring the pot unnecessarily." They said no, he said they told him, and they said "we feel like he's looking for something to nail you on." He said he wished the Scripps Howard Foundation "had been more vocal in being a bully pulpit" against those kind of practices.
Earl Caldwell, a veteran journalist named to a chair at the school at the same time Campbell was named director, praised Campbell as supportive of innovation, such as "Caldwell's Cafe," where students studying different aspects of communications interact, in the manner of "an after-work newsroom saloon," and an oral history project he is undertaking.
Campbell and Grimes, the last two to head the journalism program, are both white, and Caldwell floated the idea of an African American being named to the job.
"I'm not saying the dean has to be black, but I think in the media we need to see and be able to express the unique and the very difficult ideas that we bring to the table because of our experience," he told Journal-isms. "We should put in the larger journalism councils the idea that we come from the black experience and it should be put in the educational experience. This is part of the Hampton challenge."
Disappointment in Latest Broadcast Numbers
Unity: Journalists of Color, the umbrella group for the national associations of black, Hispanic, Asian American and Native American journalists, expressed disappointment with the latest figures from the RTNDA/Ball State Annual Survey on diversity at local television and radio stations."In television, the minority workforce rose from 18.1 percent last year to 21.8 percent this year, with about half the growth among African Americans and half among Hispanics. The percentage of Asian Americans fell, and Native Americans remained the same," Bob Papper, professor of telecommunications at Ball State University, wrote in the Radio-Television News Directors Association magazine.
But a news release from Unity says:
"Despite declarations from the industry that it is working to boost diversity in broadcast newsrooms, the annual survey of diversity in local radio and television news media shows that the media companies are falling short of their obligations to make broadcast journalism truly representative of our increasingly diverse nation, UNITY president Ernest R. Sotomayor said today."
Herbert Lowe, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, said in an NABJ release:
“Another year, another survey -– it’s the same thing: The industry is not sufficiently hiring or retaining or promoting black journalists. Sitting across tables and bemoaning the same excuses isn’t getting us anywhere. The industry must hire, retain and promote. Plain and simple.”
And the Asian American Journalists Association issued a statement saying it was "greatly disappointed by today's news that the percentage of Asian American radio and television journalists has dropped to the lowest level the organization has seen this decade. AAJA calls on the industry to immediately take action to stem this sharp decline."
As noted Wednesday, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists said it was "relieved by the apparent stem in the decline of Latino journalists and journalists of color working at our nation's local broadcast stations."
Adviser Out Again at Kansas State's Campus Paper
"A federal judge on Wednesday threw out a court order that allowed the adviser of the Kansas State University student newspaper to resume his duties after he was removed amid criticism of the paper's coverage," John Milburn reports for the Associated Press."U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson ruled there was insufficient evidence to grant Ron Johnson's request for a temporary injunction to prohibit Kansas State from reassigning him from the post he held for 15 years.
"Johnson was removed in May after the newspaper was sharply criticized for failing to cover a regional conference on black student government that drew 1,000 people to campus in February."
Chicago Sun-Times' Mary Mitchell Adds Radio Job
"Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell, who rose from inner-city poverty to become one of Chicago's most outspoken and respected commentators, is adding her unique voice to radio," Robert Feder writes in the Sun-Times."Starting Aug. 1, Mitchell will host a live public-affairs talk show from 11 a.m. to noon Sundays, simulcast on WSRB-FM (106.3) and WPWX-FM (92.3). It will air at a later time on WYCA-FM (102.3.)
"While continuing the Sun-Times column she has written since 1996, Mitchell will take on additional duties as director of public affairs for the three stations owned by Crawford Broadcasting Co."
Al Sharpton Sets Up Own Media Company
"Stand by for the newest marquee on the media landscape -- Rev. Al Communications Inc. Al Sharpton, the civil rights activist turned TV star, has set up his own media company and is in talks with prominent black entrepreneurs and media execs about funding and guiding his burgeoning media biz career, sources close to Sharpton said," reports Phyllis Furman in the New York Daily News."He's about to become a CEO," a source said.
"Sharpton -- who already scored a reality TV show deal with cable net Spike TV and is a paid commentator for CNBC -- is looking to fund everything from a TV production company to a syndicated radio program to magazine acquisitions and start-ups."
Sandra Ali Heads from Detroit to Cincy
"Sandra Ali, an award-winning anchor and reporter at Detroit's WJBK-TV, has been named primary anchor for WLWT Eyewitness News 5," the Cincinnati station announces."Ali has anchored the top-rated weekend editions of "Fox 2 News at 6" and "Fox 2 News at 10," as well as served as a reporter for Fox 2 News, since October 2000. Prior to her work in Detroit, she worked as a reporter/anchor in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
"Ali brings a wealth of journalistic experience to the Cincinnati television landscape. She's also an avid theatre fan, voracious reader and speaks several languages, including Arabic and French."
Texas TV Reporter Accuses Councilman-Boyfriend
"City Councilman Ron Segovia was accused by his girlfriend, KSAT police reporter Gina Galaviz, of pointing a gun at her the night after throwing an apple at her, leaving a bruise on her lower back, according to a police report filed Sunday," Tracy Idell Hamilton reported Monday in the San Antonio Express-News."Galaviz called police to Segovia's house, in the 4400 block of Golf View, at 1:52 a.m., according to the report."
The incident prompted an editorial in the paper Thursday:
"While this community worries that too many members of its City Council are young and immature, age may not be the indicator of maturity after all.
"Who would have expected that Councilman Ron Segovia, who has passed the half-century mark and has grandchildren of his own, would be the one in trouble for a food fight that escalated?" it asked.
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