USC Annenberg News

USC Annenberg remembers alumnus and USC Trustee Herb Klein

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:05:08 GMT

USC Annenberg mourns the death of alumnus and USC Trustee Herb Klein (B.A. Journalism '40, pictured above and below with journalism professor Judy Muller), who spent more than 50 years with Copley Newspapers and was the first White House director of communications for Richard Nixon. He was 91.

"Herb Klein was a true Trojan," said USC Annenberg Dean Ernest J. Wilson III. "Herb was always a friend of the School. And he became a good friend of mine. His writing and his work made fundamental impacts on many facets of journalism, communication and public policy. His confident character and warm demeanor will live on through the work of our students, faculty and alumni. We will all sorely miss him."

In 2004, Klein received the inaugural Half-Century Trojans Hall of Fame award to honor a lifetime of dedication to USC.

While at USC, Klein was sports editor of the Daily Trojan, writing a column his senior year called “Sports Scribbles.” After graduation, the Los Angeles native took a job as a copy boy for the Alhambra Post-Advocate, and in 1946, upon his return from a tour in the Navy during World War II, he was named news editor. That same year he met Richard Nixon and quickly launched a parallel career in politics, working on all of Nixon’s congressional, gubernatorial, vice presidential and presidential campaigns.

In 1950, Klein accepted a position with the San Diego Union as an editorial writer. He progressed rapidly through the newspaper’s ranks and was named editor in 1959. In 1969 he was named White House director of communications following Nixon’s election as president. He held this position until 1973. He drew upon this experience in his 1980 book, “Making It Perfectly Clear,” which examined the relationship between U.S. presidents and members of the media through various administrations.

After leaving the White House, Klein served as vice president of Metromedia, Inc. He was appointed editor in chief of Copley Press in 1980, overseeing nine daily and 20 weekly newspapers. He retired in 2003 as vice president and editor in chief of the company and served as a national fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a business consultant, in addition to writing syndicated columns.

Klein, who lived in La Jolla, was instrumental in getting the Super Bowl to come to San Diego three times, and served in a leadership role for the Holiday Bowl. His legacy in the San Diego sports world is indelible.

Klein met his wife, Marjorie (Galbraith) Klein (B.A. ’41), during his senior year in an international relations class. The couple’s two daughters and two of their grandsons all graduated from USC. Herb’s brother, uncle and aunt also attended USC, as did Marjorie’s two brothers.

“One of the things I take a lot of pride in is the fact that there have been four generations of my family going to USC,” Herb Klein told USC's Trojan Family Magazine in 2004. “USC is a very big part of our family life.”

Friends of Klein endowed the Herb Klein Scholarship in Government and Political Reporting in 2005 at USC Annenberg to honor his distinguished career. Recipients include:

2005-2006: Lindsey Davis (B.A., Print Journalism and International Relations ’06)
2006-07: Rebekah Sanders (BA.., Print Journalism ’07)
2007-08: Elexander Michaelson (B.A., Broadcast Journalism and Political Science ’08)
2008-09: Beth Palkovic (BA.., Broadcast Journalism and Psychology ’09)
2009-10: Rohan Venkataramakrishnan (B.A. Print Journalism ‘11)

Klein is survived by a brother, Kenneth; daughter, Patricia Root; three grandsons, Tom Howell, Michael Mayne and Christopher Mayne; and two great-grandsons, Nick Howell and Zachary Mayne.

1973 Time Magazine feature on Herb Klein
Associated Press article

USC Annenberg Report Details Growing Philanthropic Support for Journalism

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:48:35 GMT

Philanthropic foundations are taking unprecedented steps to address the crisis in journalism and “serve as a firewall against the disappearance of critical news and information,” according to a new report from the Center on Communication Leadership and Policy (CCLP) at USC Annenberg.

The report, “Philanthropic Foundations: Growing Funders of the News” is authored by executive in residence David Westphal, a CCLP senior fellow and former Washington editor for McClatchy Newspapers.

Leaders from philanthropic foundations, journalism, education and non-profit organizations were interviewed for the report, which follows up on a major meeting convened in 2008 by Geoffrey Cowan, CCLP director and USC university professor; Alex Jones, director of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government; and Orville Schell, former dean of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and a CCLP senior fellow.

“When we had the meeting last year, we saw a need,” Cowan said. “But now we’re in a state of desperation. The collapse of the traditional economic model has increased both the need for nonprofit journalism, and also the receptivity toward it.”

“I think it’s safe to say there’s a growing understanding you can’t run a democracy without a free flow of information,” said Alberto Ibargüen, president and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, who attended the 2008 meeting and was interviewed for the report. He cites growing interest of community foundations in supporting journalism as an important development.

“We’re extremely excited about the possibilities here,” he said. “Community foundations have billions and billions at their disposal. We think more and more of them are going to find that information has become one of their community’s core needs.”

Westphal will present findings from this report, along with results from a new Carnegie Corporation-sponsored study on the role of government in supporting news and information, at the annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in Boston in August.

About the Center on Communication Leadership and Policy

Based at the USC Annenberg School, the Center on Communication Leadership and Policy conducts research and organizes courses, programs, seminars and symposia for scholars, students, policymakers and working professionals to prepare future leaders in journalism, communication and other related fields. CCLP focuses its activities in two areas: The Role of Media in a Democracy and Communication Leadership. Current projects include Public Policy and the Future of News; New Models for News; The Constitution and the Press; Media and Political Discourse; Children’s Media and Ethics; Women and Communication Leadership; and Photographic Empowerment.

Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars releases Summer 2009 issue of PD Magazine

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:41:15 GMT

The Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars at USC released its Summer 2009 issue of PD magazine on July 1. The issue explores "Middle Powers. Who they are. What they want."

PD is published biannually, in print and on the web at www.publicdiplomacymagazine.org.

Highlights from the Summer 2009 Issue include:

Navigating the Middle

Eytan Gilboa, Andrew Cooper and Evan Potter on what makes a Middle Power

Perspectives on Chile, South Africa, Mexico, Iran and Australia
Simon Anholt questions Nation Branding
PD in Practice

How Turkey, NATO and the Middle Powers Initiative practice public diplomacy

Plus:

Beyond the Brand

How countries whose corporate brands are more recognizable than their nation brands approach public diplomacy

New Developments in Public Diplomacy

A roundup of the latest events and happenings of significance to the evolution of public diplomacy

About PD:

Public diplomacy is at its best when scholars are in conversation with practitioners, and PD intends to host that dialogue. To that end, the Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars at the University of Southern California launched the inaugural issue of PD — the first student-run magazine focused exclusively on issues of public diplomacy — in February 2009.

The publication addresses the challenges and issues of public diplomacy wherever it is relevant in the world. It features the voices of practitioners and scholars with divergent perspectives, but whose unified goal is the continued evolution of the field.

PD is published biannually, in print and on the web at www.publicdiplomacymagazine.org.

PD is a publication of the Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars, and is edited by graduate students in the Master of Public Diplomacy program at USC.

PD is supported by the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School, USC College's School of International Relations, the Annenberg School for Communication and the USC Annenberg Press.

Seib on KCRW: Cutting off Iran's Internet access could be "disruptive to the rest of the country"

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:56:36 GMT

Journalism professor and director of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy Philip Seib recently told KCRW-FM’s “Politics of Culture” that Iran could completely shut off the country's Internet access to quiet dissidents, but that there would be too many associated problems.

"My guess on that is that they don’t have an easy contingency plan to shut it down for everyone but themselves," Seib said. "So it would actually make it difficult for them to make use of the Internet in any way and that might be a price they don’t want to pay. And it could also be disruptive to the rest of the country. Depending on where the pockets of revolution are growing, maybe they wouldn’t want to shut it off for the whole country but only certain areas."

He also commented on the impact of social media reports about Iran’s election-related unrest.

“Consider the effect of what’s going on there and how it is being depicted on countries in the region,” he said. “Iran wants to be a major player or the major player in the region, and its legitimacy now has been seriously undermined. The political clout of its government is going to take some time to return.”

Listen

Journalism undergrad Schweitzer spends summer working for New York Times

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:16:20 GMT

By Kirstin Heinle
Student Writer

USC Annenberg student Callie Schweitzer (B.A. Print Journalism ’11) is interning this summer for The New York Times’ as a copy editor and has also had the opportunity to write for the Times' blog “The Choice: Demystifying College Admission and Aid,” which explores issues pertaining to higher education.

In her first piece, “California System Sees Rise in Offers of Admission to Community College Transfers,” Schweitzer discussed the increase in community college students who transferred to UC schools last year.

Schweitzer works as a copy editor, fact checking every story that comes her way. One day, she went to lunch with Jacques Steinberg, the reporter who runs “The Choice,” and he mentioned UC system transfer numbers were coming out the following day. “That set the ball rolling,” Schweitzer said of her reporting career at the Times.

More recently, Schweitzer penned a piece reporting on how congressmen and other politicians have been reaching out to constituents to help provide education about financial aid options for college.

The article, titled “Need help with financial aid? Check with your congressman,” highlighted a financial aid forum coordinated by Representative Leonard Lance, a New Jersey Republican. Wrote Schweitzer, "Mr. Lance said he hopes the event will help ‘navigate the maze of financial aid.’"

She went on to describe previous efforts made by other politicians to help the public with their Fafsas, or “Free Application for Federal Student Aid.” “Events held elsewhere have seen mixed success,” Schweitzer wrote.

In high school, Schweitzer juggled theater and journalism, but “ultimately journalism won out.” One experience in particular jump-started her love of the profession.

“In my sophomore year, I was a staff writer for the high school paper, and one day an editor gave me an assignment to interview David O. Russell, the director of I Heart Huckabees, who went to our high school,” Schweitzer remembered. “I jokingly suggested he come visit our school. He ended up arriving at the back of my school in a stretch limo the next day. The story was my first-ever front page piece, and the interview I got with him filled an entire inside page.”

After that, Schweitzer said she knew she was meant to be a journalist.

After making the trek from Larchmont, New York to USC in Los Angeles, Schweitzer was quick to immerse herself in Trojan culture. She joined the sorority Alpha Delta Pi, landed a position at the Daily Trojan as a beat writer and is proud to be an "Annenberg Ambassador" — a group of USC Annenberg students who volunteer for school-related activities.

“I like to consider myself one of Annenberg’s biggest cheerleaders,” Schweitzer said. “The people I’ve met, the classes I’ve taken, the events I’ve attended — they have all affected me and are experiences I will never forget. To me, Annenberg is the epitome of the Trojan family.”

Schweitzer’s goal is to "work as a journalist for as long as possible," whether it be for a mazagine, newspaper or Web site. Her hope is to further explore each outlet in her remaining time at Annenberg and at her New York Times internship.

"The future of journalism is changing every second, and it's exciting to be a part of that," she said.

California System Sees Rise in Offers of Admission to Community College Transfers
Need Help With Financial Aid? Check With Your Congressman

Alumnus Heimpel wins first-place LA Press Club award for political journalism

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:31:39 GMT

Daniel Heimpel (pictured), a 2007 M.A. Print Journalism graduate, recently won a first-place LA Press Club award in the political coverage category for his work at LA Weekly.

"Mr. Heimpel’s thoughtful columns dare to challenge political correctness and the status quo, making him an essential voice in Southern California’s political scene," the LA Press Club judges said.

When asked what drives him to cover politics, Heimpel gave credit to his editor, Jill Stewart.

"But moreover City Hall is rife with in-your-face blunders and an overt disregard of Angelinos," he said. "What I have had the luck to write about is a local government that has consolidated power. Now that the power is consolidated, the leading politicians of our city — with the mayor at the helm — are running roughshod over the wishes of the citizens. Happily, hubris breeds dissent, and Angelinos fired up by the November 2008 elections are demanding a new level of city hall scrutiny, making it a great time to be a scrutinizer of City Hall."

Journalism professor Judy Muller's report on gold prospecting in California on SoCal Connected story was awarded a second place honor in the TV feature category. Communication professor Robert Scheer won third place in the online journalist category for his work at Truthdig.com. Adjunct journalism professor Bill Boyarsky earned second place in the online column/commentary/criticism category for "The End of an Institution" in Truthdig and an honorable mention award in the political coverage category for his 2008 campaign coverage.

LA Press Club

Recent alumna Gerson wins 1st-place RIAS Berlin Commission radio award

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:37:25 GMT

USC Annenberg graduate Daniela Gerson (M.A. Specialized Journalism '09, pictured) received a first-prize RIAS Berlin Commission radio award on June 12 for her feature Too Many Geister (Too Many Ghosts), which she co-produced with Wibke Bergemann.

The RIAS Berling Commission — founded in 1992 in recognition of the merits of RIAS Berlin as a “free voice of the free world” from 1946 to 1993 — is a bi-national organization for the promotion of German-American understanding in the field of broadcasting.

The committee wrote in its award statement: "Daniela Gerson, granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, comes to Germany to do research on immigration issues. But in Berlin, the 28-year-old Jewish New Yorker finds herself engulfed in the past. Meeting the former Neo-Nazi living next door is only the beginning. This moving story shows how the past colors the present. It is a unique and fresh look at issues of enduring importance. Personal and engaging in style, the report makes particularly good use of sound."

The one-hour German-language radio feature was initially broadcast on Deutschlandradio Kultur in 2008.

Award Ceremony
Listen

Tim Page: "The Education of a Critic"

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:14:10 GMT

Journalism professor Tim Page, who won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1997, wrote a first-person article in the July edition of Opera News Magazine about the learning curve of becoming an acclaimed music critic during his career at The New York Times, Newsday and The Washington Post.

"Strange as it may seem, it had never occurred to my brash younger self that almost everybody pursuing a career in music was there because of a love — a calling, if you will — with aspirations to artistic nobility," Page wrote about his start as a 27-year old critic at The Times. "Because there is not the same lust for fast money that fuels so many of the other arts, the sort of barbed, slash-and-run criticism found in some movie, book and commercial-music reviews generally has no place in our discipline. It should have been obvious to me that reviewing the latest exploitation film or pulp novel — that is, purely commercial product — was a different case from reviewing an earnest, scared young musician who had worked for years to get to this point. But it took me a while to realize these home truths."

He wrote that this is not to advocate bland, uncritical criticism because journalists have a duty to tell the truth, and the exposure of incompetence goes along with the job.

"And there are times when righteous anger is not only permissible but essential — for if the critic will not take on plummeting standards and grotesque, expensive misfires, who will?" he wrote.

He said George Jean Nathan once observed that there were two kinds of criticism — "subjective criticism and bad criticism." Today, thanks first to the alternative press and more recently to the blogosphere, deeply subjective criticism has become so prevalent in our culture that Page has proposed to pull back a little and do my best to rehabilitate objective criticism as well.

"This does not mean that we quash individual views at USC (quite the reverse — orthodoxy and heresy are both welcome)," he wrote. "But it does mean that students must have the facts correctly marshaled when they are making their points. Put it this way: as much as I would disagree with this conclusion, I would not be particularly upset if a student presented me with a cogent, closely argued devastation of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony.

"But if he or she referred to a long saxophone solo in the second movement, there would be problems, for the Pastoral, of course, has nothing of the kind. In short, I care about facts, and I insist that my students do, too: we must be reporters first, and nothing undermines the credibility of a critic more quickly and drastically than any misstatement. Still, I am finally less concerned with a student's opinion of a given work than with the representation of that opinion."

Full article

Tolan produces Marketplace story on child labor in Bangladesh

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:23:10 GMT

Journalism professor Sandy Tolan (pictured) crafted a multimedia story for public radio's Marketplace about child labor in Bangladesh, giving an international voice to a 13-year-old boy named Ismael "Babu" Hussein, who risks his life for the equivalent of $2.20 per day breaking down retired tankers and cargo ships.

"When their masters get tired, Babu and his fellow child laborers often handle the blowtorches on their own, frequently without goggles, risking serious injury or blindness," Tolan wrote in the 'Reporters Notebook' section of the piece. "Some are forced to climb tall rope ladders to the ships' highest points to retrieve items, risking death if they slip. And all the children are on constant lookout for falling metal plates and rods, which have killed many a worker before them. Lately, Babu has been having nightmares of falling steel, or of being thrown into melting iron by an angry boss."

Human rights groups have long been fighting for worker and environmental protection, but the situation is complicated because of the high poverty rate. A court-ordered temporary shutdown of the shipyards created controversy in March 2009.

"The shutdown angered many worker families like Babu's, for whom bad work is better than none," Tolan said. "An estimated 10,000 shipbreaking laborers and their families, concerned for their jobs, protested the High Court ruling. The High Court also ruled that ships would no longer be able to enter Bangladesh's waters without first 'pre-cleaning' their toxic wastes. This was a huge victory for shipbreaking watchdogs, but given the country's history of strong laws and weak enforcement, advocates say it isn't enough."

Full story
Huffington Post version
More on Tolan

Dean Wilson announces latest "3-I's Fund" grant recipients

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:30:27 GMT

Dean Ernest J. Wilson III (pictured) announced the second round of winners of his "3-I's Fund" — which goes to faculty research, teaching and service related to the innovation, internationalization and impact initiative at USC Annenberg — for 2008-2009.

In all, 12 projects received monetary awards for more than $61,600 in total awards.

"Funding for these grants comes from a very generous $1 million donation from USC Trustee Wallis Annenberg," Dean Wilson said. "Priority was given to projects that either make a substantive contribution to the implementation of the '3-Is' and/or involved a cross-section of members of the School."

Recipients were:

Laura Castañeda — "E-Learning in Journalism Education," is a comparative assessment of e-learning in Journalism education and recommendations for ASC.
Nick Cull — "Playbook Three, Public Diplomacy interactive Case Studies," supports student editors assisting with the creation of a Public Diplomacy Playbook, an online-interactive compendium of case studies.
Tom Goodnight /Zhan Li — "USC Annenberg Scholarly Online Community Study," conducts a comparative evaluation of the online presence of USC Annenberg's PhD program with competitor programs in Communication.
Tom Hollihan /Patti Riley — "Community Networks, Agricultural Development and the Global Food Crisis," is a pilot research project for the FAO in Chile focusing on children.
Norman Lear Center (Martin Kaplan) — "Evaluation of a Unique Disaster Preparedness Communication Campaign," evaluates the impact of this entertainment education-based campaign to increase earthquake preparedness (“The Shakeout),” by tracking preparedness responses and risk communication content in selected media including gaming, the Internet, social media, etc.
Judy Muller — "Emus Loose in Egnar: Big Stories from Small Town Newspapers," contributes to a book on why small-town newspapers continue to thrive at a time when mainstream media are going through such economic hard times.
Vikki Porter/ Patricia Riley — "New Technology Innovation and Media Convergence: The News is Change!" investigates how traditional media companies such as NPR and the Christian Science Monitor are adapting to new technology - most notably, the Internet.
Joe Saltzman — "The Gay Journalist in Pop Culture," expands the collection of IJPC to cover additional dimensions of the image of the journalist in popular culture, including but not limited to that of gay journalists.
Sandra Ball-Rokeach /Bill Celis/Willa Seidenberg — "Retelling South Los Angeles: New Stories, New Media," aims to reshape stories regarding intergroup ethnic tensions by having residents tell their stories in innovative ways by using media technology.
Stacy Smith — "Gender Portrayals & Sexual Orientations: A Look at Independent Films at Sundance," supports the purchase of films for teaching and research purposes in order to evaluate the frequency and nature of gender portrayals in prominent independent films.
Sandy Tolan — “Hunger in the Golden State," is a radio series in which teams of reporters examine the human, economic, and political costs of hunger in California. Students produce sound-rich, “on the ground” radio pieces examining a deepening social concern driven in part by growing economic hard times.
Center on Public Diplomacy ( Geoff Wiseman/Sherine Badawi Walton) — "The UN Celebrities, and Public Diplomacy: Evaluating the UN's Goodwill and Messengers of Peace," explores the intersection between the United Nations, the entertainment industry and public diplomacy.