[NU Sports] Medill

Wed Sep 12 01:18:31 CDT 2007

 I will try to provide at least one perspective to the questions raised
by Mr. Herron. Mr. Nolan: I seek your approval for this post, which is
not related to football or sports.
 From where I sit, the dean is a visionary. Visionaries, by definition,
are not unanimous approval-getters. Nor are they seeking such approval.
Disagreement and even dissent are vital pieces of the dialogue.
 In that regard, the dean is exercising significant leadership. He has
what experts in leadership study call the "double vision thing." He can
see where we are now and where he believes the school ought to be x
years down the line, and he is trying amid the clamor and dissent to
secure buy-in -- from a variety of constituencies -- to implement
change.
 The dean is seeking to implement that change because the journalism
landscape is undergoing a fundamental evolution. Technological and
demographic change are formidable currents but hardly the only factors
reshaping businesses in which Medill grads are expected not only to
compete for jobs but, as their careers progress, assume leading roles.  
 It's unclear whether the steps the dean is taking are the "right" ones.
No one can tell the future. 
 But I admire his self-confidence and his willingness to take action.
 I would also suggest he is ahead, maybe way ahead, of the power curve.
This -- in concert with the confidence he projects -- may well be
another reason the changes he is proposing are generating push-back,
sometimes considerable.
 Dean Lavine was out in Los Angeles last month and gave a talk to the
Medill Club of Southern California, which I attended.
 There is ample material on the Medill website explaining the direction,
intent and details of the revised curriculum, and I would urge any and
all interested to give it a long and thoughtful read. You can also read
there about intriguing proposals aimed at taking the Medill and
Northwestern brands overseas -- to places such as Qatar, for instance.
 I did not hear at the Medill event that day in the Mulholland hills,
nor have I heard at any point in the process, the dean say anything that
would suggest even the slightest retreat from the basics of good
journalism -- the essence of a Medill education, with its emphasis on
fairness and accuracy.
 However, he did make plain that Medill must find ways to enable
students to learn how to tell a story -- on whatever platform -- that
will engage readers, listeners and watchers. 
 By platform, he said, he means newspapers, radio, TV, the web, cellular
phones, video games. That's right -- phones, games, whatever.
 I used "readers, listeners and watchers" deliberately. Here is the word
that seems to really alarm his critics: consumers.
 Even though we are all consumers of news, of sports, of whatever.
 Traditionally, of course, there is a "wall" between the business and
editorial sides of news operations. A major concern appears to be
whether Lavine is suggesting the "wall" ought to be breached or
weakened.
 I do not believe he is so suggesting.
 What he is trying to get at, I believe, is the exact thing all of us in
the business are trying to figure out. Which is: how to produce content
that will compel people to pay for it, on one or multiple platforms --
without pandering, without condescending, without violating the basics
of journalism.
 It's hardly a disaster, or even new, to acknowledge that newspapers
(and by extension other platforms) must make money to survive. I learned
that in theory and then most emphatically in practice when I was at
Medill, in the late 1970s -- when, during March of my sophomore year,
one of the last of the afternoon newspapers, the Chicago Daily News,
went out of business. The world had changed around it and the paper
couldn't respond. 
 Any/all thoughts, observations welcome. After all, we've got three more
days 'til the Duke tilt.
 Alan - Medill '80  

-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com]
On Behalf Of CHerron604 at aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2007 9:07 PM
To: sjtruog at yahoo.com; nwu-sports at tssi.com
Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Campus programming ...

Stephen's post reminded me of the most recent issue of Chicago
Magazine.  I don't generally read this magazine, not usually caring
which  gala ball was attended by who, or which trendy club is opening up
this  month.  But a friend passed it along to me based on the cover
headline 'The  Battle at NU's Journalism School' (just below a monkey
perched on a woman's  shoulder).

Basically, the author, Dirk Johnson, described how new Medill head John
Lavine was blowing up the Medill curriculum, replacing it with
concentrations in 'new media' and marketing.  It sounded like students,
faculty and alums  were not happy about this.  

Anybody know anything about these developments ?  The story was kind  of
short, and left me with quite a few questions.  Should we be worried
about Medill ?  Do we risk losing our very high Journalism School
ranking  ?  Could we lose our dominant position in sports media ?

Chuck Herron   Tech (NOT McCormick)  '85 

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