Columbia Journalism Review
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Alumni Association NON-PROFIT Columbia University U.S. POSTAGE Graduate School of Journalism PAID 2950 Broadway, MC 3820 SUMMIT, NJ 07901 New York, NY 10027 PERMIT 18 Columbia Journalism AlumWinter 20n06 Jourinal Alumnus Graduates Appointed Cover a Trustee Katrina ichael B. Rothfeld (’71), Print and broadcast reporters theatrical producer, private from near and far converged on equity investor and a former stricken areas Mmagazine editor, has been named a trustee of Columbia University. By Ed Silberfarb (’52) According to the University Secretary’s office, he is only the third t was the deadliest natural disas- Journalism School graduate to serve ter in the U.S. since a Florida hur- on that governing body. Others were ricane of 1928 killed more than Joan Konner (’61), dean emerita of 2,500. The Katrina death toll NICOLE BENGIVENO / THE NEW YORK TIMES YORK THE NEW NICOLE BENGIVENO / I exceeded 1,300, displaced over one the J-School; and John Curley (’63), Deborah Sontag in the flooded Ninth Ward of New Orleans. retired chair, president and chief exec- million people and caused damage utive officer of the Gannett Co. estimated from $70 billion to $130 bil- Konner was a trustee from 1978 to lion. The August hurricane, itself, and 1988, and Curley, 1988 to 1994. the flooding of New Orleans have been Rothfeld, a 1969 graduate of called the worst set of catastrophes in Columbia College, was an Debate on Sources the nation’s history. International Fellow at the School of J-School alumni were on the International and Public Affairs, 1970- scene from Mississippi to Louisiana to By Alexandra Haggiag (’05) panel included Joel Gora, professor of tell the story. Many others had been in 71, and received both an M.B.A. and law at Brooklyn School of Law, and his Journalism School M.S. in 1971. South Asia for the horrors of the udith Miller went to jail to pro- Dan Janison, City Hall Bureau Chief He is chair of the Board of Visitors of tsunami, but Katrina was, in effect, “a tect the integrity of journalism, at Newsday. Columbia College, and he has served local story.” and now some journalists have Rosenstiel began by reminding on the advisory board of the J-School’s Columbia graduates at the New turned on her because they’d the audience that polls show the pub- Knight-Bagehot program in business J Orleans Times-Picayune, station rather see this administration go down lic does not like confidential sources and financial journalism. WSDU-TV and the Biloxi Sun Herald than fight for their principles. That’s but journalists still rely heavily upon Rothfeld has been an associate were in the midst of it. And they came what Miller’s lawyer, Floyd Abrams, them. Twenty percent of print pieces editor of Fortune and assistant to the from out of town, as well. Deborah argued at the J-School Alumni at national papers and over half of Chairman and CEO of Time, Inc. Also, Sontag (’83) and Joseph Treaster Association’s Fall Meeting panel dis- nationally broadcast nightly news sto- he was a managing director in the (’96) wrote lede stories for The New cussion on confidential sources. About ries rely on unnamed sources, he said. investment banking division of The York Times. Sontag and Jay Newton- 100 attended the November 15 pro- First Boston Corporation, a general SOURCES– continued on 6 Small (’01) of Bloomberg News gram in the School’s lecture room. partner of Bessemer Capital Partners, donned hip boots and sloshed through “I read the blogs, it’s the first time L.P. and Bessemer Holdings, L.P. the flood waters of the New Orleans in my life I started to think maybe In the theater, he was co-producer Ninth Ward. And Treaster drove alone censorship would be a good idea!” of “The Search for Intelligent Life in from Gulfport, Miss., to New Orleans, said Abrams wryly. the Universe,” a Tony award nomi- INSIDE outracing the hurricane so he could His fellow panelist, Newsweek edi- nee; and associate producer of the report the devastation and desperation tor Mark Whitaker, suggested the situ- revival of Gore Vidal’s “The Best Man.” 4 when it arrived (see his ation is complex: whistleblowers are Correspondent’s Report, page 3). more important to protect than offi- On the scene after The class of 2001 swarmed in. cials who go off the record to give you Pakistan’s earthquake. Besides Newton-Small, there were nothing but spin. Susan Seijas for the BBC; Daren “The idea that the absolute same 5 Briscoe, Newsweek ; Sara Miller, The standards and the same commitment Two grads win honors Christian Science Monitor; and should apply to the second class as to for feature films. Jennifer Smith, Newsday. the first class is absurd,” he added. The local press corps showed a Moderator Tom Rosenstiel (’80), special kind of heroism. Mason director of the Project for Excellence 7 Granger (’75), manager of WSDU-TV in Journalism, led the panelists in New Orleans, told of staff members through the debate over the guidelines Three decades later, a student who worked “diligently and coura- that journalists should follow when remembers Fred Friendly. geously knowing they had no place to granting anonymity. go home to. One night, several In addition to Abrams, First 8 anchors on air watched a tape of the Amendment lawyer who defended The John Shearer: a life framed city and, as it rolled by, and realized New York Times during the publica- by photography that was their neighborhood that was tion of the Pentagon Papers, and gone. Whitaker, who has been a top editor Michael B. Rothfeld (’71) at Newsweek for the last decade, the KATRINA – continued on 2 Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Alumni Journal • www. jrn.columbia.edu 1 from the jaws of Katrina while she was KATRINA making landfall. Joshua Norman (’05) of the Sun FROM PAGE 1 Herald, who, along with Keller, stayed in the newspaper’s building, said: “The station transmitter was “The storm was terrifying. There under nine or ten feet of water. We was about an hour when no one was weren’t on the air, but there was virtu- sure whether the concrete roof over ally no one in New Orleans to watch our heads would be sucked off.” After television anyway. So the Web site the storm, Norman went into the small became the path to distribute our cov- towns he covered. “They were isolat- erage. We did get back on television ed, ignored and badly hit,” he said. within three days on another station “I’ll never forget the call I got from a and we put together a network of woman in tears who said she read a regional stations where we knew New quote in one of my stories from her Orleanians were evacuated.” father-in-law. She would not have At the Times-Picayune, James known if he had survived otherwise.” Varney (’89) described “big greasy Like the Times-Picayune, the Sun guys” walking around the French RAE MORRIS / BLOOMBERG NEWS AVID Herald employees suffered fearsome Quarter with baseball bats and pool D losses even as they continued to put cues, people coming out of smashed out the paper. Reginald Stuart (’71) store windows with whatever they Jay Newton-Small in the Ninth Ward in late September. of the Knight Ridder Co. went down could carry and columns of smoke ris- continued to publish, though half the the hurricane hit, the federal govern- there to help them. The Black Alumni ing from various fires. employees lost their homes. A relief ment could have greatly lessened the Newsletter carried his report: “In 12 Stephanie Stokes (’83), assistant fund has been established to help disaster if it had acted immediately days we found emergency temporary city editor, took her two children, them by four former employees, afterward as a direct enforcer of the housing for about 40 people. We’re three days worth of clothes and their including Bridget O’Brian (’81), a law. People suffered and died because putting them in a flop house down the pet turtle to a friend in Tuscaloosa, Wall Street Journal broadcast news it did not.” road that we’re cleaning up, an RV Ala., and two weeks later joined her editor. For information go to At the Biloxi Sun Herald, Mike park, several residential units and the husband, Times-Picayune Managing www.friendsofthetimespicayune.com Keller (’05) told of two rescuers who TraveLodge down the Interstate. Editor Dan Shea, in Baton Rouge. The The disaster that befell New “pulled 14 people, one a pregnant “Everyone is having to compro- paper was in temporary offices with Orleans, both the destruction by the woman, plus two dogs and two cock- mise from what they had…People laptops on folding tables. They hurricane and the suffering of the pop- atiels from house to house and room need clothes. They need gasoline. enrolled the kids in a Baton Rouge ulation afterward, was examined by J- to room. They fought against water They need new tires. People need day school, then commuted to New School Dean Nicholas Lemann in the and wind, finally breaking through a care. Most of all, folks need someone Orleans when the paper returned . Sept. 26, 2005, issue of The New roof before the house disappeared to talk to. They don’t always admit it. Stephanie Grace (’92) had a Yorker. Lemann, a New Orleans native, under the Gulf of Mexico.” Keller also You have to push them kindly, gently. house that was spared flooding, so it appraised the role of the federal gov- told of a Seatow boat captain who First you have to win their trust, then became a Times-Picayune bureau for ernment and its reluctance to deploy braved 60 plus knot winds and rising assure them it’s okay to cry, to share dispossessed staffers.