COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS SIPAnewsspring 2001 / VOLUME XIV NO. 2 Going West: SIPA Sets Up Arizona Campus SIPAnews Spring 2001 / VOLUME XIv NO.2 1 From the Dean Bringing Alumni Together: From East Asia to the East Coast 2 Faculty Forum Donald Johnston: Where Is the Foreign News? 3 Faculty Profile Professor Alfred Stepan Returns to SIPA 4 Alumni Profile Edet Belzberg: Addressing Social Issues and Telling Stories 5 Alumni Profile Bill de Blasio: Twists and Turns on the Campaign Trail 6 SIPA’s First Global Leadership Awards Dinner 8 Center for Brazilian Studies Opens at SIPA 9 Mapping Diversity in New York’s Muslim Communities 10 Going West: SIPA Sets Up Arizona Campus 12 15 MIA Program News Gitelson Symposium: The Role of the Private Sector in Public Service 16 MPA Program News 17 EMPA Program News 14 18 Faculty News 21 Class Notes Associate Dean Joan Turner Retires 26 Development News From the Dean: Lisa Anderson Bringing Alumni Together: From East Asia to the East Coast s I entered my fifth year company. She and faculty members, ganiello, that we secured Christopher as dean of the School of Madeleine Zelin and Xiabo Lu, were Reeve as the graduation speaker. International and Public particularly helpful in arranging our For many people, Christopher Affairs this spring, I was visits in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Reeve is Superman: an actor who once reminded of the contin- Receptions in northern and — indeed, several times — portrayed uing satisfactions of southern California also permitted me the epitome of strength and agility and Aassociation with the School. Although to meet with alumni and, on both is now paralyzed, thanks to a terribly I enjoy the quality of our distinguished sides of the Pacific, it was gratifying ironic accident. What fewer people faculty and talented students on a daily to see the extent to which, whether in know is the important work he has basis, I was pleased to once again see banking or media, government or done since his accident, that he has the remarkable caliber of our alumni as not-for-profit advocacy, SIPA gradu- been steeped in public policy as an I traveled to East Asia during spring ates are making a significant impact in activist on behalf of the disabled. break, and to California in late April. improving the lives and welfare of their He established the Christopher Reeve Accompanied by Brigette Bryant, fellow citizens. Paralysis Foundation to raise awareness SIPA’s senior development officer, I Back in New York at the end of and money for research on spinal cord visited Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, March, we showed off the remarkable injuries, and has seized every opportu- Los Angeles and San Francisco. quality of the students, faculty, alumni nity to lobby Congress, to exploit the As you will read elsewhere in this and administration at our first annual media attention that follows him, to magazine, we had a wonderful trip to Global Leadership Awards Dinner. use the fame and fortune he enjoyed as East Asia, as receptions in Tokyo and Seeing the Grand Ballroom of the an actor and celebrity to foster medical Hong Kong brought out good Plaza Hotel filled with old and new research and enhance the lives of the crowds; all told, we probably saw friends of SIPA, drawn to honor Ted disabled. The Foundation has been an eighty or ninety of SIPA’s illustrious Turner, George Mitchell and Human active supporter of both medical graduates who are living and working Rights Watch, and to extol the special research and a variety of programs for in East Asia. I also visited several uni- merits of SIPA was quite a thrill. Our people with disabilities, particularly versities to explore possible collabora- pleasure was only enhanced by the fact those in wheelchairs. tions, and ate my way through many a that the dinner produced a healthy We know that disability knows no wonderful meal: this trip was a culinary contribution to the Annual Fund’s boundaries nor does it respect class or as well as intellectual treat, and my support of fellowships. Nancy Riedl, age; the existence of strong, dedicated proficiency with chopsticks increased JoAnn Crawford and Rodrick Dial are advocates for research and quality of dramatically! among the SIPA staff who deserve life improvements for the disabled is an I am particularly grateful to the credit for the success of this event — important measure of our humanity co-chairs of the Japan Alumni Associa- although I was pleased and impressed today. As a graduation speaker, Reeve tion, Akiko Oi, ’00, Steve Greenburg, by the sartorial splendor exhibited by represented one of the elements of the ’98 and Yuji Takana, ’98 as well as fac- staff, faculty and students alike at the SIPA temperament that I hold most ulty members, Merit Janow and Bob event itself! dear: the capacity to make a virtue of Immerman, for their help in organiz- Commencement saw the gradua- necessity. All of us are committed to ing our visit to Tokyo. In Shanghai tion of the first class of our Executive making the world better than we and Hong Kong, we were guests of MPA program. These students, who found it. We are altruists — but we are Lan Yang, ’96 and her husband Bruno sacrificed most of their Saturdays — also pragmatists. We work, as the say- Wu. Lan, who is sometimes described and many late nights — over the past ing goes, with the cards we are dealt. as the Oprah Winfrey of China, com- two years in pursuit of a SIPA degree Fortunately, few of us turn up as bad a bines the on-screen career of a genuine while working full-time, were warmly hand as Reeve, but that only made his TV star with a very successful behind- welcomed to the graduation cere- capacity to turn it to our collective the-scenes business life at the head of a monies. Indeed, it was thanks to one advantage all the more resonant with new satellite and Internet production of the EMPA students, Michael Man- the spirit of SIPA. SIPAnews 1 Faculty Forum: Donald H. Johnston Where Is the Foreign News? deals with conflicts or natural disasters. TV shows, movies and books. Today There’s no denying the substance there are nearly 40,000 media outlets of the question. The major news media in the U.S. — all scrambling for the — television networks, large newspa- same dollars. pers, news magazines — have all but The control of all these profitable sacked their bureaus and staffs over- media forms has been consolidated seas, partly because of the public’s through mergers and buy-outs into diminishing appetite for foreign news, conglomerates whose bosses have their and partly because of the high expense eyes firmly on the bottom line. Family- of maintaining the staffs. As a result, owned newspapers, once common, there’s little foreign news on the major have been driven out of business or TV networks’ half-hour evening news- absorbed into chains or merged with casts; foreign news in the nation’s another paper by the corporate own- 1,500 daily newspapers, which have ers, leaving only a handful of cities with always been locally oriented, is regu- more than one newspaper. With local question commonly larly reduced to a small collection of TV focused on entertainment and asked by international briefs, except in a few large papers, and weather reports, citizens of the one- students at SIPA is why, foreign news has to fight for space in paper towns are limited in access to with the world becom- the news magazines that have shifted views on the news. ing globalized and more their focus to entertainment/celebrity The creeping consolidation, Ben interdependent, the U.S. events and “news you can use.” Even H. Bagdikian points out in his authori- Amedia carry only a paucity of foreign news? CNN, the 24-hour TV news channel tative book, The Media Monopoly, has The implication of the question acclaimed for its Gulf War coverage, reached the point that American media — that a superpower can’t lead out of has recently altered its format away are now dominated by six firms: ignorance — should be of concern to from hard news toward talk shows in General Electric, Viacom, Disney, everyone dealing with international an effort to boost its ratings. Time Warner (which is being merged affairs; yet the factors underlying the A fact about the U.S. media that with America On Line to make the question are not widely understood. tends to be overlooked is that they largest corporation in the business), In the historical context, the are — except for NPR and PBS — Bertelsmann (of Germany) and News question is a relatively new one that independent private businesses whose Corporation (Rupert Murdoch’s has evolved just over the last two purpose is to produce profits for their Australia-based firm). decades with the establishment of the shareholders. The majority of their Within these corporations, some Internet and the technological revolu- revenues come from advertising. of the media are subordinate parts, tion of communications. The answer is For example, newspapers on average which means that the news operations that the priorities for news coverage are now supported approximately 75 are subordinate to the bottom line. have been changed by the trends in the percent by advertising, and allocate In TV, for example, NBC is owned by American culture toward entertain- space on their pages accordingly. General Electric, ABC by Disney, CBS ment; and in the media business Moreover, the competition for by Viacom and CNN by Time Warner.