A publication of the Indiana University School of Journalism Vol. 35, Issue 1 Spring 2009 Journalists in Transition The Chicago Tribune’s Gerould Kern | Pulitzer winner, AP bureau chief join faculty Dean’s Message Planning for the future of Ernie Pyle Hall today’s program and unable to handle any for modern video and audio work. growth in programs, technology, faculty or The office for the High School students by 2015 or 2025. Journalism Institute handles more than It is essential that we prepare for the 500 students each year but occupies less future success of this school, and I have than 120 square feet. Our career center asked our Journalism Alumni Board to and internship office make up about 100 join with me in reviewing options and square feet, which is not appropriate for planning for the best route over the next today’s students or marketplace. few years. Over the past few years, we’ve made Tyra Robertson Tyra IU’s master plan sets out growth for essential improvements. The auditorium Dean Brad Hamm the next 30 years or so, or to about 2040. was renovated. A new computer lab was We must consider Journalism’s place in installed. The main floor was brought s we prepare to celebrate Journalism’s the new plans because Ernie Pyle Hall up to current codes for handicapped Acentennial at IU in 2011, we must reached capacity about 15 years ago. accessibility. plan for the next few decades. The television studio and the research Our options are limited, though, on IU president Michael McRobbie hired center were eliminated in the 1990s. The the most basic need of more space. an architectural company, SmithGroup/ Indiana Daily Student newsroom space was Ernie Pyle Hall is blocked on all sides JJR of Washington, D.C., nearly a year ago reduced 10 years ago. Offices for adjunct by traffic routes to the Indiana Memorial to develop master plans for new buildings, faculty and graduate students who taught Union and other important university traffic patterns and green space on the were shared by two, then three, then buildings. What makes the location ideal Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses. four and now as many as eight people in also makes it impossible to grow. Some The plans will be presented to the Board 10-by-12-foot rooms. have recommended adding a floor or of Trustees in February. Student clubs once had offices in the two but that won’t work with the current This space review leads to important building but no more. Even the 2008 building structure. questions for the future of the School of national SPJ student chapter of the year The university is allowing us to use Journalism in Bloomington. has no space. There are no rooms for First a small home along Woodlawn Avenue Sixty-five years ago, journalism moved Amendment or journalism ethics centers (Ernie Pyle Hall is at the corner of into the building known as Ernie Pyle or a Hall of Fame, which are common Seventh and Woodlawn), a short walk Hall. The hall has served thousands of stu- at nearly every other major journalism from our building, starting in the spring. dents. The location is ideal but the build- school. An important academic problem: We paid for renovations in the summer ing is small — much too small to serve We have little room inside the building and fall to make it usable. The home has space for two classrooms on the first floor and three offices on the second floor. • Most but not all of the Bloomington alumni have studied and worked in Ernie Yet the 2,000-square-foot space is only a Pyle Hall. From 1911 to 1954, journalism students took classes in multiple small gain compared to the needs. buildings in the historic part of the campus. We will keep the Ernie Pyle name. • Starting in 1954, under director John Stempel, the program moved into a new We like the location at Seventh and space named for its most famous student, who had died less than 10 years Woodlawn. And we plan to increase the earlier. About 100 journalism students were enrolled in 1955. The department space for student media in a new build- shared the space with other university functions. ing or addition. From those simple guides, we must • By 1975, nearly 400 students were enrolled. The building needed extensive design a building to serve Indiana renovations, and director Richard Gray led a fundraising campaign that resulted University and the next generation of in a complete overhaul. Faculty and students moved into another building along journalism students. Seventh Street while Ernie Pyle Hall was remade inside. • Today, the number of students exceeds 800, or eight times larger than the 1954 number that moved into the new building. Page 28 CONTENTS 02 Calendar of Events 03 The Scoop Ask the Pro 16 Tom French’s Next Chapter by Aline Mendelsohn, BAJ’01 18 A World of Experience by Anne Kibbler, MA’88 22 Journalists in Transition Gerould Kern takes charge at the Chicago Tribune. by Martha Groves, BA’72 Page 16 Page 30 28 Leading Through Change by Olivia Clarke, BAJ’00 33 Student Experiences Tianjin, China Washington, D.C. Houston 36 On the Record Class Notes Obituaries Pulitzer winner Tom French joins faculty. Ernie Pyle’s typewriter tells tales. Alumni Bookshelf 45 Reminisce with Marge Newswire is published by the Indiana University School of Copy Editors Ernie’s Typewriter Still Telling Stories Journalism with support from the Journalism Alumni Board. Marjorie (Smith) Blewett, BA’48 It is mailed twice each year to alumni, faculty, staff and Doris Brineman, BA’48 friends of the school. Elizabeth Wallis Winkler, BA’52 46 The Big Picture Please send questions, comments and story ideas to Staff Writers Anne Kibbler, Editor, IU School of Journalism, 940 E. Matt McClain, BAJ’98 Riya V. Anandwala Seventh St., Bloomington, IN 47405 or e-mail her at Greg Ruhland [email protected]. Shannon Ryker , (bottom left) Cherie Diez, right) IU Archives Dean Ariel Tung Brad Hamm Design Editor Mediaworks Chicago Tribune Anne Kibbler, MA’88 The Kicker graphic Consulting Editors Nina Mehta, BAJ’07 Gena Asher, BA’79, MLS’03, MIS’03 Kurtis Beavers, BA’03 Bonnie J. Brownlee, BA’72, MA’75 Beth (Spangle) Moellers, BAJ’99, MA’05 COVER: Illustration by Kurtis Beavers (top) John Konstantaras, Letters State Fair edition revisited Marge Blewett’s column on the State Fair edition 1955, distance from Bloomington, available of the IDS photographers take her picture of the Indiana Daily Student in the fall 2008 staffing and increasing costs were making it while she was on stage. It was the front-page Newswire brought back memories for several difficult to run. I was the editor that sum- story on the State Fair edition. And caused a alumni. Here are excerpts from some of the mer because I had just been hired at Crown lot of yelling and screaming from the sort of correspondence we received. Point High School as a publications adviser people who were likely to be upset by that “What fun to read your State Fair Daily to teach journalism and English. John and sort of thing. They were outraged: How could Student memories in the recent Newswire! Gretchen Kemp thought it would be a great a department of the state university assign, I had the privilege of working on the State way to get to know my new community … a no, force, an innocent young girl into doing Fair staff in 1954 and then was editor for typically gracious thought on their parts.” something so degrading? Dad’s defense of the final Lake County Fair editions in Crown Janice Linke Dean, BA’55 her was that she was not assigned or forced Point in 1955. to do this, but had done it on her own, One of Dean’s memories was of Ginny “I thought perhaps I could add a few which showed the kind of initiative that he Krause, BA’55, “feathered costume and all, memories and clarify a couple of them. First, expected good journalists to develop. Ginny going on stage at a tent burlesque show at the clarifying: The Lake County issues were thanked him by having the photograph of the fair in order to write a first person feature printed in the Crown Point shop of The Lake her in her costume made up as a Valentine story.” Stempel’s son, Tom, a professor of cinema County Star, a weekly with Charlotte Wheeler with a red cardboard heart around it and giv- at Los Angeles City College, wrote about his Verplank, BA’20, as editor. She was a loyal IU ing it to him the following year. It was in his recollection of the same incident: grad and she and John Stempel thought the desk until the day he died.” “Ginny wrote up the story and had one Fair Daily Student a great idea. However, by Calendar of Events THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12 TUESDAY, MARCH 31 an economics reporter for The New York Alumni networking event Steve Kroft Times, Nasar discovered the remarkable 5:30 - 8:30 p.m. at the Metropolitan Club, 7 p.m. at the Buskirk- story of John Nash, the Princeton math- Oak Room, Sears Tower, Chicago Chumley Theater, ematical genius who suffered from schizo- Bloomington Reconnect with old friends, network with phrenia for three decades before recovering and winning a Nobel Prize in economics. fellow journalism alumni and meet journalism Steve Kroft has been a students who are in Chicago to visit various CBS news correspondent SPRING 2009 media across the city.