Author: lvidmar

Full lecture Q&A Podcast on iTunes
Coming soon: KWVA 88.1 Interview

David Bornstein, CEO and co-founder, Solutions Journalism Network
Demystifying: Why ‘Solutions Journalism’ Matters

Thursday, April 19, 4–5 p.m., 141 Allen Hall

David Bornstein is CEO and co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network, which works to establish the practice of solutions journalism — rigorous reporting that examines responses to social problems — as an integral part of mainstream news.

He has been a newspaper and magazine reporter for 25 years, having started his career working on the metro desk of New York Newsday. Since 2010, he has co-authored, with Tina Rosenberg, the “Fixes” column in The New York Times.

He is the author of three books: How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas (2003, Oxford University Press), The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank (1996, Simon & Schuster), and Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know (2010, Oxford University Press).

Full lecture Q&A Podcast on iTunes Podcast Transcript
Coming soon: KWVA 88.1 Interview

Will Grant, Cuba correspondent, BBC (2018 Journalist in Residence)
Demystifying: Reporting in Cuba, Mexico and Venezuela

Thursday, May 3, 4–5 p.m., 141 Allen Hall

Will Grant is one of the UK’s leading broadcast journalists on Latin American affairs. He has been the BBC’s Correspondent in Cuba since late 2014, shortly before the announcement of the re-establishment of diplomatic ties with the United States. In that time he has covered such historic moments as President Obama’s ground-breaking visit to Cuba and the death of the founder of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro.

Before taking up his role in Cuba, he was the BBC Correspondent in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez and Mexico / Central America during some of the most violent years of the drug war. Will was previously the Americas Editor at the BBC World Service Radio, based in London and Miami and has covered the region extensively for over twenty years.

In this talk, Grant will discuss being a journalist in Venezuela, Mexico and Cuba, three of the countries that have forged the biggest headlines in Latin America over the past decade.

Each country is different. Yet for reporters, there are certain similarities that can help us to produce informed, objective and balanced journalism in these fascinating nations. Whether dealing with political pressure from hostile authorities or having an awareness of personal security issues, understanding how to operate in the region can only strengthen the rich tradition of storytelling from Latin America as a whole.

Will Grant graduated with First Class Honours from Edinburgh University and gained his Masters degree from the University of London’s Institute of Latin American Studies.

Currently based in Havana, Will Grant will be a 2018 SOJC Journalist in Residence. He will be on campus: meeting with students and faculty Tuesday, May 1, through Friday, May 4.

Full lecture Q&A Podcast on iTunes

Coming soon: KWVA 88.1 Interview

Joy Mayer, Director of the Trusting News project
Demystifying: How Journalists Can Rebuild Trust

Thursday, May 17, 4–5 p.m., 141 Allen Hall

Joy Mayer is the director of The Trusting News project, which researches news consumers and then helps journalists earn trust and demonstrate credibility.

She is an adjunct faculty member at The Poynter Institute and the University of Florida and is a community engagement strategist based Sarasota, Florida.

She spent 12 years teaching at the Missouri School of Journalism, where she created an engagement curriculum and a community outreach team in the newsroom of the Columbia Missourian and also taught web design and print design.

Full lecture on iTunes Q&A Podcast on iTunes KWVA 88.1 Interview

John Capouya, Associate Professor of journalism and writing at the University of Tampa
Black Music Mattered: Demystifying Segregation, Integration and the Sounds of Soul

Thursday, February 1, 4–5 p.m., 141 Allen Hall

Journalist and professor John Capouya, author of the newly published book, Florida Soul, will discuss the evolution of rhythm and blues music in black communities and on the ”chitlin’ circuit” in the era of segregation; the vital role soul played in the civil rights movement; and how artists like Sam & Dave, James Brown, Aretha Franklin and Sam Cooke crossed over the racial divide into the mainstream, changing American culture.

In his presentation he will show vintage images and play this classic music.

Full lecture Q&A Podcast on iTunes KWVA 88.1 Interview

Jason Wambsgans, Chicago Tribune and a 2017 SOJC Journalist in Residence
Demystifying: Documenting Chicago’s Persistent Gun Violence

Thursday, February 1, 4–5 p.m., 141 Allen Hall

2017 Pulitzer Prize winning photographer E. Jason Wambsgans is a staff photographer at the Chicago Tribune, where he has spent the last 15 years covering stories that have taken him from the vanishing rainforests of Madagascar to the war in Afghanistan, and the last 5 years intensively documenting the problem of Chicago’s gun violence.  Wambsgans studied fine art and cinema at Central Michigan University. Throughout a career of wide-ranging assignments, his editors have counted on his ability to inventively meet challenges, whether aesthetic, technical or conceptual, while gracefully conveying the human experience.

Wambsgans won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Feature Photography, for what the judges observed was “a superb portrayal of a 10-year-old boy and his mother striving to put the boy’s life back together after he survived a shooting in Chicago.”

This talk explores his work in Chicago covering this important topic.

Full lecture on iTunes Q&A Podcast on iTunes KWVA 88.1 Interview

James T. Hamilton, Hearst Professor of Communication, Stanford University
Demystifying Investigative Reporting’s Future: Stories by, through, and about algorithms

Thursday, January 18, 4–5 p.m., 141 Allen Hall

Changes in media markets have put local investigative reporting particularly at risk. But new combinations of data and algorithms may make it easier for journalists to discover and tell the stories that hold institutions accountable. Based on his book Democracy’s Detectives: The Economics of Investigative Journalism,  Professor Hamilton explores how the future of accountability reporting will involve stories by, through, and about algorithms.

Dr. James Hamilton is the Hearst Professor of Communication, Director, of the Journalism Program and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Communication at Stanford University. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, Hamilton taught at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, where he directed the De Witt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy.

He earned a BA in Economics and Government (summa cum laude) and PhD in Economics from Harvard University.

Full lecture video Q&A Podcast on iTunes KWVA 88.1 Interview

Alan Abbey, MS ’77, Shalom Hartman Institute
Israeli Media and Threats to Israeli Press Freedoms

J100: Media Professions, Thursday, November 16, 2–3 p.m., 150 Columbia Hall

Alan D. Abbey is director of media at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, which he joined in 2008 after a 30-year career in journalism in the United States and Israel. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from the SOJC. He founded Ynetnews and was executive vice president at the Jerusalem Post. He is also an adjunct professor of Journalism at National University of San Diego and ethics lecturer for the Getty School of Citizen Journalism in the Middle East and North Africa. He was a leader of the Online News Association’s digital ethics team, which created the “Build Your Own” Ethics Code course and website, and he chaired the Hartman Institute-American Jewish Press Association Ethics Project. He is the author of Journey of Hope: The Story of Ilan Ramon, Israel’s First Astronaut.  A native of Brooklyn, New York, Abbey lives in Jerusalem with his wife and three children.

Israeli journalists are among the most aggressive, intense, politicized, opinionated, and competitive media professionals anywhere. They differ from American media in significant ways. This talk will look at this landscape and threats to press freedoms in Israel, as well as the media’s responses to these challenges.

Full lecture video Q&A Podcast on iTunes KWVA 88.1 Interview

Sara Wachter-Boettcher, BA ’05, Rare Union
Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Toxic Tech  

J201: Media and Society, Monday, November 13, 8:30–9:30 a.m., 156 Straub Hall

Sara Wachter-Boettcher is a content strategy and user experience expert who has worked on the web since she graduated from the SOJC (Magazine, 2005). As the principal of Rare Union, she’s led projects and facilitated workshops for Fortune 100 corporations, education and research institutions, and startups. Her new book, Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech, looks at the way technologists often embed a narrow worldview into the products they build, providing a revealing look at how tech industry bias and blind spots get baked into digital products—and harm us all.

In this talk she will explore some of the key themes from her book, and the impact of technology on society and consumers.

Full lecture video Q&A Podcast on iTunes KWVA 88.1 Interview Podcast Transcript

Troy Campbell, Assistant Professor, University of Oregon Lundquist College of Business
Why People “Fly from Facts”

J412: Fact or Fiction? Thursday, November 2, 12–1 p.m., 141 Allen Hall

Troy Campbell is a design psychologist, which means he uses psychology to design better experiences, communications, and education. He is an expert in consumer behavior, marketing social psychology, political psychology, and scientific communication. Campbell’s research uses psychology to understand what makes people happy, how social movements can be effective, the power of advertising, what makes a good experience (such as a music festival), and consumerism.

His talk will explore how—and why—people get away from facts that contradict their beliefs, and how to design communications and a society that leads us all back to truth.

Full lecture video Q&A Podcast on iTunes KWVA 88.1 Interview MediaShift Article

C. W. Anderson, Associate Professor of Media and Culture, College of Staten Island, City University of New York
Where Data Journalism Comes From

Monday, May 15, 6–7 p.m., 141 Allen Hall

C. W. Anderson is an associate professor at the College of Staten Island (CUNY) and incoming professor of media and communication at the University of Leeds.

He is the author of Rebuilding the News: Metropolitan Journalism in the Digital Age and Journalism: What Everyone Needs to Know (co-authored with former Washington Post Executive Editor Len Downie and sociologist Michael Schudson), which has been described as “an accessible, sweeping survey of the past, present, and future of journalism.”

Anderson is currently at work on a book tentatively titled Apostles of Certainty: Data Journalism and the Politics of Truth (Oxford), which examines the relationship between material evidence, computational processes, and notions of “context” from 1910 until the present. He is currently starting a project that he calls  The Dark Publics project to explore “opaque algorithms, political lies, emotions, narratives, self-delusional stories, and aesthetically interpreted facts.”

Anderson is on campus Monday, May 15, through Tuesday, May 16, and then in Portland until May 17.