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January 2011
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For the Love of Journalism
How Three Couples Survived J-School and Lived to Tell the Tale...Through Marriage
By Chelsea Reynolds
Master's Student
Journalism students frequently cite Shakespeare's pizza after midnight, Missourian edits, Mizzou football games watched at The Berg and even last-minute homework sessions in the J-Café with fellow students as some of their favorite J-School memories. But for a select few Missouri grads, something more steadfast sticks with them from their academic experiences. That's the love that they fostered and then promised for life with other graduates of the Missouri School of Journalism.
Scroll through the couples below to learn about how six J-School grads met, courted and eventually married despite lives packed with doubled deadlines, irregular hours and professional competition.
Charlie Hanger, MA '99, Magazine Journalism, and Becky (Lebowitz) Hanger, MA '00, Photojournalism
At their October 2004 wedding, Charlie and Becky Hanger pose for a photo with a crowd that includes several former MU master's students. Attendees of the Boston event also included Amanda Hinnant (second from right), assistant professor of magazine journalism, and Jennifer Rowe (behind Becky), associate professor of magazine journalism. Photo: Porter Gifford.
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They're not sure if it was love at first sight or dumb luck that brought them together, but Charlie Hanger, executive editor for Golf.com, and wife Becky, a photo editor for The New York Times, give full credit for their marriage to the Missouri School of Journalism. The couple met on the first day of J-School orientation for incoming master's students. In the sea of new peers' faces, they immediately noticed one another.
"I thought he was cute as soon as I first saw him," Becky says. "That was in January of 1998."
The two chatted casually through the first month of mass media seminar, the introductory class required for all incoming master's students, and by February they were an item. Becky and Charlie bonded over Booches burgers and a number of shared courses, but had it not been for the School of Journalism, neither believes their relationship would have blossomed.
"We were a small, close-knit group of master's students who were intellectually and academically similar in our interests," Charlie explains. "That social group was unique to the J-School and definitely played a role in forming our relationship."
After Charlie graduated in August 1999, he moved to New York City for a job with The New York Times, while Becky stayed in Columbia until she received her degree in December 2000. More than 1,050 miles separated the two when they lived in New York and Columbia. When Becky took a job at the Palm Beach (Fla.) Post in 2001, the distance between them increased to nearly 1,250 miles, but after more than three years of living apart, Becky finally relocated to New York City in 2004.
The shift was a big one. After years of sporadic visits, Becky and Charlie both lived under the same roof and worked at The New York Times. But despite such a lifestyle change, they didn't find working and living with a fellow journalist difficult. In fact, they relish it.
"It's nice that we both understand the time constraints and the demands that the job puts on us," Becky says. "Plus, the Times is such a big newsroom, so we didn't work together professionally at all. For most of the time, we even worked opposite hours."
The two, both career-driven, motivated media professionals, focused on career development and building their savings for a few more years before they decided to marry.
"We had been dating for seven years at that point," Becky says. "We bought the ring together. It was sort of a formality because we'd known long before getting engaged that we'd eventually get married."
In October 2003, Charlie asked for Becky's hand after a run through Loose Park rose garden in Kansas City. Almost exactly one year later, the two were married in Boston, Becky's hometown.
"We had a very large Mizzou contingent there," Charlie says. "We left Missouri and came to New York, and our social circle for our first seven years out of school was somehow made of the same close friends from Columbia."
The Hangers now reside in Brooklyn with their two sons: Sam, 3, and Martin, 18 months. They say one of the best things about being married to a fellow J-Schooler is the empathy each has for the other during tight deadlines or crazy news cycles.
"It's all about those five or six times a year when I have to work 6 a.m. until midnight or Tiger Woods has a car crash on Thanksgiving, and Becky doesn't complain when she has to take the kids alone for a few hours," Charlie says.
Wright Thompson, BJ '01, Magazine Journalism, and Sonia (Weinberg) Thompson, BJ '02, Magazine Journalism
Sonia and Wright Thompson stand in front of the columns on MU's Francis Quadrangle just outside Neff Hall. Sonia's father, Steve Weinberg, taught at the Missouri School of Journalism for more than 30 years. Photo: Wright and Sonia Thompson.
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Just because both members of a couple have a Missouri journalism degree doesn't necessarily mean they met in Lee Hills Hall or Walter Williams Hall. Wright Thompson, senior writer for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine, and wife Sonia, associate managing editor of Invitation Oxford (Miss.) and Invitation Tupelo (Miss.) magazines, both graduated with magazine degrees just one year apart. But they never locked eyes until mutual friends introduced them in Manhattan in June 2004.
"I was living in New York at the time, and Wright was there on assignment," Sonia says. "We met through Mizzou friends, and it just felt natural to me. We bonded talking about Shakespeare's pizza and Booches burgers."
Wright was immediately infatuated. He asked Sonia out for a first date the very night they met. But, as is not surprising for a journalist, Wright had to cancel because he was late meeting a deadline.
Despite his initial faux pas, the couple began seeing each other over casual dinners or drinks during Wright's work trips into the City while doing sports reporting for the Kansas City Star. Things got serious over a year of dating, and the couple became engaged Memorial Day weekend 2005. Both Wright and Sonia remember the proposal as particularly over-the-top.
"I picked her up at her apartment in a Lincoln Towncar, took her to the bar where we first met, then went to Carmine's on the Upper West Side where I stood her up for that very first date," Wright recalls. "She should've known something was up because I didn't eat. I was too nervous."
After dinner at Carmine's, Wright escorted Sonia to an apartment on 14th Street: It happened to belong to the two friends who introduced the pair and was a location they frequented when Wright was in town. Wright got down on one knee and asked her to marry him in the street, the place where he thinks he should have first kissed Sonia when they were dating. The night wrapped up with a rendezvous at PJ Clarke's, the historic Midtown pub frequented by New York City socialites.
"I arranged for us to sit at the table Frank Sinatra always sat at, and they covered it in a white tablecloth and red rose petals," Wright says. "It was very elaborate."
Such dedication to detail is what Sonia appreciates most in Wright, as a husband and as a fellow journalist.
"He has a tendency to do everything big," she says. "I didn't really suspect he would ask me to marry him that night because Wright does everything like that. He lives large."
The couple was married at Calvary Episcopal Church in Columbia in May 2006. In attendance were many J-School alumni and faculty, including Sonia's father, Professor Emeritus Steve Weinberg. The wedding reception was held on campus at the Reynolds Alumni Center, and the afterparty was at the Heidelberg.
Today, Wright and Sonia reside in Oxford, Miss. Although Sonia works as an editor for city magazines and Wright as a writer for a national sports title, the two meld their professional lives seamlessly. They don't focus on work while at home, but they both say the conversation often leads there organically.
At home, their biggest battles concern their work processes. Sonia is a self-described neat-freak, while Wright has been known to wallpaper his office with Post-It notes of story ideas. But both agree that life would be very different had they not attended the J-School and entered the same field.
"I really can't imagine being married to someone who isn't a journalist," Sonia says. "We collaborate all the time, whether we mean to or not."
And Wright agrees.
"She is my secret weapon. She reads every story I file, and in various spots she has dragooned me into writing for her. Anytime I have a success, she's a huge part of it."
The best part about being married to fellow journalists?
"We're both sensitive to the other person's career," Sonia says, "because the creative process can sometimes be overwhelming."
Andrew Niesen, BJ '00, Photojournalism, and Rachel (LaCour) Niesen, BJ '00, Photojournalism
In May 2000, Rachel and Andrew Niesen were wed at a small chapel in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Atlanta. "Our wedding party was half-comprised of J-School grads," Andrew says. Photo: Kyle Newton.
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Not only do these two photojournalism grads live together and work in the same field, but they also own and operate a company together. The Niesens are the proud visionaries behind ShootQ, a software company that helps freelance photographers build their businesses. Andrew is president and co-founder, and Rachel serves as vice president of marketing.
"The company is basically a left brain for right-brain people," Rachel says. "It helps with invoicing, logistics, correspondences and custom branding. We help fellow photographers stay organized, and it initially helped us organize our own photography."
The couple, who worked together as freelance wedding photographers after graduating from the J-School, designed ShootQ in order to serve their own business needs. But before the two were joined professionally and matrimonially, they were photojournalism undergrads at Mizzou.
Andrew shared a house with a number of fellow photojournalism students with whom Rachel was closely acquainted. When they first met, Rachel had planned to meet one of Andrew's roommates for a dinner date. This particular individual forgot the dinner plans, so that night in September 1999, Andrew invited Rachel to share a meal instead.
"It was just an accidental dinner," he says. "But we realized quickly that we were really missing out on an incredible relationship."
Soon, the two were heading to Shakespeare's after deadlines at the Missourian or to Booches for burgers and beers. And by the end of December, Andrew and Rachel were engaged. In May 2000 they both graduated, and on Sept. 30 they were married at a chapel in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Atlanta, Rachel's hometown.
"Our wedding party was half-comprised of J-School grads," Andrew says. "And Rachel even exchanged her services as a wedding photographer for her wedding dress."
After their wedding, the Niesens started shooting weddings and advertising campaigns for higher educational institutions together as a response to what they call "a lull in newspaper hiring." By 2002, they had established a consistent clientele and were named two of the nation's top 10 wedding photographers by American Photo magazine. The couple agrees that their journalistic approach to wedding photography is what earned them such esteem within a facet of photography that doesn't always use photojournalistic methods.
"We applied all the exact techniques from journalism school to shooting weddings," Andrew says. "People appreciate the genuineness of the shoots once they're all said and done."
Although working as a couple has taught Andrew and Rachel to trust one another professionally, the financial woes associated with starting a business have been a challenge.
"It was all or nothing," Andrew says of their marriage and their finances.
But as of this year, the Niesens have recovered all the money they invested in the company and are excited about profiting from the business they built together.
"Now we're a lot more relaxed regarding our finances," Rachel says. "But there is something to be said for being tenaciously committed to a far-off and hard-to-achieve goal."
They recently moved ShootQ to a studio outside their home, which they admit is a relief for their relationship and business.
"It's been a huge help to have work and home separated," Andrew says. "We recognize that two Type-A personalities need executive power over their own domains and having an office has allowed us to do that."
The Niesens reside in Atlanta with their three cats. They still shoot about a dozen weddings a year, in between the hectic hours they spend managing ShootQ.
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