News Releases: 2008 Calendar Year

May 2008

May 16, 2008: Missouri School of Journalism Featured in New Newseum The Newseum, billed as the world's most interactive news museum, features 14 major galleries, 15 theaters, two broadcast studios and a 4-D time-travel experience. The 250,000-square-foot complex cost $450 million and mixes up-to-the-minute news with centuries of journalism history. The Missouri School of Journalism is one of the few universities mentioned in the complex. [More]

May 9, 2008: School of Journalism to Recognize 499 Graduates at Spring Commencement Ceremonies The Missouri School of Journalism will recognize its 499 May and August graduates during commencement ceremonies at 2 p.m., Friday, May 16, at Mizzou Arena. Family and friends of the graduates do not need tickets to attend. Seating will be open. . [More]

April 2008

April 25, 2008: Gift Creates Opportunities for Science Journalism Students, Honors Former Journalism Professor A recent gift to the Missouri School of Journalism will give students the opportunity to gain experience and explore career options in science, health and technology journalism. Named for his J-School mentor, the $100,000 gift from Russell G. Smith II and his wife, Gail, establishes the Smith/Patterson Science Journalism Fellowship and Lecture Series. [More]

April 25, 2008: Sponsorship Opportunities Now Available for the 2008 Centennial/Dedication Celebration Founding dean Walter Williams opened the world's first school of journalism on Sept. 14, 1908. One hundred years later, as the Missouri School of Journalism celebrates its centennial, the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute will open its doors. Sponsorship opportunities are now available to allow companies and organizations to congratulate the School and the Institute on these milestones and to help fund important conversations about the future of journalism. [More]

April 24, 2008: Ten Graduate Students to Be Selected for Prestigious WHCA-Missouri Fellowship in Government Affairs Reporting The White House Correspondents' Association will announce at its annual dinner on Saturday, April 26, a new WHCA-Missouri Fellowship Program in government affairs reporting. The Missouri School of Journalism was one of three schools selected by the WHCA for their innovative new scholarships at the graduate level. [More]

April 23, 2008: Centennial/Dedication Registration Now Open Registration for the Sept. 10-12 Missouri School of Journalism Centennial and Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute Dedication is now open, and alumni and friends will begin receiving packets within the next few weeks that include an event guide, the registration form and other informational pieces. [More]

April 23, 2008: Woelfel Selected as Chairman-elect for RTNDA Stacey Woelfel was elected national chairman-elect of the Radio-Television News Directors Association at its recent meeting in Las Vegas. He will produce the 2009 RTNDA convention. An associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, Woelfel also serves as news director for KOMU-TV, the only university-owned commercial television station in the United States that uses its newsroom as a working lab for students. [More]

April 18, 2008: President and CEO of Fleishman-Hillard to Deliver Raymond M. Solomon Memorial Lecture Dave Senay, president and CEO of Fleishman-Hillard, will deliver the 2008 Raymond M. Solomon Memorial Lecture at 10 a.m., Monday, April 21, in Fisher Auditorium at the Missouri School of Journalism. Headquartered in St. Louis, Fleishman-Hillard is part of Omnicom Group Inc., a leading global marketing and corporate communications company. [More]

April 14, 2008: MU Journalism Professor to Direct USC Journalism School Geneva Overholser, currently an endowed chair for the MU School of Journalism at its Washington, D.C. bureau, has been named the director of the journalism school at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. Overholser said that although she will miss her MU colleagues and her students in Washington, D.C., she is ready to embrace the administrative responsibilities of her new position. [More]

April 9, 2008: J-School Alumnus Steve Fainaru Awarded Pulitzer Prize Six Pulitzer Prizes were awarded to The Washington Post on Monday, one of which went to a Missouri School of Journalism alumnus. Steve Fainaru's 10-part series on how private security contractors in Iraq operate outside many of the laws governing U.S. Forces won the award for International Reporting. Fainaru, 46, graduated from the School of Journalism in 1984. [More]

April 8, 2008: Global News Professionals Offer Open-minded Alternatives for American Journalism Concerns about the future of the press are not just American; they're global. Some of the solutions emerging from other countries were discussed recently during the joint centennial celebration of the Missouri School of Journalism and the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. [More]

April 7, 2008: Dow Jones Newspaper Fund Awards 11 Missouri Journalism Students with Summer Internships The prestigious Dow Jones Newspaper Fund has awarded 11 Missouri School of Journalism students summer internships in news, sports and news wire copy editing. Each student will receive pre-internship training and a weekly salary for the 10-week internship. Interns who return to college full time the following fall will receive $1,000 scholarships from the Newspaper Fund. [More]

March 2008

March 20, 2008: Mojo Ad Pitches Mobile Platform Strategies to Television Bureau of Advertising Executives The Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB), a New York-based trade association that promotes local broadcast advertising platforms, recently employed Mojo Ad to develop mobile advertising campaigns targeted to an 18-to-24-year-old audience. Mojo Ad is the School's student-staffed strategic communication agency, specializing in creating solutions to reach the ultra-savvy youth and young adult (YAYA©) market. [More]

March 18, 2008: 12 Missouri Journalism Seniors Named to Elite Mizzou '39 The Mizzou Alumni Association Student Board (AASB) recently named 12 Missouri School of Journalism seniors to the 2008 class of Mizzou '39. Created by the AASB in 2005, the name pays tribute to the spirit of service modeled by the families that supported the founding of the University in 1839. Each year, only 39 of the more than 3,000 graduating seniors at the University of Missouri earn this distinction. [More]

March 17, 2008: Mark Carter Named CCJ Executive Director and Goldenson Chair at the Missouri School of Journalism Mark Carter, a 20-year veteran media executive, strategist, reporter and executive producer, is the new executive director of the Committee of Concerned Journalists and the Goldenson Chair in Community Broadcasting at the Missouri School of Journalism, effective today. [More]

March 14, 2008: Missouri School of Journalism Welcomes Two New Faculty Members The Missouri School of Journalism welcomed two new faculty members for the winter 2008 semester. Mark Horvit joined the journalism studies faculty as an associate professor and executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors, and Karen Mitchell joined the convergence journalism faculty as an assistant professor. [More]

March 7, 2008: Columbia Missourian Sports Section, Two Students Score Big at APSE For the second year in a row, the Columbia Missourian sports desk brought home top awards from the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) contest. This year, the paper also added two individual awards to its collection. Missouri Journalism senior Jeff Birnbaum's story "Willy-Mo" was named as one of the top 10 features, and junior Andrew Astleford's story "A Question of Acceptance" was named as one of the top 10 explanatory pieces. [More]

March 6, 2008: Missouri Journalism Professor Studies Influence of 19th Century Journalism in Shaping the Nation's History A new study by Betty Winfield, an MU Curators' professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, entitled "The Continuous Past: Historical Referents in Nineteenth-Century American Journalism," revealed that 19th century American journalism was significantly influential in shaping the nation's early history in an era when there were little or no published history records. [More]

March 6, 2008: Broadway Play "The Front Page" to be Performed at Centennial/Dedication Celebration As part of the Sept. 10-12 centennial/dedication events at the Missouri School of Journalism, the Maplewood Barn Community Theatre, mid-Missouri's historic outdoor theatre company, will host a performance of "The Front Page," the award-winning Broadway comedic play about journalists, the afternoon of Sept. 11. [More]

March 6, 2008: Missouri School of Journalism Senior Makes Worldwide Impact with 14-part Autism Series on KOMU Missouri School of Journalism radio-television journalism senior Ashley Reynolds will enter the job market after graduating this December with an impressive resume credential under her belt - a 14-part series on autism that not only reached an estimated 150,000 viewers in the mid-Missouri area, but also received worldwide attention for the depth of the reporting. [More]

March 4, 2008: Missouri Association of Publications to Host Annual Conference Best-selling author and award-winning journalist Mike Sager heads a list of publication professionals speaking at the Missouri Association of Publications' Fourth Annual Publications Summit, March 6-7, at the University of Missouri's Memorial Union. About 175 writers, editors, designers, graphic artists and publishers from consumer, business, educational and governmental print and electronic publications will participate. [More]

February 2008

Feb. 28, 2008: Around the World with Movie Director Tim Burton Missouri School of Journalism photojournalism graduate student Leah Gallo used skills she learned during her master's program to get a job photographing on the set of the movie Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Photojournalism students have many avenues to use their skills, other than traditional jobs. [More]

Feb. 26, 2008: School Alumnus and Cartoonist for The New Yorker to Contribute to Centennial/Dedication As a tribute to the School that helped him launch his successful career in advertising and cartooning, Michael Shaw, MA '92, will serve as the contributing cartoonist for the centennial of the Missouri School of Journalism and dedication of the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute. Shaw's cartoons will be on display at the Sept. 10-12 centennial/dedication celebration, a three-day extravaganza featuring a variety of social, professional and educational activities. [More]

Feb. 21, 2008: New Book Offers Insider's View of the World's First School of Journalism A Journalism of Humanity: A Candid History of the World's First Journalism School, a new book by Missouri School of Journalism Professor Steve Weinberg, highlights 100 years of behind-the-scenes decisions, conflicts and turning points as leaders at the School carried on Williams' precedent of improving the profession through innovation in training for journalism. [More]

Feb. 21, 2008: Scholarly Symposium to Highlight 1908 as a Pivotal Year in American Journalism A group of nationally renowned scholars and writers will help launch the centennial/dedication celebration by taking a look back at the year 1908 and its role in the history of American journalism. The symposium, "From Whence We Came to Where We're Going," will be held from noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 10, at the Donald W. Reynolds Alumni Center on the MU campus. [More]

Feb. 12, 2008: Sarah Copeland, BJ '99, of the Food Network to Serve as Centennial/Dedication Consulting Chef Sarah Copeland, BJ '99, has been named the consulting chef for the Sept. 10-12, 2008, celebration of the Missouri School of Journalism Centennial and Reynolds Journalism Institute Dedication. She will help design the opening meal event on Sept. 10 and the closing meal event on Sept. 12, both to be held at Mizzou Arena. [More]

Feb. 8, 2008: Strategic Communication Senior Selected to Most Promising Minority Students Program Brandon C. Byrd, a Missouri School of Journalism senior majoring in strategic communication, is one of 50 students in the nation selected by the American Advertising Federation to join the Most Promising Minority Students Program (MPMS). The prestigious award allowed him to travel to New York City with fellow students from Feb. 5-7 to meet with representatives from successful advertising agencies and media companies at the New York Athletic Club. [More]

Feb. 7, 2008: New Innocence Project Gives Students Investigative Reporting Experience and Legal Knowledge The Missouri School of Journalism launched a new Innocence Project, created in conjunction with law schools at MU and the University of Missouri–Kansas City, in January 2008. Innocence projects around the country perform research and advocacy related to awareness and overturning wrongful convictions. Professor Steve Weinberg is teaching an introductory Innocence Project course, which will be a collaborative effort between students at both campuses, and a second-semester fieldwork course. [More]

Feb. 6, 2008: Missouri School of Journalism to Celebrate Centennial Anniversary with National Press Club March 28 On March 28, the Missouri School of Journalism and the National Press Club will honor their intersecting histories with a joint centennial celebration at the NPC headquarters in Washington, D.C. The program, The Next Century: Journalism for a Digital Globe, features media professionals from around the world who will talk about the bright future of journalism in the public interest. [More]

January 2008

Jan. 31, 2008: Strategic Communication Students to Benefit from $100,000 Scholarship Endowment Louise Black Jadel, BJ '46, recently gave $100,000 to create an endowed scholarship for future Missouri Journalism students studying strategic communication, an emphasis area focused on advertising and public relations training. The gift supports 100 by 100: The Centennial Campaign for the Missouri School of Journalism, an effort to increase financial commitments to the School's endowment to $100 million by 2008. [More]

Jan. 14, 2008: Missouri Press Association Announces Centennial Golf Classic Golf enthusiasts will have a chance to tee-off the social side of the Missouri School of Journalism Centennial and Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute Dedication with the Missouri Press Association's Centennial Golf Classic. The golf outing will begin at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 10, at the University of Missouri's A.L. Gustin Golf Course. The early registration fee, due by May 1, is $50 and includes a cart, greens fees, lunch and give-a-ways. [More]

Jan. 11, 2008: Informal Reunions and Group Gatherings Night Available at Centennial-Dedication On Sept. 10-12, 2008, the Missouri School of Journalism will celebrate its centennial and the dedication of the new Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute with a three-day extravaganza of events. The evening of Sept. 11 is being left open to allow alumni and guests to enjoy their own social time and the Tiger Twilight Festival, an annual celebration of Mizzou pride in downtown Columbia. [More]