By Austin Fitzgerald

COLUMBIA, Mo. (Aug. 19, 2024) — Jann Carl, BJ ’82, a master storyteller with more than a decade of award-winning experience in local broadcast news and 14 years at the height of entertainment news as an anchor of “Entertainment Tonight,” is joining the Missouri School of Journalism as an assistant professional practice professor.

Carl will put that experience to work guiding students through the process of pitching, writing, editing and presenting journalism at NBC affiliate KOMU-TV while also teaching in the classroom.

“Jann’s long and varied experience in the industry makes her a tremendous addition to the School of Journalism’s faculty,” said David Kurpius, dean of the School. “Through her, students will have access to hard-earned insights from a nationally renowned interviewer and journalist that they can’t get anywhere else.”

Throughout more than 40 years in television, Carl has worked at virtually every level of production, from anchoring local and national news and entertainment programs to reporting and executive producing. Before “Entertainment Tonight,” her local news coverage at KTLA in Los Angeles earned her three Emmy Awards.

For Carl, the role represents a return to the place where she cut her teeth as a student and a teacher.

“I was able to be a teaching assistant at KOMU the last year I was there, and I loved it,” Carl said. “I loved having the students come for their very first semester there and helping shoot their stories, edit, talk them through it. I always thought I would come back to it. It’s happening later than I thought, but everything seems to have fallen into place. It feels like it was meant to be.”

Carl’s approach to broadcast journalism is a natural fit for the School’s Missouri Method of hands-on learning. “Small Town Big Deal,” her nationally syndicated television show, has seen her travel to small towns all over America to tell stories that have otherwise gone largely unnoticed by national media. That format meshes well with the School’s emphasis on students producing community reporting that not only serves the local Columbia community but reaches out to tell the stories of rural and underserved Missourians.

I look forward to being able to my share experiences, and to have that light in their eyes shine when they understand something I’m telling them. It’s a bit like being an athletic coach—you can read about what it’s like to be a great golfer, but when you have a great coach or a great trainer, you can really step it up, and that’s what we endeavor to do at the J-School. It’s that coaching that helped shape me and gave me the opportunity to succeed.

Jann Carl

And when it comes to teaching, she envisions offering personalized, practical feedback that she likens more to sports coaching than to traditional classroom instruction.

“I look forward to being able to my share experiences, and to have that light in their eyes shine when they understand something I’m telling them,” Carl said. “It’s a bit like being an athletic coach—you can read about what it’s like to be a great golfer, but when you have a great coach or a great trainer, you can really step it up, and that’s what we endeavor to do at the J-School. It’s that coaching that helped shape me and gave me the opportunity to succeed.”

One such coach for her was Dave Dugan, who taught the entry-level broadcast reporting class at the School of Journalism for 15 years. Dugan gave her a piece of advice she has never forgotten: find a job that you like and that you’re good at, because a job missing one of those elements will prove to be frustrating.

Other lessons have come from her own experience. She recalls seeing the impact of the media firsthand when, in the first year of her very first professional reporting job at Chicago’s WLS-TV, her own coverage, of the abduction of Jennifer Monte encouraged the public to come forward with tips that led to Monte’s safe recovery.

Now, as someone who has interviewed the likes of Tom Cruise, Oprah Winfrey, the Obamas and the Trumps for an audience of millions, she hopes that, like Dugan, she will be an impactful influence for students looking to find their own place in a competitive and quickly evolving industry.

“I think that at a university, part of our job is to help students find their path to what they really love to do,” Carl said. “Many students aren’t quite sure what they want to do. We can show them what is possible and help them really evaluate what is important to experience, enjoy and accomplish.”

Of course, teaching won’t be the first time Carl has given back to the community. In both national and Los Angeles stints, she co-hosted the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) Telethon for a quarter of a century and also served in national leadership roles at MDA. At Mizzou, she has repeatedly returned to boost fundraising efforts and served as grand marshal for 2001’s homecoming festivities. She was recognized with MU’s Faculty Alumni Award in 2009 and the Distinguished Service Award in 2016.

Yet higher education has special meaning for Carl. Her father graduated from Mizzou, but she was the first woman on her mother’s side to earn a college degree—her mother worked three jobs in high school, helping deliver milk before school, waiting tables and teaching at a dance studio in the evenings, displaying a strong work ethic that carried over into Carl.

“That’s why I take it to heart how much it means to have the opportunity to go to college,” she added. “I feel incredibly lucky to be able to give back to the J-School. Not only did I gain so much knowledge, but there is absolutely no way I would have had the career that I have had without the J-School.”

Updated: August 19, 2024