MJF students visit CNN and HLN
MJF added Atlanta, home to CNN and HLN, to its growing list of study away locations for students to enhance their professional development skills, thanks to the generosity of our distinguished alum Lynn Smith.
Smith, a 2001 mass communication graduate and current host of Headline News Network’s (HLN) “Weekend Express” hosted 6 current journalism students at the CNN global headquarters in Atlanta from senior clinical faculty member Joe Sampson's TV news class for 4 days in February. 
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The Report for Ohio Fund is a significant opportunity for MJF and its majors, and we hope you might consider supporting it via the Miami University Foundation.
We ideally would like to raise $500,000 to support a 2-year pilot. We have already raised $15,000 toward this goal. 
To remember Cheryl Heckler's commitment to her students, consider donating to the Reid-Heckler Fund. Please note the fund you'd like to donate to in the "comments or additional gift details" box.
You can also mail checks to:
Miami University Foundation
725 E. Chestnut Street

Oxford OH 45056 
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From the Chair ... one last time!
Richard Campbell
Dear Alumni:
This will be my last column, after 14 years of first directing the journalism program and now chairing our Media, Journalism & Film department. I will not miss spending half of each workday on email, mostly advising students, trouble-shooting for faculty, and responding to the dean and provost requests (they survive on a steady fix of updates and reports, and I am one of their suppliers). I will not miss that feeling at the end of those days when I cannot recall what was accomplished on a particular day. I probably will not miss being the boss … but we’ll see. I will be back for one more year to teach … and to remember what a great job it is just to be a professor.
In my last letter, I talked about our successful program review and our many accomplishments over the five years that we have officially been MJF. I want to thank a bunch of folks: Howard Kleiman, our assistant chair for the past five years (who took the reins when I was on leave) and, in addition to Howard, our area and course directors: Ron Becker, Bill Brewer, Kathy German, Cheryl Gibbs, Kerry Hegarty, and Patti Newberry. Our faculty have been amazingly supportive of our new department … and the things we are trying to accomplish – as teachers, as scholars, and as media professionals.
Mostly though, I want to thank our students. They are the reason this is the best job I ever had. Their energy, enthusiasm, openness, and curiosity help me feel much younger than I really am.
I would also like once again to thank our committed Miami alumni, who do so much for us in support of scholarships, workshops, and teaching. As I have said before, you are a big part of our success story. Our alumni network has become a major recruiting tool for our programs. We are grateful for your advice and commitment. Special thanks to Jeff Conroy, Antonia Ellis, Wil Haygood, Terence Moore, Chad Pergram, Helen Siegelin, and Diana Stark. A very special thanks to Rick Ludwin for his generous support of our students and his central role in making our Inside Hollywood program a national model.
I have included links to places you might want to support to ensure that our public university work can survive some of the inevitable ups-and-downs of the economy. My own project for the next few years will be the Miami-sponsored Report for Ohio (RFO), which I detailed in the last newsletter. There is a crisis in journalism today, especially is smaller communities like ours. Today, there is virtually no news coverage of the town of Oxford, except for the occasional story in the Miami Student and the Cox-owned Oxford Press, which is now reduced to a four-page Sunday insert with a few feature stories in the Middleton-Hamilton Journal-News. The situation is bleak enough that our journalism program is launching the Oxford Observer, a new digital paper beginning in the fall. Under the director of our journalism faculty, students in three classes will cover Oxford and Miami for the Oxford Observer.
Here is a reminder of the main goals for RFO:
  1. Tell stories of America’s overlooked communities, especially investigative reports that range wider on economic conditions and dig deeper than the latest rural or urban drug drama.
  2. Stem the loss of young journalists to other industries by building a conduit for them to write about under-covered communities and groups.
  3. Tell stories that focus not just on the economic conditions but also on the ingenuity and innovation going on in underreported regions.
  4. Partner young reporters with community elders, leaders, lawyers, accountants, educators, social-service workers, youth organizations, activists, and retirees who know where the stories are and can help with access. 
  5. Counter the rise of the “fake news” stories proliferating in social media and on cable TV and talk radio.
Special thanks to Diana Stark, whose generous gift has helped jump-start the fundraising for the RFO effort. To contribute to RFO or to our department in general, please click on the links provided on the left.
Thank you again for your support.
Richard Campbell
Professor and Chair
mjf@MiamiOH.edu
Cheryl Heckler leaves legacy with Miami journalism students
Cheryl Heckler was a passionate, caring teacher who took great delight in teaching journalistic writing, showing students the world through the lens of international journalism and talking for hours (and hours) about celebrated Civil War journalist Whitelaw Reid, one of her fellow Miami University alumni. 
She also was an accomplished journalist, focusing mainly on covering the influence of religion on politics, political figures and world events.
Heckler, an associate professor in Media, Journalism & Film, died, Feb. 18 at her home in Carthagena, Ohio. She was 59. 
MJF had a memorial to celebrate Cheryl's life May 5. Check out her obituary.
MJF Distinguished Alumni offer advice and share tales of media careers
Four successful alumni from the Department of Media, Journalism & Film (MJF) offered current Miami students their wisdom and inspiration for life-after-college. The event was held March 5 in the Williams Hall studio.
The four panelists of MJF Distinguished Alumni Days included Steve Susi ('93), executive creative director at Omnicom agency Critical Mass; Mary Patrick ('93), CEO & managing partner at Jasculca Terman Strategic Communications in Chicago; Jeremiah Shuff ('98), post-production editor for Saturday Night Live; and David Spunt ('07), reporter for CBS3 in Philadelphia. Read more about the panel.
Wil Haygood to premiere latest book at Miami University this fall
Miami University announced that Wil Haygood, class of ‘76 alumnus, will release his latest book two months early so the class of 2022 can read it in the fall university studies classes.
TIGERLAND: The Miracle on East Broad Street is Haygood’s newest book, telling the story of two high school sports teams in Columbus, Ohio in the 1968-69 school year. The story takes place in a turbulent time for race relations, following the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.
In Rome, MUDEC’s spring 2018 Journalism 101 students toured the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and Roman Forum before their reporting trip to Perugia.
In Rome, MUDEC’s spring 2018 Journalism 101 students toured the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and Roman Forum before their reporting trip to Perugia.
Ciao Përshëndetje, Obrigado: For MUDEC students, doing journalism abroad is way different
More than 60 Miami students of all majors took journalism classes at the university’s Luxembourg center this year while senior clinical faculty member Annie-Laurie Blair was based there.

But asking someone for an interview in Europe is a whole different ballgame than stopping someone on the Slant Walk.

Rian Sondag, a second-year theater major, needed to interview a person of Portuguese descent living in Luxembourg. “Finally finding that person, and realizing this person had just the story I needed, was so satisfying,” she explains.

Read more about the Luxembourg trip.
MJF students to cover Oxford news for Oxford Observer
It’s been many years since Oxford had its own newspaper. With some ambitious students and dedicated classes, Miami’s Department of Media, Journalism & Film plans to change that this fall.
The Oxford Observer is envisioned as a free online news site serving the City of Oxford and its surrounding area. It is to provide frequently updated news coverage of local government, schools, business, sports, culture and community life.  It will also provide an opportunity for readers to comment and express their views on the site.
It is planned that the Observer will launch in September, 2018. Its stories will be reported, written and edited by students from various Media Journalism & Film classes – primarily JRN 350, taught by David Wells and JRN 316, taught by Sarah Siff. The JRN 420 Capstone in Politics, Public and People, taught by Annie-Laurie Blair, will be covering state and local elections and publishing its work in the Observer. Wells, Siff and Blair all have significant experience in both the newsroom and the classroom. Continue reading about the Oxford Observer.
Miami’s Bateman team received an Honorable Mention in PRSSA's national Bateman case competitions with Shara Clark as advisor. Student in the group were: Maddie Malloy, Maddie O'Toole, Vivian Drury, Allison Pierce and Alec Hoelker.
Miami’s Bateman team received an Honorable Mention in PRSSA's national Bateman case competitions with Shara Clark as advisor. Student in the group were (L to R): Allison Pierce, Maddie Malloy, Maddie O'Toole, Vivian Drury, and Alec Hoelker (not pictured)
Faculty News
Hongmei Li, associate professor of strategic communication, published a co-authored pieced with her former student SooKeung Jung, titled "Networked Audiences and Cultural Globalization" in Sociology Compass.
Joe Sampson, senior clinical faculty in JRN, was selected as a summer 2018 RIAS Fellow. In June, Sampson will travel to Berlin, Prague, and Brussels as a part of an exchange program between US and German broadcast journalists.
  • Sampson also presented “Getting Students out of their Comfort Zone” at the Broadcast Educators Association national conference in April.
  • Sampson’s spring 2017 JRN 415 class received first place in the Society of Professional Journalists Region 4 Mark of Excellence competition in the Best Overall Newscast category.
Shara Clark, visiting instructor in STC, was asked to serve as judge in Public Relations Society of America's national Bronze Anvil Awards.
  • Clark was also nominated for Outstanding Faculty Advisor by the PRSSA chapter for the SEAL Awards at Miami.
  • Clark also received a PRSA Blacksmith Award for an annual report that she worked on for United Way of Greater Cincinnati. A Miami team of students also won a Blacksmith Award for outstanding student campaign Clark was the advisor. The students were Paige Garty, Megan Day, Eilenn Curran, Leah McCloud and Hannah Seitz.
Alumni Spotlights
Lisa Bannon
Chad Wollett
Alumni News
Three alums on team that wins Pulitzer
Mark Curnutte, Mariel Padilla and Bethany Bruner were part of a team that won the 2018 Pulitzer for local news for a series on the heroin epidemic for the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Curnutte, a ’84 English journalism grad, is the race and social justice reporter for the Enquirer. He also will be an adjunct professor this fall teaching Advanced Storytelling.
Padilla ’17 STC, was a breaking news intern at the Enquirer last summer. She is now a data journalism student at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
Bruner, ’12 JRN, works as a crime and courts reporter for the Newark Advocate, part of the Media Network of Central Ohio and USA Today Network. She also contributed to the series.
The story "Seven Days of Heroin" was recognized by the Pulitzer board "for a riveting and insightful narrative and video documenting seven days of greater Cincinnati's heroin epidemic, revealing how the deadly addiction has ravaged families and communities."
Other News:
  • Jelena Karic, '06 STC, is senior convention services manager at the Omni William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh.
  • Hannah Poturalski, ‘10 JRN, has been named managing editor at the Dayton Business Journal. She previously worked at Cox Media Group in Dayton.
  • JM Rieger, ’13 JRN, has moved from the Huffington Post to The Washington Post. He works as a video editor.
  • Katie Taylor, ’16 JRN, is an investigative story coordinator at Inside Edition. She previously worked at Forbes as an intern. In her new job, she supports three producers by doing online research, filing Freedom of Information requests and booking guests.
  • Abby Kelly, ’17 JRN, has landed a job as a staff writer at DCMilitary.com working on its Pentagram section. She previously worked as summer intern with the Truman National Security Project in Washington in 2016.
  • Britton Perelman, ’16 MAC & JRN, is a production assistant at Seismic Productions, a Los Angeles studio that specializes in movie trailers.
  • Emily Baker, ’16 JRN, has started a job at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. She is the special assistant to vice president for communication and programs and strategic content.
  • Annie Edwards, ’18 JRN and IMS, will be a content analyst at Performics (Performance Marketing Agency) in Chicago.
120 Williams Hall • 350 S. Oak St. • Oxford, OH 45056 
Phone: 513-529-3521 • Email: mjf@MiamiOH.edu
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