Photo by Crista Chapman

Associate professor Claude Cookman is the 2007 Gretchen Kemp Teaching Fellow, the second time he’s won the award.

For associate professor Claude Cookman, learning is much more than what goes on inside the classroom: It’s a kind of gestalt.

“It’s a great joy to watch students grow intellectually and socially and ethically,” said Cookman. “I am a humanist. I think teaching is one of the great helping professions – that we can help other people do this, realize their own unique potential.”

For almost two decades Cookman has taught a wide variety of visual communication classes at the School of Journalism. He made the leap to academia after stints as copy editor at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, graphics editor at The Miami Herald and picture editor at The Louisville Times.

Cookman’s ability to turn his professional experience into education led to his being named the 2007 Gretchen Kemp Teaching Fellow, an honor created through a gift from former journalism professor Gretchen Kemp to reward outstanding teaching in the school.

Kemp taught at the school from 1947-1974, starting as director for the High School Journalism Institute and retiring as a professor. It comes with a $10,000 stipend. In keeping with Kemp’s philosophy of putting money back into the school, Cookman will use the award to do something he’s wanted to do for awhile: Create a scholarship.

“I’ve been trying for 10 years to endow a scholarship,” Cookman said. “I’ve been putting money away here and there. This award money will take it over the top and I hope the School of Journalism will begin awarding it next spring.”

The last three School of Journalism Kemp Fellows and two others IU professionals from outside the school determine winners. In reviewing Cookman’s dossier, one judge highlighted the professor’s teaching evaluations, noting the "effusive praise from students.”

Senior Tyra Robertson, who’s currently taking J464 Infographics with Cookman, said the praise is well deserved.

“He gets to know the students in his class as well as he can,” Robertson said. “He really tries to get to know who we are as people.”

Photo by Crista Chapman

"I think teaching is one of the great helping professions – that we can help other people do this, realize their own unique potential,” Cookman said.

Graduate student Joice Biazoto, associate instructor for Cookman’s J210 Visual Communication, echoed that praise.

“He is the most caring teacher I’ve ever witnessed in a classroom,” she said. “He cares so much about the progress of his students. He wants them to do well.”

Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies Amy Reynolds sat on the committee that reviewed Kemp nominees. She also team-taught with Cookman early in her career at IU. She said the students aren’t the only ones lucky to have Cookman around; the rest of the faculty is as well.

“I was really lucky to have that experience,” Reynolds said. “To be able to watch someone do it so well. He thinks and cares deeply. The students, and the school, are fortunate to have him.”

Cookman says he feels fortunate to be teaching at IU and to have won the Kemp award – again. He won in 1993, just three years after he arrived at the School of Journalism.

“I never met Gretchen Kemp,” Cookman said. “I know people who have and they tell me she set high standards for her students. I try to do that as well, to make it rigorous; I think that increases and enhances true learning.”

In addition to Cookman, associate professor Jon Dilts and assistant professor Tony Fargo also were nominated for this year’s Kemp award. While Cookman may have won, all three nominees impressed the judges with their teaching dossiers.

One judge wrote, "It’s not always easy to competently translate [professional] experience into good instruction, but student evaluations indicate that Professors Cookman, Dilts, and Fargo have attained real mastery at bridging the conceptual and applied worlds of journalism for our IU students."

Photo by Ryan Ridge

From left, Dave Furst, Bob Zaltsberg and Michelle Sinning joined Career Services Director Marcia Debnam for a discussion of ethics and the Internet.

Journalism students frequently hear professors talking about ethics in the abstract, but Friday morning, they got the chance to hear about ethics as they’re applied in the real world.

About 30 students piled into Ernie Pyle Auditorium to discuss ethics with a panel of professionals that included WRTV sports director and alumnus Dave Furst, Hirons & Company senior account manager Michelle Sinning and (Bloomington) Herald-Times editor Bob Zaltsberg. While the three look at ethics through different lenses, they agree the Internet shakes up any discussion.

“The Internet is changing the game,” Zaltsberg said. “It’s changing the rules of the game considerably for newspapers. How do you decide what’s true or not?”

Zaltsberg said his paper is trying to find a way to deal with the Internet’s effect on news. Often, rumors about something happening will begin to work their way through blogs, and newspapers have to find a way to deal with them.

Furst said things are very similar in the sports world.

“We get a lot of rumors from fans,” Furst said. “You’ve gotta be careful. No matter how juicy or what you get, you’ve got to be careful.”

While the Internet adds another dimension to the ethical dilemmas faced by news and sports outlets, Sinning says it’s altogether different for public relations firms.

“I think its making companies more accountable,” Sinning said. “Information spreads like wildfire over the Internet, so companies want to be more honest because information will get out.”

Several students asked about the Internet’s effect on media ethics, but freshman Jess Mullins wanted to know if “ethics is becoming more of a problem in the journalism field?”

“I don’t think it’s gotten worse,” Zaltzberg replied. “It’s a moving target. There’s always something coming down the pipeline.”

That pipeline spit out the coverage of Paris Hilton last summer. One student, who interned with a television station, wanted to know if “real” news is fading in deference to entertainment.

“Why you don’t think Britney Spears is a real story?” Furst quipped. “I find it disturbing how much time stations spend on it, but ultimately ratings will win.” And, celebrities like Spears and Hilton, Furst said, bring in the ratings.

Junior Jessica Anderson was one of the J492 Media Internships students attending the panel. These students enroll in the class as part of the credit process for internships they completed last summer. Anderson said she thinks it’s important for student to hear from people working in the field. It gives them an insight into the business they’re not likely to get anywhere else.

“It was pretty interesting,” Anderson said. “You get a lot of ethics information in the classroom in the j-school, but it’s always good to come to these things and hear about these people’s careers.”

Junior Lydia Cox adds that, while she might be getting credit for last summer’s internship, the J492 panels are helping her prepare for future experience.

“I’m working on getting an internship this summer,” Cox said. “And this is really helpful. It’s helpful to hear other stories, to hear from people who have already gone through this.”

Photo by Rosemary Pennington

Freshman Kolby Harrell won the Kate Comiskey Memorial Scholarship, established in memory of the daughter of Interim Director of Student Media Nancy Comiskey.

Kolby Harrell is the kind of student who commands attention when he walks into a classroom, not because he’s loud or disruptive, but simply because when the freshman sports communication and journalism student smiles, his whole face lights up.

And when Harrell is talking about his ninth grade English teacher, the late Kate Comiskey, that light is especially bright.

"She was energetic, always smiling," Harrell explained. “She was always happy. It was like she wanted to be a friend as much as she wanted to be a teacher.”

As the winner of the Kate Comiskey Memorial Scholarship, the Indian Creek High School alumnus is honoring the memory of one of his favorite teachers. Not only did he choose to attend at her alma mater, but he is studying in the program where Comiskey’s mother is guiding her own students.

Kate Comiskey, daughter of Interim Director of Student Media Nancy Comiskey, was teaching at Indian Creek High School near Trafalgar when she was killed in a car accident three years ago. She was on her way to school one early November morning when a driver who was high at the time crossed into her path.

The loss was more than heartbreaking for her family, but they knew they wanted to find a way to honor her memory. Nancy Comiskey said they knew whatever they chose, it would have to be tied to that school.

“We knew how much she loved those kids at that school,” Comiskey said. “She talked about them all the time. We knew she would want us to do something to help them out.”

And so the family set up the scholarship, a $2,000 award given to a graduating Indian Creek senior headed to college. Last year, Kolby Harrell won.

Beyond her talents as a teacher, Harrell said Kate Comiskey had a way of charming students; if she called you “dollface” it was something to be proud of.

Comiskey’s enthusiasm was not lost on the rest of the faculty at Indian Creek High School near Trafalgar. Brian Boehnlein’s class was next to Comiskey’s and he shares Harrell’s memories.

“Kate rarely sat at her desk,” Boehnlein said in an e-mail interview. “She was constantly pacing in front of the class, be it reading to them or instructing. I would see a symbiotic relationship of energy. Kate fed off student energy and gave it back to them three fold.”

Courtesy photos Students and teachers remember Kate Comiskey’s enthusiasm and spirit.

Nancy Comiskey and her husband, Steve, sit on the committee that chooses the scholarship winner, as does Kate’s classroom neighbor, Boehnlein. Grades and financial need play into the choice, Boehnlein said, but the committee is looking for something more.

“In the end, Kate’s spark,” Boehnlein said, “and her spirit.”

It’s the memory of that spirit that causes Nancy Comiskey to laugh when talking about her daughter.

“Here she was,” Comiskey said, “this 6-foot-tall, high-heel wearing vegetarian teaching at this rural Indiana school. I don’t think those kids knew what to think of her at first.”

Harrell thought a lot of her, so much that, as a sophomore, he was Kate Comiskey’s teacher’s assistant. She had just returned from a trip to Japan and, the week she died, Harrell had seen her every day.

“She was giving her class a piece of Japanese candy,” Harrell said, “and I would stop in to get candy. I’ll never forget the morning I stopped in to see her and she wasn’t there.”

He was happy to find out he won Kate’s scholarship, especially since she was an IU alumna in education and he had chosen IU himself. Nancy Comiskey said she’s delighted to have Harrell at IU and she’s sure her daughter would be as well.

“Kolby seems like such a positive young man,” Comiskey said. “He has such a positive outlook on life. Every time I’ve seen him, he’s so excited about his J110 class. That kind of enthusiasm is really special for us.”

“Kate would love to know her scholarship is helping Kolby go to school,” she added. “I know she really liked him.”

And, if Harrell keeps his grades up, Kate Comiskey’s scholarship will keep helping him go to school. It’s renewable all four years he’s an undergradudate.

Broadcast journalist Lisa Ling, host of National Geographic’s award-winning series, Explorer, visits Wednesday, 7 p.m. at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, 114 E. Kirkwood Ave. Her talk is the second of the School of Journalism’s Fall Speaker Series.

Ling will address “National Geographic Reports: A Global Perspective,” sharing her adventures with the program and her personal success story. For the program, Ling has covered the drug war in Columbia, China’s one-child policy and female suicide bombers in Chechnya and Israel’s occupied territories.

Ling also is special correspondent for Oprah, which sent her to cover the Lord’s Resistance Army and the crisis of AIDS orphans in Uganda, bride-burning in India and gang rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

While in Bloomington, Ling will have lunch with students and will tape a radio interview at WFIU. Associate professor Owen V. Johnson will conduct the interview for the weekly program, Profiles, to be broadcast later this year.

As for her personal success, Ling advocates having an open mind and heart to the issues affecting people around the globe.

Her talk is free and open to the public.

Photo by Jonathan Hiskes

WTHR’s Steve Rhodes told students that good video storytelling has the pace of a roller coaster, with anticipation, rush as it develops and slowing at the end.

A good piece of video storytelling has the pace of a roller coaster, WTHR-TV photographer Steve Rhodes told School of Journalism students Wednesday.

“There’s anticipation, like you’re going up a hill,” he said to assistant professor Mike Conway’s J520 Video Storytelling class. “Then there’s the surprise and the rush of adrenaline as it develops, and then a slowing down at the end.”

The effect doesn’t happen without careful planning, shooting and editing, said Rhodes, who has won a slew of television journalism awards, including several Emmys. Piecing together narrative building blocks in the right way is more important than filming pretty shots, he said.

“I try to put the story first and the video second, because the crafting is more important than the glossy pictures you see,” he said.

Last week, WTHR News Director Jim Tellus told the class about the importance of TV news stations investing in well-crafted stories with “soul,” showing several of Rhodes’ clips as examples. This week, Rhodes invited students to ask about the technique behind such stories.

Master’s student Olesia Oleshko asked about the ethics of staging shots, or asking a subject to perform or repeat an action for the camera. Rhodes referred to a story he shot about an Italian violinmaker.

“He was going to play the violin anyway that day, but he probably played it a little later than he would have for us,” he said. “I in no way feel we were altering reality. But there is a line you can cross.”

He said surprises are key to achieving a “roller coaster” effect. In a clip he showed about a military funeral, it was not until several scenes into the story that viewers learned the service was not for a recent soldier but for a World War II veteran whose family was just now memorializing him.

“We wanted to hide that in the story a little bit, so it’s a surprise,” said Rhodes, who edits his own stories. “But not too much — we didn’t want to be coy or disrespectful of the subject.”

He showed how he used a variety of compositions in the story’s interviews, filming one veteran with an extremely low-angle shot from between cemetery markers and filming a family member with a wide-angle shot with rows of graves spread behind him. He spoke of staying out of the way of mourners, yet moving quickly enough to film marching soldiers from multiple positions.

Photo by Jonathan Hiskes

After his talk to J520, Rhodes fielded questions from students such as Jing Ting Zhao.

“I always try to be invisible on a shoot, as much as I can,” he said, “especially for something like this.”

Conway noted that few television photographers get to do so many of the special projects in which Rhodes specializes. For every four-minute special, most photographers must shoot 15 to 20 regular daily stories, he said.

Senior Elle Lissitzyn asked about how to improve drab or routine stories, the ones not about violinmakers in Italy. “What tips do you have for spicing things up, or making them more engaging?” she asked.

Rhodes responded by showing “Tips on Tipping,” a fast-paced piece about tipping, told by Indianapolis waiters, taxi drivers, bellhops and baristas.

“It’s just the whole idea, once you guys get your foundation, of taking your story and saying, ‘How can we do this a little differently and still inform?’” he said.

While visiting Wednesday, Rhodes also spoke to adjunct lecturer Lee Giles’ J385 Television News class.

The multimedia lab will have new hours beginning Oct. 1.

 

 

Want to earn money and prizes for your photos and videos? Two contests are offering some of each:

 

Students who are good deadline feature writers and who want the chance to earn prize money for these skills may want to enter the Thomas R. Keating Feature Writing competition contest.

Sponsored by the Indy Press Foundation, the contest is a day-long writing competition in Indianapolis Nov. 2. Student reporters receive assignments to report and write a deadline feature all in one day. The stories are judged on the day of competition and prizes are awarded at a banquet that evening. The finalists are given rooms at the Courtyard by Marriott Indianapolis at the Capitol.

The late Thomas R. Keating was a feature writer at the Indianapolis Star in the 1970s and 1980s. The foundation awards about $4,000 in prize money for this contest, which is held annually in his memory.

The deadline to enter is Oct. 1. Applications and other information are at the foundation’s Web site or by download here (PDF format). Finalists will be notified by Oct. 15. Questions? Submit e-mail to keating-info@indypressfoundation.org.

School of Journalism professor Chris Ogan and doctoral student Debbie Goh are among the presenters at this weekend’s workshop, Toward Gender Equitable Outcomes in IT Higher Education, at the Indiana Memorial Union.

The conference will provide a venue for researchers to present their findings in this three-year study of women in information technology programs at institutions of higher learning. Funded in part by a National Science Foundation grant, the researchers looked at degree-granting institutions across the U.S. to determine which are most successful at recruiting and retaining female students in IT disciplines and why.

Universities may use findings to enhance programming to attract more women in to IT programs.

IU’s Ogan, Jean C. Robinson from political science and Susan Herring from library and information science joined Manju Ahuja from the University of Louisville as principal investigators. Goh was one of three project assistants.

For more information, check out the conference Web site.

If there’s one thing you need to know about filmmaker Dan Cox, it’s that he doesn’t like to be compared to Michael Moore.

"I cannot stand him," Cox replied when asked what he thought of bloggers comparing him to the controversial filmmaker.

Like it or not, Cox, B.A. ’84, might have to learn to deal with the comparison – at least for the time being. The School of Journalism alumnus is the man behind the documentary Running with Arnold, which chronicles Arnold Schwarzenegger’s rise from body builder to movie star to governor of California.

And the film is not without its own controversy, as students and community members found out at Tuesday’s School of Journalism-sponsored screening at Whittenberger Auditorium.

First, there’s the Nazi issue. In the film, Cox touches on the Nazi past of Schwarzenegger’s father. Then, there’s Schwarzenegger’s own past comments about Adolf Hitler, comments that seem almost laudatory.

“I’m not saying he’s a Hitler lover,” Cox said. “I’m just presenting the facts.”

Finally there’s the issue of bias. After the documentary’s world premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, reviewers, again and again, wrote about the film’s anti-Arnold slant.

Photo by Crista Chapman

"The bottom line with this film is, mixing celebrities and politics is a mistake," Cox said. “We shouldn’t vote for someone based on star power.”

"I wasn’t trying to tear Arnold a new orifice," Cox said. “I was trying to tell the story of how this guy could convince voters to put him in office, the concept that the ‘Terminator’ could be your governor. I don’t think it was that harsh.”

“I think it was really one-sided,” said California native and journalism junior Alex Damron. “It’s revisionist history of Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s not a perfect man by any means, but he’s certainly not some power-crazed Manchurian candidate.”

At the post-screening discussion, an audience member asked Cox of any aspect of Schwarzenegger’s life surprised the filmmaker.

“It did,” Cox replied. “I was fascinated by Arnold’s willingness to shift almost on a dime. He’ll be dead set against something and then he’ll be for it.”

Freshman Nick Cusack was fascinated simply by the film itself.

“I thought it was entertaining,” Cusack said after the screening. “It had a lot of stuff, a lot of jokes. I didn’t like how some of them were attacks on people, but it was entertaining.”

The film certainly doesn’t pull any punches in its treatment of Schwarzenegger.

“Arnold wants power, that’s all,” Cox said.

But that is not what prompted Cox to make such a film.

“I like Arnold’s movies,” Cox said at last night’s screening. “I’m a growing American boy. I’m allowed to. But I don’t like his politics.”

All of this, the praise and controversy, is pretty good for a film that began as a lark. In 2003, as the rhetoric over California’s possible recall of then-Gov. Grey Davis was ratcheting up, Cox was having lunch with a film producer. The producer asked him what he was working on and Cox mentioned making a film if Schwarzenegger jumped into the gubernatorial race.

Cox said the producer volunteered to fund the movie. Just a few days later Schwarzenegger made his announcement, and Cox suddenly became a filmmaker.

While Cox went into making Running with Arnold without any real aim other than to chronicle this movie star’s quest for political office, a moral eventually did materialize.

"The bottom line with this film is, mixing celebrities and politics is a mistake," Cox said. “We shouldn’t vote for someone based on star power.”

Cox said he thinks his film has a special resonance given the nation’s current election cycle and the appearance of former U.S. Senator and actor Fred Thompson in the Republican presidential race.

“I think he’s great on Law and Order,” Cox said. “I just wouldn’t vote for him.”

And you can bet if there’s ever a change to the Constitution that allows Schwarzenegger to run for president, Cox won’t be voting for him, either. But, he will be following him with his camera once again, filming Running with Arnold 2.

The first Running with Arnold is making its rounds through the film festival scene after its world premiere at South by Southwest. Cox leaves for Switzerland Sunday to screen the movie at the Zurich International Film Festival.