Up & Coming Weekly

SEPTEMBER 30 - OCTOBER 6, 2009 UCW 19 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM A few days ago one of the lions of North Carolina newspaper culture died: Horace Carter. As a young university graduate, he moved to Tabor City near the South Carolina line and started a small community newspaper. Before long, he had built a solid business, made a happy and financially secure life for himself and his family, and won the Pulitzer Prize for risking it all by standing up to the Ku Klux Klan. One of Carter's last gifts to North Carolina was funding a new history of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at UNC-Chapel Hill, which, ironically, first came into my hands the day Mr. Carter died. Making News: One Hundred Years of Journalism and Mass Communication at Carolina by retired professor and former in- terim dean Tom Bowers begins with one small journalism class taught by Professor Edward Kidder Graham in 1909. Bowers follows the school as it changes and grows to a modern day (2005) faculty of 45 and student body of 876. In some respects, the book is for insiders at the "J-School," a tribute to their institution and a chronicle of how they got "where they are at." But Bowers has made it much more. It is a story of conflict and tension about the school's mission, a study in academic and professional leadership, and, indirectly, a his- tory of the changes in the way the mass media communicates with the public. One of the highlights of Bowers' story is his careful portraiture of each the deans of the school. Two of them served terms of more than 25 years as leader of the journalism teaching at the university. The difference between the two men helps point to different ideas about what a North Carolina journalism school should do and how it should do it. Oscar Jackson "Skipper" Coffin was department chair 1926 until 1950, and then dean until 1953. He was an old-school newspaperman who had worked his way to the editorship of the Raleigh Times. He had a disdain for academic niceties, for traveling to conferences, and for the value of obtaining accreditation for the school. He saw little relationship between these things and what the school did to prepare its graduates to get and keep good jobs at good newspapers. The school's success in producing a core of fine journalists gained for it and for Coffin a devoted core of admirers. But when the school failed to gain accreditation, pressure built for new leadership. Coffin's successors took a different approach and were part of what Bowers calls "a new generation of journalism educators who val- ued a more scholarly approach to the field, taught courses about issues in journalism (in addition to practical skills courses), and showed a greater appreciation for research." One of these successors was Richard Cole, dean from 1979 until 2005. Although Cole had practical newspaper experience, he was grounded in academia, with masters and PhD degrees, and pos- sessed a drive to build the school's research and graduate programs. According to Bowers, Cole "transformed the school" and raised the substantial funds needed to respond to the technological and cultural changes that took place during his tenure. At the beginning of Cole's tenure, more than 60 percent of journal- ism undergraduates concentrated on the "news-editorial" course offer- ings. By 2005 only about 20 percent did. Almost 30 percent focused on public relations, and about 20 percent in advertising. Louis Graves, who led the journalism program in the 1920s, looked for the day when the "traditional vagabond journalist, the drinker and wastrel" would disappear. Graves would be proud of today's J-School, slick and clean, full of students with crisp fresh faces, computers under arm, not a wastrel-to- be among them, just as proud as Horace Carter was. D.G. MARTIN, Columnist. COMMENTS? 484-6200 ext. 222 or editor@upandcomingweekly.com 100 Years of Teaching NC Journalists by D.G. MARTIN TAKE THE WAR ON HIGH TAXES AND CRIME TO THE FRONT LINE! VOTE DAVID SOLES CITY COUNCIL DISTRICT 2 David.Soles@yahoo.com PAID FOR BY THE DAVID SOLES ELECTION COMMITTEE TAXES HOMEOWNERS ARE PAYING FOR BIGGER CITY BUDGETS AT A TIME WHEN HOUSEHOLD INCOMES ARE HURTING. DAVID SOLES WILL FIGHT TO REDUCE YOUR TAXES AND STOP WASTEFUL GOVERNMENT SPENDING. CRIME POLICE ARE FRUSTRATED THAT CRIMINALS ARE RELEASED THE SAME DAY THEY ARE ARRESTED. DAVID SOLES will vote to GET CRIMINALS OFF THE STREET with additional police offi cers, increased patrols, and more jail space. He supports crime prevention programs like Community Watch and Drug Pre- vention. JOBS FOR TOO LONG OUR DISTRICT HAS BEEN OVERLOOKED WHEN IT COMES TO JOBS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. DAVID SOLES' business provides income for 22 families, right here in District 2. David will work to bring economic growth opportunities to Fayetteville, specifi cally in District 2.

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