In this interview, Okpalaoka talks about the experience of working with other students from around the nation to cover the ONA conference.

Walker is also the co-author of Winning the Food Fight by Steve Willis, which will be released January 2, 2012, by Regal Books, a major publisher based in Ventura, California. British chef Jamie Oliver wrote the foreword and his name will be featured on the cover. Willis is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Kenova (West Virginia) and was featured in the spring of 2010 on Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution on ABC Television. The series won a 2010 Emmy Award for "Best Reality Series."

(Anniston Star story by JSchool student Michelle Doe.)

ATHENS, Ohio — Crusading community newspaper publisher H. Brandt Ayers of The Anniston (Ala.) Star is the most recent recipient of the prestigious Carr Van Anda Award given by the faculty of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. The award recognizes distinguished journalists for their lifetime contributions to the profession and society.

Ayers will be presented the award and will give a public lecture September 26 at 7 p.m., Baker Center Theatre. The program will be open to the public.

Under the leadership of Ayers, The Anniston Star has become one of the most storied and influential small newspapers in the U.S., having been profiled by trade publications and the popular press on numerous occasions. Time Magazine twice named The Anniston Star one of the “best small newspapers in the United States” and has described Ayers one of the top newspaper publishers in America.

The Anniston Star is noted for its aggressive watchdog reporting of state and local issues. The newspaper also is renowned for taking strong editorial stances against social injustices, most famously for its opposition to segregation during the civil rights movement of the 1960s — an unpopular position at the time for a small-town newspaper in the South. All of that was pushed by Ayers in his role as publisher of The Star and five other community newspapers in east-central Alabama; today, he is among only 100 living Alabamians to be inducted into the Alabama Academy of Honor, and has received numerous awards and honors within his home state.

“[Brandt Ayers] is that breed of newspaper publisher that grows more rare by the day – the sort who believe revenue’s highest and best use is to serve the cause of journalism,” Star editor Bob Davis wrote about his publisher. “In the world of remote corporate journalism, Brandy calls home the place where his newspaper is produced.”

Dr. Robert Stewart, Director of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, heralded the decision of the School’s faculty to honor Ayers with the Carr Van Anda Award. “This award is a way for us to recognize Mr. Ayers’ lifetime of service in journalism, and to draw attention to commitment to his community.”

In addition to his distinguished career as a publisher, Ayers is an accomplished journalism scholar, having served both as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and as a Gannett Fellow at Columbia University. He has lectured at numerous universities, including Harvard and Princeton in the U.S. and several universities in Africa. He was awarded the Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1996. He writes a syndicated opinion column and has written articles and commentary for The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, NPR and The International Herald Tribune, among others.

Ayers also is an internationalist, having traveled extensively on journalistic and governmental missions to Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. He is a former trustee of the American Committee of the International Press Institute based in Austria; a member of the Council on Foreign Relations based in New York; a trustee of the Southern Center for International Studies; and a member of the advisory board of the The Ditchley Foundation in England, a prestigious organization that brings world leaders together for conferences related to international affairs.

In 2002, the Ayers family created the Ayers Institute, which is set up to convert The Star into a non-profit newspaper with a mission of journalism education. The organization has partnered with the University of Alabama to offer a master’s degree in community journalism, with The Star serving as a practice center for students in the program. Ayers referred to The Star as “the teaching newspaper,” patterned on the system of teaching hospitals that serve as the backbone for training new physicians.

Ayers will be the 72nd recipient of the Carr Van Anda Award. The award was created in 1968 to recognize Van Anda, who studied at Ohio University in the 1880s and went on to have a distinguished career in newspaper journalism, primarily as an influential managing editor who helped The New York Times become a newspaper of record. Recent past recipients include Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, Dith Pran of The New York Times, and Nina Totenberg of NPR.

The award was created in 1991 by the Commission on the Status of Women in honor and memory of MaryAnn Yodelis Smith of Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Greenwald is the author of Cleveland Amory: Media Curmudgeon and Animal Rights Crusader (University Press of New England, 2009), The Secret of the Hardy Boys: Leslie McFarlane and the Stratemeyer Syndicate (Ohio University Press, 2004), A Woman of the Times: Journalism, Feminism and the Career of Charlotte Curtis (Ohio University Press, 1999), co-author of The Big Chill: Investigative Reporting in the Current Media Environment (Iowa State University, 2000), co-author of Reporting Public Affairs: The Citizens’ News (Wm. C. Brown, 1991), as well as author of numerous articles in academic journals.

Carson and Johnson examined music’s effect on viewers’ implicit and explicit brand attitudes in advertising for their article, entitled, "I’ve Got You Under My Skin: Differential Implicit and Explicit Attitude Responses to Music in Advertising."

They conducted an experiment using Freecreditreport.com, showing participants three commercials with music playing or with the sound muted. Participants took an Implicit Association Test to measure implicit brand attitudes, as well as a self-report explicit attitude measure. Results show that while individuals reported they disliked Freecreditreport.com more when they saw the commercials with music, the implicit attitude results showed that participants held higher brand attitudes when the commercials played with music.

The paper will be published in the upcoming conference proceedings.

In the patient satisfaction study, researchers utilized data from a national, validated, Web-based survey of 7,938 anonymous patients who rated their physicians according to satisfaction with treatment during their most recent outpatient visits.

* Patel, I., Chang, J., Srivastava, J., Feldman, S., Levender, M., Balkrishnan, R. (2011). Patient Satisfaction with obstetricians and gynecologists compared with other specialties: analysis of US self-reported survey data. Patient Related Outcome Measure. 2, 21-26.

* Chang, J., Patel, I., Liu, S.T., Ortega, A.N., Srivastava, J., Park, Y.S., Kirk, S., & Balkrishnan, R. (2011). Disparities in health care utilization among Latino children suffering from asthma in California. Pediatric Health, Medicine, and Therapeutics. 2, 1-8.

* David, P., Henry, A., Srivastava, J., Orcena, J., & Thrush, J. (Accepted for publication). Encouraging Teachers to Promote Cover-the-Cough in Schools: A Tailored Multimedia Intervention. Journal of Health Communication

Srivastava joined the faculty in 2010.

Professor Joe Bernt is coauthor of a paper entitled “Reconsidering Foundational Research Findings: Domestic, International, and Foreign News Content on ABC, CBS, and NBC from 1971 to 2007,” which was written with Katherine A. Bradshaw, James C. Foust, and Brian Krol, all of Bowling Green State University.

Assistant Professor Aimee Edmondson will present her research at the Media & Civil Rights History Symposium running concurrently with AEJMC Southeast. Edmondson’s paper, entitled "Charlotta Bass: The Black Editor Who Whipped the Klan," is a continuation of her research on the intersection of race and libel.

Professor Mike Sweeney will present his paper, entitled "Embed vs. Unilateral, 1904: A Case Study of Three Reporters in the Russo-Japanese War," as part of the History Division competition.

Sweeney's paper examines the newspaper journalism of Lionel James of The Times of London, Stanley Washburn of the Chicago Daily News, and Hector Fuller of the Indianapolis News. All three covered the Russo-Japanese War by chartering boats to witness engagements from neutral waters off the coast of Korea and Manchuria. James became an accredited "embed," and submitted his stories to the review of a Japanese spy aboard his ship as a condition of his being allowed to travel without the interference of the Japanese navy. Washburn and Fuller became "unilaterals" (unaccredited journalists) risking their safety in order to report without Japanese assistance or oversight. The paper examines the quality of the journalism produced by each, as a basis of comparison to the work of embedded and unilaterals in America's most recent wars.

Doctoral student Ashley Furrow will present “Gender and Racial Source Bias in Sports Illustrated Kids, 2000-2009,” in the Open Research Division. She will also present related research, “Advertising Images of Gender and Race Portrayed in Sports Illustrated Kids 2000-2009,” in a combined Magazine and Open Division research panel. Both papers originated from Furrow’s master’s thesis, which was completed at Ohio University in 2010.

Master’s student Evan Barton will present his research in the Law Division with a paper entitled, “Crushing Animals: The Latest Judicial Protections for Violence in the Media.”

He gave an invited keynote paper at the X. Media Ethics Symposium in Stuttgart, Germany, on January 13. He gave his presentation, entitled "Social Online Networks from a Media Ethical Perspective" in German at the event, which was organized by the Stuttgart-based University of Media (Hochschule der Medien).

Dr. Debatin also presented a panel paper at the annual political communication conference Framing as Political Process in Münster, Germany on Feb. 11. He presented his paper, "Framing of Politics and the Politics of Framing: The Metaphorical Framing of the Ground Zero Mosque Debate" in English at the event organized by the German Association of Political Scientists (DVPW) and the political communication section of the German equivalent to AEJMC (DGpuK).

On Feb. 18, Professor Debatin gave a plenary paper at the annual media ethics conference Media and Civil Society in Munich, Germany. The paper, entitled "Core Competencies in the Civil Society" was presented in German at the conference, which was organized by the Media Ethics Network and the media ethics section of the German equivalent to AEJMC (DGpuK).

Closer to home, he gave a panel paper at the annual conference of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) in Cincinnati, Ohio, on March 4. The presented the paper, entitled "Data-Mining in Online Networks: A Privacy Disaster?" at an event organized by the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE).

Dr. Greenwald talked about the Hardy Boys and her book, "The Secret of the Hardy Boys: Leslie McFarlane and the Stratemeyer Syndicate," which details how a newspaper reporter with dreams of becoming a serious novelist first brought to life Joe and Frank Hardy, who became two of the most famous characters in children’s literature. The book was published by Ohio University Press in 2004.

Dr. Greenwald is also author of The Telegraph, Painesville, Ohio, 1976-78; A Woman of the Times: Journalism, Feminism and the Career of Charlotte Curtis (Ohio University Press, 1999) (Book named a Notable Book of the New York Times, 1999); co-author of The Big Chill: Investigative Reporting in the Current Media Environment (Iowa State University, 2000) (Book received national Sigma Delta Chi award for research, 2000); and co-author of Reporting Public Affairs: The Citizens’ News (Wm. C. Brown, 1991) with Ralph Izard.

Dr. Grieves’ paper, “Reaching across national barriers: Transborder journalism collaborations in Europe,” contains findings from field research he conducted last summer in Belgium, France and Germany.

Professor Grieves has presented his research in a variety of venues, including conferences of AEJMC, ICA, and the German Journalism and Communication Association (DGPuK). Before joining the academy, he worked for a number of years at the Cable News Network (CNN) as a writer and producer, researching and writing news and feature stories for CNN’s German-language news website, and as a producer for CNN International newscasts including CNN World Report. He also worked at a local television station in Berlin as well as CNN’s bureau in Germany.

Reader was the founding research chair for the Community Journalism Interest Group of AEJMC, and is also a former head of "COMJIG." He also is co-editor, with John Hatcher of the University of Minnesota Duluth, of The Foundations of Community Journalism: A Primer for Research, under contract with SAGE and scheduled for publication later this year.

Produced by Pittsburgh resident Ken Love, the documentary is scheduled to appear on PBS stations throughout the country. Love is a former long-time filmmaker for National Geographic magazine.

This is the second PBS television documentary that I have been an historical consultant and appeared in. The first was "The Black Press: Soldiers without Swords," which came out in 1999 and won a lot of awards.

Self-proclaimed “international news junkie” and JSchool doctorate student Sally Ann Cruikshank recently completed a masters thesis that compared how international broadcasters covered the 2008 U.S. election.

Cruikshank’s interest in this research topic did not come as a surprise to those who know her. Her thesis, titled “US Politics on a Global Stage: A Content Analysis of 2008 Election Coverage on Al Jazeera, the BBC and Russia Today,” content analyzed media coverage of the presidential election, beginning one month before election day and ending on election day.

Because no database of international broadcast news is available she recorded the Monday through Friday evening newscasts, an hour and a half each day. Although her research required a substantial time commitment, she was able to delve into unchartered territory and develop a unique thesis, which sets her research apart.

Through her research Cruikshank found that BBC and Al Jazeera covered the election as a fair, democratic process, whereas Russia Today questioned the fairness of the election as well as issues related to corruption in the election.

One aspect that did surprise her was the heavy emphasis on the “horserace” element of the election in the international media. She said the horserace aspect of the coverage benefited Obama, who was a consistent leader in the polls.

Cruikshank hopes to study this topic further utilizing additional coverage she recorded in the 30 days after the election. In doing a further analysis of the material, she may include more countries.

Her advice to graduate students is to pick a topic early and, “Put what you do in class to good use.” She also encourages students to utilize the professors as resources.

Dr. Hugh Martin, associate director of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, guest-lectured from Ohio University’s Athens campus at 8:30 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time on a Wednesday, while in Indonesia, the guest lecture took place at 8:30 a.m. the following day. So far, three Scripps professors have conducted guest-lectures at four SUSI scholars’ universities between November 2010 and March 2011.

Dr. Martin spoke to SUSI alumnus, Prof. Nurul Hasfi’s media economics class in March 2011. Prof. Hasfi is a lecturer in the Department of Communication at Diponegoro University in Indonesia.

Using Skype to “video chat,” Professor Martin discussed the current economic environment with U.S. and global media with approximately 60 Master’s students in the Department of Communication at Diponegoro University, while various newspaper journalists and local television broadcasters in Indonesia also attended and covered this "intercontinental" guest lecture.

The head of the Master’s Program in the Department of Communication was excited about this skype guest lecture. It was their first international skype guest lecture at the entire university. According to Prof. Hasfi, the head of Master’s Program in the Department of Communication said he is interested in doing a similar event with the International Office of Diponegoro University.