Director's Note

We’re nearly halfway through the semester, and I think we’re all ready for winter to be over and to enjoy those longer days.

SJMC students and alumni were well represented at this year’s Iowa Newspaper Association’s annual awards ceremony and took home awards in every category. Sabine Martin won the Harrison "Skip" Weber Investigative Reporting Award and Hannah Pinski won the Genevieve Mauck Stoufer Outstanding Young Iowa Journalists Award for their work at the Daily Iowan. Current students Grace Smith, Jerod Ringwald, and Ayrton Breckenridge took home several awards in photography. Congratulations to all the winners!

                                               Sabine Martin                                   Hannah Pinski

Students have also been staying busy with two new student groups, the Online News Association and the National Press Photographers Association, career webinars, and events in our Student Center. We also hosted our first exhibition of student work at Iowa Admitted Students Day.

Do you know someone who has made an exceptional positive impact on SJMC? If so, please consider nominating them for the Distinguished Service Award!

The Distinguished Service Award is presented annually by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication’s Professional Advisory Board (PAB). The recipient of this award exemplifies outstanding service and dedication to the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Iowa. The award is presented to one or more individuals who has provided exceptional service with a positive impact on the School, its students and/or faculty and staff. You can reach the nomination form here.

Nominations are due March 15, 2023.

If you have a story to share, please send it to sjmc@uiowa.edu.

Melissa Tully, Interim Director

Faculty News

Jenifer Vick was recognized in the Office of Community Engagement OCE Connect newsletter. They highlighted the networking she does connecting current students with area nonprofits.

Rachel Young did an interview with the University of Iowa Injury Prevention Research Center about what current research says about monitoring adolescents’ digital media use and taking away smartphones as punishment.

Graduate Student News

Patrick Johnson published “A Case of Claims and Facts: Automated Fact-Checking the Future of Journalism’s Authority” in Digital Journalism. Using metajournalistic discourse analysis, his article analyzes 137 articles from January 2015 to December 2022 about automated fact-checking to attempt to understand its role in the evolution of the profession’s boundaries.

David Lomoywara received a 2023 Stanley Award for International Research to support his research on the role of local radio in communicating about female genital mutilation. David will complete field research in West Pokot County, Kenya this summer.

Undergraduate News

The Unity Chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists published the winter/spring edition of NURU. The issue covered the cultural impact of losing Roe v Wade, the first black-owned fashion house in the Iowa City area, how the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk could effect app users who are black and more.

Save the Dates

Dr. Jelani Cobb will be visiting SJMC and UI to deliver our 2023 distinguished McGranahan Lecture. We are partnering with the University Lecture Committee on this event. Dr. Cobb’s public/free lecture, titled The Half-Life of Freedom: Race and Justice in America Today, is March 22 at 7:30 p.m. in the IMU Black Box Theater. Dr. Cobb is Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism and Dean of the Columbia Journalism School. He has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2015 writing on race, history, justice, politics, and democracy. He received a Peabody Award for his 2020 PBS Frontline film Whose Vote Counts? and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary in 2018.

SJMC is hosting a seminar and reception in honor of former SJMC Director Ken Starck on April 14 at 2:30 p.m. in the Adler Journalism Building. The event will feature panel discussions with Ken’s former students and colleagues and will be followed by a reception.

We’re hiring!

Review of applications for our visiting faculty position in Sport Media and Culture will begin this week and will continue until the position is filled.