Is kneeling during the national anthem a show of disrespect or a display of patriotism? Is extending a welcome to immigrants and refugees central to American ideals or a threat to them? Is the Confederate flag a symbol of heritage or racism? The social, cultural and political fabric of the country is increasingly torn by uncivil debates about the essence of American values. Lydia Polgreen, editor-in-chief of HuffPost and 2009 Livingston Award winner, will discuss the vital role of journalism and a free press in a thriving democracy and its responsibility in the current populist moment.
Fresh off the Listen to America road trip, a 25-city bus tour to engage with people and communities that feel left out of dominant national narratives, Polgreen will address the legacy and current relevance of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and engage the audience in a conversation about voice, power and participation in civil society.
About the Speaker
Polgreen was named editor-in-chief of HuffPost in December 2016 after spending nearly 15 years at The New York Times. There she led an initiative to expand its audience outside the United States, with an initial focus on Latin America. Previously, she was Deputy International Editor, South Africa bureau chief, correspondent for the New Delhi bureau and chief of the West Africa bureau. Before joining The Times, Polgreen was a reporter in Florida and New York state. She began her career as assistant editor and business manager for The Washington (D.C.) Monthly.
Polgreen was a 2006 recipient of the George Polk Award for foreign reporting. She received the 2009 Livingston Award for international reporting for her series, “The Spoils,” an account of how mineral wealth brought misery and exploitation to much of Africa. In 2007, she was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
Wallace House campus events include public engagements with Lydia Polgreen, Brooke Jarvis, Joshua Johnson and Bret Stephens
Anyone who has spent time in Wallace House knows that, as an organization that supports the work of journalists, we are also defenders of free speech. It is a fundamental belief evidenced in the irreverent caricatures of politicians that ring our living room and the wide array of provocative books and periodicals that fill our library. It is a proclamation painted in the washroom just off the foyer, in black block letters, a central tenet impossible to ignore – even in the smallest room in the house: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
That sentence, penned by the English writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall in a 1906 biography of the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, is commonly referenced in defense of free speech. For journalists, it serves as a dramatic restatement of basic rights laid out in the First Amendment, that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”
At a time when that foundational right is being challenged and reexamined, it is all the more important to articulate its significance. Wallace House is working to do just that, through public events aimed at highlighting the vital role of journalism to document, interpret, analyze and investigate the forces shaping society.
By moving journalism away from devices and distractions and into public spaces, we aim to close the gap between an increasingly indifferent public and the reporters taking stock of our times. In this era of echo chambers, we feel called to actively foster civil discourse across profound gulfs of mistrust and cynicism.
For journalists, a free press is inextricably bound to the broader principle of freedom of speech, a principal that is most critical to defend when it is inconvenient and difficult to stomach. Our winter 2018 events will tackle that complexity head on, with prominent speakers from NPR, The New York Times and HuffPost.
We’ll encourage audiences to wrestle with how the American ideal accommodates and protects both Colin Kaepernick and Richard Spencer. We’ll examine the continuum from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s long arc of the universe to hashtag revolutions and crowd-sourced justice. And we’ll elevate important stories subsumed by fast-paced news cycles, from the unseen tragedies of border crossings to the global implications of China’s expanding soft power.
Such tough discussions are regular fodder for the journalists who come through the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists and the Livingston Awards, the truth-seekers and tellers who think, work and interact within our Wallace House walls. It’s pressing now that we move those conversations out into the open, to forums that prompt wider-reaching debate. Free speech and a free press, after all, are rights too precious to take for granted.
We hope you will mark these events on your calendar, share them with friends and join us.
3/20/18 | “China’s Soft Power” The Eisendrath Symposium on International News
Information on times, venues and speaker details can be found on our event pages.
Lynette Clemetson is Director of Wallace House, home of the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists and the Livingston Awards at the University of Michigan. She is a 2010 Knight-Wallace Fellow.
Martha Darling and Gil Omenn at the Livingston Awards luncheon
University of Michigan professor Dr. Gil Omenn and his wife Martha Darling contribute to a wide range of philanthropic causes, from the fine arts to medical research to environmental conservation. This year they added Wallace House to the important institutions they support. Omenn and Darling pledged $500,000 to the Livingston Awards, a prestigious annual prize which recognizes outstanding local, national and international reporting by journalists under the age of 35.
Omenn and Darling presented their gift at the Livingston Awards luncheon on June 6 in New York City. With impassioned remarks before the 200 guests gathered for the annual event, the couple expressed admiration for the work of the journalists honored and spoke with urgency about the need to publicly support the press.
“Journalism is a bedrock activity of our society, especially in the current environment,” said Omenn in an interview this month. “This is a field where young people can make a big impact. We think it’s important, it’s underinvested, and we’re delighted to participate.”
Mollie Parnis LIvingston created the awards in 1981 in memory of her son, Robert, publisher of More, a journalism review. For more than 30 years, her family foundation offered sole support to the program, which is administered by Wallace House at the University of Michigan. The Omenn-Darling gift will go toward an endowment to secure the program into the future. They join the Indian Trail Charitable Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Christiane Amanpour, and the University of Michigan among the program’s major supporters.
“This is an especially significant time to recognize and support the vital role journalism plays in our democracy,” says Lynette Clemetson, director of the Livingston Awards. “Young reporters are producing strong work across a range of storytelling forms, increasing public understanding, accountability, empathy and action around important issues. Generous gifts like this not only provide recognition to individual journalists, they also affirm the larger mission of journalism in society. We are deeply grateful.”
Omenn, director of the university’s Center for Computational Medicine & Bioinformatics and the Proteomics Alliance for Cancer Research, served as executive vice president for medical affairs and as chief executive officer of the University of Michigan Health System from 1997 to 2002. He was dean of the School of Public Health, and professor of medicine and environmental health at the University of Washington, Seattle, from 1982 to 1997. He was also associate director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Office of Management and Budget in the Carter administration.
A noted conservationist, Darling is a member of the National Wildlife Federation’s President’s Leadership Council, which honored her contributions with its achievement award last year. Retired from a senior management position at Boeing, she has consulted on education policy for the National Academy of Sciences, and has chaired the boards of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation. She is also a member of the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars.
Omenn was first introduced to Wallace House and the Knight-Wallace Fellowships by former director Charles Eisendrath, who retired in 2016. Over the years Omenn particularly enjoyed his occasional visits to Wallace House to hear from guest speakers, as well as the opportunity to meet with Fellows currently in residence. Last year, Wallace House director Lynette Clemetson launched The Livingston Lectures, public events featuring Livingston winners, an initiative Omenn singled out for praise. Giving students a chance to interact with the winners demonstrates the value of having the awards’ “home base” on campus, he added.
“This is in the sweet spot for the University of Michigan — we’re all about new knowledge and developing young people,” says Omenn.
Omenn and Darling maintain other connections to the journalism world. Omenn serves on the board of directors of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative news organization based in Washington, D.C. He noted that CPI’s first Pulitzer Prize, in 2014, went to a 28-year-old reporter examining the systemic disenfranchisement of Appalachian coal miners with black lung disease — two-time Livingston Award finalist Chris Hamby.
And Darling is a relative of Jay Norwood “Ding” Darling, who won two Pulitzer Prizes for political cartooning — in 1923 and 1942. He went on to become founder of the National Wildlife Federation and was appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt to head the U.S. Biological Survey, a forerunner to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Support for the Livingston Awards bolsters the work of reporters under the age of 35, creates the next generation of journalism leaders and advances civic engagement around powerful storytelling. Go to our donate page for more on how to support the essential work of journalists.
From the human toll of border crossings to Assad’s authorization of mass killings: Exploring Livingston Award winning stories with the Knight Foundation
June 22, 2017 | 5 – 6 p.m.
Grand Canyon 9-10, first floor
JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa
5350 East Marriott Drive
Phoenix, Arizona
IRE conference attendees can meet the 2017 Livingston Award winners and learn how these reporters transformed their story ideas into award-winning investigations. From tracking down sources to crafting narratives, they will examine ways to dig deeper and tell powerful stories.
Speakers:
Panelist: Brooke Jarvis, 2017 Livingston Award winner for “Unclaimed,” from The California Sunday Magazine, an investigative narrative about an unidentified migrant bed-bound in a San Diego hospital for 16 years and the networks of immigrant families searching for their missing loved ones.
Panelist: Ben Taub, 2017 Livingston Award winner for “The Assad Files,” from The New Yorker, an investigative feature exposing a complex, dangerous operation to capture top-secret documents that link mass torture and killings in Syria to the highest levels of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime..
Moderator: Stella Chavez, Livingston Awards judge and 2007 Livingston winner, for “Yolanda’s Crossing,” an investigation into a sexually-abused Mexican girl abducted and smuggled across the U.S. border.
This event is presented by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Knight Foundation is a national foundation with strong local roots. We invest in journalism, in the arts, and in the success of cities where brothers John S. and James L. Knight once published newspapers. Our goal is to foster informed and engaged communities, which we believe are essential for a healthy democracy. For more, visit knightfoundation.org.
2017 Livingston Award Winners: Claire Galofaro, Brooke Jarvis, Ben Taub and the late Gwen Ifill
Stories about economic despair in Appalachia, the human toll of border crossings, and President Bashar al-Assad’s authorization of mass murder in Syria won the Livingston Awards today. The $10,000 prizes for journalists under the age of 35 are the largest all-media, general-reporting prizes in the country.
The Livingston Awards also honored the late Gwen Ifill with the Richard M. Clurman Award for on-the-job mentoring. The $5,000 prize named for the late Richard M. Clurman, former chief of correspondents for Time-Life Service and architect of the Livingston Awards.
Livingston judges María Elena Salinas of Univision News, Kara Swisher of Recode and Code Conference and Bret Stephens of The New York Times introduced the winners today at a luncheon in New York City. Former Livingston judge and winner, Michele Norris presented the Richard M. Clurman Award.
“These winners underscore the vital work and absolute necessity of journalism in documenting the human experience,” says Livingston Awards Director Lynette Clemetson. “Through meticulous reporting and exceptional storytelling these reporters crafted richly detailed, affecting narratives that added depth, nuance and new understanding to often oversimplified issues.”
The 2017 winners for work published in 2016 are:
Local Reporting
Claire Galofaro, 34, of The Associated Press, for the series “Surviving Appalachia,” a devastating portrait of a rural landscape on the brink of extinction. Galofaro examines the rise of Donald Trump, captures the despair of hundreds of people betrayed by a crooked lawyer’s disability fraud scheme and documents a day in a small West Virginia city where 28 people overdose in a four-hour period.
“The lesson I learned most vividly from reporting these stories is that a generally-improving American economy means nothing to people who look out their window and see only devastation and decay,” says Galofaro. “There is a consequence of forsaking these blue collar places.”
National Reporting
Brooke Jarvis, 32, of The California Sunday Magazine, for “Unclaimed,” an investigative narrative about an unidentified migrant bed-bound in a San Diego hospital for 16 years and the networks of immigrant families searching for their missing loved ones.
“We talk constantly about immigration and immigration reform without enough understanding of the human lives that are involved,” says Jarvis. “I think the more we can empathize with people, instead of thinking of them a abstractions, the better off we all are.”
International Reporting
Ben Taub, 25, of The New Yorker, for “The Assad Files,” an investigation revealing the workings of an independent agency and their efforts to capture and smuggle government documents that link mass torture and killings in Syria to the highest levels of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
“Everyone knew that the Assad regime was committing an astonishing array of war crimes and crimes against humanity,” says Taub. “But for me, what mattered was showing not only that these crimes were taking place but also that they can be traced back to orders that Assad had signed – that his criminal culpability is not in question. If international law is credibly applied in Syria, this is the body of evidence that will be used against Assad in court.”
On-the-Job Mentoring
The late Gwen Ifill was honored with the Richard M. Clurman Award for her commitment to counseling, nurturing and inspiring young journalists. Ifill served as co-anchor and managing editor of “PBS NewsHour and moderator and managing editor of “Washington Week” until her death in November 2016. Her family will donate the prize money to the Gwen Ifill Fund for Journalism Excellence established by WETA, her public broadcasting home.
“Gwen provided counsel and guidance to hundreds of journalists in a way that was not available to her as a young journalist,” says Rochelle Riley, columnist for the Detroit Free Press. “She rose to the top of her profession, all with one hand reached behind her back to help others rise.”
Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the University of Michigan to support the vital role of a free and independent press, the awards bolster the work of young reporters, create the next generation of journalism leaders and advance civic engagement around powerful storytelling.
The Livingston Lectures present journalists Lisa Gartner, Michael LaForgia, and Nathaniel Lash and education policy expert Tabbye Chavous for a panel discussion on “Failure Factories,” the Tampa Bay Times investigative series about what happened after the Pinellas County School Board voted in 2007 to abandon racial integration in favor of a neighborhood school system, the policy changes prompted by the reports and the current shape of racial segregation in schools across the county.
In 2007 the Pinellas County School Board abandoned integration, promising schools in poor, black neighborhoods more money, staff and resources. None of those were delivered. In 2015 Tampa Bay Times’ reporters Lisa Gartner, Michael LaForgia and Nathaniel Lash analyzed data from seven years of school disciplinary records and found a precipitous decline in student performance as well as alarming rates of violence in five elementary schools following the 2007 decision. Their investigative series received attention from the U.S. education Secretary and led to several reforms
Lisa Gartner is a writer on the enterprise team at the Tampa Bay Times. In 2016, she and Times reporters Cara Fitzpatrick and Michael LaForgia won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting for “Failure Factories.” The series also won the Livingston Award, the Polk Award for Education Reporting, the Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Journalism and the Investigative Reporters and Editors Medal, among other honors. Gartner joined the Times in 2013. She grew up in Wellington, FL, and attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. After graduating in 2010, she joined The Washington Examiner to report on education in the D.C. metro area. At the Times, Gartner covered Pinellas County Schools and higher education.
Michael LaForgia is investigations editor at the Tampa Bay Times. He has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting – in 2014 for exposing problems in a Hillsborough County homeless program and in 2016 for the “Failure Factories” series, for which he also won a Livingston Award. He joined the Times in 2012.
Nathaniel Lash joined the Tampa Bay Times in 2015 as an intern and became a data reporter. He was a fellow at The Center for Investigative Reporting, an intern at Newsday and a news applications developer at The Wall Street Journal. A Livingston Award winner, Lash graduated from the University of Urbana-Champaign with a degree in news-editorial journalism.
Tabbye M. Chavous is the director of the National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID) and a Professor of Education and Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan. Her expertise and research activities include social identity development among black adolescents and young adults; and diversity and multicultural climates in secondary and higher education settings and implications for students’ academic, social, and psychological adjustment.
Moderated by Brian Jacob, Walter H.Annenberg professor Education Policy, professor of economics and co-director of the Education Policy Initiative and Youth Policy Lab.
This is co-sponsored by the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, the Education Policy Initiative and the School of Education.
A panel of national journalists and a political science expert will offer analysis about the presidential election and the tempestuous aftermath during a public discussion at the University of Michigan.
The focus will be on criticism of the media, what journalists, pollsters and political experts missed, and the path forward in covering an unprecedented presidency and divided country.
Lynette Clemetson, director of Wallace House at U-M, said it is important to hear from reporters who have covered the presidential election from the beginning.
“It is even more important to turn our attention to what comes next,” Clemetson said. “We are entering uncharted waters. As much as news organizations need to to examine their coverage priorities, news consumers need to become astute in assessing the flood of information coming at them and the role and function of a free press in society.”
The panel includes alumni of the U-M Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists who covered the campaign and will report on the transition, as well as a former Livingston Awards winner and a U-M expert who follows elections and voting behavior.
Panelists:
● Craig Gilbert is the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Washington bureau chief and author of “The Wisconsin Voter” political blog. He has covered every presidential campaign since 1988 and has written extensively about the electoral battle for the swing states of the industrial Midwest. Gilbert was a 2010 Knight-Wallace Fellow.
● Vincent Hutchings, U-M professor of political science, is an expert on public opinion, elections and voting behavior. He studies demographic change and its effect on voting behavior and how campaign communications are designed to appeal to various group identities.
● Tracy Jan is a national political reporter who covered the campaign for The Boston Globe. She focused primarily on the GOP, including Christian evangelicals, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. This month, she joins The Washington Post to develop a new beat on the intersection of race and the American economy. Jan was a 2015 Knight-Wallace Fellow.
● Laura Meckler is a staff writer with The Wall Street Journal where she covered the Democratic presidential primary and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. She has reported on presidential politics, the White House, changing American demographics, immigration and health care. In 1999, she received a Livingston Award for national reporting.
● Katie Zezima is a political reporter for The Washington Post where she covered the Obama White House years. She chronicled the campaigns of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and Texas Senator Ted Cruz from start to finish and before switching to enterprise reporting on social issues riling the election in its final months. Zezima was a 2012 Knight-Wallace Fellow.
Jon Morgan, an editor in the Washington bureau of Bloomberg News since 2010, will serve as moderator. He was a 2001 Knight-Wallace Fellow.
The event is being presented by Wallace House and the College of Literature, Science and the Arts.
Wallace House is pleased to announce the addition of María Elena Salinas and Stella M. Chávez to the Livingston Awards’ judging panels. Salinas, anchor, Univision News joins the Livingston Awards national judging panel. Chávez, education reporter for KERA, an NPR affiliate in Dallas, joins the Livingston Awards regional judging panel.
Salinas is the co-anchor of Univision Network’s flagship daily newscast “Noticiero Univision,” and weekly newsmagazine “Aquí y Ahora.” Called the “Voice of Hispanic America” by The New York Times, she is the most recognized Hispanic female journalist in the United States. Salinas began her career in broadcast journalism in 1981 as a reporter, anchor and public affairs host for KMEX-34, the Univision affiliate in Los Angeles. Since then she has received many prestigious awards for her work including: The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ Lifetime Achievement Award; a Peabody Award; a Gracie Award for Outstanding Anchor; seven Emmy Awards; a Walter Cronkite Award; an Edward R. Murrow Award; the “Intrepid Award” from National Organization for Women (NOW); and the 2013 Outstanding Achievement Award in Hispanic Television by Multichannel News and Broadcasting & magazines.
Chávez is a reporter at KERA, the NPR affiliate in Dallas. She covers education and has reported on major news stories, such as the shooting deaths of five police officers in downtown Dallas, the Ebola outbreak in Dallas and the migration of unaccompanied minors to Texas. She has won several state and national awards, including a Livingston Award in 2007 for her Dallas Morning News’ series, “Yolanda’s Crossing.” The co-authored stories reconstruct the 5,000-mile journey of a young Mexican sexual-abuse victim from a small Oaxacan village to Dallas. For that series, she also received the Dart Award for Excellence in Reporting on Victims of Violence, the APME International Perspective Award and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Print Feature and Online awards.
“We are honored to have these two talented journalists joining our esteemed judges,” said Wallace House director Lynette Clemetson. “The Livingston Awards draws exceptional applicants from all over the country. Having judges with far ranging experience and regional expertise helps us tap into the full breadth of new voices and excellent journalism our awards seek to recognize.”
The regional judges read all qualifying entries and select the finalists in local, national and international reporting categories. In addition to Chávez, the regional judging panel includes: David Greene, host, “Morning Edition,” NPR; Stephen Henderson, editorial and opinion editor, Detroit Free Press; Shirley Leung, columnist, The Boston Globe, Raney Aronson-Rath, executive producer, “Frontline,” PBS; and Amy Silverman, managing editor, Phoenix New Times.
The Livingston Awards national judges review all final entries and meet to select the winners in local, national and international reporting. In addition to Salinas, the national judging panel includes: Christiane Amanpour, chief international correspondent, CNN; Ken Auletta, media and communications writer, The New Yorker; Dean Baquet, executive editor, The New York Times; John Harris, editor-in-chief and co-founder, Politico; Clarence Page, syndicated columnist; Anna Quindlen, author; and Kara Swisher co-founder and executive editor of Recode.
2016 Livingston Winners. Front row: Michael LaForgia, Lisa Gartner, Charles Eisendrath, Adrian Chen. Back row: Nathaniel Lash, Daniel Wagner, Mike Baker
Stories about re-segregation and the neglect of black students, the predatory practices of Warren Buffet’s mobile-home empire, and the spread of pro-Kremlin propaganda on social media won the 2016 Livingston Awards. The $10,000 prizes for journalists under the age of 35 are the largest all-media, general-reporting prizes in the country.
The Livingston Awards also honor an on-the-job mentor with a $5,000 prize named for the late Richard M. Clurman, former chief of correspondents for Time-Life Service (1960-1969) and originator of the Livingston Awards.
Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the University of Michigan to support a new emphasis on digital media efforts, the program continues to see an increase in digital submissions, with 21-percent more than in 2015. Since the funding initiative began two years ago, the number of digital entries increased 125 percent. The overall number of entries increased 53 percent.
Livingston judges Dean Baquet of The New York Times, John Harris of POLITICO, Kara Swisher of Recode and Code Conference, and Ken Auletta of The New Yorker introduced the winners at a luncheon in New York City.
“The judges have a remarkable record in singling out for early recognition journalists who go on to leadership, including Thomas Friedman, Christiane Amanpour and David Remnick,” said Charles R. Eisendrath, founding director of the program at the University of Michigan. “Adding a prize for mentors who provide indispensable guidance at critical moments in a developing career help complete an important circle of celebration.”
The 2016 winners for work published in 2015 are:
Local Reporting
Lisa Gartner, 28, Michael LaForgia, 32 and Nathaniel Lash, 24, of Tampa Bay Times, for “Failure Factories,” an investigation into the high failure rates and violence in five Florida elementary schools.
In 2007, the Pinellas County School Board voted to end racial integration and then failed to deliver on promises of more money, staff and resources to re-segregated schools. Analyzing mountains of data and interviewing more than 100 parents, students, teachers and administrators, the reporters found the five elementary schools had more violent incidents than all of Pinellas County’s other 17 high schools combined.
“We wanted to dig deeper into why our black students were failing at the worst rates in the state,” says Gartner, the Times’ education reporter. “The data led us to what the story was: these five schools and the 2007 vote.”
National Reporting
Mike Baker, 31, of The Seattle Times and Daniel Wagner, 34, of The Center for Public Integrity and BuzzFeed News, for “The Mobile-Home Trap,” an investigation into the predatory practices of Warren Buffet’s mobile-home empire. The series revealed how Clayton Homes, a part of the Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate, and its lending subsidiaries target minority homebuyers and lock them into ruinous high-interest loans.
“Our story showed that Clayton had not reinvented and perfected mobile-home lending, but instead had quietly bought up much of the rest of the industry, creating a near monopoly in many markets,” says Daniel Wagner. “In addition, it showed how reverse redlining, a practice typically associated with lending to urban minorities, is a serious problem in rural areas.”
International Reporting
Adrian Chen, 31, of The New York Times Magazine, for “The Agency,” an investigation into an internet trolling organization located in St. Petersburg, Russia, responsible for spreading pro-Kremlin propaganda and manufacturing false stories about unrest and disaster in the United States.
“The Russian government has been successful at using the internet to discredit political opposition and spread pro-government propaganda,” says Chen. “We think of the internet as enabling revolutions and protests, but it seems equally useful as a technology of government control.”
On-the-Job Mentoring
Charles R. Eisendrath received the Richard M. Clurman Award for his dedication to mentoring young journalists. A former Time correspondent based in Washington D.C., London, Paris and Buenos Aires, Eisendrath came to the University of Michigan as a Journalism Fellow in 1974. He stayed to join the University faculty and later head the master’s program for journalism. In 1980, Richard Clurman asked Eisendrath to design and direct the Livingston Awards. In 1986, Eisendrath became the third director of the Michigan Journalism Fellowships and transformed a financially strapped sabbatical program into the prestigious, globetrotting Knight-Wallace Fellowships and built a $60 million endowment to maintain them in perpetuity. For four decades, he positively influenced the careers and lives of hundreds of journalists. Eisendrath, who is retiring, will donate his prize money to the Livingston Awards endowment.
In addition to Auletta, Baquet, Harris and Swisher, the Livingston judging panel includes Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international correspondent and host of “Amanpour;” Ellen Goodman, author and co-founder of The Conversation Project; Clarence Page, syndicated columnist and editorial board member of the Chicago Tribune; and Anna Quindlen, author.
Knight-Wallace alumni, university colleagues and journalism luminaries honor Charles R. Eisendrath’s legacy to journalism.
By STEVE FRIESS ’12
In a massive events space on University of Michigan’s North Campus elegantly arrayed with energetic servers buzzing around, Dave Farrell ’93 offered up a worthwhile reminder of how far the Knight-Wallace Fellowships have come.
Today, of course, the program is renowned for its international travel to South America and Turkey, so Farrell wanted to explain to the 400 attendees at an April 15 fête for retiring Director Charles Eisendrath his role in how those exotic trips became a part of the deal.
“Farrell,” Eisendrath told the then-Detroit News staffer, “go down to the university transit hut and sign out the biggest van you can find.” He did as he was told, returning to the newly acquired Wallace House with a cargo vehicle. A little later, Farrell drove the van “with fellows stuffed in the back” to Detroit.
David Farrell ‘93 recalls Eisendrath and the Fellowship’s first “news tour.”
“Our destination was to find a guy who nailed a hubcap to a tree and called it art,” Farrell told the audience.
From such humble beginnings, the program swelled along with the prestige of the Livingston Awards, and Eisendrath became an icon of journalism. No explanation was necessary, for example, for the cakes perched as each table’s centerpiece coated in white fondant frosting and bedecked by a candy bowtie. Over dinner, university administrators and faculty, former Fellows and other colleagues stretching all the way back to 1970s reminisced and honored the larger-than-life human nucleus of two of the profession’s most important programs.
“I have no bleeping idea what course of study Eisendrath pursued,” said Charles Wolfson, a Fellow from “CBS News”, along with Eisendrath in the class of 1974-75. “I have this vague recollection that Charles spent some time at the School of Natural Resources. Maybe he was on the cutting edge of learning about what we’d come to know as climate change. But he was probably trying to figure out how to grow more cherries per acre on his farm.”
Eisendrath, who came to University of Michigan from his job as a foreign correspondent for Time, would never leave. He taught journalism and took over as director of the school’s now-gone masters program in 1980. That year he also became founding director of the Livingstons.
One of his students, commentator Jack Lessenberry of Michigan Public Radio, recalled Eisendrath’s teaching style – which felt familiar to anyone who had been a Fellow. “Charles gave us some simple instructions, threw us in the deep end and expected us to swim on our own,” said Lessenberry, head of journalism at Wayne State University.
“In my 20s and not at all sure what I wanted to do with my life, Charles Eisendrath showed me how to be a journalist and taught me the important and most fun profession in the world,” he intoned in his signature NPR style. “He did more to shape me professionally than anyone else and has been an important part of my life ever since.”
Farrell turned his attentions mostly to recognizing Eisendrath’s wife, Julia, whom he described as “the diamond we found in the fellowship year.” The “program’s first lady,” he said, “has the gift of communicating in such a way that makes everyone she talks to feel as though they are the only and the most important person in the world. When you talk to Julia, you know she really listens and when she speaks to you, you know she’s speaking from her heart.”
Julia Eisendrath, first lady of Wallace House and den mother to three decades of Knight-Wallace Fellows.
The tributes filled two hours and included testimonials from University of Michigan Provost Martha Pollack, University of Michigan Regent Kathy White, Council of Michigan Foundations CEO Robert Collier, New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet, New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff, former fellows Tracy Jan ’15 and Rachel Dry ’13, Wallace House associate director, Birgit Rieck and ragtime pianist extraordinaire Bob Milne, who led the outgoing fellowship class in a rousing original composition called, “The Man in the Hat.”
Will Potter, KWF ’16, spoke on behalf of the group – Eisendrath’s last crop – to explain how an Ann Arbor speakeasy called The Last Word would now offer an honorary drink, the “Thunderous Round,” which is made of Traverse City whiskey, cherry liqueur, agave syrup, bitters and “a splash of mediocre sherry.” Eisendrath’s evaluation of the seminar offering at Wallace House.
To end the festivities, Eisendrath called up each Wallace House staff member to thank them with gifts and praise for their longtime support, and introduced the incoming Wallace House director, Lynette Clemetson. A Fellow in 2009-10 and most recently a senior director at NPR, she donned the chestnut-hued Worth & Worth straw Fedora that he gave her as a “symbol of continuity.”
Clemetson used the occasion to announce that the Knight Foundation was pledging $50,000 towards an annual symposium on international journalism at the University in honor of Eisendrath’s keenest interest.
“To listen to all you’ve created, to be the beneficiary of what you’ve created and know it has strengthened me and my career and enabled things I did after the fellowship … to be able to come back is the greatest honor for the greatest man who has done so much for me,” she said to close out the night.
Over 200 Knight-Wallace alumni came from far and near to celebrate with Eisendrath, including many from the class of 2011-2012.
