News

UNC Hussman is partnering with Lisa, her family, friends and colleagues to establish the program for health communication at UNC Hussman. We seek to establish an endowed professorship and an undergraduate health communication certificate program that provides funding for students and real-world learning experiences.

As Women’s History Month drew to a close, the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media reached out to three trailblazing women who have made their mark on the school — one as UNC’s first Black woman undergraduate and two as pioneering women faculty members, among the first at the school. We asked about their experiences at UNC Hussman, the women who motivated them and issues they saw still affecting women in academia and journalism. The stories of Karen Parker ’65, Jane Brown and Jan Yopp ’70 are individual, but in their reflections are threads of perseverance, female mentorship and a commitment to education woven into the stories of so many women who have left their mark on UNC Hussman.

People turned to local media for COVID-19 information. People worried about others’ health as much as their own. People wondered what settings didn’t require a mask. Those are just some of the insights that UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media researchers found that directly influenced how North Carolina’s governmental agencies disseminated pandemic information to the public. UNC Hussman Dean Susan King explored the research and its reach during the school’s virtual discussion “What Have We Learned About Audience Engagement in the Age of COVID?” on March 25, 2021, with W. Horace Carter Distinguished Professor Francesca Dillman Carpentier,  E. Reese Felts Jr. Distinguished Associate Professor Allison Lazard and Roy H. Park Fellow and Ph.D. student Rhyan Vereen.

A vibrant and collaborative interdisciplinary research culture at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media creates new knowledge, advances scholarship and helps reinvent media.

by Barbara Wiedemann
Amari Pollard, Roy H. Park Fellow master’s candidate at UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, knows lacrosse. She knows content creation in today’s media landscape. And she knows what it’s like to be a Black woman moving through majority white spaces. With ESPN’s new halftime spot on the ACC Network and ESPNU’s “Sound On with Tari and Amari,” Pollard is bringing those worlds together alongside Tari Kandemiri, another Black woman with knowledge and passion for the game of lacrosse. Together, the co-hosts are bringing a unique chemistry, humor and frankness — and a new point of view — to the sport through ESPN’s national coverage.

by Barbara Wiedemann
UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media alumnus Stacy Wall ’89, one of the industry’s most highly respected commercial directors and a generous supporter of the school via the Emma Lineberger Scholarship Endowment Fund, visited remotely with Professor John Sweeney’s sports marketing class earlier this semester from his Los Angeles office. We followed up with the awards-laden Adidas, Nike, Jordan Brand and ESPN creative hitmaker on a frank phone call with student Keyshawn Garrett ’22 about what it takes to navigate Carolina well and how to stay at the top of the directing game for over 32 years. 

UNC Hussman Roy H. Park Fellow Giulia Heyward ’21 (M.A.) will serve as a 2021–22 New York Times Fellow, joining a group of 33 fellows chosen from more than 3,000 applicants worldwide.Heyward will work as a reporter on The Times’ National desk during the yearlong fellowship. The fellows — The Times’ third fellowship class — represent 17 U.S. states, as well as Puerto Rico, Britain and Vietnam and will serve in a variety of beats and capacities across The Times’ New York, San Francisco, Washington and London newsrooms.

How do journalists rebuild trust? “We all recognize that we’re facing a crisis in our information environment, which in turn is an emergency for our democracy,” said Nancy Gibbs, director of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University, as she kicked off the Knight Foundation panel discussion “Rebuilding Trust in America: The Challenge for Journalists” on March 16, 2021.

We at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media are deeply saddened by the senseless and tragic murders of Hyun Jung Grant, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels, Suncha Kim, Soon Chung Park and Yong Ae at three Asian American-owned businesses in Fulton County and Cherokee County, Georgia, on Tuesday, March 16. We stand in solidarity with our Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander (AAPI) colleagues, students, alumni, families, fellow journalists and strategic communicators, and all who mourn their loss and the rise of violence against their communities.

In partnership with the Google News Initiative, LION Publishers and Douglas K. Smith, the UNC Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media (CISLM), located in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, has released the results of the most extensive look in a decade at the emerging digital news business and how digital startups succeed.
Project Oasis compiled and analyzed data about locally focused digital news publications throughout the U.S. and Canada and now shares the research report and a playbook for aspiring local news entrepreneurs.