Meet the New Faculty

In the 2009-2010, we welcome four new faculty members who will be teaching courses for the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy. The Center has brought on two full-time faculty to fill chaired positions, and enlisted two other Duke dignitaries to teach courses.

 

Phil Bennett, Sarah Cohen, John Burness and Mike Schoenfeld are profiled below with information about the courses they are teaching, and links related to their work.

 

Phil Bennett, the former managing editor of The Washington Post, became the Eugene C. Patterson Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University in July. He joins the team at the DeWitt Center for Media and Democracy with newly-hired Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Sarah Cohen, who was named the Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University in April.

In the fall, Bennett will be teaching the long-running core course of the DeWitt Center’s Policy Journalism and Media Studies Certificate program, PPS 125.01 News as a Moral Battleground. Bennett’s course will examine news media coverage of U.S. national security in the period since Sept. 11, 2001, focusing on efforts by reporters to penetrate government secrecy, decisions by editors to publish stories revealing classified information, and attempts by the government to defend secrets and sanction those who disclose them. The goal of the course is to understand better the nature and the mechanics of the relationship between the news media and the government - as antagonists, co-dependants, or counterweights - in periods of national crisis and on matters of vital national interest. Bennett’s class examines difficult decisions to publish classified information, such as the controversial decision made by the New York Times in 2005 to unveil the National Security Agencies’ secret warrantless wiretapping program. Guests invited to this class include investigative reporters Dana Priest and Bart Gellman, of The Washington Post, and Tim Golden, of The New York Times.

In the spring of 2010, Bennett introduces two new courses to Duke students: PPS 196S.13 Islam and the Media, and PPS 196S.12 Narrative Journalism in the Digital Age. In PPS 196.13 Islam and the Media, students will examine how the news media portray Muslims in the United States, and how Muslim communities see themselves in the context of media coverage. As part of the course, students will develop a project involving Muslim communities guided by Wendy Ewald of the Center for International Studies and the Center for Documentary Studies. Narrative Journalism in the Digital Age will examine long-form journalism, which for decades has distinguished elite publications, attracted great writers and produced stories that deepen readers’ understanding of issues. The course examines journalism storytelling and the impact of new technologies in print, on television and online. Students will produce original journalism during the term.

In addition to teaching, Bennett is working to integrate the Jay Rutherfurd Living History Program into a research foci of the DeWitt Center. “We’re positioned to try and build a living history narrative around issues or themes, taking on questions of media, democracy and public policy,” Bennett said. He hopes to use his time at the Center to take a step back from the media world and truly analyze the implications of its changing landscape. As he noted, in journalism today, “We’re not seeing the end of journalism; we’re witnessing a transformation.”

 

For more on Phil Bennett:

Oct. 12, 2009, interview about his career and teaching, on WUNC’s The State of Things

June 4, 2009 interview on the emerging nonprofit sector in journalism in the blog, The Nonprofit Road

March 31, 2009, on coming to Duke, from the Duke Office of News and Communications

January 5, 2009, on leaving The Washington Post

 

Sarah Cohen, who was appointed the Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy in March, brings to Duke expertise on computer-assisted investigative reporting, which she has employed to win a Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting. She hopes to use her time at Duke to research and expand the capabilities of investigative reporters by adapting techniques from disciplines ranging from medicine to accounting, and to remove some of the difficulty of tackling difficult and important stories. Hamilton expressed his enthusiasm for the innovation that comes from Cohen’s appointment. “I’ve been struck by her emphasis on the importance of using data to discover stories, not simply to illustrate them,” he said. “I believe that she will draw together people from journalism, computer science, and communications” to create free and open tools for reporters.

Cohen has introduced a new class, PPS 195S.15 Watching the Transition. This course explores the ways in which a new president can implement his or her agenda. “We’ll look at the whole range of powers-regulatory, budget, executive and even the way that [President Obama] spends his time,” Cohen said.

In the Spring, Cohen will teach the core ethics course, PPS 125.01 News as a Moral Battleground, and a new course entitled Muckraking to Data Mining: Reporting that made a difference (PPS 196S.10). Cohen’s new course will lead students in tracing the evolution of investigative reporting through the lens of stories that have had significant public policy implications-such as prompting a president to resign, new consumer safety laws and the release of wronged prisoners. Relying largely on fresh reading of the original works, the class will follow the changing methods and mores of investigative and watchdog reporting.

In addition to her teaching and research, Cohen helped bring the Investigative Reporters and Editors’ Better Watchdog Workshops to Duke in November, 2009. The workshops provide training for student and professional journalists on techniques for more effective sourcing and interviewing, how to bulletproof stories for accuracy, dealing with freedom of information laws and public records, strategies for using Internet tools such as wikis, blogs, robots and RSS feeds, and how to find and use data and documents.

 

 

For more on Sarah Cohen:

October 16, 2009, about her work at Duke, in Duke Today

April 14, 2009, interview about computer-assisted reporting, on Poynter Online

April 9, 2009, in an announcement about her appointmen from the Knight Foundation 

April 9, 2009, on coming to Duke from the Duke Office of News and Communications

March 18, 2009, Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, awarded for report on DC landlord tactics for removing tenants from rent-controlled apartments

2002, citation for the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting, awarded for report on DC children receiving protective care services

2007, finalist, Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, for Harvesting Cash, an investigation into wasted and duplicated spending in U.S. farm subsidy programs.

2005, Selden Ring Award, for contributions to coverage of lead contamination in local water supplies 

 

 

John Burness, having retired as the former Senior Vice President for Public Affairs and Government Relations at Duke in 2008, joined the public policy faculty as a Visiting Professor of the Practice. Burness is teaching a new course on media and higher education, looking at issues such as financing of higher ed, athletics, town-gown relations, academic freedom and political correctness, town-gown relations, student culture, conflicts of interest, rankings, scandals and globalization. He also serves as the faculty advisor for a student-led house course on broadcast journalism, which results in the production of a news broadcast on Duke TV (Cable 13).  While teaching, Burness continues to research and write for national publications on higher education.

 

For more on John Burness:

September 29, 2009, on study-abroad programs in the Chronicle of Higher Education

Report from Berlin, on the RIAS Berlin Kommission summer program

August 25, 2008, on college ranking systems in the Chronicle of Higher Education

October 22, 2007, on stepping down as Duke’s Public Affairs chief, in Duke Today

 

Mike Schoenfeld, Duke’s Vice President for Public Affairs and Government Relations, will be teaching PPS 196S.20 Crash: The Intersection of Politics, Policy and the Media in the spring, 2010. This course examines decisionmaking at the intersection of politics, public policy and media. The course will draw on real-world and real-time examples and case studies, as well as guest speakers. The class will explore topics such: “Grassroots, grasstops, Astroturf and other exotic species of advocacy - When “new media” becomes “news media” - Congressional hearings as theater - The role of think tanks and trade associations - Scandal machines and the commodification of outrage - Differences between crises and controversies, and how to manage them.

Schoenfeld has recently co-founded and launched Futurity.org, an online news source that aggregates feature stories on the latest discoveries from North America’s leading research universities.

 

For more on Mike Schoenfeld:

Schoenfeld’s official Duke profile

February 11, 2008, on coming to Duke, from the Duke Office of News and Communications

September 15, 2009, on the launch of Futurity.org, from the Duke Office of News and Communications

October 9, 2009, interview on NPR’s On the Media, re. Futurity.org: