Directory | Philip Merrill College of Journalism

Faculty
The faculty, adjunct faculty, administration and staff of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism are leaders in the fields of print, broadcast and online journalism and internationally renowned communication scholars.

Sandra Banisky
Abell Professor in Baltimore Journalism, J.D., University of Baltimore; B.S., Boston University
Sandy Banisky teaches urban affairs reporting, a class that explores issues important to cities using Baltimore as a laboratory. As deputy managing editor of The Baltimore Sun, she supervised metro, foreign, national, sports and business news and developed front-page stories from every department of the paper. She also served as The Sun's national editor and national correspondent and covered state and local government and politics. She joined the college in 2008.

Maurine H. Beasley
Professor Emeritus, Ph.D., George Washington
Maurine H. Beasley, former education editor of the Kansas City (Mo.) Star and former staff writer for The Washington Post, is a journalism historian who specializes in women's portrayal and participation in journalism. Her particular focus is Washington women journalists, including their coverage of First Ladies. She was named a Distinguished Senior Scholar by the Educational Foundation of the American Association of University Women and received a Leadership Award in 2001 from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication of which she is a past national president. She also is a former president of the American Journalism Historians Association. She has taught journalism at Jinan University in China under a Fulbright grant.

Kevin Blackistone
Shirley Povich Chair in Sports Journalism, B.S. Northwestern University; M.S. Boston University
Kevin Blackistone is a national columnist for AOL FanHouse, a panelist on ESPN’s Around the Horn, and an occasional contributor to National Public Radio's All Things Considered. Blackistone is a former award-winning sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News, where he covered the Summer Olympics, Wimbledon, the World Cup, the Tour de France, the British Open, the NBA Finals, Final Four, national college football championship, NFL playoffs, Major League Baseball playoffs, world championship boxing matches and other events over 16 years. He joined the college in 2008.

David Broder
Professor, M.A., Chicago
David Broder is a Pulitzer Prize-winning, nationally acclaimed political reporter and a columnist for The Washington Post. He has covered every presidential election since 1960. He joined the Post in 1966 after covering national politics for The New York Times, Washington Star and Congressional Quarterly. He continues to cover government and politics for his twice-weekly syndicated column, which appears worldwide in more than 300 newspapers.

Kalyani Chadha
Director, AASFE; Director, Media, Self and Society Program, College Park Scholars, Ph.D., Maryland

Ira Chinoy
Associate Professor, A.B., Harvard College
Ira Chinoy has 24 years of experience as a journalist at four newspapers: The Washington Post, The Providence (R.I.) Journal, The Lawrence (Mass.) Eagle-Tribune and The Pine Bluff (Ark.) Commercial. As director of computer-assisted reporting at The Washington Post, he was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for a 1998 series on the use of deadly force by the D.C. police. At The Providence Journal, where he was a reporter from 1981 to 1995, Chinoy was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting for coverage of corruption and patronage in the Rhode Island courts. Chinoy has been on the faculty of the College of Journalism since 2001, first as a visiting professor and now as associate professor.

Cassandra Clayton
CNS Broadcast Bureau Director, B.A., Spelman College
Cassandra Clayton is director of the Capital News Service broadcast bureau, overseeing production of the student-run nightly newscast, Maryland Newsline. Hired as an NBC News correspondent in 1983, over the next two decades she reported from their Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C., bureaus. She co-anchored a nightly news and talk program on CNBC called "The Real Story," and substitute anchored Nightly News Weekend Edition, Sunrise and the Today news segment. Prior or coming to the University of Maryland, she most recently reported and anchored for MSNBC and taught broadcast journalism at Howard University.

Steve Crane
Assistant Dean, B.S., Maryland
An alumnus of the College, Steve Crane now serves as the College's assistant dean. Previously he was Washington bureau director for the College's Capital News Service. Crane is a former deputy metro editor and statehouse reporter for The Washington Times. He also worked as a reporter for The Parkersburg (W.Va.) Sentinel and The South Prince George's (Md.) Independent.

Adrianne Flynn
CNS Washington Bureau Director, Lecturer, B.A., Arizona State
Adrianne Flynn is the Washington, D.C., bureau director for the College's Capital News Service. Formerly a Washington correspondent for the Arizona Republic, where she covered U.S. Sen. John McCain, she also worked as a reporter for The Washington Times, where she covered Mayor Marion Barry's return, and for The Dayton (Ohio) Daily News, where she covered serial murderer Jeffrey Dahmer and the 11-day Lucasville, Ohio prison riot. She started her career at the Mesa (AZ) Tribune.

Jon Franklin
Professor and Philip Merrill Chair, B.S., Maryland
Jon Franklin is a literary journalist whose work frequently focuses on the human side of science and technology. In a career that has spanned more than four decades he has written five books and a variety of magazine articles and newspaper stories and series. Known for his innovations both in style and reportage, his credits include two first-in-category Pulitzer prizes (feature writing in 1979 and expository journalism in 1985). He has taught at the University of Maryland, Oregon State University, and the University of Oregon, where his duties included the directorship of the creative writing program.

Penny Bender Fuchs
Director of Career Development and Internships, M.A., Maryland
Penny Bender Fuchs heads the administration of student internships, career placement and scholarships. Fuchs, who has many industry contacts from her long journalism career, also teaches newswriting and handles the college's assessment program. Prior to joining the college, she spent 10 years covering Capitol Hill, primarily for Gannett News Service, the national wire for Gannett's 100 daily newspapers.

Douglas Gomery
Professor Emeritus; Resident Scholar, Library of American Broadcasting, Ph.D., Wisconsin
Douglas Gomery has written for the Village Voice, Modern Maturity, The Wilson Quarterly, The Baltimore Sun and other newspapers. He is a former senior researcher for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Media Studies project, and is the author of 10 books on both the history and economics of the mass media in America. His books -- and more than 600 articles -- have been translated into eight languages. Gomery has been interviewed during the past few years on NPR and for The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, The (Baltimore) Sun, and other media outlets.

Christopher Hanson
Associate Professor, Ph.D., North Carolina; M.A., Oxford; B.A., Reed
Christopher Hanson worked for 20 years as a reporter for Time, The Washington Star, Reuters and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, focusing on topics such as presidential politics, Congress, the environment, American diplomacy and military affairs. Hanson was a combat correspondent in the Gulf War and covered the civil war in Rwanda. He joined the Philip Merrill College of Journalism in 1999 after earning a Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina under a Freedom Forum Fellowship and an M.A. in political theory and moral philosophy in 1984 from Oxford University.

Chris Harvey
Online Bureau Director, Lecturer, B.S., Maryland
Chris Harvey has worked as an online editor, a magazine editor, a newspaper reporter and a journalism teacher. She left her job as managing editor at American Journalism Review in August 2000 to help build the online curriculum at the College. She created and now edits the College's online newsmagazine, Maryland Newsline, which is staffed by students.Before coming to AJR, Harvey worked as an associate Metro editor at washingtonpost.com. There, she led a content redesign of the Metro section and edited news and feature stories.

Ray Hiebert
Professor Emeritus, BA Stanford, MS Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, MA, PhD University of Maryland
Ray E. Hiebert is a specialist in international communication, government-media relations, mass media in society and public relations, and he has professional experience in newspapers, radio, television and public relations. From 1991 to 1995, he was director of the American Journalism Center in Budapest, and has been specializing in media developments in Hungary and Eastern Europe. He is the author of a number of books on journalism and mass media, and is the editor of Public Relations Review, a quarterly journal. Hiebert was the founding dean of the College, where he continues to teach part-time. He holds degrees from the University of Maryland, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Stanford University. He was given the University of Maryland's Landmark Award for International Service in 2000.

Diana Huffman
Baltimore Sun Distinguished Lecturer, J.D., Georgetown; M.S., Columbia
Diana Huffman has served as managing editor of National Journal and as editor of Legal Times in Washington, D.C. She also worked as a radio and TV reporter in New York City and Louisville, Ky. Huffman served as a senior aide in the U.S. Senate for 10 years. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Justice at Stake in Washington, D.C., and participated in the 2000 Presidential Appointee Initiative, a joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Council for Excellence in Government.

Haynes Johnson
Professor and Knight Chair, M.A. Wisconsin
Haynes Johnson is a best-selling author, national TV commentator, former Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist with The Washington Post and The Washington Star. He is considered one of the nation's leading political journalists. In addition to teaching and advising students, he is a contributing editor for American Journalism Review, the national magazine published by the College.

Sue Kopen Katcef
Lecturer, B.S. Maryland
Sue Kopen Katcef is an award winning veteran broadcast journalist who teaches news writing and production for broadcast journalism students. In addition, Sue serves as the Executive Producer for the awarding winning daily news show, “Maryland Newsline,” and Terp Weekly Edition. She is the faculty adviser to the campus chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, and serves on the national board.Prior to coming to the College of Journalism, Katcef was a reporter and anchor for WBAL Radio news in Baltimore. She has also worked as a reporter in television with stops at Baltimore’s WJZ and Maryland Public Television.

Kevin Klose
Dean and Professor, B.A., Harvard
A former editor, and national and foreign correspondent with The Washington Post, Klose is an award-winning author and worldwide broadcasting executive. He joins the Merrill College from National Public Radio where he served as president and president emeritus. Prior to joining NPR, Klose served successively as director of U.S. international broadcasting, overseeing the U.S. Government's global radio and television news services (1997-98) and president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), broadcasting to Central Europe and the former Soviet Union (1994-97)

Rafael Lorente
Annapolis Bureau Director, Capital News Service,
RAFAEL LORENTE is the Annapolis bureau chief of Capital News Service. Lorente is a former reporter with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Miami Herald. As a reporter in Washington for the Sun-Sentinel, Lorente covered the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, the attacks of Sept. 11, and U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America, particularly Cuba.

Susan Moeller
Director, International Center for Media and the Public Agenda (ICMPA); Professor, Philip Merrill College of Journalism; Affiliate Faculty Member, School of Public Policy, Ph.D. & A.M. Harvard; B.A. Yale
Dr. Susan Moeller is the director of the International Center for Media and the Public Agenda at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also a professor in the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland and an affiliated faculty member at the School of Public Policy. An accomplished author, she is an expert in terrorism, war and conflict as it relates to the media. Moeller was formerly the director of the Journalism Program at Brandeis University, a Fulbright Professor in Pakistan and Thailand and has taught in the history department at Princeton.

Deborah Nelson
Director, Carnegie Seminar, J.D., DePaul; B.S., Northern Illinois
Deborah Nelson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author of a new book, The War Behind Me: Vietnam Veterans Confront the Truth About U.S. War Crimes (Basic Books, 2008). She joined the journalism college as visiting professor in 2006, after five years as the Washington investigations editor for the Los Angeles Times. She also reported for The Washington Post, The Seattle Times and The Chicago Sun-Times.

John Newhagen
Associate Professor, Ph.D., Stanford
John Newhagen worked as a foreign correspondent in Central America and the Caribbean for nearly 10 years. He served as bureau chief in San Salvador, regional correspondent in Mexico City, and foreign editor in Washington, D.C. for United Press International during the 1980s. Newhagen's research on the effects of emotion in television and on the Internet have been published widely in a number of leading academic journals.

Gene Roberts
Professor, B.A., North Carolina
Gene Roberts came to the College in 1991, following 18 years as the executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, which won 17 Pulitzer Prizes during his editorship. He took a hiatus from his university work from 1994 to 1997 to serve as managing editor of The New York Times. In 1998, he returned to the College, where he teaches courses on writing the complex story, the press and the civil rights movement, and newsroom management. He received the National Press Club's Fourth Estate Award for Distinguished Contributions to Journalism in 1993.

Carol L. Rogers
Professor of the Practice, Ph.D., Maryland
Carol L. Rogers, former head of the Office of Communications for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, specializes in science journalism, in particular media coverage of climate change, and women in the media. She is on the Editorial Advisory Board of the international social science journal Science Communication, for which she served as editor for nine years. A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, she has co-edited two books, Communicating Uncertainty: Media Coverage of New and Controversial Science and Scientists and Journalists: Reporting Science as News. Rogers has served on the boards of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing and of the National Association of Science Writers, of which she is a life member.

George Solomon
Shirley Povich Visiting Professor, B.S. University of Florida
George Solomon, former AME/Sports at the Washington Post and ESPN Ombudsman, is the Merrill College's Shirley Povich Professor. Named after the legendary Washington Post sports columnist Shirley Povich, this endowed professorship is held by a leader in sports journalism. Solomon was assistant managing editor for sports at the Post from 1975 to 2003. He was responsible for major growth in the section and for hiring and developing some of its most distinctive writers, including Thomas Boswell, Tony Kornheiser, Michael Wilbon, Sally Jenkins and Andrew Beyer. Though formally retired, Solomon continues to write a Sunday column in the sports section of the paper. He has written a book on Povich's columns with Povich's children entitled, All Those Mornings At the Post.

Linda Steiner
Professor and Director of Research and Doctoral Studies, Ph.D., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Linda Steiner studies how and when gender matters in news and newsrooms and how feminist groups use media. Other research areas include media ethics; journalism history; and public journalism. Steiner is editor of Critical Studies in Media Communication and serves on six editorial boards. Before coming to Maryland she taught at Rutgers University, where she served as Department Chair and coordinator of the Ph.D. program's Media Studies track. She has written, co-authored, or edited several books, book chapters, and refereed articles. Steiner has chaired several task forces for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, for which she is now drafting a code of ethics.

Carl Sessions Stepp
Professor, M.A., South Carolina
Carl Sessions Stepp serves as a senior editor of American Journalism Review, where he reviews books each issue and writes about changes in the news profession. Among his articles in AJR were: "The X Factor" (on attracting young readers); "The Thrill Is Gone" (a cover story on staff demoralization in many newsrooms); "Reinventing the Newsroom" (on changing newsroom structures); and "How to Save America's Newspapers." Stepp has served as a writing and editing coach for newspapers across the country, including The Bergen (N.J.) Record, The Oregonian, The Tampa Tribune, USA TODAY and The Washington Post, as well as Toronto Globe and Mail.

Lee Thornton
Richard Eaton Professor in Broadcast Journalism, Ph.D., Northwestern
Lee Thornton holds the College's Richard Eaton chair in Broadcast Journalism. She is a former CBS News White House correspondent and CNN program producer. As a National Public Radio show host she won the prestigious gold "Cindy." She has worked in local radio and television and is a longtime, award-winning media production consultant to government and industry. Since 1998, her students have more than 50 regional and national citations from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Hearst Foundation. She created two award-winning shows for UMTV and Research Channel and has been honored with outstanding teaching awards mulitple times. Thornton has lectured widely on minorities in the media, women in the media, and journalism education issues.

Leslie Walker
Knight Visiting Professor in Digital Innovation, M.A., University of Virginia
A newspaper journalist and pioneer in Internet news, Leslie Walker served as vice president for news and editor of washingtonpost.com at WashingtonPost.Newsweek Interactive, the digital media subsidiary of the Washington Post Co. She spent 16 years writing and editing for The Washington Post and earlier covered state politics for the Baltimore Evening Sun. Her “.com” column appeared weekly in The Post for eight years, chronicling how the Internet transformed media economics and empowered readers to take a more participatory role in media. Walker also wrote a nonfiction book which became a television movie, Sudden Fury. She joined the Merrill College in July 2008 as the Knight Visiting Professor in Digital Innovation.

Ronald A. Yaros
Assistant Professor, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison
Innovation in multimedia journalism encompasses the teaching and research by Ronald Yaros. The Lab For Communicating Complexity With Multimedia investigates how audiences seek and share news, then tests new ways to enhance engagement and understanding. For 2010, he teaches the new "I" series course Information 3.0 plus a graduate seminar in new media research. His professional experience spans twenty-five years as an emmy award-winning broadcaster and President of a national software company. Publications include: Communication Research, Harvard's Nieman Reports, American Journalism Review, a chapter in Journalism and Citizenship: New Agendas, plus his Twitter and blog sites.

Eric Zanot
Associate Professor, Ph.D., Illinois
Eric Zanot's professional experience includes work in public information for public television and stints in two of the nation's largest advertising agencies. Zanot's research interests focus on the regulation of false and deceptive advertising. He has co-edited a book, authored chapters and monographs, written numerous articles and delivered many academic papers on advertising topics. The courses he teaches include Advertising in America, Persuasion in Advertising, Advertising and Society, and a graduate seminar in Advertising.