Looking Up Assistant Dean Bob Martin helps students chase big dreams — and make them a reality.
Dean’s Message
T
he emails can come pouring in, with the rush of a waterfall. Other times they slow to a trickle. But they are a steady presence in the daily inbox for students here in the College of Communications. And they tell me when I can find Bob Martin, our assistant dean for internships and career placement, at his computer. Between appointments and phone calls, and in the evenings when most have left the Carnegie Building, Martin sends out notices about internships and jobs from employers who seek Penn State quality. Now, I’ve heard that college students don’t pay attention to email anymore, spending their time on Twitter or Instagram instead. Communications students know better. A single email from Martin could hold the key to their future. Senior Dorisa Rodney said she combs through all emails from Martin, looking for the next big break. “The emails have played a very integral role in my getting my foot in the door,” said Rodney, who has completed three internships in New York City. “Literally, every single internship experience I have had has come through the College of Communications,” she told me. The emails are just one way Martin and his team connect students to opportunity. Simply: Martin believes in our students, he values our alumni, and he connects with employers. And they love him for it. You’ll find that sentiment in the comments from students in the cover story about Martin in this issue of The Communicator (page 20). I have a feeling that many of our recent alumni, with stories of their own about the difference he has made, will relate to the way students feel. I hope you’ll also read three other stories in this issue written by alumni. One explores a media market where many
Penn Staters land after they graduate: Pittsburgh. The region has been a job source for many because of its rich media offerings, including competing newspapers in the city. But the news market there is changing. We explore the media scene in Pittsburgh with a story (page 12) by an alumnus who knows it well. Bill Vidonic, a ’90 graduate and former reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, has lived in Western Pennsylvania for decades. Another feature in this issue also focuses on an alumna from the Pittsburgh region. If you’re a college football fan, you’ll want to learn about Laila Brock. When millions of fans settle in on Jan. 11 to watch the College Football Playoff national championship game, they’ll watch a showdown that Brock, a ’00 graduate, is orchestrating. As director of operations and logistics for the CFP, she is “responsible for everything,” writes Emily Kaplan (’13). Who says Penn State won’t be at the biggest show in college football? Our own Brock will be making it happen. Learn more about her role on page 38. And, finally: WWE fans, you’re familiar with Tom Phillips, the youngest announcer in “Smackdown!” history. But maybe you didn’t know he developed that famous voice in front of a ComRadio microphone — as Tom Hannifan — less than five years ago. Steve Sampsell (’90) shares an interview with Phillips on page 34. I hope you like the other features you’ll find in this issue of The Communicator. We’ve integrated more of our best student and faculty work into the magazine. Take a look at the captivating images by our photography students and faculty, and read a sample of a Hearst-winning feature story. You’ll also find updates on our programs, our research, and our people. Thank you for your interest and your support of the College. You fuel our great work!
Dean Marie Hardin
the
Communicator The Communicator magazine is published twice a year for alumni, students, faculty and friends of the College of Communications.
DEAN Marie Hardin EDITOR Steve Sampsell (’90) ASSISTANT EDITOR Trey Miller (’12)
Public relations student Wareesha Tariq was part of a class that mobilized to help inform bicyclists and pedestrians about a dangerous State College intersection as part of a real-life partnership. See story, page 30. (Photo by Centre Daily Times/centredaily.com)
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Gene Foreman All items relating to the College and its faculty, staff, students and alumni will be considered for publication. Opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by the University, College or editorial staff.
CORRESPONDENCE The Communicator Penn State College of Communications 302 James Building University Park, PA 16801-3867 Email: comminfo@psu.edu Twitter: @PSUCollegeComm Web: http://comm.psu.edu
features
12 Turning a corner?
Newspaper readers abound in Pittsburgh — as do challenges
22 The future of film through a Netflix lens
Faculty op-ed piece examines how Netflix could impact the film industry
38 Detailed by design
This publication is available in alternative media on request. Penn State is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer, and is committed to providing employment opportunities to minorities, women, veterans, individuals with disabilities, and other protected groups. Nondiscrimination: http://guru.psu.edu/ policies/AD85.html U.Ed. COM 16-60
Alumna Laila Brock oversees key aspects of College Football Playoff
ON THE COVER Assistant Dean Bob Martin leads an internship and career services office in the College of Communications that consistently helps students find opportunities to prepare them for careers. Story, page 20. Photo by John Beale
DEPARTMENTS 2 Dean’s Message 4 Starting Shots 44 Alumni Notes 46 Interview
The Communicator | Fall 2015
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Cameron Hart was one of nearly two dozen College of Communications students who covered the historic visit by Pope Francis to the United States as part of class assignments, independent study opportunities and media partnerships that provided hands-on, real-life experiences. Samples of their work, and that of some alumni, may be found on pages 18-19. (Photo by Will Yurman)
The Communicator | Fall 2015
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Zack Troyer, a Penn State senior majoring in plant sciences, drives his 1968 International truck to his campsite on the Meyer Dairy farm in State College. During the fall semester, Troyer is living in a tent and working on the farm before he graduates in December. A student photojournalist has been focusing on Troyer as part of a season-long project. (Photo by Haley Nelson)
The Communicator | Fall 2015
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The University-wide job fair, conducted at the Bryce Jordan Center, provides many opportunities for students across all majors to meet with potential employers. It also offers a compelling subject for a student photographer. (Photo by Cameron Hart)
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#1 Three-time national
champ and perennial Top 10 in Hearst Journalism Awards Program
#2 Top Journalism Schools (CollegeMagazine.com, 2014)
#2 Best Career Services
WE ARE PENN STATE
(CollegeMagazine.com, 2014)
110 endowed scholarship funds to support students 350 study abroad opportunities 600 for-credit internships completed each year
The College of Communications at Penn State provides the opportunities and resources of a large university with the personalized feel and support of a small school. As
3,000 undergraduates $815,000 in scholarship support awarded annually
the largest accredited program of its kind in the nation, the College offers a place where all students can fit in
comm.psu.edu
and succeed.
@PSUCollegeComm #COMMitted
Big School Resources, Small School Feel
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News and Notes
Since the start of the fall semester students from the College of Communications have collaborated each week with the Office of Strategic Communications in Old Main to produce brief online video updates about Penn State News. The “Penn State Today QuickCast” gets shared with thousands of people who subscribe to Penn State Headlines (headlines.psu.edu). High Honor Marcia DiStaso, an associate professor of advertising/ public relations in the College of Communications, successfully completed the examination for Accreditation in Public Relations, entitling her to use the APR professional designation. IIP Impact Five communications faculty members and two graduate students were sole authors or co-authors of seven papers accepted for the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, which focused on communication, information and Internet policy. Their presence at the international conference in Washington, D.C., made Penn State the institution with the most papers accepted from a single institution. Support for storytelling Richie Sherman, an associate professor in the Department of Film-Video and Media Studies, was awarded a grant from Penn State’s Institute for the Arts and Humanities to support a film telling the virtually unknown story of an unsung hero in the rescue of refugees in Uganda by Israeli soldiers.
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Contributors
Emily
KAPLAN
@emilymkaplan
Lives in: New York City Job: Staff writer, Sports Illustrated and The MMQB In this issue: Profiles alumna Laila Brock, director of operations and logistics for the College Football Playoff (page 38) Big Break: As an intern at SI, assisted on Lee Jenkins’ 2013 Sportsman of the Year story about Peyton Manning Best part of the job: Traveling and meeting interesting people Now reading: “The Art of Smart Football,” by Chris Brown Three things always in the fridge: Siracha, eggs, soy sauce Fondest Penn State memory: Blue and white weekends It’s a good day when: I can spend some time outside
FAVORITE CAMPUS SPOT: Rec Hall
Penn State College of Communications
Roger
VAN-SCYOC @rogervanscy
Lives in: State College Job: Sports writer for The Daily Collegian, graduate student in College of Communications In this issue: Profiles Bob Martin, assistant dean for internships and career services (page 20) Big Break: My left arm — twice Now reading: Most likely The New York Times Three things always in the fridge: The light, an ice cube tray and a stick of butter Fondest Penn State memory: Writing for The Daily Collegian It’s a good day when: I’ve slept the night before
LATEST TWEET: .@PennStateMSOC and @ BadgerMSoccer looking festive in all-white and red-striped unis respectively. #candycaneshiek
Bill
VIDONIC @BillVidonic
Lives in: Hopewell Township, Pennsylvania Job: Senior copy writer, Allegheny Health Network In this issue: Looks at the Pittsburgh media market, with high newspaper readership but facing many changes (page 12) Big Break: Covering the crash of USAir Flight 427 as a journalist for the Beaver County Times Now reading: “1944: FDR and the Year that Changed History” by Jay Winik and Pulitzer Prize winner James McGrath Morris Three things always in the fridge: Milk, chocolate chip cookie dough and alcohol Fondest Penn State memory: Glee Club serenading me with the alma mater as I stood on the balcony of my apartment after I wrote a farewell Daily Collegian column saying I never learned the words to the song
IT’S A GOOD DAY WHEN: Those closest to me are having a good day The Communicator | Fall 2015
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Issue in Depth
Turning the corner? Newspaper readers abound in Pittsburgh — as do challenges in a growing digital marketplace By BILL VIDONIC (’90)
A
s digital becomes the dominant medium for delivering the news, Penn State alumni practicing journalism in the Pittsburgh market face the same challenges as their peers across the country. They’re struggling to cover the news with fewer people, and they’re competing with amateur bloggers and tweeters for news consumers’ attention. For now, Pittsburgh journalists still have a significant factor in their favor: They work in a region populated by devoted newspaper readers. Pittsburgh residents’ fondness for newspapers means that they have been more reluctant than people elsewhere to pick up the habit of reading news on computers and mobile devices. This has mitigated — ever so slightly — the turmoil in the media economy that has followed the huge shift in technology. “There are still people who love that newspaper in their hands,” said Jill Leonard (’02 Journ), a copy editor for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Pittsburgh has the highest newspaper readership in the country, documented by a Nielsen Scarborough survey showing that 51 percent of the adults read a newspaper daily in 2012. While other cities typically have only one newspaper, Pittsburgh still has both the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Tribune-Review. The two newspapers serve a seven-county region of more than 2.3 million residents. In the most recent figures they filed with the Alliance for Audited Media, the Tribune- Review had a total print and online audience of 852,743 and the Post-Gazette had 851,117. Despite the extraordinary reader support, there remains a question of how much longer two competing newspapers can survive in an era in which news consumers are shifting to digital while advertising revenue lags far behind. Both Pittsburgh newspapers have undergone massive upheaval in the last 18 months and have reported annual losses in the millions of dollars. The Tribune-Review’s board of directors has been reexamining its business strategy since the death of the paper’s publisher, billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, on July 4, 2014. That strategic study led in November to layoffs of more than 10 percent of its employees. The layoffs followed an announcement during the summer 12
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Issue in Depth
A hallway with framed newspapers leads to the newsroom at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The Tribune-Review and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette both report reaching a little more than 850,000 people each day. (Photo by Jasmine Goldband) The Communicator | Fall 2015
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Issue in Depth that Trib Total Media — the company that owns the TribuneReview and other papers in the Pittsburgh area — would sell off nine publications, including four daily newspapers. The sale could cut more than 30,000 from its circulation figures. The daily newspapers being sold are The Valley Independent in Monessen, The Leader Times in Kittanning, The Daily News in McKeesport and The Daily Courier in Connellsville. Trib Total Media is also selling the Laurel Group of weekly newspapers: The Mount Pleasant Journal, The Independent-Observer in Scottdale, The Ligonier Echo, The Times-Sun in West Newton and The Jeannette Spirit. In mid-October, the Tribune-Review announced that West Penn, an affiliate of Sample Media Group, based in Huntingdon, had agreed to buy two dailies, The Leader Times and The Daily Courier, along with a half-dozen weekly papers: The Dispatch in Blairsville and the five papers that comprise the Laurel Group. The Valley Independent and The Daily News remained for sale as of mid-November. The company said that it would close those two papers Dec. 31 if no one bought them, — Beau Berman (’08 Journ), putting 90 more out of work. WTAE-TV Also this summer, the company said 430 employees were eligible for buyouts. In October, 68 employees took buyouts and left the company. On Nov. 10, the company announced it was laying off 153 full- and part-time employees, merging papers in Pittsburgh, Greensburg and Tarentum under the Tribune-Review nameplate. The company also said it was shrinking its home delivery to mainly Allegheny and Westmoreland counties, and shutting down printing operations in Greensburg. It will continue printing at its plant in Marshall, Allegheny County. Tribune-Review CEO Jennifer Bertetto said in a statement to readers that the company was aligning the company’s advertising and news operations to “the rapidly evolving digital landscape that has drastically altered how readers get their news.” Bertetto also said, “We are doing this to match the changing needs of readers, subscribers, advertisers, business partners, and our own employees, in order to build an exciting and profitable media future for all of those parties.” The company did not reduce the number of days it would deliver a print paper. This is a tactic that several other U.S. newspapers have taken to cut costs while shifting resources to digital news. In 2013, for example, The Plain Dealer in Cleveland announced it would deliver its print product only four days a week, though the paper is still sold seven days a week at
“People in Pittsburgh really seem to care about local news, local events more than any other market I’ve been in before.”
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newsstands and vending boxes. Trib Total Media officials said the strategic reassessment was not related to a court challenge to Scaife’s will by his daughter and son, Jennie and David. The two contend that Scaife improperly spent nearly $445 million over more than 20 years to subsidize the publishing company, money that they say they should have inherited. In court documents, Jennie Scaife’s attorneys have written that her father spent enormous amounts of money in an attempt to put the Post-Gazette out of business. The son and daughter are trying to recover from the estate some of the millions Scaife spent on the Tribune-Review. In August, the Post-Gazette — owned by Block Communications Inc., which also publishes the Toledo Blade — shuttered its Golden Triangle headquarters that was built for the Pittsburgh Press in 1927. Newsroom and related staff moved to rented space in a new office building just a few hundred yards from the Tribune-Review’s offices on the North Shore. In August 2014, the Post-Gazette opened a new printing plant in Clinton, Allegheny County, eliminating dozens of production jobs in the process. In July, the Post-Gazette offered buyouts to 120 employees, citing weak revenue and a struggling advertising climate. The company said at the time that it hoped 20 people would take the buyout. Executive editor David Shribman said in November that “a little less than two dozen” employees departed under the buyout. Shribman added that he was not calling for layoffs. “We’re doing the very best we can in a difficult situation,” he said. Newsroom cutbacks like those in Pittsburgh have become common in the digital age, which dates to the mid-1990s. The American Society of News Editors reported in April that daily newspapers cut 3,800 full-time journalist jobs from nearly 1,400 newsrooms in 2014.
It’s different in Pittsburgh
Penn State alumni point to the age of the audience as a big reason that Pittsburgh continues to be devoted to newspaper reading and has supported two papers for so long. The Census Bureau says the median age in the seven-county Pittsburgh metropolitan market is 42.5 years. That’s well above the national median age of 37.2 years. The older-skewing population accounts for the fact that the digital revolution hasn’t been as strong in the region as it is elsewhere, Leonard said. “With an older population, that transition is a bit slower,” she said. As for the youngest generation of adults, research confirms what anecdotal evidence suggests: They get their news digitally. And the younger they are, the less likely they are willing to pay for it. Nearly 75 percent of “millennials,” those between 18 and 34 years old, get their news from digital sources, including social media, according to a recent study from the Media Insight Project, a joint effort between The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute. Of those surveyed, 88 percent said they get their news from Facebook regularly; more than 50 percent get news from Facebook on a daily basis. Younger millennials, between 18 and 24, said they rarely The Communicator | Fall 2015
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Issue in Depth
Penn State alumni at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review include (from left): investigations editor Jim Wilhelm, copy editor Jill Leonard, Pirates/MLB beat writer Rob Biertempfel and sports columnist Kevin Gorman. (Photo by Jasmine Goldband) seek out news and aren’t likely to pay for a news subscription. Older millennials, 25 to 34, said they are more likely to seek out news and pay for a subscription. “Baby boomers, from what I can see, is the last newspaperreading generation,” said Bob Bauder (’89 Journ), the city hall reporter for the Tribune-Review. (Boomers, born in the years after World War II, are now 51 to 64 years old.) Bauder said people in this age group “like our newspaper every morning, and we don’t follow Twitter as much and Facebook and all those other social media outlets that distribute news.” Another reason often cited for Pittsburgh’s high newspaper readership is the audience’s strong sense of loyalty. In a Sept. 16 interview with Entertainment Weekly writer Jeff Labrecque, film actor Michael Keaton, a Pittsburgh-area native, recounted what the NBC newsman Tom Brokaw told him about reader loyalty to the Post-Gazette. “Brokaw said Pittsburgh is still a city where a lot of people don’t move away,” Keaton told Labrecque. “Basically this is a population that goes, ‘We’re Pittsburghers. We live here. We go to our grandmothers on Sunday. We work here.’ So therefore, you’re still getting the Post-Gazette to find out what’s going on in your town. It pertains to you. It affects you. You watch what your mayor does.” In the interview with Labrecque, Keaton went on to say: “And I think what might really happen is local, local, local newspapers are going to do just fine, because that’s where you get your news. Maybe that’s where journalism is going. You might get these great little articles or writers who come out of papers from towns with populations up to 25,000 people. And
the others will just go away.” In an interview for this article, Brokaw said he was quoting a description of the Pittsburgh market by the Post-Gazette’s Shribman. He said Shribman told him that many Pittsburghers have never lived elsewhere, so “they have an appetite for a hometown newspaper” and the Steelers, Pirates, local news, and obituaries “have a ready audience.” Shribman added in an interview that “an unusually large number of people who move away retain their Pittsburgh roots and interests.” Brokaw said he was not predicting the Post-Gazette’s future, but he said he admired Shribman as a journalist and manager, “so I think it will do well.” Keaton, incidentally, has twice portrayed journalists in the movies. He played a New York tabloid editor in 1993’s “The Paper.” In “Spotlight,” a movie that opened Nov. 6, Keaton is a Boston Globe investigative reporter who helped reveal the sex-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Beau Berman (’08 Journ), who has been with Pittsburgh’s ABC affiliate, WTAE-TV, since April, noted a familiarity with the Pittsburgh audience that he hadn’t seen in his previous jobs in Connecticut and Texas. “People in Pittsburgh really seem to care about local news, local events more than any other market I’ve been in before,” Berman said. When he does man-on-the-street interviews, he said, he usually finds that “they already know the story. I don’t have to give them the backstory.” Several Penn State alumni said they were disturbed that some people reporting news on social media — and viewed by The Communicator | Fall 2015
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Issue in Depth be a two-newspaper town is pretty impressive.” Having two newspapers casts Pittsburgh and the region in a favorable light, Fitzgerald Cities with the highest share of their population that read a daily newspaper. said. It is easier to market the region to large companies, he said, showing that the region is “becoming much more dynamic with all the people moving in.” Fitzgerald lamented the news industry’s economic troubles, saying it reminded him of the collapse of the steel industry in Pittsburgh in the 1980s. He praised “the commitment of the Block family, and what Mr. Scaife did for all those years, subsidizing the papers, or willing not to make the profits that were made in past years.” Fitzgerald noted the buyout offers at both newspapers and said, “The changes are so vast and quick and tumultuous. It’s not a little thing here and there. Obviously, they’re going to have to find new revenue.” Readers benefit when a city has two newspapers, said Russ Eshleman, a senior lecturer at Penn State and head of the Department of Journalism. “People sort of have a hunger for news, and they want legitimate sources for that news, and that’s why they turn to newspapers,” Eshleman said. Having two newspapers in Pittsburgh “gives the readers in Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania another option,” he said. “The more options they have, the better.” Penn State alumni said competition Source: Nielsen Scarborough Survey between the newspapers has kept journalists, as well as local leaders, on their toes. the public as legitimate news sources — have no training in “That competition was healthier for both sides,” said Laura journalism’s disciplines of verification and ethics. Pace Lilley (’89 Journ), a former Post-Gazette reporter who is One of these alumni is Rob Biertempfel (’87 Journ), a sports now senior editor and online editor for Mt. Lebanon Magazine, reporter for the Tribune-Review. He said social media had “sped run by the borough. She recalled former editor John Craig’s things up to light speed in ways that I wouldn’t have expected edict: “I want every meeting covered. I don’t want them to have 10 years ago, or even five years ago.” anything that we didn’t have.” Biertempfel said the reporter who gets a news story first Craig’s challenge, Pace Lilley said, “lit a fire under us.” might simply be the one “who can type the fastest, and who has She added, “When you walk into a meeting, there’s nothing the fastest wi-fi connection.” like seeing another reporter there to make you want to be Biertempfel said he sent out a Tweet with a scoop about better. You’re opening the paper the next day, saying, ‘Did they the Pirates and Miami Marlins’ plans to play all or part of a 2016 get more than I did? Did they get it better?’ ” series in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Minutes later, an online outlet Institutional memory is a casualty in the job losses, Pace covering the Pirates tweeted the same information. When Lilley said. “How are they coming to replace that knowledge, Biertempfel approached the online reporter and asked who his because the young people don’t have it,” she said. “No matter source was, the reporter responded: “You’re one of them.” how good you are in your college classes and internship, you “We’re seeing more of that, finding people who don’t have don’t necessarily know what to do in a mass shooting.” the same standards and practices that we’ve had in place,” Biertempfel said. “In the long stretch, it damages credibility, and erodes the effectiveness of the industry.”
Papering the Place
The benefits of competition
Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald is proud that Pittsburgh is still a two-newspaper city. “I think it’s important in that it shows we’re still a major city,” Fitzgerald said. “Even in declining newspaper usage among the younger generation, to
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How long will they survive?
Few alumni were willing to predict just how long Pittsburgh would remain a two-newspaper town. Jim Wilhelm (’79 Journ), an investigative editor for the Tribune-Review, said both papers could survive for at least the next decade “if papers make adjustments … related to giving people what they want and where they want it.”
Issue in Depth Wilhelm spoke about the cost of gathering the news that flows into people’s computers and mobile devices. He said, “It’s a nationwide problem. We are used to giving it away for free. It’s difficult to explain that this just doesn’t jump onto your phone. There are people going out and digging and reporting it. Those people make a living too.” He noted that people are setting preferences that limit the kinds of news they receive on their smartphones, computers and tablets. “They don’t want to be bombarded Usually see diverse opinions get news through social media with information,” Wilhelm said. “They may be interested in sports but not regular news, or the latest in entertainment. News providers are trying to tailor the information they give people, what people want to read regularly follow five or and talk about.” more “hard news” topics Bauder said local newspapers should try to sell their online product to those who have moved away, but remain interested in keeping up with the happenings back in their Tim Martin retired in September as senior assistant managing editor at the Post-Gazette. hometown. “The problem’s always been, (Photo by Jim Mendenhall) how do you make money from an online Pay for at least one news-specific product?” he said. service, app, or digital subscription Tim Martin (’71 Journ), who retired in September as senior assistant managing editor at the Post-Gazette, said the paper “has the core of talent and wherewithal and the dedication and the commitment to stay here in Pittsburgh.” “We’re still very vigorous, covering the communicating, telling people on one side of town about the events on the other side of Say keeping up with the town that are relevant to them,” Martin said. “We are putting out a news is at least somewhat paper that is distinctly Pittsburgh. We have the expertise and the important to them staff, and we’re telling stories that nobody else is.” Biertempfel’s take: “I think it’s just a matter of time before the economic reality overtakes the nostalgia. I think it’s a matter of time before somehow, some way, there’s just one newspaper.”
86%
69%
dai
45%
40%
Insight Into Millennials
85%
86%
Advice for today’s students
86%
Even in the face of the media’s unsettled economy, the alumni urge today’s journalism students not to give up their passion for the craft. “If someone is chasing a journalism degree, they obviously love to write. I would encourage them to chase that,” said see diverse opinions Bob Usually Grove, a former reporter with the Observer-Reporter in through social media Washington County and now a vice president of public relations for the Keystone Region for Comcast. From the late 1990s until August of this year, Grove was a host on the Pittsburgh Penguins radio network, his voice familiar to listeners of the pre- and post-game shows. “You absolutely have to go after the thing that appeals to you the most and be the best at it and not give up on it even though the industry is in major change,” Grove said. “You don’t want to look back years later and say, ‘I really had an interest in this, and I wish I had pursued it. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out, but you gave it your best shot. We all have a need for those stories to be told.” l
40%
69%
Usually see diverse opinions through social media
69% 45% get news daily
get news d
regularly follow five or more “hard news” topics
45% 40%
regularly follow five or more “hard news” topics Pay for at least one news-specific
service, app, or digital subscription
Source: The Media Insight Project, a joint effort between The Associated Press-
85%
NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute.
Pay for at least one news-specific
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Say keeping up with the news is at least somewhat
Education in Action
Papal perspectives Nearly two dozen College of Communications students, and dozens of alumni, covered the historic visit by Pope Francis to the United States. Their work provided a valuable lens on the visit for people across the state and world. This small sampling of their work includes: 1 - Carl Kosola (’06 Journ) capturing Pope Francis as he moves down the Ben Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia before a Sunday afternoon mass. 2 — Matt Stanley (’02 Journ) looking back at the crowd as it follows the pope on big screens in Philadelphia. 3 — Chloe Elmer (’12 Journ) capturing Maria Rodriguez of the Dominican Republic as she sings and chants with her group while waiting to see the papal mass. 4 — Shannon Ryan going to great lengths, and some height, to get a shot in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Ann Kuskowski) 5 — Akash Ghai talking with two Franciscans from Brazil near American University in Washington, D.C. (Photo by John Beale) 6 — Gabrielle Chappel in front of the camera and Taylor Bisacky behind as they conduct a TV stand up in Philadelphia. (Photo by Ann Kuskowski) 7 — Maggie Shuttlesworth (’08 Journ) getting a shot of the pope as he deplanes in Philadelphia.
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Bob Martin meets with Krista Murray, a senior public relations major from Alaska. (Photo by John Beale)
Career Connector
Assistant Dean Bob Martin, staff committed to helping students get strong start By ROGER VAN SCYOC
I
t’s Friday morning, and Jeanmarie Winger is in a hurry. The Penn State junior has gotten up in time to nab a bagel and hustle to her first class. She’s about to sprint to her next class, but not before making a stop at the Office of Internships and Career Placement on the Carnegie Building’s second floor. Winger, a broadcast journalism major, wants to do an internship while studying in Europe next summer. She has only a few semesters left before her college career ends and — she hopes — her real one begins. Compared with her last visit, this morning’s stopover is less eventful. Bob Martin is not in his office. So there’s no booming voice, no boundless energy trying to burst out of the former baseball pitcher’s frame. There’s no suit jacket draped over a pair of broad shoulders and straining to contain its owner’s joie de vivre. There’s just quiet. “He seemed really nice and outgoing,” Winger says of her first encounter with Martin, the assistant dean for internships and career placement in the College of Communications. “It was dead quiet in here, and he has a radio voice, so it was a bit 20
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awkward at first because people were looking at us. But I soon felt comfortable being around him.” Wiry and towering, the 6-foot, 2-inch Martin strikes an imposing figure, especially in front of a crowd of incoming students or tête-à-tête with a student like Winger. Since being appointed to his current title in 2006, Martin and his team have helped more than 5,200 of the college’s students secure internships, averaging close to 600 a year. It’s a considerable leap from the 60 completed during the 1994-1995 school year, when the college first started tracking the number of internships. When Martin rolls back into his office, he takes a glance at his computer. Framed pictures of his sons Zack, 14, and Evan, 12, and his daughter Elaina, 10, line the shelves. Their faces smile back at Dad, who is now checking his schedule. His Google calendar looks like a game of Tetris. “One of Bob’s best characteristics is that he is always under a tight time constraint, but when you are with him you have his full attention,” said Stephanie Girouard, who has worked with Martin for the last seven years as a staff assistant. “He will give you as much time as you want.” Martin’s dedication to helping students stems from his own time as a Penn State senior in 1987. Martin, who aspired
Faculty/Staff Profile to be a sports announcer, was a broadcast journalism major searching for his next step. But internship opportunities were limited, especially for students in the communications field, he said. The campus career fair was geared toward students in fields like engineering and business. “I got scared when I got up there because there were no radio stations, there were no TV stations,” he said. But from the fair, Martin got a job — as a stock broker. With loans hanging over him, he took the job out of fear, he said. It’s an experience that has helped him relate to the students with whom he works on a daily basis. “I’ve lived it,” he said. Martin spent about five months in finance, then managed four local radio stations for more than a decade. He brought that experience to the classroom in 1998 when he began as an adjunct instructor at his alma mater. A year later, Bob Richards, the associate dean for undergraduate studies at the time, hired him to jumpstart the College of Communications’ internship and career placement office. Life was moving fast. Martin and his wife, Marylou, whom he met when they were co-workers at the radio stations, were thinking of starting their family. He was also thinking about a move to New York, he said, but the venture at State College would prove to be as big as the Big Apple. Five months after he started in the job, his team launched the first career fair specifically for the College. The response was a happy one. “The students were coming in with baked cookies and thank-you cards,” Martin said. Besides JobExpo.Comm, the on-campus career fair his team started in 2000, Martin created two job fairs in New York. “Films and Friends,” a fair designed for film majors, began in 2008 and connects alumni with current students in the media capital. “Success in the City,” the 2006 rebrand of “College of Comm in NYC,” has grown from 20 companies in 2004 to 63 in 2014. More than 400 students attended last year’s event, which is held in the Time Warner Center in Manhattan.
Devan Lombardi, who graduated in May and now works for PepsiCo Inc., interned with Martin’s office this spring. She said the team sometimes worked 10 to 11 hours in the days leading up to the event. Some recruiters dropped out at the last moment, while others wanted to be added. Flyers and forms had to be added. “It was fun working with him,” Lombardi said. “It was kind of like working with a friend.” Matt Rissmiller (’03 Ad/PR), a senior feature producer at ESPN’s Emmy-winning newsmagazine program E:60, echoed Lombardi’s sentiments. The Penn State alumnus completed two advertising internships the summer after his junior year. But he realized he wanted to tell longer stories than a 30-second ad would allow. Going into his final semester, he switched his focus from advertising to production. “I basically had to start from ground zero again because I was passionate about production,” Rissmiller said. “Bob put me in touch with a couple of different people… and basically laid it out for me.” Rissmiller, who spoke to a group of the college’s students last fall as part of another event arranged by Martin, said he could see himself doing what Martin does one day, guiding students toward their careers. “He always seems to have that nonstop drive,” Rissmiller said. “… People are searching for that energy or that passion.” Winger’s search will bring her to Martin’s office again in a few weeks. Then she’ll sit down with the assistant dean, and together they will sketch out her career. “I have friends at other schools who are like, ‘I don’t even know where to apply, I’ve applied to all these programs,’ and they never hear back from them,” Winger said. “But I feel like at Penn State, there are so many connections. Here I can say, ‘This is where I want to go — can you guide me here? Give me a connection.’ ” Luckily for Winger, connecting is what Bob Martin does. l
“He always seems to have that nonstop drive. ... People are searching for that energy or that passion.”
215% Since Bob Martin joined the College of Communications, the number of internships completed each year has more than tripled. He also led the creation of two communicationsspecific job fairs each spring: one on campus and one in New York City. The Communicator | Fall 2015
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The future of film through a Netflix lens Editor’s Note: Faculty member Matt Jordan, an associate professor in the Department of Film-Video and Media Studies, wrote this piece for The Conversation (theconversation.com/us) — and it quickly became one of the most read and shared pieces in the site’s history. In addition, the film at the focus of his piece, “Beasts of No Nation,” was produced by alumna Riva Marker (’00 Film), who visited with students on campus in early December.
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ummer is always important for the movie business, and this past one was the second-biggest ever for ticket sales. Studios succeeded by doing what they do best: recombinant franchise films featuring superheroes and beasts. “Jurassic World” helped Universal dominate box office totals, gobbling up $1.65 billion worldwide. Meanwhile, the latest Marvel installments, “Avengers” and “Ant Man,” together reaped around $2 billion. Get used to this model. Universal will drop the next Jurassic installment in 2018, while Disney, which controls the Marvel cinematic universe, will hatch around a dozen synergistic superhero flicks over the next five years. Yet the biggest industry news of the summer didn’t emerge from the chain megaplexes and their monster grosses. Director Cary Fukunaga’s “Beasts of No Nation” opened to rave reviews at the Venice and Toronto film festivals. But more than the film’s style or premise, it’s the business model that has raised eyebrows around Hollywood. Rather than have a theatrical release, the low-budget film will be mostly skipping theaters altogether, and will instead stream directly to Netflix subscribers. Could it be a game-changer? Might it threaten the oligopolistic model through which the big studios and megaplex theater chains — AMC, Regal, Cinemark and Carmike (all boycotting Beasts) — have come to dominate the industry?
The low-budget film: a different beast
“Beasts of No Nation” is a socially conscious film about children 22
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who were snatched away from their families to fight as mercenaries in an unnamed, battle-torn African country. Given its small production budget ($6 million), the film is hardly a threat to the behemoth budget blockbuster model of major studios, one that consistently banks on appealing to the desire of filmgoers to escape into fantasy. Big studios are like huge apex predators: they ignore smaller morsels and tackle high-risk, high-reward action films that they can heavily promote with their considerable financial prowess. Indeed, big studios spend more on advertising — with sophisticated convergent media blitzes, synergies of product placement, cross-promotion and hybrid social media campaigns — than the combined production cost of a dozen indie films. Take “Jurassic World.” Aided by $30.7 million in TV ads, it roared through opening weekend at 4,274 domestic theaters, swallowing $209 million in ticket sales alone. Films lacking such gaudy financial backing can’t compete. Instead, they rely on good reviews from film festival screenings and hope to parlay a limited theatrical release into a successful awards season. While films with star power might get bought by one of the “mini-major” distributors who bring indie films to megaplex chains, most small films hope to make their money back through DVD sales and the evolving market of video on demand (VOD). So when Netflix offered to buy “Beasts of No Nation” for double its budget and promote it heavily, it was a hard offer to refuse.
Subscriptions are the bottom line
Over the last decade, VOD has become a viable means for commercial success outside the restrictive studio-megaplex model. And as last year’s awards season proved with winners like “Birdman,” “Boyhood” and “Whiplash,” viewers yearn for films with more substance and story than special effects. While a handful of indie films do make it to megaplex screens,
Faculty/Staff News most people see such films at home through VOD, a market that has grown by around 4 percent a year. Subscription VOD has grown even faster, at about 8 percent each year, and it’s this market for overthe-top (OTT) content – media delivered via the internet, rather than cable subscriptions – that Netflix is after. Netflix, which killed video rental companies with its mail-in DVD business, has evolved into a digital, subscription service giant, one that streams many films that major movieplexes ignore. It also began producing its own content: when competitors like Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime Instant Video, SlingTV and NowTV emerged, Netflix financed series like “House of Cards” and “Orange Is the New Black.” Netflix realized that the best way to attract and retain subscribers was to give them content they can’t get anywhere else. In a sense, Netflix’s productions – nominated for 34 Emmys this year – are elaborate ads for the brand. With a bottom line dependent not on ad revenue or ticket sales, but on subscription, Netflix knows this strategy works because it has years of digital data from subscribers, and their algorithms tell it what subscribers want. Netflix needs it to work. Telecommunications companies like Verizon, Comcast, CenturyLink and AT&T, whose stock values are falling as customers cut the cable and go digital, have now started developing OTT streaming services.
Film production a logical next
Netflix is now targeting the borderless global market of convergent digital media, so the pivot to feature film production makes sense. In spring 2014, the streaming service expanded into the Americas, the British Isles and Scandinavia, and pushed into Western Europe last fall. Now boasting 65 million users worldwide, Netflix has spooked the movie industry, especially the theater chains. Normally, production companies have to sell rights to their movies nation by nation, territory by territory. The big studios and theater chains have this brick-and-mortar market cornered. For example, France – where Netflix added 900,000 users this year – has strict timing rules for theatrical and VOD releases. But now, “Beasts of No Nation” will skip most theaters and stream on Netflix. And the more buzz the film gets, the more it will help Netflix in its efforts to attract customers from their main French competitor, Canalplay. In October, as the EU considers a single Eurozone digital market, Netflix will move into Spain, Italy and Portugal. Already in Australia and New Zealand since March of this past year – and set to expand into Japan later this fall – Netflix could grow its global subscriber base by over 40 million this year. With China, Hong Kong and Singapore on the horizon, it’s no surprise that Netflix’s next set of releases – the sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a Keith Richards rock-doc and Brad Pitt’s next political film – have global appeal. So is Netflix moving into film production a threat to big studios and megaplex chains? If audiences tire of the blockbuster action films that they view in droves, maybe. But mostly, if Netflix films like “Beasts of No Nation” get good press and are well-made, they’ll simply further promote the brand to a type of global consumer – a viewer interested in smarter, edgier films with social relevance – that the blockbuster film producers have already largely forsaken. l
Chinese audience responds strongly to ‘USA’ podcast A weekly podcast featuring two members of the College of Communications was downloaded more than 2.5 million times in the first two months it was available. The podcast, which includes Associate Professor of Journalism Bu Zhong (above left) and doctoral student Rose Luqiu Luwei (center), focuses on United States media, politics, culture and society. “This is USA!” is broadcast in Chinese and is tailored to a Chinese audience. Suli Yi, a video journalist at Voice of America, is the third member of the show. Zhong and Yi have been in the United States for about 20 years apiece. Luqiu was one of the most popular journalists in Hong Kong and China before coming to Penn State. “This is a unique experience that we can share with our fellow Chinese on the other side of the Pacific,” said Zhong. “We provide unique information that you could not easily get somewhere else.” Every Tuesday, a new episode is released focusing on an issue or event in the United States. The 30-minute podcast can be found on Penguin FM, which is run by Tencent, a top Chinese media company. The group records each show by using Skype, usually on Sunday mornings. Some early and popular content for the podcast included: a 24-year-old Chinese American woman, Lindy Li, running for office in a Pennsylvania congressional district; Chinese students on U.S. campuses (at universities and younger ages) and gun control. A lot of times, the podcast opens with Luqiu, the host, providing background info on the topics so the Chinese audience can understand. Then, Zhong and Yi discuss the topic while Luqiu asks questions. “Most of the audience has no background on the democratic system and the campaign system,” said Luqiu. “People are trying to get new information.” Moving forward, the group hopes to continue the podcast, gathering more data to analyze the audience to determine what topics are most effective. l
The Communicator | Fall 2015
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Research News
Video game results can impact a brand A company’s brand may crash and burn if video game players perform poorly when they use branded products as part of the game, according to a team of researchers. In a study, the performance of players in a racecar video game influenced their attitude about the actual brand of the car they used in the game, said Frank Dardis, associate professor of advertising and public relations. “The easier the game, or the better the people did, the more they re m e m b e red the brand they used in the game and the more their attitudes changed in a positive direction toward the brand,” Dardis said. “But the people who had the more difficult game or had a bad experience — by crashing too much, for example — remembered the brand less and had a negative attitude change toward the brand.” The researchers, who released their findings in a recent issue of the Journal of Promotion Management, asked players to use a car that featured a VW logo during a video game. Then they measured the number of both the laps completed and the times they crashed to determine player performance. Unknown to the participants, the researchers also adjusted the car’s handling features to increase the level of difficulty. In a survey after the game, players who completed more laps and wrecked less tended to better recall the brand of car and have a more favorable attitude toward the
company. Players that had a negative experience during the game had a significantly lower recall and opinion of the brand. In another wrinkle, while the players’ experience with the VW-branded car tended to influence their attitude about the company, the players mostly ignored other brands that advertised on the virtual billboards that appeared during the game. “The recall of the traditional in-game ads that appeared on the virtual billboards of the race track during the game was very low,” said Dardis. “What this may show is that in an integrated ad, the attention gets focused on the branded product in the game and not on other, more peripheral ads.” Advertising and branded advertising in video games is a recent, but growing form of marketing that is expected to increase to more than $1 billion in 2015, according to Dardis. The research suggests that businesses cannot be guaranteed positive results just by advertising in a game, he added. “On the face of it, it might sound like a great idea for, in this case, a car company to say ‘there’s a great new game out, let’s make sure people can drive one of our cars,’ ” said Dardis. “However, depending on a lot of player choices and things that can happen during the game, the car might not perform well and that could affect their attitudes toward the realworld brand.” l
“The easier the game, or the better people did, the more they remembered the brand they used.”
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Penn State College of Communications
Virtual selves produce real-world behaviors By MATTHEW SWAYNE Customizing an avatar to better resemble its human user may lead to improved health and exercise behaviors, according to a team of researchers. “There’s an emerging body of research that suggests that avatars in virtual environments are an effective way to encourage people to be more healthy,” said T. Franklin Waddell, a doctoral candidate in mass communications. “What our study was trying to do was finding out why avatars have these effects and also to determine if avatars can encourage people to be healthy, particularly encourage those who might have rather low interest in exercising and healthy eating.” In a study, people who customized their avatars to match their offline gender were more likely to have better exercise intentions and choose better health behaviors than ones who created an avatar of the opposite sex, according to the researchers, who reported their findings in a recent issue of Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking. After customizing their avatars, both people who were already health-conscious and those who were less likely to think about health chose healthier intentions, such as selecting coupons for a fitness club, as compensation for customizing their avatars. “Our other research has shown that customizing avatars can make users feel more agentic and take charge of their welfare,” said Distinguished Professor S. Shyam Sundar, co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory, who worked with Waddell and Joshua Auriemma, a software engineer at DramaFever. “This study shows even individuals who are not normally health-conscious are motivated by customizing a same-sex avatar.” l
Faculty/Staff News
With the temperature near zero, barges transport coal on the Monongahela River at dawn Jan. 8, 2015. The Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock, Pennsylvania, is in the distance. (Photo by John Beale)
Monitoring the Mon Photo essay captures essence of Monongahela River
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enior lecturer John Beale works with dozens of students every semester, simply introducing them to photojournalism in some courses and challenging them with bigger projects in others. The longtime photojournalist also continues to hone his skills, with one of his recent projects set to be featured in the Winter 2016 edition of Pittsburgh Quarterly magazine. He spent about 25 days over the past year documenting life on the Monongahela River that flows north 130 miles from Fairmont, West Virginia, to Pittsburgh. The 10-page photo essay featuring 29 photographs will be published in the
magazine and online. His photos document how the river is used for commerce and recreation, and how it provides billions of gallons of water for communities in West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania. The project was inspired by the Monongahela River being recognized as the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources 2014 River of the Year. Beale accompanied students covering the pope earlier this semester. Work produced by students in his classes has previously been distributed by The New York Times, USA Today and others. l
Fireworks are reflected in the Monongahela River during the Fredericktown Riverfest on July 5, 2015. The annual fireworks show is a source of pride for Fredericktown, population 411, located in Washington County, Pennsylvania. (Photo by John Beale) The Communicator | Fall 2015
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Award Winner Editor’s Note: Carley Mossbrook, a senior majoring in journalism, earned seventh place nationally in the William Randolph Hearst Foundation’s Journalism Awards Program with this personality profile of Penn State alumnus Mike Shenk, who is a crossword creator and editor. This is an excerpt. The full version can be found at commedia.psu.edu online, or by using the QR code on page 27. Mossbrook writes for The Daily Collegian.
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nside a boxy Manhattan office – surrounded by bookcases littered with magazines, dictionaries and encyclopedias – Mike Shenk hunches over his desk and pecks the keyboard of his double-screen Mac desktop. Shenk is doing what big-city commuters, diner patrons, college professors and your Uncle Charlie do every Tuesday morning with a pencil and steaming mug in hand. He is solving a crossword puzzle. He is also working. Shenk, 56, is a puzzle creator and the crossword editor of The Wall Street Journal. He’s a Lancaster County farm boy with a Penn State math degree who decided decades ago that he would rather stump everyday people with words and puzzles than challenge high school students with numbers and equations. As one of three partners who run Puzzability, a puzzle-writing company, he can see his handiwork in the boxed calendar sets resting on office desks across the country, on the United States Navy’s Facebook page, and in magazines in the netting on the backs of Amtrak seats up and down the East Coast. What most people do as a hobby, Shenk does to pay the bills. Shenk, now one of the country’s leading enigmatologists, was never trained in puzzle creation, nor did he seek help from experts. He learned his craft through observation and by relying on his greatest asset, his brain. The boy who once paged through his mother’s puzzle books on the family farm 26
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He can see his handiwork in boxed calendar sets resting on office desks and in the netting of Amtrak seats up and down the East Coast. carried his interest to Penn State. There, in the late 1970s, he was the first person to construct daily crosswords for The Daily Collegian. In his college days, he yearned to be able to earn a living in puzzles. Concluding that it was an impossible dream, however, he focused on a more conventional career: teaching math. He began his first teaching job in rural York County in 1979. Barely a year later, finding that his teaching bored both him and his students, Shenk began submitting puzzles to Games magazine. He described Games as a publication known for “obscure, tricky” puzzles rather than the typical “dry, educational” variety. The connection to Games proved to
be pivotal — his work came to the attention of a rising enigmatology superstar, Will Shortz. When the magazine expanded and needed to hire more editors in 1981, Shortz, one of the editors, threw Shenk’s name into the mix. After a trip to New York City and an interview, Shenk had a job in the world of puzzles. Shenk created and edited puzzles for the bimonthly magazine until it went out of business in 1990. Shenk found work elsewhere, including a six-month stint at Dell magazines as a puzzle editor. A year later, Games returned, as did Shenk’s job. He continued to produce fresh puzzles for the next five years before the company officials decided to move operations to Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, in 1996. Shenk, who lived in New York, was jobless again.
Not long after, he and two former colleagues, Amy Goldstein and Robert Leighton, kickstarted Puzzability out of his Manhattan apartment. The Wall Street Journal soon came calling. Since then, Shenk said, his workload has grown, his puzzles have strengthened, and his craft has become his life. The hobby that attracted him with its playfulness, variety and entertainment has evolved into a flourishing career. It is a career that any puzzle-lovers would envy, and it is one that he does not need to be coaxed out of bed for.
Puzzle guy at work
Warm October air blows through the tall windows of the Puzzability office as Shenk’s lean frame perches at his desk. His black and red Nikes are wrapped around the wheels of his chair; his hands lay cupped in his lap. A stack of No. 2 mechanical pencils rests to his right. Their pink erasers are rubbed raw to a nub. “Pen or pencil?” he is asked — the question any crossword puzzle solver would ask an expert puzzler. “Pen,” he replied, adding that he doesn’t often solve puzzles as a leisure activity. “It’s kind of like a busman’s holiday,” he said. “The Saturday puzzles don’t usually stump me. I’ve been making and solving puzzles so long now that I know most of the tricks.” In his own estimation, Shenk may not be the fastest solver, but he is unchallenged by even the trickiest puzzles. “When I solve crosswords, I usually try to solve them with just the downs. I don’t look at the across clues,” he said. “As a crossword constructor, I can sort of see words forming across that I don’t need to look at the clues. I can just say ‘I bet this is going to be...’ and that helps me get the downs.” The trick to solving the puzzles, in many instances, is understanding the clues and how they are worded. For example, if the clue is “the day after Wed.,” the answer would be “Thurs.,” because both days are abbreviated. Other clues are obvious to frequent solvers, such as clues and answers using the same parts of speech and plural clues leading to plural solutions. “There are some words that come up much more in crosswords than in
Read more at commedia.psu.edu real life and some words that come up nowhere in the world but crosswords,” Shenk said. “Etui” (“an ornamental case for small articles,” according to Webster’s) and “ogee” (“a molding having an S-shaped curve”) would be examples of the latter; “Oreo” (the cookie) and “emir” (an Islamic ruler) would be examples of the former. Shenk said editors and constructors often try to avoid these. While his solving skills may be down pat, Shenk spends most of his time creating and editing puzzles. Shenk’s life can be described as more work, less play. His bachelor pad, a few blocks from his office, easily transitions into work space. Despite being surrounded by one of the largest nightlife centers in the world, Shenk, a self-described introvert, said he doesn’t participate in Manhattan’s hustle and bustle. When he decides to take a night off of editing and designing for Puzzability and The Journal, Shenk is likely to be watching “The Walking Dead” and “Dr. Who” on television. He gets together with buddies on Friday nights to play card games such as Guillotine – a game set during the French Revolution, where, Shenk says, “the point is sort of to make the other players miserable.” “My favorite thing is to just have time to myself,” Shenk said. “I’m not a hugely social person. I don’t go out and do night club stuff, and I don’t go to shows too often.” A nice thing about puzzles as a career, he added, “is it’s also fun, so it’s also my main hobby.”
How he got started
Beneath Shenk’s peppery hair and furrowed brows is a mind that works in a constant stream of letters and clues. Words are not just words, and
phrases are not only phrases. Both are arrangements of letters waiting to be plugged into the white cells of crossword puzzles. “My mind probably works a lot different than everybody’s,” he said. “I’m very often thinking puzzles. Any free time, I’m playing with ideas and trying to come up with new themes for crosswords.” Shenk said that is not uncommon for puzzlers. Ideas stick in their heads and become fixations. “For me, it’s counting the number of letters in phrases and saying, ‘Oh, that would be a good length for a daily puzzle,’ ” he said. “We puzzle people find ourselves always looking at words as things to manipulate.” This is a quirk that propelled his puzzle-making from a childhood hobby to a career. Shenk’s interest in crosswords was sparked at his farm home in Manheim. His mother, Joan, liked to buy crossword-puzzle books, and she started leaving some of the puzzles for him to solve. Joan Shenk recalls that her son became interested in puzzles as soon as he was a good reader, far ahead of his classmates. While other boys signed up for tee-ball and played in packs, Mike opted for composing games and puzzles for the family. Often he could be found designing mazes of hay in the family’s barn instead of doing his chores. “I enjoy my job now doing cerebral stuff, but I was very lazy and I wasn’t very happy to be doing the actual physical work as a kid,” he said. “I did a lot of work but never really enjoyed it.” His passion for numbers and logical thinking drove him to pursue a degree in mathematics at Penn State. At the end of his freshman year, Shenk opened his college newspaper to find an ad for a job that would become a stepping stone in his career. l The Communicator | Fall 2015
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Student News
Students Jack Milewski (left) and Mike D’Avella host a weekly show on ComRadio.
From camp to the College of Comm
Students bond at summer camp and eventually become roommates, best friends By TREY MILLER (’12)
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t was the summer of 2013, when two rising high school seniors set out to Penn State’s College of Communications summer camp with the hopes of gaining some valuable experience. Little did they know, the six-day camp would help shape the next five years of their lives. “It turned out to be one of the greatest decisions I ever made,” said Mike D’Avella. “That was one of the coolest opportunities I had in my life, especially doing something I’m really interested in and having kids like me who want to be interested in the field of journalism.” Fast forward to October 2015. It’s a Monday afternoon, and sophomores D’Avella, from West Chester, Pennsylvania, and Jack Milewski, from Springfield, Virginia, are in a computer lab at the ComRadio studio at Innovation Park, side-by-side, of course. On Wednesday afternoons, the two campers-turned-college-roommates can be found debating sports on their ComRadio talk show “The K-Zone.” In the evenings, if there isn’t a floor hockey game going on (the two play on a team together twice a week) or some other 28
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extracurricular activity, D’Avella and Milewski are probably in their apartment at The Meridian still arguing about sports, or outside playing sports, which they both agree they bond over. The unexpected friendship started at the multimedia journalism camp following their junior years of high school. The first interaction between the two was a discussion about sports. Specifically, baseball. D’Avella is a Phillies fan, while Milewski favors the Yankees. After spending time at camp together, the two decided to room together freshman year. “It turned out to be a really good decision because we’re now best friends,” said D’Avella. They extended that to this year and have already having signed paperwork to live together again next year -- despite Milewski being admittedly messier than D’Avella, who is the cleaner and decorator. “It’s not that Jack is the dirty one anymore because our other roommate Morgan is really dirty,” said D’Avella. “Our apartment is kind of suffering because I’m not there as much anymore to clean it.” But D’Avella and Milewski didn’t only form relationships with each other at the 2013 summer camp. According to the
Student News Summer Camps: July 10-15, 2016 comm.psu.edu/camps two, while it admittedly took some time sors. You get that sense in the camp, just for all of the campers to mesh, once they how willing everyone was to devote their clicked, they made relationships with time to kids who may or may not even multiple campers that lasted more than be coming to Penn State. They were just just that week. trying to develop young journalists and By the time the group attended the get them on the right path. State College Spikes “Then, I think also minor league baseball the deciding factor game on the second was being up here for night of camp, they a week and kind of had received handsthinking this is what I on experience and could be, this is a place met reporters. The I could be living for the campers also began a bond that would next four years and continue into their being totally comfortcollege careers. able with that fact and “It was probably not having any doubts the night that everythat I would not like it one really got as close up here when I actualas they did for the rest ly came to college.” of the camp because The experience we were all just in meant so much to an environment that them that they decidwe were comfortable ed to help out as camp with, so we got to see counselors after their the true side of everyfreshman year, and are one’s personalities,” — Jack Milewski said Milewksi. “I think planning on doing it that was really cool again next summer. how everything seemed to mesh and flow “One of the reasons I decided to be a on that night.” counselor was because I wanted to give Recently, D’Avella had a birthday and to the kids what I got from my counselreceived texts from numerous people he ors in the experience,” said Milewski, who had attended camp with — even the ones still touches base with one of his counthat he hasn’t seen since then. selors. “I wanted to give that back to the The camp not only provided the two hands-on opportunities and the chance campers who were coming out this year to work alongside professors and jour- and just make them love journalism and nalism professionals, it also helped to love whatever they wanted to go into. “It’s just kind of giving them the best solidify their choices to attend Penn State. D’Avella is a first-generation Penn steps to move forward and make their Stater, while Milewski’s father is a Penn decisions in their college careers.” State graduate. Moving forward, both of them have “I knew on paper that (Penn State) aspirations in sports. Milewski, who was a good journalism school,” said fell in love with hockey while watchMilewski. “Then, getting that first-hand ing the Rangers with his dad at an early acknowledgement from people that had age, wants to be an NHL play-by-play gone through the journalism program, announcer. D’Avella has completed an whether it be PR or print, or there was one broadcast counselor there as well. internship with the Phillies, and also They all just gave ringing endorsements wouldn’t be opposed to a music career of not only the opportunities you got, someday. He plays the drums, guitar and but also the help from the College of ukulele and, according to Milewski, can Communications staff and the profes- even sing. l
“You get that sense in the camp, just how willing everyone was to devote their time to kids who may or may not even be coming to Penn State.”
Scholar total reaches five For the fifth time since 2007, a Penn State sports journalism student has earned a $5,000 scholarship in a competition conducted by the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation. Junior Garrett Ross was one of six students from around the country to be named a 2015 Murray Scholar after representatives from 31 colleges and universities provided a submission. The story had to fit guidelines and follow a prompt, which was to write about a figure in their school’s sports history who was an “unsung hero.” Ross argued in his piece that former Penn State athletic director Dave Joyner, who was tasked with replacing the legendary Joe Paterno, did a great job with hiring Bill O’Brien and then James Franklin to lead the football program. This summer, Ross was named the managing editor of The Daily Collegian, the student-run campus newspaper, and will hold that position until the end of the 2015-16 academic year. Prior to that, he served as a sports staff writer for men’s volleyball, women’s volleyball, men’s basketball and football, while also serving as copy desk chief of the Collegian in the spring of 2015. “This award means the world, it really does,” said Ross. “Obviously, to be associated with Jim Murray, a phenomenal sports writer in the industry, but also to be associated with Josh Moyer and Emily Kaplan and all of the other Penn State winners — those are some people that I have looked up to in my young writing career.” l
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Student News
Impact near and far Students embrace opportunities at local, state, international levels
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rom just down the street to down near the equator, students in the College of Communications collaborated to better communities and participated in partnerships to share information through a series of special opportunities during the fall semester. Some were a matter of saving lives and others were about getting a glimpse at a different culture. Closest to home on the University Park campus, students in a section of COMM 473 Public Relations Campaigns, taught by lecturer Tara Wyckoff, partnered with State College Borough to promote public safety and raise awareness about the dangers of the intersection of North Atherton Street and Park Avenue, located at the Students share information with community members during an awareness event at the intersection of North Atherton Street and Park Avenue in State College. northwest corner of campus. A series of accidents at the intersection — three of (Photo by Centre Daily Times/centredaily.com) which have been fatal since 2014 — prompted a heightened focus on the problem. As part of the collaboration efforts included on-site visits over a period of days, sharing with borough officials, State College Police and some engi- information with cyclists and pedestrians who regularly cross neering classes at the University, the public relations students at the intersection. Getting out of the classroom and having the initiated an information campaign and launched a survey. Their opportunity to make a meaningful impact was among the many motivations for members of the class. “We’re looking to make an impact and a change in the culture of pedestrian and vehicle safety on campus and the surrounding communities,” senior public relations major Erica Avalone told the Centre Daily Times. “Right now all we know is it’s a problem, but no one really knows what to do with the intersection. We hope the data we get from the survey will help.” Their work seems likely to last long after the semester ends, too. “After we present this as a class project, we’ve been asked by the police chief to make sure that this is a sustainable project (the borough) could implement,” Wyckoff said. “So they have great interest in making this a reality.” Such real-life opportunities provide a recurring theme in the College. For example, another set of public relations students focused on engaging some Pittsburgh neighborhoods with branding outreach. The work, through COMM 497E Pittsburgh Outreach, startSenior Tyler Feldman (left), one of the Curley Center students who ed last spring with a focus on the Hill District. During the fall, traveled to Cuba, talks with Penn State baseball player Greg Guers. the focus moved to Homewood. That focus included on-site (Photo by Trey Miller) visits and working closely with community leaders. 30
Penn State College of Communications
Student News
Members of the class that worked in Pittsburgh during the fall semester were (from left): Sam Newhouse, Casey Weaver, Laica Clerge, senior lecturer Renea Nichols, Terrence Edison, Kristin Starke, Taylor Fowler and Emily Shea. (Photo by John Beale) At right, Fowler, Starke and Newhouse were part of an on-site team that met with city officials. Homewood was the Pittsburgh residence of industrialist Andrew Carnegie in the 1880s. Much has changed since then, though. “Homewood still has a community that is passionate about the place,” said Nichols. “The people still believe in their neighborhood and their home.” Neighborhood residents want to attract businesses and visitors. The end goal of the project is to change the perception people have about Homewood and its residents. Nichols knows a successful project relies on more than just a Penn State presence. “The students and I can’t just create a great slogan or a great promotional brochure and expect everything to pick up — the people also need to work and they want to work,” said Nichols. Homewood also is home to a Carnegie Library, the oldest library in Pittsburgh. Nichols is looking into developing walking tours, a documentary and a website for prospective investors. The documentary will serve as media coverage on the cultural and historical attractions of the neighborhood. “We need to create reasons for people to go to Homewood by using the media toolkit,” said Nichols. “Revitalizing a community is going to be hard work. We have to take things one step at a time, but first the community must rally together.” For another group of students, opportunity took them to Cuba — with students in the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism following the Penn State baseball team on a historic trip to Cuba during Thanksgiving break.
With the trip, the baseball team became one of the first U.S. teams to compete against baseball teams from Cuba’s premiere baseball league, the Cuban National Series. Previous U.S. teams competing in Cuba played against the Cuban national team. The eight Curley Center students who traveled with the team spent much of the semester before the weeklong trip preparing to understand the country and be successful with their work during the trip. They chronicled the trip for media outlets across Pennsylvania, and beyond, as part of a partnership with the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association. The partnership model — which provided information about the trip through broadcast, multimedia and print stories to audiences far beyond campus — was previously utilized by the Curley Center for covering Penn State football at the Pinstripe Bowl and at the Croke Park Classic, both in 2014. “It’s just an amazing opportunity,” said Andy Madore, a senior journalism major. “From a sports standpoint, it’s great experience but more importantly it’s a chance to learn more about Cuba, about its culture, and to share those stories. Not many people have been able to do something like this.” l The Communicator | Fall 2015
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Student News
Making ‘geek culture’ cool Doctoral student turns hobby into research topic By TREY MILLER (’12) The saying goes, “If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” That couldn’t be more true for one College of Communications doctoral student, who took her lifetime hobby and used it as the focus of her studies. Stephanie Orme enjoys reading comic books and is an avid gamer, and she is now researching what she calls the “geek culture.” “I think I was actually on a plane to a conference and it hit me,” said Orme. “Why don’t I study this culture I’ve been a part of my whole life that I’m clearly really passionate about? It was a neat way to sort of fuse something that I’m interested in in life, hobby-wise, with something I’d be interested in teaching and researching about.” A St. Louis, Missouri, native, Orme recently conducted research that focused on adult women comic book fans and whether or not they were comfortable and open about their hobby. She interviewed women from age 18 to their mid-40s in State College, a group that included Penn State students as well as faculty, staff and community members. She found most women were open about their comic book fandom. And, while it wasn’t part of her research, Orme wondered if being in a college town and being in the world of academia would play a part in her findings. “My assumption was that a lot of these women would, kind of like me, feel like there were a lot of situations where they couldn’t be particularly open about it,” said Orme. “I was pleasantly surprised to find out that most of them were pret-
ty cool with it. They didn’t care. They felt like people were a lot more accepting of their interests than maybe they would have been a few years ago. They even had a lot of other female comic book friends who introduced them to comics.” Orme believes things like the big-budget Marvel and DC films that have been a success at theaters in recent years have helped the women’s comic book culture become more mainstream and accepted. Still, a couple of people she interviewed said they could not be open about their hobby. Her research found a lot of women still feel weird going to comic book stores. Orme appreciates their perspectives because of her own interest in comic books — and her own reticence about sharing that hobby with others. “I never knew who I could tell about that interest,” said Orme. “It was kind of like a closeted hobby. I didn’t know if that was ‘cool,’ a lot like gaming.” Orme is also a gamer, dating back to the Sega Genesis game system, which she started playing when she was 4 or 5 years old. She said the old “Sonic the Hedghog” games are still her favorites. Now,
“I never knew who I could tell about that interest. It was kind of a closeted hobby.”
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she sticks to role-playing games on her PlayStation 4 and her handheld Nintendo 3DS. When it comes to comic books, she prefers superheroes, especially X-Men, and Marvel comics. This fall, Orme has continued to pass along her knowledge in the field while teaching a 120-student class at Penn State on gaming and interactive media. She was previously an adjunct instructor at Suffolk University and Emerson College in Boston for five semesters and taught a class on gender and diversity in the media at University Park in spring 2015. She earned her master’s degree in communication from Suffolk University after she graduated from Illinois State University in 2010. Going forward, she hopes to send her research to the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, and possibly to a conference to get more feedback. She hopes to continue her research on comic books and women. “Something I would love to actually do is sort of do an ethnographic study where I follow women to comic book stores and just sort of hang back and watch what they do, what their interactions with the shopkeepers are like and other customers,” said Orme. “That’s a future project.” l
Student News PROBING QUESTION
Why are there so many movies based on comics? Comic book geeks, unite! The era of modern crime-fighting superheroes that began in 1938 with Action Comics #1 and the first appearance of Superman has made the leap into the 21st century and onto the big screen like no other art form. Evolving from 10 cents a copy to billion-dollar box-office brands, comic book superheroes — and their legions of fans and superfans — have earned their spot at the top of American pop culture. What explains the immense success of movies based on comic books? “In most of the history of film, movies based on comicbook characters were usually ‘B-movies’ — B for budget, or second-tier,” said Matthew McAllister, a professor in the Department of Film-Video and Media Studies. “Some of the earliest film adaptations of comic books were movie serials, where moviegoers would watch one chapter of an unfolding story every week in a theater. These included ‘The Adventures of Captain Marvel’ in 1941, ‘Batman’ in ’43, and ‘Superman’ in ’48.” All of that changed when “Superman” hit the silver screen in 1978. “The release of ‘Superman’ set a precedent for movies based on comic books to play a significant role in developing and defining the modern blockbuster,” said McAllister. “For the first time, in a genre previously considered only for child audiences and produced on shoestring budgets, a superhero movie was a big-budget release with both global distribution strategies and big-name stars, including Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman.” Advances in digital effects have also played a role in the surge in superhero movie popularity, McAllister said. “Special effects really enhance the look of super powers and spectacular feats. When combined with significant action and clear archetypes of heroes and villains, these movies appeal to global audiences.” Exactly how successful has this genre been? Four of the top films in U.S. box office history are based on comic books. l
Student marshal thrives, thanks to opportunities One Penn State student who graduates in December will leave the University with two degrees, a 4.0 GPA and a multitude of internships and experiences. “Penn State has so many great opportunities, and I like to think I took advantage of some of them,” said Nia Sherony. An advertising/public relations major and a native of Mechanicsburg, Sherony has been selected as the student marshal for the College of Communications for fall commencement ceremonies Dec. 19 at the Bryce Jordan Center. Sherony is also set to receive a bachelor’s degree in information, sciences and technology. “It’s exciting,” said Sherony. “I’ve met so many great creative minds and met so many people who are doing so many great things, so to me it’s really exciting to be able to represent that on stage.” A 4.0 student, Sherony has kept busy during her time at Penn State. Most recently, she completed a project management and Web development internship with Cigna, a health services company
in Bloomfield, Connecticut, this summer. She spent last summer as a Web and marketing intern at Puridiom, a software company in Camp Hill. In addition, she was a social media intern for the ebook company Coliloquy. Following graduation, Sherony will return to Cigna to take part in its Technology Early Career Development Program. Along with internships, Sherony spent time as webmaster for Lion Launch Pad and worked as a Web manager and Web editor for The Daily Collegian. Sherony is a Schreyer Honors College student and a member of Phi Eta Sigma Honor Society. She also received the Evan Pugh Scholar Award, The President Sparks Award and The President’s Freshman Award as a student. Sherony’s faculty escort will be Distinguished Professor S. Shyam Sundar, the co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory. l
“I’ve met so many great creative minds and so many people who are doing great things.”
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Can you smell what Tom Phillips is cookin’? Alumnus laid the smackdown on his studies at Penn State, now taking advantage of opportunity with WWE
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By STEVE SAMPSELL (’90)
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illions of television viewers across the world see Tom Phillips at work each week. He’s polished and prepared — a true professional. He’s seen on a variety of programs on WWE Network, including “WWE Main Event”, and previously served as the youngest announcer in “SmackDown!” history (at age 25, in August 2014). In his roles, Phillips describes action on the shows and related storylines for viewers, whom he unfailingly refers to as members of the “WWE Universe.” Additionally, he makes a striking impression with dark, well-trimmed hair and designer suits. Most impressive, while at work in front of thousands of fans in often-raucous arenas, with action playing out before him and behind-thescenes producers providing direction and information through his earpiece, he nimbly balances all the distractions and keeps broadcasts on track.
Alumni Profile lishing an excellent body of work in that genre, and only time In his role, Phillips travels about five days a week, all over the will tell how far that will take him.” world with the multimillion-dollar WWE troupe. He provides Still, while millions of viewers around the world know him content for a variety of WWE programing and special events, and previously served as on-air host for a successful week- as polished and ever-prepared Tom Phillips and while a legendly social media series. When he’s not in front of the camera or ary broadcaster sings his praises, a handful of dedicated viewers preparing for assignments, he’s still at work. Days off seem rare. know him as their son, or grandson. They’re justifiably proud and a bit protective. “It may sound cliché, but I watch the WWE Network “When I tell people he’s a broadcaster for World Wrestling constantly. It could be matches from 1991, 1970 or as recently as Entertainment, some say, ‘Oh, that’s so funny,’ which I don’t like 2010. I just like to listen to the ways commentary has changed because it’s like it’s not a real job,” said his mother, Patti Hannithrough the years,” he said. “On commentary, we try to really bring what’s happening to life. So you have to know the product, fan, who earned her nursing degree from Penn State in 1978. “Most people kind of go one way or the other, admitting they’re a the Superstars and history. It’s not always easy. little interested in wrestling or just might not watch. “At first it was like trying to learn Chinese and having no “For us, it’s good to see him. I wish he was on a little bit more, knowledge of how to speak Chinese. The difficult thing was actually, but I know I’m biased.” finding my own voice, and it feels like I’m competing with myself Along with Patti and father Kevin Hannifan, the family every week to get better.” support comes from older brother Chris (who earned his politHe’s figured that out pretty well, though. With his WWE position, Phillips — the stage name for Tom Hannifan (’11 Journ) — ical science degree from the University in 2009) and younger sister Laura. Hannifan’s grandparents, James and Oeste Elaine, ranks as one of the more accomplished and visible young alumni watch regularly, and his 91-year-old great aunt “Nini” makes from the College of Communications. Earning an opportunity, and praise, as a WWE commenta- sure the TV at her assisted living home in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, is tuned to the WWE whenever Hannifan is working. tor puts Hannifan, 26, in good company. Many talented sports Those family members know Hannifan as someone broadcasters and producers have collaborated or more comfortable in sweats than a pressed pinstripe worked with WWE at some point during their careers. suit. They also know he earned his high-profile spot That includes on-air talent like Jonathan Coachman traveling around the world on the strength of years and Todd Grisham, both now at ESPN, and John Filipof hard work — whether it was miles logged driving pelli, president of the YES Network, who previously from Penn State Altoona to University Park in a dark worked for ABC Sports, Fox Broadcasting and, briefly, blue 2007 Chrysler Pacifica just for some airtime on WWE. ComRadio, or whether it was post-graduation jobs In addition, WWE broadcasts rely on state-ofbroadcasting small college football and basketball for the-art mobile production facilities built by compa$50 a game. While doing that in the summer of 2012, he nies such as Pittsburgh-based NEP Broadcasting, was waiting tables to stay afloat financially. which has included a strong contingent of That’s when his grandfather offered some Penn State alumni through the years. advice. “He basically asked me what I “What he’s doing is extremely was doing,” Hannifan said. “It was realchallenging. I would say if you can ly a shot in the gut to hear him tell broadcast sports entertainment me that, you know, this broadcastefficiently that you could transing thing might not be working out. fer those skills into virtually any At the time, it was hard to admit other televised entity,” said Jim but he was probably right. It was “JR” Ross, a pro wrestling/sports a pretty stressful time. That was entertainment commentator about a month before the WWE for 40 years who was inductcalled.” ed into the WWE Hall of Fame That’s when Hannifan’s in 2007. His ongoing relabroadcasting career, life and tionship with WWE includes on-screen name changed. work with the organization’s He started with WWE’s talent development efforts. developmental unit, NXT, based in That’s where he first met Winter Park, Florida. He developed Hannifan in 2012. relationships with in-ring talent and “He’s a low-maintenance, learned how to do his job and how hard-working kid. He came with to help them tell a story. There’s an a good work ethic and an obvious important element of trust that comes desire to be good. I think that’s a with such a relationship because a good testament to his upbringing and his commentator can help wrestlers enhance education at Penn State. He’s got a their status as “face” (good guy) or “heel” great look, works hard and his (villain). voice cuts through the clutter. Hannifan’s likeable personality He’s well on his way to estab-
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Alumni Profile
5
THINGS
About Tom Phillips
1 — He was the youngest announcer in “Smackdown!” history when he debuted in August 2014. 2 — His real name is Tom Hannifan (’11 Journ). 3 — He’s the middle child among three siblings, with older brother Chris (also a Penn State alumnus) and younger sister Laura. 4 — He was waiting tables before getting signed by WWE in 2012. 5 — His mom, Patti (also an alumna) calls him her “carrot kid.”
Of course, Hannifan’s mom reciprocates (something ComRadio general managthat love. er Jeff Brown said made him popular She’s biased and knows it, but she also and productive as an undergraduate) knows a lot about the person who appears on served him well while solidifying those TV. She describes her younger son as a funny, relationships and building his own skillold soul — and someone who was not always set. Beyond describing action, Hannifan nattily attired. sets a tone for broadcasts and promotes “Of my two sons, Tom was always the more everything from upcoming TV segments casual dresser. He was like, ‘Really, I have to to future WWE events. put on something other than shorts?’ In the Of all that has changed with his job, summer months he could live in shorts and the one thing that has remained the a T-shirt, and in the fall it was jeans and a same has been his sincerity. He’s dutiful, hoodie,” she said. “He’s definitely heightened and really well practiced, about promothis fashion awareness and now he’s into ties.” ing the sports entertainment business, Like his dedication to his family, though, but he’s not giving anyone the business some things remain the same. Kathy Hanniwhen he talks about his alma mater or fan calls Tom her “carrot kid.” “Tom’s always family. been driven,” she said. “If you dangle a carrot On those topics his passion is obviin front of him, he’ll go for it.” ous. He grew up watching the WWE and has parlayed his passion “When I learned that the WWE Network was in 175 countries, and skills into an important and visible role with the compathat was a little intimidating. Honestly, though, what’s more ny. For example, his weekly “5 Things” videos, brief five-item important to me is that my grandparents are in their 80s and they can tune in and see their grandson …” he said. It’s at that countdowns on WWE-related topics that aired online, sometimes attracted more than 1 million viewers. point when his voice trails off, followed by a moment to collect Somehow, he keeps things in perspective. The business his thoughts. Hannifan then continues, a little more quietly. “… and that my parents and my girlfriend and friends can see me. requires focus and preparation, so there’s no time to bask in the glow of attention or rest after a good show. There’s always The fact that I can connect with that many people that love and another show, and he’s interacted with enough big-name care about me, it gets me very emotional.” performers to overcome any real moments of awe. Even with his mom and brother preceding him, Hannifan Still, he admits working alongside Dwayne “The Rock” Johnwas not a lock to attend Penn State — especially when he was accepted at Penn State Altoona instead of his preferred Univer- son, as he did in his hometown of Philadelphia earlier this year, sity Park location. A bit of flexibility by Brown and ComRadio, ranks among a short list of career highlights. “In classic Rock fashion, he tore me to pieces,” Hannifan said. “In my head I’m along with Hannifan’s usual dose of motivation, sealed the deal thinking about all those times he’d done that to someone else. though. I’m just trying to stay focused.” “I got accepted to Penn State Altoona, but I was able to An interaction with The Rock, who puts down some with participate in ComRadio because nobody prevented me from driving back and forth to main campus to do shows or for meet- “know your role and shut your mouth,” actually provides a moreings. That opportunity was the sole reason I came to Penn State, than-apt summary of Hannifan’s approach. As Tom Phillips, he does just the opposite. He knows his role — which means openand I came with a bit of an ego, too,” Hannifan said. “Still, there ing his mouth as just the right times. was support for whatever I wanted to aspire to do. “My job is to bring viewers information. My job is to make “I told myself I want to be the greatest broadcasting alumnus sure the show goes smoothly, point out what happened last Penn State has ever had. That’s a really tall task, but I pursue that every single day. It’s beyond important for me to represent week, mention what’s coming next. That’s my job,” he said. “My job is just to be the professional.” l my school and my family.”
“I told myself I want to be the greatest broadcasting alumnus Penn State has ever had. That’s a really tall task, but I pursue that every single day.”
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Alumni News
A
poster series featuring a cross section of College of Communications alumni made its debut during the fall semester in Carnegie Building. The series, designed to showcase alumni from different graduating classes and at different points of their careers, helps brand and bring color to the building while also creating an awareness about our standout alumni and enhancing the sense of community within the College. Senior advertising major Vic Carlesi of Kittanning, Pennsylvania, created the series. He’s completing an internship with the College’s Office of Strategic Communications during the 2015-16 academic year. Print posters appear in display cases throughout the building and digital versions of those same posters (four samples at right) rotate on digital signage in the building. Carlesi operates a pet portrait business, creating commissioned watercolor paintings and drawings for pet owners. He also has illustrated children’s books and served as a graphic design intern for Loaded Creative in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, last summer. In addition, the College launched an Q-and-A series of online profiles (http://comm.psu.edu/questions) that features a group of alumni and allows individual segments to get shared on social media. If you have suggestions about alumni to be added to or featured in either series, please share those by email at comminfo@psu.edu The Communicator | Fall 2015
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Alumna plays key role for College Football Playoff
Laila Brock’s attention to detail, leadership make impact on every aspect of big event By EMILY KAPLAN (’13)
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n the frenzied moments after Ohio State captured last year’s college football national championship in Arlington, Texas, yellow flakes of confetti floated over AT&T Stadium, families embraced, photos were snapped and Buckeyes fans sang the alma mater with the school’s band. It was pure elation for everyone on the field — except for Laila Brock. It’s not just that Brock is a proud Nittany Lion — “I have to put that aside sometimes,” she says — but as director of operations and logistics for the College Football Playoff, Brock had a singular focus: get the trophy onto the field. In run-throughs, Brock had allowed 10 minutes for the trophy to arrive from its secure location in the bowels of the stadium. But it was more difficult than she expected to wheel the 35-pound, 24-karat piece of hardware through the thick crowd. As the revelers lingered, she realized the trophy couldn’t move one foot without hitting somebody. Brock called into her headset for two more security guards to clear the way. With the reinforcements, her crew ushered the trophy in on time. “At big events, roadblocks always arise,” Brock said. “It’s about adjusting on the fly. The fewer people who see it, the better.” Brock’s boss, College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock, was one of those who didn’t see it. “I had no idea they had trouble getting the trophy out,” he said. “I guess that shows how good Laila is at her job.” Brock’s job is nebulous; she is simply responsible for everything. When the College Football Playoff was introduced last season, replacing the 15-year-old Bowl Championship Series, the stakes became higher — ESPN paid $7.3 billion for a 12-year television contract. And logistics became more challenging. In the BCS system, with two teams chosen to play for the championship, one bowl game was organized; a team prepared, it won or lost, and then it went home. Now there are four teams in the semifinals, and once winners emerge — last year, Oregon and Ohio State — there are 11 days to prepare for the championship. That game is a Super Bowl-sized event with fan inter38
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active activities, on-site football preparation and, yes, plenty of eyeballs. Hancock, who previously ran the BCS, noted that the new three-game system requires a different mold. With a staff of 16 aided by five interns, everyone multi-tasks. The staff is currently planning for the 2016 championship on Jan. 11 in Phoenix as well as the semifinals on Dec. 31 at the Orange Bowl in Miami and the Cotton Bowl in Arlington, Texas. Hancock said he hired Brock for her cheery disposition and her team-first attitude, and because she was task-oriented. “But just as important,” Hancock said, “she’ll speak up if she wants something a certain way. She has a vision, something you need when you’re building something from nothing.” Brock’s observation resonates with Beth Alford-Sullivan, the former Penn State track and field coach. “When I was hired, we were not a very good team, but Brock was a captain,” Alford-Sullivan said. “As I tried to figure out how to turn the program around, I leaned on her leadership.” Brock, a two-time captain, was inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame in 2007. She still ranks fifth in the Nittany Lions’ record book for the 400-meter sprint. A native of Washington, Pennsylvania, Brock earned a bachelor’s degree in media studies in 2000 and a master’s degree in counselor education in 2002. Upon graduating she became the assistant director of the Mentors in Violence Prevention program at Northeastern University in Boston. Then she joined Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida, as an academic counselor for the football team. In 2006 she was hired as director of team operations and logistics at the Orange Bowl, a job she held seven years until joining the College Football Playoff. For the 2015 college football championship, once the Ducks and Buckeyes won their semifinal games, Brock’s vision for the title weekend went into motion. She had no say in reserving the 350-seat, double-decker Boeing 747 that Ohio State flew to Dallas-Fort Worth — teams generally use their own charters — but she did have to make sure the airport would have a terminal ready for the huge plane. “Everything from the moment that plane lands to when it takes off, I manage,” Brock said. She reserved the hotels, and had each decorated with team banners. She created the hospi-
Alumni Profile tality suites with arcade games, pool and ping-pong tables, leather bean bags, video games and a candy station. She arranged for the Ohio State lounge to have a scarlet-tinted light, the Oregon room to have a yellow. When the Ducks’ equipment bus arrived in Arlington after hauling practice gear, computers and video equipment 2,000 miles, Brock ensured it could drive into the stadium and the staff could begin assembling the locker room. The teams sought familiarity, so everything was done just the way they like it, starting with placing the quarterback’s locker closest to the exit. Ohio State’s day-before-the game schedule was the usual routine of brunch, morning massages and a walk-through. All of it was facilitated by Brock. “I burn through cell-phone batteries like crazy,” she said. Brock reserved practice times – Ohio State chose to work out in AT&T Stadium, Oregon at a local high school field. She worked with the hotel to reserve meeting space, setting up rooms for every position group. For meal planning, she connected each school to the hotel’s catering staff. The schools chose the menus for the players, but Brock did give the kitchen one piece of advice: Have more food on hand that you’ve ever had before. The wildest part of all of this is that, before the semifinals were played, Brock had to plan championship-game itineraries for all four teams. To do this, she worked with the four schools for weeks. There would be no way to get everything done in the 11 days between the semifinals and the championship game. Brock also coordinates nonfootball events for the weekend of the championship, including concerts (Lenny Kravitz and Sting preformed last year) and the fan festival. Throughout December and January, Brock will make several trips each to the four campuses, the Cotton Bowl and Orange Bowl semifinal sites, and the championship site in Phoenix. During that time
she will be in her apartment for two weeks, if she’s lucky. “I pretty much live out of the grocery store,” she said with a laugh. It’s a hectic job, but it’s also fun. Brock knows she is shaping an event that is a hallmark of college athletics. On the day of the 2015 championship, Brock arrived at the stadium at 9 a.m. and left well after 2 a.m. At one point during the long day’s work, she gave her keys to a friend to retrieve something from her car. When she was finally ready to go to her hotel, Brock realized she never got her keys back. To get to her hotel, she had to hitch a ride with a co-worker. “Par for the course,” she said. “I was so worried about planning for everybody else, I forgot to worry about myself.” l
Alumnus authors ‘100 Things’ book for Penn State fans The latest book by Penn State alumnus Lou Prato — a 348-page to-do and to-know list for Penn State fans — comes with abundant background and context. In “100 Things Penn State Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die” (Triumph Books, 2015) Prato ranks everything from the “We Are ...” chant and seeing George Deike’s trumpet to watching the Homecoming parade and climbing Mount Nittany. The book largely focuses on football, but Prato, who earned his journalism degree from the University in 1959, delves into many other areas and experiences. He knows his subject matter well, having written several books about Penn State football, including “The Penn State Football Encyclopedia.” “It takes a historical perspective. What I tried to do was highlight certain things and situations. It’s mostly about football, but I also wanted to get other sports in there,” Prato said. “Really the hardest part was ranking everything. There’s just so much that’s great about Penn State, and that people should know.” Prato has invested a lifetime of passion into the subject matter. He’s been a Penn Stater since he first stepped on campus as a freshman in 1955. He crafted a long career in local television news and as a freelance writer, invariably making time for Penn State activities, and later taught at the University and served as the founding director of the Penn State All-Sports Museum. His knowledge and passion for the subject matter, as well as his meticulous attention to detail, are obvious from the start of the book until its final page. The book is available at bookstores on campus and across the region, or it may be purchased online. l
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Alumni News
Dean Marie Hardin (third from left) with honorees (from left): Jim Gardner, Mimi Coppersmith, Jayne Miller, Arianna Davis and John Affleck.
Swelling thy Fame Alumni Society Board recognizes five people with annual awards Three communications industry stalwarts — two of them Penn State alumni and the third a Pennsylvania broadcasting icon — with more than 140 years in the industry were honored with awards recognizing their accomplishments during an annual event coordinated by the College of Communications Alumni Society Board. Penn State alumnae Mimi Barash Coppersmith, a State College-based publishing and advertising entrepreneur, and Jayne Miller, a veteran investigative journalist for WBAL-TV in Baltimore, were honored for their professional accomplishments and contributions to Penn State. Coppersmith, a 1953 journalism graduate, received the Alumni Achievement Award, while Miller, a 1976 journalism graduate, received the Outstanding Alumni Award. Jim Gardner, news anchor at WPVI-TV in Philadelphia since 1976, received the Anderson Communications Contributor Award, presented by the Alumni Society Board to acknowledge the contributions and/or achievements of an individual in the field of communications as they relate to the College of Communications, Penn State and/or the Commonwealth. Gardner is a 1970 graduate of Columbia. Arianna Davis, a 2009 journalism graduate, was the recipient of the board’s Emerging Professional Award, and John Affleck, a Penn State faculty member and the Knight Chair in Sports Jour-
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nalism and Society, received the Excellence in Teaching Award. Davis is a staff editor at US Weekly and previously was an editor at O, The Oprah Magazine. After 22 years at The Associated Press, Affleck came to Penn State in 2013 and is the director of the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism. The award recipients were recognized at a luncheon at the Nittany Lion Inn in early October.
John Affleck
Since joining the faculty, Affleck has focused on giving students a classroom experience that will prepare them to step right into a newsroom and perform well. He does this by providing attentive editing, practical tips, on-campus reporting assignments and an accent on working with the latest storytelling tools. At The Associated Press, Affleck served as a reporter, editor and national manager, working regularly with all of the organization’s major editorial departments. In his final role before joining the University faculty, he helped manage day-to-day operations for the roughly 70-member domestic sports team.
Alumni News He also directed coverage of the Lance Armstrong saga, ran the sports department’s enterprise work and coordinated efforts with the news department as the Jerry Sandusky case unfolded.
Mimi Coppersmith A former Grand National Collegiate Debating Champion, Coppersmith has served her alma mater in myriad roles in the arts, athletics, communications and development. She was first woman chair of the Board of Trustees and the driving force of the Lady Lion Pink Zone Game. She has been accorded countless honors by Penn State, including Alumni Fellow, Distinguished Alumna, Lion’s Paw medalist, Renaissance Scholarship Fund honoree and Alumni Trustee Emerita. She founded Town&Gown magazine, the monthly voice of the Penn State-State College community since 1966. For decades, she owned Morgan Signs, a regional outdoor advertising company, and was president and chairman of The Barash Group, a diverse and influential advertising and publishing firm that she founded in 1959 with her late husband, Sy Barash.
Arianna Davis After six years at O, The Oprah Magazine, Davis recently started a new job at US Weekly, where she’s in charge of the magazine’s Hot Hollywood section. Davis began her career as a Dow Jones Newspaper Fund intern at the New York Daily News, then moved to O as a full-time editorial intern. She was an assistant to Gayle King, co-host of “CBS This Morning,” and advanced to associate editor of the magazine. She has freelanced for a variety of publications, including New York Magazine, Pop Sugar, Refinery29 and Cosmopolitan for Latinas.
Jim Gardner Gardner has helped guide viewers of Action News through every news event, large and small, since 1976. He joined WPVI-TV in Philadelphia in 1976 as a reporter and anchor of the “Noon News.” He became the station’s 5:30 p.m. news anchor in November 1976. He has covered every Democratic and Republican political convention since 1980, and has interviewed every president and nearly every major presidential candidate since 1976. Gardner graduated from Columbia University in 1970, majoring in broadcasting. His son Josh is a 2010 Penn State graduate in the College of Communications and currently works at NBC Sports.
Jayne Miller Miller started her career in journalism with the Pennsylvania Mirror in State College. Her first job in television was with WHP in Harrisburg in 1976. She has been a reporter with WBAL-TV for more than 30 years — first as a general assignment reporter, then as the Consumer Advocate with “11 on Your Side” and now as the chief investigative reporter with the 11 Investigates I-Team. In 2012, she received a national Edward R. Murrow award for her investigative work about Maryland’s Judiciary. Three scholarships at Penn State are sponsored through the philanthropic efforts of Miller and her family, including the Minority Journalism Scholarship in the College of Communications. l
comm.psu.edu/alumni
MAXIMUS VP named Alumni Fellow A College of Communications alumnus was honored for outstanding professional accomplishments and given the lifelong title of Alumni Fellow, the highest award given by the Penn State Alumni Association. Lisa Miles (’91 Adv) of Potomac Falls, Virginia, is senior vice president of investor relations and corporate communications at MAXIMUS Inc., a global company with more than 16,000 employees worldwide. As a member of the senior leadership team, she serves as the head of communications, where she has been instrumental in creating and directing a world-class communications team that handles a wide range of initiatives across multiple business lines, including traditional and online media, crisis communications, public relations, marketing communications, employee communications, and investor relations. With nearly 20 years of experience, Miles has been recognized by several industry groups for excellence in her field. Since the award was established 42 years ago, more than 750 alumni — out of more than 645,000 living alumni — have been honored as Alumni Fellows, including this year’s group. Each Alumni Fellow receives a commemorative award, designed and hand-cast by Jeanne Stevens-Sollman (’72), an acclaimed medallic artist and herself a 2007 Alumni Fellow. l
The Communicator | Fall 2015
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Alumni News
Alumni Society Board members gather twice a year on campus for meetings and to conduct mentoring sessions and other programming.
Board offers resources, support By BOB McKINNON (’90) Four years ago, as news of the Sandusky scandal broke, many College of Communications alumni were eager to lend their crisis communication expertise to help the University. Two years later, the PR director of the Penn State Dance Marathon reached out to an alumnus of the College looking to see if he had any advice about how the impact of THON could be communicated better outside of the state of Pennsylvania. Both situations were perfect illustrations of opportunities to better connect the outstanding experience of our alumni to the needs of our University. In response, the College of Communications Alumni Society Board began a concerted effort to reach out to the various stakeholders in the University to better establish both lines of communication and processes for engaging our alumni base. It began with several meetings with the University’s Office of Student Affairs, Alumni Association and Office of Strategic Communications. In these meetings, the Alumni Society Board outlined its objectives, listened to the specific needs of these groups and discussed ways in which we can be of service moving forward. Emerging from these meetings are more coordinated efforts to help the University with several of its key strategic communications needs. One example is a recently scheduled Feb. 2 workshop, where 42
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Five ways to support the Alumni Society Board
1
Nominate someone, or yourself, for the Board. comm.psu.edu/alumni/alumniboard/board-nomination
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Check with Director of Alumni Relations Mike Poorman (mqp7@psu.edu) about how to get involved.
Help a student cover living expenses during an internship through the Alumni Society Internship Fund giveto.psu.edu/s/1218/nomodal/index.aspx
4 5
Nominate an alumnus for an award. comm.psu.edu/alumni/alumni-awards Share ideas with Board president Rob Boulware (RBoulware@prpeople.com)
members of the Board will meet with student activity leaders offering advice and counsel of a variety of topics, including “getting your message right,” “connecting with alumni in the
Alumni News media” and “preparing for a crisis.” Alumni choose to give back to the University in so many ways. We donate dollars and time. We mentor students and offer them jobs or internships. It is what in many ways makes our University and College so special. But as we’ve seen in times, both good and bad, perhaps the best we can offer is our expertise when it is needed most. Imagine the possibilities if the PR director for THON had access to alumni working at news outlets across the country. Or imagine the impact of potential collaboration between students or young alumni and the many communications experts in our alumni base. Facilitating those interactions and tapping that potential is the goal of the Alumni Society Board and its University Relations committee. If we can do that, better connecting the expertise of our alumni to the greater needs of the University, we can make a meaningful impact. If you’re interested in finding ways to share your experience to help our alma mater or if you have a need that could use some alumni expertise, please feel free to reach out to me, Bob McKinnon (bob@galewill.com), chair of the Board’s committee focused on University relations. l
New Board Members Both the College of Communications Alumni Society Board and the Ad/PR Network Board welcomed new members after recent elections.
Ad/PR Network Board Kathy Andrusisin (‘13 Journ) Communications Specialist, Penn State College of Liberal Arts
Alumni Society Board Natalie Buyny (‘12 Ad/PR) Assistant Account Executive, Tierney
Zach Dugan (‘06 Journ) Senior Manager, Marketing Communications, Everbridge Software
T.J. Brightman (‘91 Brdcst Cbl) President, A. Bright Idea Advertising and Public Relations
Kathy Heasley (‘83 Ad/PR) Founder & President, Heasley & Partners
Katherine Hansen (‘05 Media Studies) Channels Manager, Capital One
Victoria Maggio (‘13 Ad/PR, A&A) Senior Marketing Associate, eBay
Cindy Viadella (‘91 Ad/PR) Marketing Consultant, Media, Marketing & Advertising Industries
Monica Miller (‘90 Mass Comm) Sr. Director, Analytics, Autotrader/Cox Automotive
Michelle Wolf (Junior, Journ) John Petrolias (Sophomore, Journ)
Lauren Raisl (‘03 Ad/PR) Brand Strategy Manager, Capital One Maggie Schmerin (‘06 Ad/PR) Account Management, Integrated Marketing, Edelman
Make the connection. Make a difference. Learn more: GiveTo.psu.edu/Lion
The Communicator | Fall 2015
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Alumni Notes 1980s
Susan Carlin (’81 Journ), vice president of administrative and audio visual services for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) was selected by her peers as one of the top innovators in the association and non-profit community in Washington, D.C., through BizNow. Diane Salvatore (’81 Journ) was promoted to editor in chief at Consumer Reports magazine. Terry Mutchler (’87 Journ) is a lawyer with Pepper Hamilton LLP. John Dolan (’89 Ad/PR) is associate dean, graduate liberal studies, at Georgetown University. He earned his Ph.D. in workforce education from Penn State in 2013 and previously worked as director of executive and professional education at George Washington University, and in the College of the Liberal Arts at Penn State.
1990s
David Yadgaroff (’90, Brcab) was named senior vice president/market manager for CBS Radio Philadelphia, with properties including KYW-AM, WIP, WPHT, WOGL, WZMP and WXTU. He has been with CBS Radio for 20 years, and most recently served as vice president/ general sales manager. Denise Zaraya (’95 Adv) is vice president of agency and trading desk relations at Integral Ad Science. Mike Corr (’96 Telecom) is the marketing director responsible for all marketing, public relations, social media and industry events for Sarbari (www.sarbari. com), an emerging cloud-based software provider serving the restaurant and foodservice industry nationwide. Prior to joining Sarbari, Mike worked in marketing management roles with companies like Synergis Engineering Design Solutions, Trifecta Technologies, SunGard K-12 Education, PPL Corp. and RCN Corp. Laurie Alicia (Roth) Gavin (’99 Journ) earned her master’s of administrative science from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey, in May 2015. She is currently the assistant to the administrator and mayor/human resource manager for the Borough of Eatontown in Monmouth County, New Jersey. Kendra (Ciesla) Corman (’99 Ad/PR) started her own marketing consulting firm, H2H Consulting, which focuses on marketing strategy, content marketing and event planning and measurement. Visit www.h2hconsulting.net to learn more.
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Golden Anniversary On June 19, 2015, Lynne (Fleming) McGee (’64 Journ, ’71 MS Journ) and Dr. Hugh W. McGee (’65 Eng, ’68 MS Eng, ’72 PhD Eng) celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with their three children and eight grandchildren in Ocean City, New Jersey. The day culminated a week-long celebration of beach and boardwalk fun.
2000s
Benjamin S. Rupp (’02 Journ) was named executive director of annual giving for Gettysburg College. He has been a part of Gettysburg College’s development office for 10 years, serving in a variety of roles. Ben leads a department of 12 responsible for raising more than $6 million in annual philanthrophic support for the College. Ben and his wife, Karla, welcomed their second son, Calvin Thomas, on Aug. 18, 2015. He joins 5-year-old brother Cameron John (CJ). The family resides in Landisville, Pennsylvania. Jeanine (Noce) Larson (’04 Journ) is director of public relations and team development at Heritage Homes and Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Premier Properties, located in Fargo, North Dakota. She is responsible for public relations, communications, advocacy, agent recruitment and retention, training, event coordinating, promotions and strategic planning. She lives in in West Fargo with her husband, Ryan, and her daughter and son.
Monica Pryts (’04 Journ) earned two Keystone Press Awards from the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association for her work in 2014 with Allied News, Grove City, Pennsylvania, where she’s a staff writer and photographer. Adam Smeltz (’05 Journ) is a reporter with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Christine Cattano (’06 Ad/PR) was promoted to executive producer of Framestore’s Virtual Reality Studio in New York. She previously served as producer and will continue to work with the department’s founder and executive creator as a primary client liaison. Farmestore’s VR Studio was established in 2014 and has enjoyed strong growth as well as collaboration on high-profile projects, including an activation for HBO’s “Game of Thrones” and a tour of a spaceship in “Interstellar.” Wade Malcolm (’06 Journ) graduated in May from the University of Delaware with a master’s degree in finance. He earned the Academic Excellence Award,
Alumni Notes which is presented to one master’s finance graduate based on GPA and faculty recommendations. He is an associate business analyst at a Chester, Pennsylvania-based consulting firm. Malcolm worked as a reporter until January 2014. While at Penn State, he was sports editor and reporter at The Daily Collegian. He is married to Nichole Dobo (’04 Journ). She is a fellow at The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit news organization based at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City. They live in Wilmington, Delaware. Kelsey (Collins) Casselbury (’07 Journ) was promoted to managing editor of School Nutrition magazine, the 56,000-circulation flagship publication of the School Nutrition Association, located in National Harbor, Maryland. She previously served as the associate editor/ communications specialist for the association. Adam Hiner (’07 Film) was promoted to vice president, production of DEFY Media. In that role, he oversees the physical production for a number of ongoing new media properties, including SMOSH, Break, AweMe, SMOSH Games, GameTrailers, Clevver, MadeMan and Screen Junkies. He also manages production for a multitude of branded opportunities, working with clients such as Coke, Nivea, T-Mobile, Barefoot Wines, Jack Links, HP and Sony to deliver commercial programming for various avenues of distribution. Before his promotion, Hiner worked as a line producer, producer and production manager at Break Media. Prior to that, he worked as a production manager for National Banana, a website and online production company created by Jerry Zucker (“Airplane,” “Ghost,” “Top Secret!”). Zach Smith (’08 Ad/PR) is an associate strategy director at MediaCom. Kevin Zitzman (’08 Journ) is a copy editor at the Butler (Pennsylvania) Eagle. Doug Bauman (’09 Journ) is an editor at The Express in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. Jessica Remitz (’09 Journ) is a programming manager with FoodNetwork.com. Sydnee Winston (’09 Journ) is an associate producer at WETA-TV in Washington, D.C.
2010s
Victoria Kasselman (’11 Journ) is an associate producer of “CBS This Morning.”
Shannon Gethard (’15 Journ) is an instructional developer for Dish Network.
Becky Perlow (’11 Journ) is a reporter and producer at ABC News.
Jennifer Hoewe (’15 PhD) is an assistant professor in the College of Communication and Information Sciences at the University of Alabama.
Brandon Scott Wolf (’11 Journ) is a staff writer for NBC’s “Best Time Ever” with Neil Patrick Harris. Wolf also launched a parody website, fightbrandonscottwolf. com, that he is using as a platform to challenge Floyd Mayweather to a sanctioned boxing match. Amanda August (’12 Journ) is the social media editor with The Daily Item in Sunbury. Abigail Goldberg (’12 Media) is a digital content specialist with DaBrian Marketing Group. Patrick Bunting (’13 Telecom) was promoted to junior publicist for NBC News in NBCUniversal’s New York City office. Kevin Petrochko (’13 Telecom) is a news videographer for WTAJ-TV in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Matt Strohmier (’13 Journ) is a producer at WTAJ-TV in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Brittany Horn (’14 Journ) is a reporter at the News Journal in Wilmington, Delaware. Kelly Jackson (’14 Ad/PR) is a public relations associate at Allen & Gerritson. Dunja Antunovic (’15 PhD) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Bradley University. Alyssa Appelman (’15 PhD) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Northern Kentucky University. Marielena Balouris (’15 Journ) is a reporter at WTAJ-TV in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Emily Burke (’15 Ad/PR) is an assistant account manager at Protagonist. Rachel Casciano (’15 Ad/PR) is a digital brand specialist at Nike.
Nathan D. Waterman (’10 Telecom) is a frontend web developer with Deloitte Digital in New York City.
Emma Epstein (’15 Ad/PR) is a project manager at Tag Worldwide.
Aaron Clark (’11 Journ) is the press secretary for U.S. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick. He was previously a morning news producer at 69News/WFMZ in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Rachel Garman (’15 Journ) is a public relations specialist for Penn State IT Communications. In that role, she focuses on the many ways information technology benefits the Penn State community. You can read her stories at news.it.psu.edu online.
Erica Kasan (’15 Ad/PR) is an assistant account executive at Tag Worldwide. Ethan Kisan (’15 Ad/PR) is an online advertising specialist at Nordstrom in Seattle. Jamie Light (’15 Ad/PR) is a human resources representative at Havis Health. Danielle Sampsell (’15 Ad/PR) is a staff associate at McNeely Pigott & Fox Public Relations in Nashville, Tennessee. Brett Sherrick (’15 PhD) is an instructor in the College of Communication and Information Sciences at the University of Alabama. Megan Swiatowski (’15 Journ) is a media coordinator at Politico.
IN MEMORIAM Francis J. Fanucci (’57 Journ) died Oct. 27, 2015, following complications related to treatment for cancer. He was 79. Fanucci was owner of Professional Communications Inc. in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania since 1989 and, before that, assistant executive director of communications for the Pennsylvania Bar Association. A longtime reporter and editor (Harrisburg Patriot-News, Centre Daily Times, Sharon Herald), he was also an Army veteran. He stayed connected with a core of Penn State friends and younger generations of people who worked at The Daily Collegian through regular weekly lunches. John Haughney (’72 Journ) died June 15, 2015. He was 64. In retirement, Haughney consumed newspapers and magazines with regularity. More than a decade after it went off the air, he also became a fan of “Friends.” But he was most focused on his family. On a recent trip to Los Angeles, he dipped his toes in the Pacific Ocean for the first time. He enjoyed basketball and swimming, though little rivaled his love for Penn State. Bernard Scally (’04 Journ), a reporter for the Montgomery Newspapers’ Roxborough Review, died of natural causes Sept. 22, 2015. He was 33. Scally started working for the paper in 2005. While covering a variety of assignments, he established himself as an accurate and trustworthy reporter. A caring member of the community, he was both curious and colorful, which allowed him to make an impact on those he covered and those who were his colleagues. The Communicator | Fall 2015
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The INTERVIEW
Sascha Meinrath A renowned technology policy expert, internationally known for his work as a community Internet pioneer, social entrepreneur and angel investor, Sascha Meinrath joined the College of Communications as the Palmer Chair in Telecommunications in August 2015. He’s been named to the Time Magazine “Tech 40,” among the “Top 100” in Newsweek’s Digital Power Index, serves as a regular columnist for Christian Science Monitor and has been widely published in academic and media outlets. missing in D.C., to take time to focus on particular research. So much of my time was going into the ‘House of Cards’-esque sausage grinder and to get back to the writing will be great. When did you know this is what you wanted to do? SM: I had always thought I’d leave D.C. at some point and end up at an academic institution. When you’re doing the work at the FCC or in other places, there’s not time to write about it, and that’s necessary. I looked at this role and the Palmer Chair was exactly the right role at the right time. What’s the biggest challenge in balancing time on campus and in D.C.? SM: Having spent eight-plus years in D.C., all that networking and structure is set. The stressor is that things in D.C. wait for no one. Still, the College has been so supportive. The reaction has been, ‘You’re briefing Congress? Well, of course.’ What interested you about Penn State? SM: I had been working with a lot of faculty here in tech policy. Then, as you go through the interview process and get a sense of the vision of the College, it was really exciting. It’s rare to find an academic institution that has this boots-on-the-ground pragmatism with people worried about the real-world import of what we do. It’s compelling. What’s different about what you’re doing or would be in Washington, D.C.? SM: There’s two main differences. One is the teaching. Working with students has been fantastic. Second, it gives me this opportunity, which is always 46
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What are the challenges in making policy changes tangible for consumers? SM: I work a lot with the advocacy groups and the lobbying groups. I view it as I provide kind of the analytic ammunition to the folks that are doing that kind of work. Because of my experience, I know that work and I also know when to tag off and get it to others. We’re able to do that pretty effectively. What do you see in terms of short-term changes related to tech policy? SM: I don’t know that the election will change much, no matter who wins. On the issues I work on, you have a ‘power realignment.’ It’s not so much by party but more between progressive left and
Libertarian right — whether it’s copyright reform, patent reform or local ownership of media or even surveillance. If by 201718, we have a model with the end users of technologies having a bigger voice, that would be a significant change. What are the obstacles to that? SM: All the antiquated rules that control everything from committee structure to how things get done. It’s a party system. Tech policy is one of those areas where party affiliation might not matter, though, because there are shared concerns. So what can be done? SM: It’s about creating an alignment on issues where commonality exists. It’s not at all easy, but the potential exists. As we are creating technologies that displace the middle class — robots in manufacturing or taxi drivers vs. Uber drivers — it’s hallowing out the middle class. And the middle class is Republican and Democrat. So, the potential exists for a different approach. There are divisive issues, but in their everyday lives Americans share a lot around topics like that. Where do you get your information? SM: It breaks into two areas, the mainstream media — everything from The New York Times to Benton Headlines and an-inside the-Beltway brief and some list-serves. The real news, the stuff that isn’t yet in the news, is all from my network of contacts. Does a person in your position have to be a gadget person or “techie”? SM: My house looks like a non-technical person’s house, but I would say yes. To do tech policy right you have to know the implications of what you’re doing – and that’s incredibly rare in D.C. We are overrun by lawyers, so everything is seen from that lens. That’s important, but sometimes you’re trying to solve things in a legal manner that do not match a technological reality.
COLLEGE CALENDAR DEC 11
Fall Semester Classes End
DEC 19
Fall Commencement (12:30 p.m., Bryce Jordan Center)
JAN 11
Spring Semester Classes Begin
JAN 18
Martin Luther King Day (No Classes)
FEB 3
Page Center Lecture (7 p.m., HUB Freeman Auditorium)
FEB Curley Center Conversation (5:30 p.m., Bryce Jordan Center) 25
#Creamery150 Photojournalism students spent Homecoming weekend at the Berkey Creamery, taking photos to celebrate the Creamery’s 150th anniversary. More than 200 images of visitors were used to create this mosaic. More photos from the students may be found at commedia.psu.edu online, and for a yearlong look at Creamery-related activities check our #Creamery150 on Twitter.
Powwow set to return April 2-3 The 12th annual “New Faces of an Ancient People Traditional American Indian Powwow” will return to State College
April 2-3, 2016, under the direction of John Sanchez, an associate professor in the Department of Journalism.
MAR 6-12
Spring Break (No Classes)
MAR 16
Oweida Lecture (7 p.m., Kern Auditorium)
MAR 18
JobExpo.Comm (9 a.m. to 2 p.m., HUB Alumni Hall)
MAR 19
Ad/PR Alumni Board Meeting
APR 8
Success in the City (Noon to 5 p.m., New York City)
APR 18
APSE Regional Meeting
APR 29
Spring Semester Classes End
MAY 7
Spring Commencement (Noon, Bryce Jordan Center) The Communicator | Fall 2015
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