CLASS ACTSACTS 9'8 - IN MEDIA RES INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Dartmouth Class of 1989
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CLASS OF 1989 WINTER 2021
’8 9 CLASS ACTS
IN MEDIA RES
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
’89 Media Pros Media Memoirs Spotlight Interview
Classmates on the frontlines Looking back at 89 careers
through their work in media across various media outlets
Page 1
CLASS OF 1989 WINTER 2021
LEADERSHIP
President’s Corner -
John Van Hooser
As I sit down to write this piece, half of the Dartmouth undergraduates are just about to
end their quarantine period ahead of the still mostly class-by-Zoom Winter Term. Grow-
ing up in New Hampshire, I never really minded Winter Term—I was used to the cold and
the dark and I actually enjoyed the days when it got really cold. It gave me an opportunity
to chuckle at the fair-weather kids from California who were not at all prepared for their
hair to freeze between classes. Now, however, after nearly 25 years in California, I would
be one of those fair-weather kids! I feel for the students there now having to deal with a
COVID-induced isolation that is much greater than what the Upper Valley winters normally
dole out and am reminded how lucky we were by comparison—though we may not always
have felt that way when it was dark at I am constantly amazed by the incredible things
4PM, the wind was blowing 30 miles per that our ’89 classmates have seen and done ......
hour, and we had to walk across campus and feel ever fortunate to be connected to all of
for one thing or another. you through Dartmouth.
The editor of this newsletter, Alec Scott, has put together a wonderful series of remembrances from many of our ’89
classmates who have spent some or all of their careers in the media. I hope that you get a chance to read all of them—
they are really excellent! I am constantly amazed by the incredible things that our ’89 classmates have seen and done
since leaving Hanover and feel ever fortunate to be connected to all of you through Dartmouth.
Lastly, I will make a pitch for our upcoming virtual Mini-Reunions. COVID has interfered with our ability to gather,
and it looks like that’s not going to dramatically change for a while yet. We have had a lot of great virtual ’89 events,
but these are different. Your class Mini Reunion chairs, Karla Cohen, Katy Klinkenberg and Jennifer O’Shaughnessy
are planning micro virtual reunions this spring. I hope you will all try to participate.
In March, we are looking to have a series of self-hosted reunions for ’89s based on your LSA/FSP trips, and in April or
May another series based on UGA groups and/or Freshman trips. Connecting and actually talking on Zoom with more
than a handful of people is difficult, so the idea is to break it down into smaller groups based on a common experience.
Please reach out to Karla, Katy or Jennifer to volunteer to host (details on pg. 17). It’s much easier to organize than
throwing an actual party!
Don’t forget to pay your
CLASS DUES!
Click on this link:
http://1989.dartmouth.org/s/1353/
clubs-classes-interior.aspx-
?sid=1353&gid=183&pgid=7730
Page 2
CLASS OF 1989 WINTER 2021
Newsletter
Editor Note CONNECTION
At one point when pulling this together, my Shuffle
pulled up that now-old pop song, Under Pressure,
the collaboration between David Bowie and Freddie
Mercury et al. You know the one: “Pressure, pushing down on me ...” In this
extraordinary year, we’ve all had to weather different sorts of pressure. With that
in mind, this newsletter has featured classmates whose work has put them, in
various ways, on the front lines. We’ve done special issues on health-care work-
ers, educators and now, this one, on media pros.
As a science-focused reporter at the storied Philadelphia Inquirer, Tom Avril has taken aim repeatedly at the
moving target of Covid, trying to translate the expertise of the people he interviews into reliable, usable infor-
mation for his readers (see p. 12). A longtime editor at the Washington Post, Debbi Wilgoren writes, in her sol-
id, thoughtful way, about what it’s been like to try to get across some of the key stories about the storming of the
Capitol in January (p. 6). They’re among the people writing the first draft of the history of this freighted time.
It’s been a time requiring great flexibility of us all. As Executive Vice President and General Manager of ESPN+,
Russell Wolff has had to make, in Grace Paley’s words, enormous changes at the last minute, as sports matches
get cancelled, often just moments before game time (p. 18). The coronavirus has also had knock-on effects on
businesses, large and small, and Jamie Heller, at the Wall Street Journal, has helped to coordinate coverage of
those enterprises that have been capsized by this Perfect Storm – and those which, with a mix of luck and savvy,
have thrived (starting below). One of the thrivers has been the documentary streaming service, Curiosity Stream,
a platform that Clint Stinchcomb has recently helped go global (p. 20).
And so here are some of this class’s leaders in this field, a mix of writers and editors, some broadcasters and
producers (for TV, radio and Internet outlets), some film makers, book authors and media execs. As the newly
appointed Dean of U.C. Berkeley’s journalism school, Geeta Anand is working to equip the next generation of
would-be Pulitzer winners with the tools they need – and to ensure, moving forward, that a greater mix of people
get both the high privilege and weighty responsibility of telling this society’s stories. (The opening of her note on
accepting the post is excerpted on p. 11).
I’m sure those featured in these pages have had their bad and unproductive days in this challenging time, but on
others they’ve managed to muster some resilience and creativity, to find some grace under pressure.
Alec Scott
Stay Connected:
Visit our website:
1989.dartmouth.org
Send news to:
dart89news@gmail.com
Join our “Dartmouth Class of 1989” groups on Facebook and LinkedIn
If you are not recieving classwide emails, please email John Van Hooser at johnvanhooser@gmail.com
Page 3
CLASS OF 1989 WINTER 2021
IN THE MEDIA
BUSINESS AND COVID
Jamie Heller has worked for the last 18 years
in various roles at The Wall Street Journal. She is
currently its Business Editor.
Covid-19 has been the biggest business story I’ve
ever covered – and the most surprising.
We’d covered many crises before – hurricanes,
the housing crisis, the financial crisis. But this
virus was poised to affect every factory, store,
office, worker, supplier and customer, everywhere
around the globe essentially at once.
The world embarked on a giant experiment in Jamie Heller, at the Journal’s offices in Hong Kong, 2019
shutting down vast swaths of economic activity.
For business journalists, that meant a torrent of
news. We all became pandemic reporters. But by the summer, the outlook grew more
nuanced. Thanks partly to Fed support and
It was an enormous challenge for us, as well
government aid, stocks were rising again. For
as the people we were covering. From CEOs
some goods and services, demand was soaring
of the world’s biggest companies to owners
– laptops, houses, pools, bicycles, puppies,
of restaurants and corner stores, every leader
Pelotons! Some governments were lifting
was in unfamiliar territory, making high-stakes
restrictions, and more clarity emerged on the
decisions based on evolving science and shifting
steps that were (masks) and weren’t (washing
government policies. Their failures and successes
groceries) seen as helpful and necessary to
were our stories.
slowing the spread.
At first, the news was almost entirely bad.
By the end of the year, while many small
Supply chains snarled. Travel stalled. Demand
businesses continued to struggle, many big
shriveled for everything from clothes to concert
companies were reporting stability or growth.
tickets. There were furloughs, pay cuts, layoffs
Even some that were set back early on, like
and bankruptcies. It seemed even the pandemic’s
Airbnb, found ways to thrive and wow Wall
“winners” would suffer. Consumers turned to
Street.
watch streaming services during lockdowns,
but the virus stopped studios from working on This year, the pandemic business coverage
new content. Retailers like Walmart had greater may not prove as acute, but it promises to be as
demand, but also new complications and expenses complex as the virus surges ahead while society
as they tried to keep employees and customers races to vaccinate. What consumer practices and
safe. Users were flocking to social media, but behaviors once seen as temporary will become the
marketers pulled back on ad spending. new norm? In what ways will tech become more
prevalent? Will remote work stick?
Much of our time was consumed covering
companies like Hertz and Neiman Marcus that One of the many wonderful things about a career
were debt-laden before the pandemic and quickly in journalism is that you get paid to pursue a life
succumbed to bankruptcy. of learning. I look forward to the surprises that
await.
Page 4
CLASS OF 1989 WINTER 2021
IN THE MEDIA
THE MISSION
Martin Fackler is Assistant Asia Editor for The vivors in the smoldering ruins of the village shopping
New York Times. The author of five books in Japanese, street with one eye on the quickest route to a bomb
he has served as Tokyo bureau chief for the Times shelter, in case the North Koreans fired another round.
from 2009 to 2015 and, in 2012, was a finalist for the The lessons that I learned at The Dartmouth also
Pulitzer Prize for his and his colleagues’ investigative shaped my coverage of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear
stories on the Fukushima nuclear disaster. disaster. At a time when Japanese big media reporters
were running away from the stricken plant, I knew
I had to go toward it. This led me to Minamisoma,
My first experience in journalism was at The Dart-
a small city about 15 miles north of the plant where
mouth. My first editor was Keith Boykin ‘87. In
20,000 residents had been abandoned, cut off from
journalism as in many professions, your profession-
food, water and fuel. Fortunately, the radioactive
al values are shaped by the people you meet. I was
plume had missed the city, though we didn’t know it
fortunate to work with Keith because he understood
at the time. The mayor was so impressed that I had
the social mission that drives all good journalists: get
shown up that he spent two hours with me, introduc-
the facts because the truth can make the world a better
ing me to efforts to reestablish lifelines into the city.
place.
That mission eventually led me into the plant itself.
As editor-in-chief, Keith held our work to high stan-
Eight months after the triple meltdown, I was the first
dards. In the days before laptops and the Internet,
foreign journalist to go into Fukushima Daiichi, and
filing a story meant going into the newspaper’s offices
see up close the huge reactor buildings shattered by
in Robinson Hall, typing the article out on a clunky
hydrogen explosions that had blown slabs of concrete
word processor and saving it on a floppy disk the size
hundreds of feet into the air. Radiation levels were
of a salad plate. I remember coming back one evening
so high even inside the protective steel cocoon of our
after interviewing an administrator about the College’s
bus that we had to speed by without stopping, to keep
response to demonstrators demanding the endowment
dosage levels to a minimum.
divest from apartheid-ruled South Africa. Keith sent
me back to ask more questions because he felt I had Now, in an era of fake news and alternative facts,
failed to get clear answers. of conspiracy theories and pseudoscience, I feel the
mission is more important than ever. Truth is our
I have carried the lessons from my work there ever
candle in the dark. Thank you to Keith and my other
since. The job of a foreign correspondent can be
colleagues at The Dartmouth for first teaching me that.
different from working as a journalist in your home
country. You’re tasked with thinking about issues
on the broadest terms – on a country-wide or even
region-wide basis – and making unfamiliar people
and events understandable to readers back home, and
across the world. But the mission remains the same.
Another editor once described journalism as writing
history in real time. To do that, you cannot rely on
hearsay or the Internet or social media. You have to go
where the news is happening, to see for yourself and
talk to people who were actually there. One time, that
Martin Fackler in front of the Unit 4 reactor building at the
meant going to a small crab-fishing village on a South Fukushima Daiichi plant in June 2016. The scrape marks on the
Korean island that had just been struck by North Ko- white wall behind him were left by the 45-foot tsunami that crippled
rean Katyusha rockets. I remember interviewing sur- the plant in the wake of the 2011 earthquake.
Page 5
CLASS OF 1989 WINTER 2021
IN THE MEDIA
IN THE EYE OF THE STORM
Debbi Wilgoren is the Assignment Editor at
the Washington Post.
More than 10 months have passed since I last stepped
into the newsroom of The Post. I landed a job there
in late 1989, as an editorial assistant, and have since
worked as a reporter, and then an editor. Vaccines
permitting, my colleagues and I hope to return by
summer.
I have many powerful memories of our newsroom,
but none stronger than Election Night 2016, when my
daughter – then on a gap year between high school and
college – called me at 2 a.m. from Israel, dumbfound-
ed as to what had just occurred. Growing up in the
Debbi Wilgoren in her home office, photographed by her hus-
deep-blue Washington bubble, watching the national band Rick Silber. He is an attorney who is launching a trekking
polls and the popular vote totals, she was flabbergasted company and an environmental research organization in Nepal.
that Hillary Clinton had lost. She was also deeply wor-
ried about the election of a president who had talked It has not been easy these past four years – and, if
openly about assaulting women, targeted immigrants we’re being honest, the 10 or so years before that – to
so directly, and made clear that the truth was not a see journalists targeted as enemies of the people and
priority. purveyors of fake news. Nor was it easy, during the
I remember telling her that the country is vast and 1990s and the first decade of the new millennium, to
deep, full of voters who perceive things in all kinds of watch the withering of our industry at the onset of the
ways. I told her the people – and the Electoral College digital age and wonder what was the path forward.
– had spoken, and that our institutions of democracy, But I am buoyed that journalism has proved itself over
including Congress, statehouses and the courts, as well the past four years, especially during the painful and
as the White House, and a free and open press, would tumultuous months since the pandemic descended.
each work, as they always had, to hold each other The Post’s subscription numbers, and those of other
accountable. national news outlets, suggest that a growing share of
The next four years tested those institutions far more people have embraced the idea of once again paying
than I had imagined, culminating with the Jan. 6 for credible information, and holding to account the
breach of the Capitol. This is five miles from where I powerful – including those who would spread conspir-
live and now work, directing a team of reporters who acy theories and misinformation. People desperately
cover the coronavirus in the District, Maryland and need accurate information: on the virus, the vaccine,
Virginia, the racial justice protests, and state and local the economy, racism that is embedded in our laws and
government. Several of them were among our team of our culture, and so much more.
two dozen at the White House and the Capitol that day, There is still much to worry about in terms of the
providing some of the more detailed accounts of what future of journalism, not least the dangerous flow of
was happening. They have since told the stories of misinformation online, and the perilous state of small-
Officer Eugene Goodman, who turned the mob away er, local news outlets. Still, as I work in my Dartmouth
from the Senate chamber; of the delayed and disjointed green-painted home office 10 to 12 hours a day, I be-
law enforcement response; of local lawmakers who lieve more strongly than ever in our mission, and I am
participated in the stop-the-steal rally or are helping to convinced that those who value truth and fairness and
lead the impeachment effort; and of the unprecedent- democracy in our country will find a way to make sure
ed security lockdown and the inauguration that went that journalistic institutions continue to thrive.
forward within it.
Page 6
CLASS OF 1989 WINTER 2021
IN THE MEDIA
I AM A CAMERA
Jillann Spitzmiller’s films have included I don’t know about you, but age 50 really punched me
Shakespeare Behind Bars, Still Dreaming, and in the gut. I thought that by taking the creative path
Homeland. They have received much recognition, less traveled in my 20’s, maybe I’d get out of having
including a Grand Jury Prize (for Shakespeare) a mid-life crisis. By doing all the struggling early on,
perhaps I would get a free pass 30 years down the line.
at Sundance. Here she speaks of how she got into
That was hardly the case, and I spent 2017 looking
filmmaking and of how 50 felt. at all of my work, achievements, and relationships,
reassessing everything. I remembered that I hadn’t
just wanted to be a documentary filmmaker, but also a
I stumbled into filmmaking sophomore year at fiction storyteller. When I started out, Hollywood felt
Dartmouth, and one of the things that attracted me so impenetrable to me, but doors opened in the doc
to documentary filmmaking is that I figured I’d realm. I followed that fork instead and worked hard
always be learning and meeting others who were and thrived.
doing interesting things. I was empathetic and shy,
and the techniques of observational cinema felt like a As things shook out, I felt a story coming up to the
good fit. And although I have never really been able surface. Not one I was observing in someone else’s
to chart a career path, as some can in other fields, life, but one that was intimately my own. One with
my assumptions were accurate. I have spent deep, experienced female characters that spoke about life in
thoughtful time with people who would have never a real, humorous and honest way. I wanted to create
otherwise crossed my path, in places and pockets I characters who were recalibrating their lives, taking
wouldn’t have gone, and for that I’m really grateful. their power back after raising their kids, and making a
fresh start for themselves before it was too late.
One of the most amazing experiences recently circled
back, which was filming Indigo Girls at the height This story percolated for a bit, and, like everyone else
of their fame with Sara May ’89. We had full access during Covid, I wrote a television pilot. I applied to
to Amy Ray and Emily Saliers as they opened one Sundance and took some professional development
crazy weekend for The Grateful Dead. It was a total classes, worked one-on-one with a seasoned television
blast and we made a music video which was bought showrunner, and now am “in development” with
by Sony. Two filmmakers have recently requested to this series. It’s thrilling to be stepping out in a new
use that now “archival” footage, so Sara and I have direction after all this time, reaching like a sunflower
been back in touch and rewatching those grainy, towards an old ray of a dream.
impassioned images. I catch glimpses of my younger I’m still working as a doc storyteller on some cool
self in the footage and have a hard time understanding projects, even during Covid, which is a miracle. I’ve
how that was almost 30 years ago. been working on a film with an art collective in Santa
Fe, New Mexico, where I live with my husband and
filmmaking partner, Hank Rogerson ‘89, and our two
kids. This art collective, Meow Wolf, is poised to
become one of the foremost immersive entertainment
experience companies in the world.
While I envy that some in our class might be close to
retiring, or gracefully hitting their peak, I feel like, and
hope, that maybe I’m just getting started.
Spitzmiller filming in the desert for the documentary on Meow Wolf.
Page 7
CLASS OF 1989 WINTER 2021
IN THE MEDIA
ORDINARY PEOPLE
A longtime reporter for the Boston Globe,
Kathleen Burge now works as an editor for
WBUR, Boston’s NPR affiliate.
During our freshman spring at Dartmouth, I
walked past Robinson Hall late one night, toward narratives and interview sources. They’ve worked
bright lights streaming through the first-floor in dangerous conditions to cover the pandemic,
windows of The D offices. I remember pausing protests against racial injustice and the Capitol
outside in the dark, watching students huddled riot.
over computers, turning to each other, talking. I’d But there are still so many stories we haven’t been
thought about trying to write for the newspaper. able to report, kitchen tables we can’t sit around
That night, looking in, it seemed like a place I right now. These stories, I know, will get told
wanted to be. over the next months and years. But I worry about
The next day, I signed up for reporter training. what we’ve lost in the meantime, that we’re numb
I’ve worked as a journalist ever since. to the 400,000 COVID deaths – and more, by
the time you read this – because so few reporters
Over the past few decades, including 15 years have been able to enter hospitals or write about
as a reporter at the Boston Globe, I’ve covered funerals.
many beats, including legal issues and state
government. I’ve often found myself drawn to For the past few years, I’ve been an editor at the
medical reporting. But the stories that have stuck opinion website at WBUR, Boston’s NPR station.
with me, the pieces I’ve most loved writing, are Submissions poured in after the pandemic began,
stories about ordinary people in extraordinary more each week than we’d ever received. Many
circumstances. I’ve talked to people at their of the commentaries were written by doctors who
kitchen tables, sat beside them on their living described the difficulty of treating patients from
room sofas, followed them as they’ve shopped at behind bulky PPEs and face shields and masks.
grocery stores or while they worked. They wrote about struggling with the uncertainty
of COVID and its treatment.
I wrote about a husband and wife who quit their
jobs in law and transportation to get Ph.D.’s We also heard from Black writers who described
in science and find a cure for the fatal, genetic the exhaustion of living in fear in America. In
disease she had inherited. The man who learned March and April, when we still knew so little
his twin brother, who died of leukemia as a about COVID, writers described their sickness
young child in the 1950s, had been one of the and recovery. We published the best of these first-
first patients in a vitally important chemotherapy person essays.
trial. The woman whose wife had been killed on As we isolate, our distance a virtue, stories about
9/11 but was not recognized as a legal survivor other lives connect us. We need to keep telling our
because neither the airline company – nor, at the stories. We need to keep reading them.
time, the federal government – recognized their
same-sex marriage.
Over the past 10 months, journalists have needed
to find new and enterprising ways to find
Page 8
CLASS OF 1989 WINTER 2021
IN THE MEDIA
AUTHOR, AUTHOR.....AUTHOR, AUTHOR
Paul Challen ran cross-country for Dartmouth,
and, post-graduation, has done his share of writing
about athletes and their sports. But he’s also gone at
so very many other subjects, learning enough, speedi-
ly, to write well about them.
For the past nine years I have been teaching an under-
graduate writing course at the University of Waterloo
in my home province of Ontario. At the start of each
term, in an attempt to build a bit of cred among stu-
dents who I hope will pay attention to me for 12 con-
secutive Mondays, I let it be known that I have written
a lot of books – more than 60 according to Amazon.
While that total is greatly inflated by the fact that
many of these titles are children’s books, I will claim
a pretty wide range of topics within – everything from
natural disasters and ancient civilizations (“Life in An-
cient Egypt” seems to be a popular one); to beginners’
science and math (“Volcano Alert!” and “Addition!”);
some adult biographies of athletes (NBA star Isiah Paul Challen with a statue inspired by the work of another
Thomas), actors (Hugh Laurie of “House”) and writ- Dartmouth-educated writer.
ers (crime fiction legend Elmore Leonard), television (As a side note, there was that time when I helped out
shows (“The West Wing”), sports (“Smash It Tennis”); the publishing company my wife was working for by
and even a high school phys ed text book (yes, we donning a giant – and very hot/sweaty – Franklin the
take our phys ed seriously here in Ontario.) Turtle costume at a kids’ book event. While I sus-
Somewhere around the second or third class, there pected that such an exercise was worthwhile in some
is always a student who, after a 30-second Google deeper way, it led to even more confusion about the
search and noticing this diverse list of titles (and more value of my liberal arts education.)
likely simply to win a few points with the instructor) Of course now, I see things a whole lot differently.
will ask how I’ve managed to cover this range.
So when my students ask the inevitable question about
My answer, it won’t surprise you, always relates back being able to write with seeming ease on such a range
to my undergrad days at Dartmouth. of subjects, I always respond with something like,
I’ll admit that during the late-’80s period we were in “Well, back in the day I went to one of those fancy
Hanover, I was a bit skeptical about the overall value American liberal arts schools. And they taught me not
of the liberal arts as a platform for going out into the to be afraid of any subject, or at least to be curious
wide world – a skepticism that only grew in my first enough that you can take a stab at writing something
10 or so years in the workforce as I discovered (or so I interesting about it. If you have a topic, a bit of am-
thought) that a jumble of courses in philosophy, Latin, bition, the right skills, and you can construct a few
history and even chemistry, physics and biology (ok, decent sentences, you cannot go far wrong.”
those were the “for non-majors” courses but, still…) So while I’d never claim to distill the Dartmouth Ex-
were not useful for being able to do anything really perience into a simple anecdote, I do believe that, for
worthwhile in the job market. me at least, the spirit of curiosity I learned there has
paid off in a professional and personal way.
Page 9
CLASS OF 1989 WINTER 2021
DCF UPDATE
Did You Know 46% of Students
Rely on Financial Aid to Make
Their Dartmouth Experience Possible?
This number is expected to increase drastically in the coming years. Our support for
the DCF will help ensure that all talented students can afford a Dartmouth education.
To make a gift and to learn more about the 1769 Society, please visit
dartmouthcollegefund.org.
Our deepest thanks for your continued generosity in this time of great need in suppport of financial
aid and equity at Dartmouth. Your gift matters!
For Dartmouth, Please go to the Class of ‘89 page
Lenora Inez Brown 1989.dartmouth.org and check
Peter Lurie out the Zoom meeting hosted by
Nancy Obler Kaufman our own Dave and Julie McKen-
Alex Simpson na, Co-Chairs on the Presidential
Commission on Financial Aid. It
http://dartgo.org/givedcf is a really interesting and infor-
mative presentation!
Page 10CLASS OF 1989 WINTER 2021
OPENING NOTE
Late last year, GEETA ANAND was appointed dean of
one of the world’s leading journalism schools, U.C. Berkeley.
Before becoming a professor at the school, and now, its dean,
she worked with a team of Wall Street Journal reporters who
won a 2003 Pulitzer prize for their coverage of the history
and consequences of corporate scandals in America. This is
one of several major prizes her work has won, with others
for medical-science and investigative reporting – the latter
has been a focus of her teaching at Berkeley. A former India
correspondent for the New York Times, she is the author of
the non-fiction book The Cure: How a Father Raised $100
Million – and Bucked the Medical Establishment – in a Quest
to Save His Children. This is the start of the note she wrote
upon her appointment as dean.
I am thrilled to be the first woman of color—indeed, the first woman—to serve as dean of Berkeley Journalism.
After working for nearly 30 years as an investigative reporter, a foreign correspondent and a political reporter—in beats
dominated by white men, I know how hard it is to have your work recognized, to be offered equal opportunities for advancement
when perceived as other. I know how hard it is to rise within a system that makes it harder for you and your talents to be truly
seen.
I have succeeded beyond my wildest imagination because so many people reached down to lift me up. When I was frustrated,
beaten down and made to feel less than for being born a woman, for being Indian, for possessing an accent, there were reporters
and editors who took it upon themselves to fight for my story to run on Page One, push for me to get promoted on the grounds
of merit, insist I be hired at UC Berkeley as a full professor with tenure—and most recently, encourage me to raise my hand for
consideration as dean. Indeed, at times they recognized the potential in me before I saw it in myself.
Many of my champions were women and people of color … Many others were white men … and here at Berkeley. I know I
wouldn’t be here today as dean of Berkeley Journalism if these women and men, and many others, hadn’t used the privilege of
their position and experiences to open doors historically closed on the basis of sex and race so that I could rise.
And yet the pain of not being seen has afforded me a kind of costly wisdom, proving incredibly valuable to me both as a human
being and as a leader. It is my entire lived experience that I bring to this position, my success and humiliating discrimination that
fuel my determination to transform not just our school but also our industry so that women, people of color and members of the
LGBTQ+ community are seen, supported, and unencumbered in their pursuit of success.
For Berkeley Journalism, that doesn’t mean just admitting a diverse student body. We already do that. Half of our students are
people of color—and more than 60 percent are women. What we mean by supporting our first-generation students, our students
of color, women and our LGBTQ+ students, is making sure they have the financial, emotional and academic support to succeed
here and beyond. ...
The tragedy of George Floyd’s death was met with the global call to end systemic racism, not only within the rank and file of
law enforcement but across all institutions. For their part, our students told us in angry, painful letters how the pangs of structural
racism are felt here on our campus. They told us how they have struggled to get the education that Berkeley Journalism promises
while also working almost full time to pay for basic living expenses. Some have even fought eviction or just plain hunger while
attending classes here. This is hard for them to say. This is hard for us to hear. But we heard them.
We have been working as a community … to develop a plan to transform our school to address systemic racism. We are now
engaged with a steering committee of our faculty, staff, students and alumni to strengthen that plan and implement it. That plan
would have us raise money to provide substantially more financial aid to our students—and emergency assistance to meet urgent
expenses that arise in their day-to-day lives.
But the faculty and I want to do much, much more …
The full text of this letter is available on the Berkeley J-school’s website, www.journalism.berkeley.edu.
Page 11CLASS OF 1989 WINTER 2021
SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW ON
TOM AVRIL
Tom Avril works as a health and science reporter at with bats as a vector of the disease and with
the Philadelphia Inquirer, which has meant, in the scouring all the surfaces around us?
past year, he’s covered the moving target of COVID
The pieces convey expert evidence in terms that are
non-stop. He was part of a team writing about the
easy– even for this scientifically illiterate reader – to
disease’s first march through Pennsylvania, so
assimilate. “When I’m interviewing an expert, I’ll
deadly that overwhelmed hospitals were delivering
read the background before meeting them, and then
bodies to the medical examiner’s office in the back
in the interview, give them my ideas of what that
of a pick-up truck. He’s covered the links between
means. They’ll sometimes correct it, or refine it. As
COVID and other diseases: Was a Pennsylvania
with any journalism, you ask questions and then, if
legislator’s death of an aneurysm linked to his
you still don’t understand it, you ask more.”
COVID diagnosis? How about strokes … and
pneumonia? He’s written about masks and herd After Dartmouth, he stayed in New Hampshire for a
immunity, about aerosol transmission and plasma couple of years, teaching at the Cardigan Mountain
as a treatment, about contact tracing, the efficacy of School, living with the students in a dorm. “The
RNA vaccines and the virus’s recent mutations. boys were … energetic,” he says with a laugh.
“Many of them so young, and away from home.”
Tom has been at the storied paper since 1998. At
He then headed to Northwestern’s well-regarded
Dartmouth, Tom worked at The D and studied
journalism school, and there he met the woman
engineering. “I found thermo engineering brutal,
who’d become his wife, Karen Cheney – she
and I went to see my professor Horst Richter. I
contributes long-form pieces to magazines ranging
remember him saying, ‘You don’t have to be an
from Money to Better Homes and Gardens.
engineer. It’s okay.’ He said there was a place for
writers to translate things into terms ordinary people “Before the Inquirer would look at you,” he says,
could understand.” “you needed to have done five years elsewhere.”
He did a stint in D.C. as a stringer for a regional
Though that maybe wasn’t exactly what the
paper, and also worked not far from where he ended
Cincinnati native wanted to hear, he now
up, at the Newark Star Ledger. His jobs, along with
appreciates the advice, and that’s the direction he
his engineering background, helped him land the
ultimately went. That translation of complicated,
science-reporting position at the Inquirer. “We’re
often shifting science into lay terms has been a
lucky, we have half a dozen health and science
huge part of his job throughout, a task that has
reporters at the paper, what with the universities
proved especially critical in the time of Corona.
and medical centers here, the big drug companies
“The general public has this idea of science being
not far away in northern New Jersey.” With a team
received wisdom, that there’s an absolutely clear
of that size, each of these reporters has been able to
truth out there, and that once there’s been a study,
specialize in different types of conditions, and, on
there’s the answer.”
the medical side of his work, Tom has focused on
To read through his pieces is to relive the various the heart, sometimes gowning up to watch surgeries.
phases of a year that has felt like a decade –
remember way back when when we were obsessed
Page 12CLASS OF 1989 WINTER 2021
Tom Avril in
the process of
taking blood
samples from
his finger for
a COVID
study he’s
been covering.
Photo taken
by daughter
Charlotte.
Although his pieces, over the years, have growth in the public’s appreciation of science.
spoken of surgical advances and assorted “It’s sort of cool that everyday people are
scientific discoveries, they’re always populated spouting these terms like the R Naught, about
with people whose interests and idiosyncrasies the number of people that each infected person
come across. When he speaks of the work, will spread it to.”
he talks less of the science and more of the In addition to producing a steady stream of
scientists doing it, less of new approaches in pieces about the science of COVID, he’s
medicine, and more of the doctors introducing also written about other knock-on effects of
them, and the patients affected. the pandemic, publishing pieces about how
When I ask what he finds challenging about the masking up limits the ability of those with
work, he says, “I’m still reluctant to approach hearing impairments to read lips and how to
people and to ask them to divulge things to build an air filter to reduce viral spread indoors.
me.” He’s also one of many writers who finds One of his most republished articles focused
the doing of it a challenge. “That Dorothy on how to make standard home internet service
Parker line – ‘I don’t enjoy writing, I enjoy stretch to meet an entire family’s needs.
having written.’”
Here he knows what he’s talking about. After
As for this historic past year, he’s sometimes graduating from Brown, their 22-year-old
come up against, “people demanding the daughter Eleanor has returned home, using the
answers they want, rather than answers based family Wifi to work remotely (as a software
on evidence.” engineer for Lyft), while their other child,
His pieces have sometimes delivered hard truths 18-year-old Charlotte, completes her final year
of high-school online. “That part, all of us
– but have tended to do so in a gentle way.
being together, that anyway has been great,” he
Relatively early on in this historic outbreak, he
concluded a piece on herd immunity by writing: says at the end of our phone call. “But what a
time. I remember reading about this new virus
“Short of a vaccine, we’re going to be stuck
last January. For all the finger pointing and
with this for a while, and it is not even clear
hindsight, I don’t necessarily know that people
how protective the antibodies will be against
knew how bad it was going to be.”
reinfection. And a reminder — don’t pay
attention to the cranky Facebook poster who — Alec Scott
insists this is no worse than the flu. It is.”
At the same time, he’s also seen a steady
Page 13CLASS OF 1989 WINTER 2021
MINI MEDIA MEMOIRS
We asked a few members of the class to take us inside their former workplaces. Some of their employers
have been outlets that set the agenda nationally and internationally. Others have infused some win-lose
drama, some wit or glamour, some new way of thinking, into an otherwise dull plod of a day.
Turning the Page
Allison Moir-Smith speaks of the days (and late nights) she spent working in Manhattan’s magazine and
publishing world.
September 1989: My first job in publishing was for a famous writer on tight deadline for Vanity Fair articles (and, later,
a quick-turnaround book) on Mikhail Gorbachev. I knew nothing about Gorbachev, Russia, publishing, or NYC, but I
had grand fantasies about Manhattan’s literary world. This job – working in solitude in a penthouse high above Central
Park for a mercurial boss – was my foot in the door. I transcribed interviews with Russian diplomats, raced floppy discs
by taxi to Vanity Fair, scheduled hair-coloring appointments, and drove her grey Jaguar to pick up the lap dogs from the
groomer in the Hamptons. During those 18 weird, lonely, difficult, often demeaning months, I did see how to write a
book. A great life skill, since I’m now working on my fifth.
January 1991: An assistant at Forbes FYI, in the magazine business’s heyday, when September Vogues were 1,000 pages,
and FYI helped make the Forbes family even more money. (Were the collection of Faberge eggs not enough?) The
magazine featured humor, travel and fashion geared to rich white guys – tough to relate to, as a 24-year-old woman. My
first byline was “A.L. Moir,” to disguise my gender. (Seriously? Imagine our daughters doing that today.)
Still, this was a fun, fun job. We had long boozy lunches (as I imagined the literary-types had). My workdays were spent
on the phone – no email back then – coaxing older writers like Joseph Heller to get his 2,000-word humor piece to us on
deadline. (Again, our daughters…would they put up with this?)
I eventually became managing editor, charged with the nuts and bolts of getting the magazine to the printer on time.
Since the staff was small, deadline stress was big. There were no computers my first three issues, and I hopped into taxis
to rush page-boards downtown to the graphic designers, so misspelled words could be Exacto-ed out and pieced back
in, by hand. I had the first Mac on the staff -- dial-up modems slowly transmitting image-laden files to the downtown
designers. Slow modems = Late nights.
When the issue was printed, we’d celebrate with advertisers on the Forbes yacht, circling Manhattan, drinking
champagne and eating shrimp larger than I’ve seen since.
Between issues, we took press trips and It. Was. Decadent. To $5,000-a-week spas in San Diego and Mexico. Resorts in
Hawaii and St. Lucia. On fashion shoots in Alaska (for fly fishing) and Botswana (for an elephant-back safari).
For most of the decade, I wore black from head-to-toe – opaque black
tights, short skirts, high heels. I, a work horse, was trying to exhibit
some semblance of style when those chic Vogue girls, the show horses,
came to the book parties.
I realized I had tired of this job on a press trip to French St. Martin. At
a poolside wine dinner, I sat next to a freelancer who had left a six-
month-old baby at home, so she could cover the hotel for a magazine.
I didn’t want to have to do that. I took a totally different direction and
went to psychotherapy grad school.
Looking back – with 30 years of life and death, marriage and kids
under my belt, and the world having changed so much – I see that
my 1990s in New York were fun, ridiculous, pretty darn carefree. I
wasn’t changing the world, but I sure was living in the Zeitgeist of that
industry, of that time. I’m glad I lived it, and I’m glad I moved on. Allison Moir-Smith at the mock-up board for the
magazine Forbes FYI.
Page 14CLASS OF 1989 WINTER 2021
Courtside
After playing tennis at Dartmouth, K elley Busby Tiemens competed on the circuit for a year, then did stints at
Good Morning America, Time Inc., CBS Sports and HBO in New York. She has since shifted to documentaries and
narrative features and moved to Sausalito. Here, she writes about covering Wimbledon and the European tour for
the then fledgling Tennis Television.
In 1993, I began covering my favorite sport, as a feature reporter for a magazine show on Fox Sports called Tennis Television.
It was June 21, opening day at Wimbledon, and I stood with excitement at the front entrance, but sadly with no press pass,
because it was just days earlier that my boss approved the trip, and we were a small operation, not considered worthy of a
last-minute credential to tennis’s most prestigious tournament.
Besides my high-8 camera, I was armed with dogged determination and belief in serendipity and soon found my way into the
esteemed All-England Club, thanks to a Dutch player I’d practiced and hung out with on the satellite tour – she was exiting
while I stood by the gates, thinking that a story about Andre Agassi’s rabid fans would be interesting and doable because so
many were camping, right there on the street, having a rollicking time comparing notes about their favorite player.
On day two or three, I legitimately got in after pitching the Agassi-Barbra Streisand angle to my previous employer, Time,
Inc., whose London bureau helped me secure a pass. People Magazine ended up publishing a photo of Streisand gazing at her
“Zen master” on Centre Court, with a quote I secured from Agassi’s best friend.
When Wimbledon was about over, I learned from my new European journalist friends that the Swiss Open struggles to get
coverage because it starts the day after the men’s final, and so, yes, they would love another reporter there and would likely put
me up and cover travel expenses. The nomadic life of a tennis reporter was launched! I was off to beautiful Gstaad, crafting a
feature about the Swiss passion for tennis – and for chocolate and cows. (They often gave a cow to the winner.)
The last thing I wanted to do after time in the temperate summer alps was return to Manhattan’s heat and stench, so thankfully,
my boss approved coverage of the Czech Open. I was only getting paid for my stories and had no travel or expense account,
so, like so many 20-somethings, entirely winged it upon arrival in Prague, making conversation with a young American on the
airport bus into town. When I asked if he could recommend a modest hotel, he replied that his roommate had just moved out
and that he had a spare room for $20/night. I was definitely adventurous but didn’t want to be reckless, so put on my reporter’s
hat and probed him, thankful when he shared that he’d gone to UVM and knew two of my closest high school friends, plus he
was really busy working preparing to open a restaurant. I stayed at his place for 10 magical days, exploring this storybook city,
interviewing Jana Novotna after her heartbreaking loss to Steffi Graff at Wimbledon (where she cried on the Duchess of Kent’s
shoulder) and learning about the Czech’s perspective on champions like Martina Navratilova and Ivan Lendl.
Looking back, this wonderfully unplanned summer could only have happened when I was single and in my mid 20’s, just start-
ing work that would include covering the four Grand Slams, hitting with Aussie Legends Ken Rosewall and Tony Roche, and
meeting champions like Martina Hingis after her 1997 victory and Serena Williams before she even played a Slam. She was in
NY watching older sister Venus and was so bubbly, handing everyone “business” cards only a 15-year-old could make. I’m not
quite sure where mine is, but won’t ever forget that it said “Skateboarder Extraordinaire.”
I also remember the pressure by my CBS Sports boss to yank Hingis out of the locker room in time to be interviewed live by
John McEnroe and Mary Carillo. She was more interested in laughing it up with the locker room attendees who’d doused her
with beer, and I’ll never forget the dismissive look she gave me when I pressed her to “come with me right now.”
Particularly this January, as the pandemic plods along, I’m happy to look back at this easeful time, filled with smooth pre-
Covid and pre-9/11 travel, when one of the most interesting things we kept track of was how many bananas Martina Navratilo-
va ate in one day — she hit 19 one day!
Page 15CLASS OF 1989 WINTER 2021
Broadcast News *
Jennifer Avellino writes about her two decades producing news and talk shows for CNN.
In the days before we graduated and made our way into the world, many of us were glued to televisions across campus as
the crisis in Beijing’s Tienanmen Square unfolded. And back in those days, there was only one place to watch the news in
full – CNN. I had already completed two internships at the ground-breaking young news network, first in Washington DC
during our junior fall as the ’88 Presidential race gained steam, and the following summer in Atlanta and New Orleans for
the Democratic and Republican political conventions. Covering the New Hampshire primary for Dartmouth Broadcasting
had been a highlight of my college experience and I was eager to make a career of it. My first stop was CNN New York as
an assistant producer on a daytime variety show, a bizarre cavalcade of celebrities, authors and psychiatrists, among them,
Mick Fleetwood, Rob Reiner, Christopher Reeve, Gloria Steinem and Ray Bradbury. Dennis Hopper told me, while we
looked east out the window across Manhattan, that the Chrysler Building reminded him of a bad trip. Peter, Paul & Mary
warmed up for the live show while I huddled with him outside the studio door. That moment, in particular, will live with
me always.
Then it was on to Washington as the Clinton administration was getting underway. CNN’s Washington political talk show
unit would become my home for the next 14 years. Crossfire, Late Edition, Evans & Novak, Inside Politics Weekend
with Wolf Blitzer, Both Sides with Jesse Jackson, and Reliable Sources, were just some of the shows in my orbit. Produc-
ing countless interviews with leading political figures from the campaign trail to the halls of Congress to the White House.
Crossing paths with the King of Jordan, Prime Minister of Israel and the President of Egypt. Covering the Impeachment
of a President. It was a daily living history lesson, producing shows on the assassination of Yitzak Rabin, the school mas-
sacre in Columbine or the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Some of the lighter moments also sparkle – from behind-the-scenes tours of the White House during the holidays to
roaming the capital city with political satirist Mark Russell, to chatting with George Clooney about his role as legendary
journalist Fred Friendly in the film, Good Night and Good Luck.
Vignettes pop out, as if from a time machine. It’s 25 years now since I arrived in Oklahoma City, one day after the bomb-
ing of the Federal Building in April of 1995, crossing police blockades to walk the final blocks to the scene, the building
half blown away, illuminated under giant lights as the search for survivors continued. In 2001, I was on maternity leave,
expecting to resume work in October. The towers fell and I returned to a different world, especially for the news media.
The workload was relentless as America went to war - first for six
months and then for my final six years in news.
I often felt like Zelig – the proximity to unfolding events was stun-
ning – and my only regret was not taking more notes along the way. I
recall the thousands of hours producing from the hot seat in the control
room, never knowing exactly what was going to happen on live tele-
vision. The guests who became newsmakers, saying the unexpected,
or the correspondents who made the stories come alive – like the one
who described for us how he’d just evaded a kidnapping attempt in
Iraq on the way to the live location. Or producing the interviews that
became lore, like the one in the West Wing where then-Vice President
Al Gore said that he invented the internet – except that he didn’t ac-
tually say that. Joining the CNN team producing the 2000 Bush/Gore
Town Halls in Dartmouth’s Moore Theater brought me home. Return-
ing to New Hampshire, hitting the campaign trail, was something I
always loved.
CNN is 40 now, joined on air by younger cable networks, not to
mention the relentless, round-the-clock parade of stories at our finger-
tips – on Twitter, on Facebook, on the headlines that stream across our
devices. But when a big story breaks, I turn the channel to my Jennifer Avellino, left, with Wolf Blitzer and Dana Bash, on
old friend, and think from time to time about the two decades the road with the Clinton-Gore campaign in 1996. They had
when I was lucky enough to be at the center of it all. just wrapped their coverage of the Democratic Convention
and stopped in Tennessee to interview Vice President Al Gore.
Page 16CLASS OF 1989 WINTER 2021
************************************************
Class of ’89 FSP/LSA Mini Reunions
Coming in March!
Class of ‘89 Mini-Reunion chairs are looking for FSP/ LSA Zoom reunion hosts. It’s EASY!
Reach out to one of us if you’re willing to host and we’ll provide contact info for everyone on
your trip. From there, you’ll just email an invite to the Zoom you’ve scheduled, grab your coun-
try-appropriate beverage, and enjoy London/Salamanca/Kenya/Beijing/etc again!
Cheers!
Karla (FSP SPAIN) Karlaacohen@hotmail.com
Katy (GEOGRAPHY FSP KENYA) Katyklink@hotmail.com
Jennifer (HISTORY FSP LONDON) jennifer.osh@gmail.com
Hoping to follow up with more Zoom Reunions later this Spring focused on UGA Groups and
Freshmen Trips!
********************************
WEEKLY
ZOOM
REUNION
Ken Horton and Ned Ward are still coordinating weekly ZOOM ‘tails with classmates - come join in the fun!
The ‘89 Zoom ‘tails is every Saturday at 4pm and 11pm EST
Please watch for two upcoming Classmate Connection discussions
-One on aging parents and one on grief and loss.
To be held before our regular Saturday Zoom sessions.
Details to follow.
Questions about the Zoom ‘tails?
Contact Ned at ned@nedorama.com or Ken at klhorton@comcast.net
Page 17CLASS OF 1989 WINTER 2021
THE SPORTING
LIFE
RUSSELL WOLFF currently serves as Executive VP and general manager of
ESPN+. After graduating from the College, he found he hadn’t had enough of
Hanover, and did an MBA at Tuck, where he met his wife Patty, with whom he has two
sons. In his 23 years with ESPN and The Walt Disney Company, he also headed ESPN
International, helping foster its growth in Latin America, Asia and across Europe and
Africa. Kelley Busby Tiemens interviewed him via Zoom mid-January.
Kelley Busby Tiemens: How do you compare 2020 with your previous years there?
Russell Wolff: It was a year like no other. You can prepare for almost anything, but I don’t think anybody
can prepare for 2020. I was at the Super Bowl in February and everything seemed fine for a few weeks, but I
remember distinctly on March 9 or 10, saying to my team “if you would be more comfortable working from
home the next few days, feel free, the company is fine with it.” And that was the last time I saw them all in
person. We thought we were going home for a couple weeks or a month, not for a year, which it is going to be
before too long.
KBT: What was it like soon after sports weren’t happening and what did you stream?
RW: There was a point where there was almost nothing being played, and ESPN signed a deal with the Ko-
rean Baseball League because they happened to be playing baseball in Korea, so we broadcast the KBO here
in the United States. Then the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) canceled their April pay per view
event, and between March and May, there was no UFC. But on May 9, UFC had their first pay per view event
and that was really the first sporting event in the United States for almost eight weeks. The good news about
ESPN+, the direct-to-consumer streaming service that I lead, is that we had a lot of video-on-demand content,
and archives from various leagues. So, in April when the Masters should have happened, we had past years’
Masters and July we had old Wimbledon Tournaments. We revisited “The Ocho,” which is a play on the mov-
ie “Dodgeball,” and people enjoyed the fun and games of things like ultimate frisbee and the corn hole world
championships. Whether in business or personally, you have to have a sense of humor, particularly when times
Page 18CLASS OF 1989 WINTER 2021
are tough, and so we tried to do that a bit on air. ESPN also continued to have SportsCenter and told the story of
what was going on in the world of sports, whether it was athletes dealing with Covid or teams trying to practice
or leagues trying to decide what to do.
KBT: Can you talk about any particularly positive things that happened or are currently happening at ESPN+?
RW: Obviously, Covid was pausing sports across the board for a while, then with the return of sports, even
without fans present, it felt at the time like a dream scenario to play anything and to do it in a safe way. And
regarding George Floyd’s death and the issue of racial inequality, it permeated sports around the world and we
felt as a company it was important to participate in that conversation in an appropriate way and to give athletes
and our talent the chance to be part of that conversation too. We worked hard to do that.
We recently announced ESPN+ reaching 11.5 million subscribers, which was a big deal because when I joined
a few years ago, we had just about 1.1 million subscribers. We’ve made lots of content announcements, like a
new version of SportsNation on ESPN+, Steven A’s World, and a third season of Peyton’s Places with Peyton
Manning, who’s done a great job with the show and who is fantastic to work with.
KBT: I know it’s hard to project with Covid still here, but it’s a new year and there’s a vaccine. What do you
make of the 2021 landscape?
RW: I think people are hopeful. Metaphorically, there was no tunnel to look into before when things were so
dark. Now you can look into the tunnel and many people can see the light at the end of the tunnel, not only in
sports but for everyone, especially for our kids.
KBT: Are your kids as into sports as you are?
RW: Our boys are big sports fans. Michael played soccer and hockey in high school, and he played sled hock-
ey alongside Spencer, who has cerebral palsy. Spencer continues to be part of the NY Junior Sled Rangers and
loves it.
KBT: Why do you think sports matter so much, especially during a pandemic?
RW: I think there’s something about sports that speaks to community. So when you watch Dartmouth football
you feel part of Dartmouth. When you watch the New York Rangers you feel part of Rangerstown, when you
watch Michigan football you feel part of the Big Blue, and when you watch New York Giants you feel very
much a part of the Giants family. People want to feel part of things in normal times, and now, with Covid, peo-
ple are lonely and isolated and, even more, they want to feel part of things.
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