Journalism

  • News & Events
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  • 40-year AP sportswriting veteran named Journalist-in-Residence

  • Hal Bock, an Associated Press sportswriter for over 40 years, has been appointed the George Polk Journalist-in-Residence at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus. He will serve as faculty advisor to Seawanhaka, the campus student newspaper, and will teach news and sports reporting throughout academic year 2006-07.

    Bock (shown above, left, with Reggie Jackson), specializes in baseball with a secondary focus on football. He has covered more Super Bowls and World Series, at 30 each, than any AP sports writer in history. During his tenure with the agency from 1963-2004, his roster of assignments embraced the full spectrum of sports- from the Olympics to the Indy 500 to the NCAA Final Four. His book, “The Associated Press Pictorial History of Baseball,” was published in 1990 by BDD Promotional Books Company. He continues to cover the New York Mets for the AP.

    “I am thrilled to have this opportunity to share my love of writing and sports and help foster the careers of aspiring journalists at the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University,” said Bock, a New York City native whose passion for sports writing was cultivated by boyhood trips to the baseball park with his father, a postal worker and sports enthusiast who sometimes wrote poetry. “I hope to show my students that sports writing is a lot of fun. I cannot imagine any job better than one that lets you come to the game every day,” he said. (Peg Byron)

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  • LIU alumna joins Minnesota Timberwolves’ PR team

  • As a teenager in the small town of Hastings, Minn., Amber Wirth had big city aspirations – she wanted to play NCAA basketball, she wanted to have a media career, and she wanted to be involved with a major sports organization. Now about to graduate from Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus, she is on her way to a clean sweep with her plans.
    An award-winning student-athlete with the LIU Blackbirds women’s basketball team, majoring in media arts with a minor in journalism, Wirth soon will be working for the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves/Lynx Organization.
    Excelling in the classroom as well as on the basketball court, Wirth has maintained a 3.79 grade point average, made the dean’s list every semester and been inducted to Alpha Lambda Delta and Alpha Chi honor societies. She aslo has been named an ESPN the Magazine- Academic All-American, a Valley National Bank Scholar-Athlete and a Division 1-AAA Athletics Directors Associaton Scholar-Athlete.
    “I consider myself a student first rather than an athlete,” said the 5 foot-8 inch 22 year old. “I pride myself on getting good grades.” (Peg Byron)

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  • Adjunct journalism professor wins Fulbright Award to teach in Fudan, China

  • Three faculty members at LIU’s Brooklyn Campus have won 2006-2007 Fulbright Scholar awards. The much-esteemed Fulbright Scholar Program will support potentially groundbreaking work in varied parts of the developing world, with a journalism professor heading to China and two English professors working on separate projects in Africa.
    David Liu, a former Associated Press news executive, will be a guest lecturer at universities in China. As a Fulbright scholar, he will teach about media management and international reporting and aid the development of journalism curricula at sites chosen in coordination with the Chinese Government’s Ministry of Education. “I also will be a good-will ambassador, so to speak,” Liu said.
    Acknowledging that his efforts could affect the development of China’s media institutions and future journalists, he said, “I will listen and learn what I can.” A native of China who came to the United States in 1965, Liu served at the A.P. for nearly four decades, in charge of non-English media marketing from 1987 until he retired in 2005.
    Over the past 20 years, he also has taught as an adjunct professor of journalism at the Brooklyn Campus while occasionally lecturing in China, such as last year at Fudan University in Shanghai. “ I have a track record of teaching in China,” said Liu, who lives in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. (Peg Byron)

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  • Controversial Asian journalist speaks with LIU students

  • Renowned Chinese journalist and media executive Zhang HongXun visited campus on November 8 as part of the International Visitor Leadership Program administered by the State Department. He spoke about the Chinese press and fielded questions from an eager class of journalism students. (Peg Byron)

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  • Legendary writer Jimmy Breslin visits Brooklyn campus

  • On November 7, legendary journalist and Pulitzer-Prize winner Jimmy Breslin visited LIU to speak with journalism majors. Breslin is an American columnist who has appeared regularly in various newspapers in New York City, where he lives. He retired as a regular columnist from Newsday in 2004 but stated his intention to continue writing.
    Breslin won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. Among his notable columns, perhaps the best known was published the day after John F. Kennedy’s funeral, focusing on the man who had dug the President’s grave. The column was indicative of Breslin’s style, which often highlights how major events or the actions of those considered “newsworthy” affect the “common man.”
    Breslin is also the author of a biography of Damon Runyon and several novels, the best-known of which is The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. (Jennifer Rauch)

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  • Seymour Hersh, Bill Moyers, Diane Sawyer win Polk Awards for Investigative Reporting

  • Thirty-five years after winning a George Polk Award for his coverage of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, Seymour M. Hersh of The New Yorker is begin honored with a 2004 George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting. His detailed accounts of American torture of Iraqis in the Abu Ghraib prison revealed the depravity, extent and origins of Iraqi prisoner abuse, earning him his fifth Polk Award and making him the most honored individual laureate in the history of the awards.
    His prize was among 13 awards for extraordinary journalism, ranging from courageous reporting in war zones to news-breaking investigations in baseball, which were announced Tuesday by Long Island University. Among the most coveted honors in journalism, the awards have been administered by LIU since 1949.
    The Career Award was given to Bill Moyers, who retired in November after more than three decades of pioneering broadcast journalism at CBS and PBS. Moyers previously was honored with a George Polk Award for political reporting in 1980.
    Diane Sawyer and Robbie Gordon of ABC News PrimeTime Live received the George Polk Award for Television Reporting for “Fighting for Care,” an expose on the disgraceful conditions, inadequate care and gross mismanagement that have persisted for years in Veterans Administration hospitals around the country. The report prompted hospital inspections as well as new supervision and training efforts. “The 2004 George Polk Award winners reflect the vibrancy and indispensability of our free press,” noted Dr. David J. Steinberg, University president. “Long Island University is deeply committed to the tradition of George Polk and to supporting these Awards, which honor journalists for courage and tenacity in the quest for truth.” (Peg Byron)

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