Department News

May 2021

Jordan Duncan from Oahu, Hawaii, is honored to receive the 2021 Ronald R. Schafer Memorial Fund Scholarship for the Outstanding Graduating Senior in Journalism. During her time at UAlbany, Jordan dedicated herself to crafting feature articles about the people she encountered during her numerous travels. 

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Congratulations to Meghan Brink and Max Weissman, winners of the 2021 William E. Rowley Award for outstanding journalistic writing.

Meghan, a junior from Allegany, NY, earned 1st place for her article "University hopeful for increase in state aid, budget cuts still likely" https://www.albanystudentpress.online/.../university...

Max, a junior from Longmeadow, MA, earns 2nd place for his report "Byrdhouse: It's All About the Music" https://www.albanystudentpress.online/post/byrdhouse

April 2021

Veteran journalist and adjunct professor James M. Odato’s publication of an engrossing biography of Lucy Gwin (1943-2014), disability rights activist and founder of Mouth magazine. 

March 2021

Professor Thomas Bass was recently interviewed on PBS NewsHour as part of their report on the 10th anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Professor Bass, who teaches Journalism at #UAlbany, has written seven books, currently working on a book about nuclear exclusion zones, including #Fukushima. (His interview starts at 4:28 mark.) https://www.pbs.org/.../japan-marks-10th-anniversary-of...

And Professor Bass also published this article in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on the disaster anniversary:

https://thebulletin.org/.../fukushima-today-im-glad-that.../

September 2020

Professor Thomas Bass has published a cover story in American Scholar on our post-privacy world. "Almost every aspect of our daily lives is now open to government and corporate surveillance."

May 2020

Two of this year’s Chancellor’s Award Winners for 2020 are Journalism students Michael Apollo of New Rochelle and Jeremy Tu of Brooklyn. Congratulations! Find the story here.

April 2020

This year, because of the extraordinary quality of our graduating senior class, the Journalism Program faculty members are delighted to announce two first-place winners of the Schafer Award: Michelle Mullen and Jackie Orchard. Honorable Mention is awarded to Jeremy Tu. The Ronald R. Schafer Memorial Fund Scholarship is awarded in memory of a former director of development at the university, who died in 1984. It is intended to assist a graduating senior who has demonstrated notable academic achievement and shows strong potential for a career in the media.

March 2020

The 2020 Rowley Award has been won by Tom Marra for his photo blog on first responders:  https://tommarraphotos.home.blog/ 

Second place goes to Ray Drumsta for his article about the opioid crisis.

Honorable mention goes to Chad Arnold for his article, “New York has closed 17 prisons since 2011. Why their redevelopment has failed,” which was published by the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle on Oct. 16, 2019.

The William E. Rowley Award for Journalistic Writing is open to any student, regardless of major or minor, first year through senior year, for one piece of journalistic writing.

February 2020

Check out this Spectrum News story featuring Journalism graduate Christopher Payne '19, who is working at New York State Industries for the Disabled (NYSID), a not-for-profit that connects companies looking for workers or services with organizations that support people with disabilities.  

January 2020

Congratulations, Awkwafina (Nora Lum '11) on your Golden Globe win! #UAlbany https://variety.com/…/awkwafina-wins-golden-globe-best-mus…/

November 2019

Journalism graduate Awkwafina (Nora Lum '11) is featured on the Nov. 25 cover of Time magazine. She says though she's known around the world, she feels like the same person she's always been. https://t.co/fvm4sRDYya?amp=1 Video on this link. 

May 2019

The 2019 Ronald R. Schafer Memorial Fund Scholarship for outstanding graduating senior goes to Elise Coombs of Cicero. The 2019 William E. Rowley Award for outstanding journalistic writing goes to junior Michelle Mullen of The Bronx.

October 2018

Professor Thomas A. Bass will be the featured speaker at the CAS 25th Anniversary Dinner for CAS faculty and staff on Oct. 25. He'll be discussing his recent travels to the Fukushima and Chernobyl exclusion zones.

August 2018

Welcome to Assistant Professor Chang Sup Park who joins the Journalism Program from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. He has a PhD from Southern Illinois University.

Awkwafina (aka Nora Lum '11) is stealing the show in hit movie Crazy Rich Asians.

Professor Thomas A. Bass' article on a Vietnam patriot dying far from home was published in The Wall Street Journal.

Lecturer Tom Palmer commentary on Time magazine's misuse of a photo was published on Timesunion.com.

May 2018

Professor Thomas Bass recently published Lansdale's ghost in the Mekong Review.

Lecturer Mark Marchand's travel book U.S. Route 1: Rediscovering The New World is available now on Amazon.com.

April 2018

Lecturer Mark Marchand's opinion piece on Starbucks backs its words with actions was recently published in the Daily Gazette.

March 2018

Lecturer Laney Salisbury will be speaking at the "Cons and Scams: Their Place in American Culture" symposium on April 23 & 24 at the New School in NYC.

February 2018

Professor Thomas Bass' article on the 50th Anniversary of the Tet Offensive - The Journalist-Viet Cong Spy Who Changed the Course of the Vietnam War - was published in The Daily Beast.

October 2017

UAlbany's New York State Writers Institute will host a 2-day symposium "Telling the Truth in a Post-Truth World" Oct. 13-14 at Page Hall. More than 2 dozen panelists will be in Albany for the event that will look into the discussion on alternative facts, fiction and fake news. Details to come.

August 2017

Professor Thomas Bass' article America's amnesia was featured in the Mekong Review. He writes: Everything wrong with the new ten-part PBS documentary on Vietnam War is apparent in the first five minutes. 

July 2017

Journalism Program lecturers recently published opinion pieces in the Times Union: Mark Marchand: Community joint effort effects change and Barbara Lombardo's blog posting was re-printed online: Tweets offer look at basic Trump.

Spring 2017

The spring edition of UAlbany Magazine features Journalism graduates Nora  Lum '11 (a.k.a. Awkwafina, and Chris Mueller '09.

Guest speaker

Professor Thomas Bass, back right, and students in the Spring 2016 Entrepreneurial Journalism course welcome Ann Marie Gardner, front center, founder of Modern Farmer which won a National Magazine Award after its third edition, co-founder of Monocle and former editor of T, The New York Times' style and travel magazine. Gardner talks with students as they pitch their own ideas for starting media companies and developing new forms of news gathering and reporting. Photographer: Paul Miller

The following list is an archive of news related to the Journalism Program: 

• April 21, 2017: Lecturer Thomas Palmer of the Journalism Program has been awarded Disability Resource Center recognition for his service and efforts on behalf of students with disabilities. Students themselves nominate faculty members or departments for the honor. Palmer works closely with his students in digital skills classes who are coping with disorders such as ADHD. He has tailored assignments to make them more accessible, and made other accommodations in working with students. He was presented with his award by College of Arts and Sciences Dean Edelgard Wulfert during a reception April 21.
• The Daily Gazette published Journalism Professor Mark Marchand's commentary "United had plenty of chances to save its reputation."
• Journalism Professor Elaine Salisbury writes about "Readers remain the first defense against 'fake news'" in the Times Union. Subscription required.
• Jan. 28, 2017: The Times Union recently published Journalism Professor Elaine Salisbury's commentary "Consider the credibility of news stories." (pdf)
• January 2017: Journalism Professor Thomas Palmer was recently selected as a 2017 Reynolds Week Fellow. The program was held Jan. 3-7 at Arizona State University's Donald W. Reynolds Center for Business Journalism.
• Friday, 4/8/16: The Albany Student Press, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary in April 2016, was featured in the Times Union newspaper.
• Thursday, 3/31/16: Journalism Lecturer Thomas Palmer has been selected to win the University's 2016 award for Excellence in Teaching, and will be recognized at a public ceremony and reception May 3 in the Campus Center Ballroom. University at Albany President Robert Jones informed Palmer of the award in a letter March 28. It is based on a recommendation from a peer review committee that examined a statement of nomination that came from the Journalism Program along with supporting testimony from students and materials showing Palmer's dedicated work and effort to update our curriculum and to work closely not only with his own classes but with student organizations, especially the Albany Student Press. There are few bigger boosters of journalism or of Albany students than Thomas Palmer. The Journalism Program is pleased for Prof. Palmer and very proud that he joins lecturer Elaine Salisbury and adjunct Katherine Van Acker as recent recipients of this meaningful award. Strong teaching is a feature of our program. -- Rosemary Armao
• Wednesday, 3/15/16 Recent graduate Gina Valentino '14 credits her experiences at UAlbany to help her write her future stories of success. Her advice to current Journalism students? "Your education does not end after college. Never stop learning. And most importantly, make the most out of your time at SUNY." Read her story on the SUNY website.
• Friday, 3/11/16:  Prof. Nancy Roberts has been awarded the 2016 Prize for the Best Article in Literary Journalism Studies by the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies (IALJS). Her winning piece titled “Meridel Le Sueur, Dorothy Day, and the Literary Journalism of Advocacy during the Great Depression” can be read here.
• Tuesday, 3/8/16:  Prof. Thomas Bass’ review of Adam Kucharski’s book The Perfect Bet appears in the March 8, 2016, edition of The Wall Street Journal. Bass has written about the nexus of science and gambling and Kucharski in this book tackles questions like whether poker is a game of skill or luck and how investing and gambling are similar.
• Tuesday, 3/8/16:  2010 grad Kate Hoit's role in helping veterans cope with that change won special recognition last week from First Lady Michelle Obama at a Women's History Month Event at the U.S. Capitol.
• Monday, 3/7/16: Journalism Program Director Rosemary Armao along with Albany Law Professor Donna E. Young, and History Professor Barry C. Trachtenberg, will participate in a panel and Q&A on Academic Freedom Friday, March 25, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. The event will be held in Assembly Hall. It is being sponsored by UAlbany and the UUP.
• Tuesday, 2/23/16: Professors Rosemary Armao and Thomas Bass will lead workshops in investigative reporting in Tunisia this summer, where they are helping to develop a Center for Investigative Reporting.
• Monday, 1/25/16: Prof. Thomas Bass, who has worked in and written extensively about Vietnam, has an article in the Jan. 22 edition of Foreign Policy magazine titled, "The Ugly Thugs Running Vietnam Aren't Experimenting with Democracy." It posits that while tourism and international trade negotiations indicate things are going well with America's old enemy, censorship, religious oppression, and human rights violations tell a different story about the "new" Vietnam.
• Tuesday, 1/11/16:  2016 Journalism scholarship application forms are now available on our Awards and Prizes page.
• Sunday, 12/13/15: Prof. Thomas Bass has been selected as a fellow to the Scripps Howard Journalism Entrepreneurship Institute, which will be held in January at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. This five-day workshop for competitively selected professors will be followed by UAlbany offering its first course in Entrepreneurial Journalism in Spring 2016.
• Tuesday, 10/27/15: WAMC will be taping its Media Project program at UAlbany on Thursday, Oct. 29. The local NPR affiliate has invited Journalism students to listen in and to pose questions about current media news to panelists Alan Chartock of WAMC, Rex Smith, executive editor of the Times Union and UAlbany Prof. Rosemary Armao. The program, sponsored by the Capital District Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Journalism Program will run from 1:15 to 2:35 p.m. in the Standish Room of the Science Library. (An SPJ business meeting will precede the taping at 1 p.m.)
• Wednesday, 9/30/15: Prof. Rosemary Armao wrote about Journalism Program alum Danyal Mohammadezeh’s near two-year quest to win asylum in the US. Mohammadezeh, an Iranian national, became endangered when Wikileaks dumped 225,000 secret diplomatic cables into public view in 2010. One of those cables talked about his conversations with American diplomats in Turkey about student protests in Tehran. Unhappily he can’t prove he’s in danger because American officials are not allowed to look at Wikileaks information .
• Tuesday, 9/29/15: Prof. Nancy Roberts published an op-ed piece on social activist and pacifist Dorothy Day one day after Pope Francis named her as one of four notable Americans in a speech before Congress. Right Wing commentators were furious at the inclusion of Day, whom they consider a Communist. Roberts who has researched and written extensively about the founder of the Catholic Workers’ newspaper set the record straight.
• Fall 2015: Prof. Elaine Salisbury is writing science/environment stories for the Watershed Post, a weekly that covers the Catskill region. See some of her work here and here
• Fall 2015: Prof. Thomas Bass has been appointed a founding board member of the Museum of Political Corruption which explores New York State's history of political corruption and those mechanisms that have allowed corruption to flourish.
• Monday, 6/22/15: Professor Nancy Roberts' article, "Meridel Le Sueur, Dorothy Day, and the Literary Journalism of Advocacy During the Great Depression" was recently published in Literary Journalism Studies (Vol. 7, No. 1, Spring 2015, pp. 44-57). Read the article here
• Tuesday, 4/21/15:   UAlbany Journalism alumna Crystal Baumes '14 joins the Times Union newsroom staff full-time as an editorial designer.
• Monday 2/9/15:  Professor Thomas Bass publishes an editorial in The Washington Post and a 13-part series in Index on Censorship.
• Fri 1/26/2015: Professors Rosemary Armao and Thomas Bass led journalism workshops for master’s students at the Tunisian Press Institute in January 2015. The UAlbany Journalism Program and the Organized Crime and Corruption Program of southeast Europe have been working together under a U.S. State Department grant for three years to develop one of the first graduate programs in investigative reporting in the Arab World.
• Tues 11/25/2014: Professor Nancy Roberts publishes her keynote address about literary journalism scholarship: Nancy L. Roberts, “Firing the Canon: The Historical Search for Literary Journalism’s Missing Links,” Keynote address, International Association for Literary Journalism Studies, Toronto, Canada, May 2012, Literary Journalism Studies, vol. 4, no. 2 (Fall 2012), pp. 81-94. Click here. And here is the response:  John Tulloch, “Kicking the Canon in the Breeches,” Literary Journalism Studies, vol. 4, no. 2 (Fall 2012), pp.95-99.
• Wed 4/9/2014:Professor Thomas Bass has an article published in the Daily Beast.
• Wed 1/8/2014: Former Journalism Program Editor-In-Residence and beloved teacher Don Forst passes away at 81. Times Union  | NY Times  | Fox News
• Thu 11/21/2013: Thomas Bass publishes op-ed in The Washington Post
• Wed 10/9/2013: Celebrate the 40th anniversary of UAlbany's Journalism program on Wednesday, October 10th with prize-winning author William Kennedy
• Sat 6/22/2013: Journalism prof Thomas Bass publishes an article in The Atlantic on politics and religion in Tunisia
• Mon 3/14/2013: Journalism Program student Eric Krupke posts an audio report from Rosemary Armao's broadcast class.
• Thu 2/14/2013:  Journalism Program student Christopher Kear has article published in Times Union.
• Fri 2/1/2013:  Journalism Program graduate Wenwen Ren screens her 40-minute documentary, "500 Kilometers to Summer," about migrant workers' children in China, at the NYU News and Documentary film festival on February 9, 2013.
• Thu 11/15/2012:  UAlbany Journalism alum Erin Pihlaja, a writer for Metroland, talks about careers in Journalism.
• Fri 11/9/2012:  Journalism prof Steve Barnes talks about lap dances, art on The Colbert Report.
• Wed 11/7/2012: UAlbany, Tunisia partner in Journalism program
• Mon 9/10/2012:  Oprah describes Professor Laney Salisbury as having written "one of this summer's best books."
• Mon 9/10/2012:  In May, Nancy Roberts gave the keynote address in Toronto at the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies . In March, she moderated a panel at the Joint Journalism and Communication Historians annual meeting in New York City. Since Fall 2011, she has been the book review editor for Literary Journalism Studies
• .Mon 9/10/2012: Thomas Bass writes for The Huffington Post and Tablet.
• Mon 9/10/2012:  Emeritus professor William Rainbolt makes a movie on mummies.
• Thu 11/3/2011:Rosemary Armao wins international investigative reporting award.
• Tue 9/6/2011: Rosemary Armao blogs for the Albany TU and co-hosts "The Media Project" at WAMC
• Wed 6/15/2011: UAlbany JRL student anchors news for major New York TV channel - Wenwen Ren, who graduated from the UAlbany Journalism Program in 2010, has been hired as a full-time reporter for Sinovision, the major Chinese broadcaster in the New York Metropolitan area.
• Wed 6/8/2011: Graduation Ceremony 2011
• Tue 9/21/2010: Rosemary Armao to be featured speaker at news conference in Washington DC
• Fri 7/30/2010: Rosemary Armao writes groundbreaking report for NED
• Sat 7/10/2010: JRL students make news
• Wed 5/26/2010: Rosemary Armao profiles Don Forst for the TU
• Thu 5/13/2010: Jon Campbell, '10, talks about the ASP
• Mon 5/10/2010: Rosemary Armao appears on The Media Project (WAMC)
• Wed 5/5/2010: 2010 Journalism Program award winners
• Fri 4/30/2010: 35th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War
• Tue 4/13/2010: Q & A with author Ryan Smithson
• JRL student Samantha Irvin profiled on UAlbany website
• Fri 3/26/2010: ASP Profile
• Tue 3/9/2010: Chancellor Zimpher speaks to AJRL 499 Senior Honors Project in Journalism Students
• Thu 1/21/2010: Cristina Rodriguez-Ruiz covers student life for the Times Union