Chris Waddle to Lead Newspaper Program At University of Alabama

By: E&P Staff Chris Waddle will head the new teaching-newspaper program at The University of Alabama as founding director, effective immediately.

E. Culpepper Clark, UA's Dean and head of the College of Communication and Information Sciences, made the announcement earlier this week.

In the Knight Community Journalism Fellows Program, candidates for a master of arts degree will study over a year inside The Anniston Star, a noted local family newspaper. And because the program's focus is on community journalism, a Web site, journal, annual national conference, and subsidized graduate placement will also be parts of the initiative.

?These Master's students will study the principles, history, law and operations of American media as well as allied work in history, literature and the sociology of community,? Clark said. ?Basing the program at a newspaper allows students to learn by example inside a newspaper acclaimed for its commitment to community journalism. The principles learned, however, apply to any media of any size that truly want to get close to their communities.?

Investment by the University, Consolidated Publishing, and Knight Foundation totals over $2.75 million over the host newspaper's first five years. The first students will arrive in fall 2006 and they will take a curriculum designed and taught by UA's faculty. The professors will be aided by the staff from the Star and guest faculty.

?The idea is to reinforce the journalistic role of being a constant and intimate community member in a changing and increasingly impersonal profession,? said Waddle, who recently completed a yearlong Nieman Fellowship at Harvard. He has also served as a Fulbright Professor in Europe and as Clendinen Professor at the University of South Carolina.

As a journalist, he has worked at six newspapers, notably The Kansas City Times, which won two Pulitzers in 1982 while he was the managing editor. He worked at the Anniston paper from 1982 --where he served as managing editor, editorial page editor, executive editor and vice president/news -- until his recent appointment. He also acts as president of the Ayers Family Institute for Community Journalism, an educational tax-exempt program of the Anniston Star. In addition to his position as founding director of the groundbreaking master's program, Waddle's appointment also made him a member of UA's journalism faculty.

?Chris has known this trailblazing program since it was a germ of an idea,? said H. Brandt Ayers, publisher of the Anniston Star and chairman of Consolidated Publishing. ?He brings to the job the authority of deep learning, matched with a sympathetic understanding of the community's values, strengths, and foibles.?

Eric Newton, director of journalism initiatives at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, also approved of the appointment. "Chris can make the teaching newspaper work. He'll combine the fine wine of academia and the fresh fish of news into an extraordinary meal for a group of lucky students," he said. "We expect this program to produce graduates who want to make a career out of community journalism, which is, after all, the most prolific form of journalism in America."