November 2012 - Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

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journalism.columbia.edu
Alumni Unconscious bias, again? 2
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Newsletter /Our 32nd year/ November 2012/ Vol. 32, No.11
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After a 10-year run Columbia
J-school dean is stepping down
Centennial celebration, fund raising occurred on Lemann's watch
Search for a new dean is expected to quickly get underway for a successor to Nicholas Lemann, who sent the
following letter, dated Oct. 10, to friends:
“I am writing with the news that this year, my 10th as dean, will be my last. I plan to step down at the end of this
academic year, take next year off as a sabbatical, and then return to the Journalism School as a faculty member.
“Deans at Columbia serve in five-year increments, so for me this was a decision not to
ask President Bollinger for reappointment to a third term. Most significant efforts at a
place like this take several years to develop, so there’s never a moment when all loose
ends are neatly tied up. But the 10-year mark feels to me like about as good a break point
as I could find. We will have finished our fund raising campaign and our centennial
celebration, and the new initiatives of the past few years are moving along well. It’s a
good moment for a new dean, with a new set of ideas, to come in.
“I have had a wonderful time leading this institution, and it’s hard to express how grateful I am to the many people
who have helped along the way.
“A first-rate professional school at a great university is the furthest thing from a command-and control operation. It
is a community of people from a wide variety of backgrounds, with a wide variety of abilities, who have come
together because they share a commitment to a set of values and because they like and trust each other. In our case
the shared commitment is to the full, glorious extent of journalism’s potential for good. It is our coherence as a
community that has enabled us to become an ever stronger institution, at a time when many of the established news
organizations have been severely challenged.
“I hope all of you will see the end of my term as dean as an opportunity to continue, and to enhance further, the vital
role that Columbia Journalism School plays in the profession worldwide, and in so many individual lives.
“President Bollinger will chair the committee that conducts the search for my successor; right away, he will appoint
its members and begin to hold meetings. The committee will certainly want to hear the Journalism School
community’s suggestions about candidates for the job.”
Sincerely, Nick Lemann
Read more about Lemann's announcement in Richard Prince's “Journal-isms,” item No. 6 here.
Hall of Fame inductee Betty Baye, page 3

Black Alumni Network November 2012 Page 2
Political & Congressional Reporting
NABJ Media Institute is Saturday, Nov. 17 at Georgetown University Law Center. “Watergate
III: The Last Word on the 2012 Elections, The Who, What, Where and Why” is the theme.
Registration begins at 7:30 a.m. and seven sessions or workshops are from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Discount early registration closes Wednesday, Nov. 7. Visit nabj.org
Election season e-book
E-book “HaterNation: How Incivility & Racism Have Divided Us,”
edited by Neil Foote, was published Oct. 23 on smashwords.com.
A dozen writers contributed 16 essays to the anthology.
Wayne Dawkins, ’80, wrote “Voter ID Laws are the New Poll Taxes.”
The 64-page e-book is a $3.99 download.
Rewind: Unconscious bias
On Saturday, Oct. 26, Associated Press writers Sonya Ross and Jennifer Agiesta published a poll story
that said a slim majority of Americans harbor prejudice against blacks. The story said in the age of Barack
Obama, 51 percent of Americans polled expressed anti-black attitudes compared to the 48 percent of
Americans polled in 2008 when the nation elected its first African-American president. Based on the
findings, reported Ross and Agiesta, Obama could experience a net loss of 2 percent of the popular vote
in the Nov. 6 election.
The AP special report was four months after “Unconscious Bias: Consequences for Society and Health,” a
session at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in New Orleans. Harvard University
Professor David Williams data reported that 85 percent of whites surveyed have open hearts but
unconscious biases against Americans of color, and the remaining 15 percent of whites were unrepentant
racists. Read Wayne Dawkins’ July 12 PoliticsinColor.com account here.
Best of rest stories of the Columbia J-Centennial
From Sept. 17 until Oct. 25, Columbia J-school asked alumni to nominate stories via this form to be included on a
ballot. http://centennial.journalism.columbia.edu/nominations/ On Nov. 12, the J-school will e-mail ballots, and
invite alumni to select 10 stories. The ballot will remain open until Nov. 26. The top 50 stories selected by alumni
will join the existing list of "50 Great Stories." In April 2013, we will publish online the complete list of 100 Great
Stories. Contact Jesse Adams, program mgr. for Centennial Planning, at jadams@columbia.edu or (212) 854-9891.

Black Alumni Network November 2012 Page 3
J-alumna Betty Baye inducted
into NABJ Hall of Fame
By Wayne Dawkins
Betty Winston Baye, J-’80, distinguished journalist and member of the National Association
of Black Journalists for three decades, was one of six inductees into the association’s 2012-2013
Hall of Fame, NABJ announced Sept. 10.
After a decade of solid daily newspaper reporting and assignment editing,
first in Westchester, N.Y. then Louisville, Ky., Baye joined elite journalists
as an editorial writer/columnist with The Courier-Journal of Louisville. Her
Thursday column began in 1991 after she completed a prestigious Nieman
Fellowship for mid-career journalists at Harvard University.
In her inaugural column Baye told readers she realized she was not self-made
– many loving hands shaped her – and she was aware she strode gracefully in high heels through
doors to power kicked open by people with bare feet and little education.
Baye’s soulful, passionate and informed writing commanded attention from her like-minded
fans, independent thinkers, and, detractors who loved to hate her. Baye was a child of the East
Harlem projects who settled in the mid-South. Her liberal and urban worldview at times clashed
with readers, yet Baye unpacked her bags and became a fully engaged citizen of that region.
Baye’s soulful, passionate and informed writing commanded attention
from her like-minded fans, independent thinkers, and, detractors
Baye the journalist was international and national too. She was a founding member of the
Trotter Group of African-American columnists [1992-present]. She wrote fluidly about her
travels to Ghana, and to Cuba. As a true witness to history, Baye wrote powerfully about
powerful figures such as Robert McNamara, Elie Wiesel and Hillary Clinton.
She was a regional commentator for “the News Hour” on PBS. Baye was a sought-after public
speaker. She also became a public intellectual, for example for the “By the People” project in
Colonial Williamsburg where leading citizen-delegates discussed American democracy.
Baye’s commentaries were compiled into a book, “Blackbird,” published in 2000, and two more
commentaries were in the anthology “Black Voice in Commentary: The Trotter Group,”
published in 2006. In 1983, Baye wrote “The Africans,” a historical novel. Baye served NABJ in
its formative years as a regional director [1983-84], then vice president/print [1985-87].
She is senior editor of the Black Alumni Network newsletter, founded in 1980.
Continued

Black Alumni Network November 2012 Page 4
NABJ Hall of Fame inductee/Continued
Betty Baye’s 30-year career at two Gannett newspapers ended in June 2011 when she was
among 700 employees fired in a cost-cutting move. Yet she walked away gracefully and
continued to serve humanity. Last fall she did commentaries for the local Fox affiliate. Last
spring a one-woman show about her life was in production. This fall Baye began teaching a
course on women in the civil right movement at Bellarmine University in Kentucky.
The other Hall of Fame inductees are:
Simeon Booker, First black reporter, The Washington Post and longtime Washington bureau
chief, Jet magazine
Alice Dunnigan, First black woman credentialed to cover the White House, the State
Department, and Congress (posthumous)
Sue Simmons, longtime anchorwoman, WNBC-TV, New York
Wendell Smith, legendary sportswriter, helped desegregate baseball (posthumous)
Cynthia Tucker, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The 2013 Hall of Fame Induction & Reception is Jan. 17, 2013 in Washington, D.C.
Visit www.nabj.org
The Black Alumni Network of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism was founded in May 1980 and
since July the group has published a monthly newsletter. The BA Newsletter’s mission is to keep people connected.
We publish job changes and moves, news about books and films published or produced by alumni, and family
milestones. And of course we keep alumni connected to news from the Columbia GSJ. Log on to our Web site at
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Wayne J. Dawkins – editor, Betty Winston Baye, Kissette Bundy, Kip Branch, Cheryl Devall, Dan Holly,
Sia Nyorkor, Toni Randolph, contributing editors E-mail tips, comments, suggestions to wdawk69643@aol.com
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