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Journalism awards honor service, achievement

April 16, 2004 By Dennis Chaptman

Six communications professionals will be honored for their leadership, accomplishment and service at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication annual banquet on Friday, April 16.

Three UW–Madison graduates will receive the school’s Distinguished Service Award for professional contributions in mass communications. They are:

  • Ed Bark, a nationally syndicated television critic for the Dallas Morning News, where he has worked since 1980. Bark, a Racine native, is a former Daily Cardinal city editor and worked as a reporter for The Capital Times and Madison Press Connection.
  • Ellen Foley, new Wisconsin State Journal editor and former managing editor of the Philadelphia Daily News, where she was instrumental in civic journalism projects and in enhancing lifestyle coverage. A Milwaukee native, she has worked for the Kansas City Star, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Milwaukee Sentinel and Detroit News.
  • Jill Geisler, leadership and management group leader for the Poynter Institute, who is responsible for the institute’s seminars for print, broadcast and online managers. She was the nation’s first female news director for a major network affiliate, and built an award-winning culture in the newsroom of Milwaukee’s WITI-TV.

In addition, the Ralph O. Nafziger Award, for distinguished achievement by an alumnus within 10 years of graduation will be presented to Stephen Thompson, A.V. Club editor of The Onion. Thompson, a 1994 graduate, conceived and edited the section’s first book, “The Tenacity of the Cockroach: Conversations with Entertainment’s Most Enduring Outsiders.”

Receiving the Harold L. Nelson Award for achievement in journalism education will be Guido H. Stempel III, an emeritus professor of mass communication at Ohio University. Stempel was the first recipient of a UW–Madison doctorate in mass communication in 1954 and joined the Ohio University faculty in 1965. He was editor of Journalism Quarterly from 1972-79.

The Director’s Award will be presented posthumously to Brian Howell, the Madison magazine editor and former Wisconsin State Journal staffer who died last year of cancer. He was a popular lecturer in the journalism school and in the Department of Life Sciences Communication, and served with a variety of civic and community organizations.