Marcia Rock is Director of the News and Documentary Program and a professor in the Department of Journalism. Dr. Rock co-authored Waiting for Prime Time: The Women of Television News (University of Illinois Press, 1988) with veteran newscaster Marlene Sanders.
"I hope to give students enough structure so that they can be as creative as possible but still perform under deadline pressure and respect the demands of the medium. The most gratifying note from a former student said that at her job, nothing comes that we didnít covered in class. I enjoy the most, working side by side with students in a professional production team environment."
Writer, professor and independent producer, Marcia Rock maintains a longstanding and continuing interest in the effect of conflict and violence trapped within the intimacy of the family circle. Her most recent documentary, Dancing with My Father, gives an intimate view of how adult love is often shaped by what a child learns at home. With her fatherís help, Rock combines self-analysis and dynastic saga as she traces her family demons. In the process she finally learns to dance with her father and not around him.
Rock began in the 1970s with her first documentary, The Bronx Irish at the Ramparts, lamenting the disappearing Irish neighborhoods in New York. Four documentaries on Ireland and Irish Americans followed. Sons of Derry (1992) profiles the Protestant Glen Barr and the Catholic Paddy Doherty and the story of the troubles in Northern Ireland as told through their lives. It received a bronze medal from the New York International Program Festival in 1993. No Irish Need Apply (1993) visits 1860s New York with tour guide Peter Quinn, based on his novel, Banished Children of Eve, (Penguin Books, 1995). McSorley's New York, (1987) chronicles the history of New York's Irish immigrant community and the role McSorley's Ale House has played in the cultural and political life of the city. The film received an Emmy award in 1988. Daughters of the Troubles: Belfast Stories (1997), written with journalist Jack Holland and narrated by Anjelica Huston, sees the troubles through the eyes of women and chronicles the changing role of women in Northern Ireland through the lives of two working-class Belfast women, May Blood and Geraldine O'Reagan—one Protestant, the other Catholic. It won the American Women in Radio and Television Grand Award and Documentary Award; The Association of Women Journalists, Vivian Castleberry Award for Television; the Chris Award, 1st Place in the Columbus International Film & Video Festival; the Bronze Medal from Worldfest Houston; and the Silver Apple from the National Educational Media Network. It was chosen for the Cork Film Festival, the Women in Film Festival Dublin and the Southern Circuit Lecture Tour of four southern states.
In 1994 she produced City Originals: Women Making It Work hosted by Donna Hanover. It received the Bronze Plaque from the Chris Awards in the social issues category (1994) and honorable mention from American Women in Radio and Television Commendation Awards (1995). She also won an Emmy for The Singing Angels in China, a chronicle of a Cleveland youth choir's trip to China in 1983. In 1992, she received a New York Emmy nomination for Village Writers: The Bohemian Legacy, (1991) a documentary on the literary history of Greenwich Village. Another literary subject for Dr. Rock was the profile of North Carolina writer Reynolds Price in Reynolds Price: A Writer's Inheritance (1990). It won the Red Ribbon award from the American Film and Video Festival (1992). With her students, Rock produced Israel Through the News, a documentary on the media coverage of the Intifada in Israel (1988), and Turning Inward (1999), a documentary about ethnic tensions in Russia.
David Dent is author of In Search of Black America, Discovering the African American Dream, a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2000. His work has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Worth, The Washington Post, Details, Psychology Today, Essence, The Christian Science Monitor and many other publications. A former television reporter, he has twice received the College of Arts and Science Golden Dozen Award for Excellence in teaching. He is also the recipient of a 1992 New York Association of Black Journalists' Award for excellence in magazine journalism and 1990 National Association of Black Journalists' award for a television series on blacks in the military.
Michael Ludlum spent most of his broadcast career in New York City where he worked in radio and television at both the local and network levels. During more than twenty years at CBS he served in many different capacities including news writer, editor, executive producer and news director. He was also heard on the air as moderator of a weekly public affairs program. Perhaps his favorite job was as executive producer of a special enterprise and investigative reporting unit. Ludlum recalls the day when his boss came to him and said, "How would you like to have a dream job? We're creating a new reporting unit. We'd like you to head it up. Pick three of the best writer/reporters in the place to work with you. You choose the stories you want to develop. It's all up to you." Ludlum jumped at the chance and during the next two years he and his team produced many award-winning series. Later he went on to become the station's assistant news director and then news director.
Ludlum also worked at ABC Television as Head Writer of Good Morning America. In that capacity he was in charge of the writing and research staffs and oversaw all scripts and interview material for the two-hour daily broadcast. He also briefed the on-air talent so they were well prepared to question major newsmakers including presidents, prime ministers, cabinet secretaries and well-known people from all walks of life from sports to show business.
During his years at the two networks, he was involved in coverage of such stories as the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., the end of the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, the Iran hostage crisis and many other events from election campaigns to presidential inaugurations.
"About teaching. I'm a real believer in the importance of good journalism. It excites me to watch students develop skills and attitudes about the news which will serve them well when they take their places as professionals. And I especially like hearing from former students who are now practicing the craft at stations and networks from New York to Washington to Los Angeles and overseas."
"About 'Broadcast Writing Workshop'. As the name implies, this course stresses news writing specifically for radio and television. But there's more. During several weeks of the term we also produce a television newscast from start to finish...from story selection to actual presentation on the air. Students get a feel for line-producing. They operate the equipment in the studio and control room. They anchor. And they learn the meaning of deadline because the program is sent out on the NYU cable system on a real-time basis."
Jane Stone has worked over the past 17 years investigating everything from corporate negligence at Fortune 500 companies to bogus retirement homes to the trafficking in endangered species by the country's prestigious zoos.
She has investigated hazardous abortion clinics, explored Pat Robertson's religious and political philosophy, and profiled a dangerously overcrowded public hospital.
her investigations have changed laws, shut down shoddy companies and increased workplace safety standards. They have also helped shed light on important public policy issues.
She has won three national Emmys including one for Outstanding Investigative Journalism, as well as three regional Emmys, an Ohio State Award, a DuPont-Columbia Award, a Peabody, and the Joan Shorenstein Barone Award for Excellence in National Affairs Reporting.
She was a producer for 60 Minutes, West 57th, PBS Frontline, Dateline NBC and the CNN Special Assignment Unit. She also helped start Court-TV, and in the last few years has developed a strong interest in legal journalism. She recently was awarded the American Bar Association Gavel Award for educating the public about important legal issues. Professor Stone continues to produce stories for Dateline NBC.
Adrian Mihai is Broadcast studio coordinator and an adjunct professor in the Department of Journalism, New York University. A videographer and multimedia designer, Adrian Mihai brings an inquisitive perspective that combines flexibility and experimentation in exploring the convergence of the two mediums. Born in Romania, he maintained cultural links with his former country and produced four documentaries. The first one, E Pluribus Unum (1994), investigates the spiritual milieu of first generation immigrants from Romania, as they become integrated into the various folds of the American society. The second one, Someone Has Killed The Sphinx (1995), offers an analysis of Romanian social realities following the overthrow of Nicolae Ceausescu's dictatorship, as seen through the staging of "Oedipus", at the Romanian National Opera House, by Andrei Serban. In 1996 he produced and shot a video diary, perpetuum mobile, shot during a driving trip from New York to the shore of the Arctic Ocean at Prudhoe Bay in Alaska. Following this, Adrian Mihai completed his fourth project, Quo Vadis? (1997), an analysis of the new consensus found in the American-Romanian community in support of Romania's accession to NATO. 1998 brought a fifth project, Crossroads (1998), a 78-minute video that takes a look at Columbia University's Graduate Acting Program, created and steered by renowned Romanian director Andrei Serban. In 2001 Mihai completed E Biagoresqo Drom / The Endless Journey, a 109-minute documentary about the Rroma/Gypsy communities of Romania.
