Faculty

Faculty members at the School of Journalism are varied in their experience and networks. Everyone has at least 10 years of industry experience, and everyone still writes, edits, directs or produces for publication.

Stephen Burgard

Director, School of Journalism

Professor Burgard, a Boston native, came to Northeastern in 2002 after 26 years as an editor and reporter at daily newspapers across the country. Burgard was editorial page editor of the Orange County Edition of the Los Angeles Times from 1990 to 2002, and served as a member of the full editorial board. While in California, Burgard was also a part-time journalism professor at California State University, Fullerton. Before moving to the West Coast, he was editorial page editor of the Stamford Advocate in Connecticut from 1985-2000, and had been an editor and reporter at the Westchester Rockland Newspapers. He was the editor of The Daily Argus in Mount Vernon, NY, from 1981-85. Burgard graduated from Brown University with a bachelor's degree in American History in 1970. After serving in the United States Navy from 1971-1973, he earned a master's degree from Boston University College of Communication. Burgard has won many editorial writing awards for his individual writing, and shared in the staff award of the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for spot news given to the Los Angeles Times for coverage of the Northridge Earthquake. He is the author of Hallowed Ground, which appeared on the Amazon.com's "Religion Top 10" list in 1997. He teaches journalism ethics and standards, and is interested in the relationship between the press and other democratic institutions and religion. He can be reached at (617) 373-3238 or by e-mail at s.burgard@neu.edu.

Belle Adler

Associate Professor

Professor Adler specializes in television news. She teaches TV News Production. TV News writing, JRN 3, and Interpreting the Day's News. She comes to the School of Journalism after many years of experience in local news where she was an investigative producer and tape editor. Most recently, she worked at CNN as a producer in the cable network's medical unit where she produced medical stories and was the show producer for a weekly medical show, "Your Health." In addition she worked as the U.N. producer for CNN during the Gulf War and worked in the San Francisco and New York bureaus as an assignment editor, producer and tape editor. Currently, she produces hour-long documentaries for cable networks such as A&E, Discovery Channel, and Animal Planet. She can be reached at (617) 373-3221 or by e-mail at b.adler@neu.edu.

Nicholas Daniloff

Professor

A 30-year veteran in national media, Professor Daniloff joined Northeastern University in 1989 and became director of journalism programs in 1992. He has written two books, The Kremlin and the Cosmos (1972) and Two Lives One Russia (1988) and numerous popular and academic articles. He served as a foreign correspondent for United Press International and U.S. News & World Report in London, Paris, Moscow and Washington D.C. Professor Daniloff teaches ethics, and graduate and undergraduate print journalism courses. Professor Daniloff graduated from Harvard College in 1956 with an AB degree cum laude. He received a BA degree from Oxford University in 1995, and an MA degree in 1965. He is publishing a new book Of Spies and Spokesman: My Life as a Cold War Correspondent, University of Missouri Press, March 2008. Professor Daniloff can be reached at (617) 373-4050 or by e-mail at n.daniloff@neu.edu.

Charles Fountain

Associate Professor

Chuck Fountain teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in basic and advanced reporting, sports writing, feature writing, magazine writing and journalism history. Prior to joining the Northeastern faculty in 1985, he spent twelve years as a sports and general assignment reporter at WSMW-TV in Worcester, Massachusetts and for ABC Radio in New York. His writing on sports and journalism has appeared in The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Columbia Journalism Review and more than two dozen other publications. Over the past eight years he has also appeared more than twenty times on the ESPN "SportsCentury series," commenting on the myth and culture of American sport.

He is the author of Another Man's Poison: The Life and Writing of Columnist George Frazier (Globe Pequot, 1984) and Sportswriter: The Life and Times of Grantland Rice (Oxford, 1993). He is currently writing a book on the history, politics and business of baseball spring training. Tentatively titled Under the March Sun: A Cultural History of Spring Training, it will be published by Oxford University Press in early 2009.

He is a graduate of Boston College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and lives in Duxbury, Massachusetts.

Professor Fountain can be reached at (617) 373-4533 or by e-mail at c.fountain@neu.edu.

Carlene Hempel

Lecturer

Carlene Hempel has been a practicing journalist for 15 years, most recently as a regular contributor to The Boston Globe and its Sunday magazine. She was named a finalist for The Livingston Award, an honor given to the nation's top magazine writers under the age of 35, for a piece she wrote about a New Hampshire police officer who posed as a 14-year-old boy to attract online predators. Some of her other work for the Globe's magazine includes pieces about the "No Kid" movement, the lucrative celebrity speaker circuit, and the practice of college-aged women who sell their eggs to pay off credit card debt.

Professor Hempel began her reporting career at The Middlesex News (now The MetroWest Daily News) in Framingham, Mass. and then moved to North Carolina, where she worked for MSNBC in the NBC affiliate in Raleigh. She left to get her master's degree in journalism at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and later worked as a technology and culture reporter for The News & Observer in Raleigh.

After teaching at North Carolina State University, Professor Hempel began full-time at Northeastern's School of Journalism in 2003. She teaches a number of core courses in the school's undergraduate program, as well as Magazine Writing, an advanced elective. She also teaches Research Methods in the graduate program. She can be reached at 617-373-4534, or at c.hempel@neu.edu.

Dan Kennedy

Assistant Professor

Professor Kennedy teaches news reporting, press law, media criticism and other journalism courses, with an emphasis on blogging and new media. he writes the "Mass Media" column for CommonWealth Magazine, is a regular contributor to The Guardian, and is a panelist on "Beat the Press," a weekly media roundtable on WGBH-TV (Channel 2). He also writes the weblog, Media Nation.

A former media critic for the Boston Phoenix, he is the 2001 recipient of the National Press Club's Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism. He is the author of Little People: Learning to See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes (Rodale, 2003), a book about the culture of dwarfism.

Kennedy received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Northeastern University and his master's degree in American history from Boston University. From 1979-'88, he was a reporter and editor for the Daily Times Chronicle, in Woburn, Mass. Professor Kennedy can be reached at (617) 373-5187 or by e-mail at da.kennedy@neu.edu.

William Kirtz

Associate Professor

Professor Kirtz teaches print journalism courses. He worked as an editor for The Patriot Ledger and publisher/editor for the Marblehead (MA) Messenger, receiving regional and national citations for editorial and feature writing. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Paris Herald-Tribune, The Chicago Tribune and the North American Newspaper Alliance. He writes frequently on media topics. Professor Kirtz received his undergraduate degree from Trinity College, cum laude, in 1961 and his Master's degree from Columbia Journalism School in 1962. He can be reached at (617) 373-4045 or by e-mail at w.kirtz@neu.edu.

Laurel Leff

Associate Professor

Laurel Leff is an Associate Professor of Journalism at Northeastern University. She was formerly a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and The Miami Herald and an editor with American Lawyer Media Inc. and The Hartford Courant. She teaches undergraduate courses in news writing, media law, magazine writing and legal reporting, and graduate courses in reporting, nonfiction writing and the First Amendment.

Her book, "Buried by The Times: The Holocaust and America's Most Important Newspaper" was published by Cambridge University Press in 2005. "Buried by The Times" was selected as the best media history book by the American Journalism Historians Association and the best history book by "ForeWard Magazine." Professor Leff has spoken frequently on the topic at historical societies, museums, synagogues, associations and universities.

Her other scholarly publications include: "Jewish Victims in a Wartime Frame: A Press Portrait of the Nuremberg Trial," chapter in Gerald Herman, Debra Kaufman, James Ross and David Phillips, ed., From the Protocols of Zion to Holocaust Denial Trials: Challenging The Media, the Law and The Academy, London: Vallentine Mitchell (2006); "News of the Holocaust: Why FDR Didn't Tell and the Press Didn't Ask," Hakirah: A Journal of Jewish and Ethnic Studies, 2(2006: 31-62; Review, "And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank," American Jewish History 92; and "'Liberated by the Yanks': The Holocaust as An American Story in Postwar News Articles," Journal of Ecumenical Studies 40 (Fall, 2003: 407-30) .

Leff has a master's in the study of law from Yale University and a master's in communications from the University of Miami. She received an A.B. from Princeton University with a major in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. She can be reached at (617) 373-3226 or by e-mail at l.leff@neu.edu.

Elizabeth Matson

Assistant Professor

Professor Matson teaches Journalism 201 and Online Journalism. She is interested in how technology - specifically the Internet and blogs are changing and shaping the future of journalism. Also, how the Internet is shaping politics and culture in developing nations. Here latest project is looking at the relationship between sports journalism coverage of professional woman sports and the success and/or failure of these leagues. Previously she was the online managing editor for the Boston Phoenix and an online news producer for the Boston Herald. She also worked as the editorial manager for "Frontline" at WGBH/PBS. She was also freelance television reviewer for the Boston Herald and consulted on Website production and editing work for various media/publishing companies. She has an undergraduate business degree form the University of New Hampshire and a master's degree in journalism from Boston University. She can be reached at (617) 373-5484 or by e-mail at e.matson@neu.edu

Gladys McKie

Lecturer

Professor McKie teaches public relations courses and desk-top publishing. She is a faculty advisor for Public Relations Student Society of America and a member of the Public Relations Society of America. Following graduation from Northeastern University School of Journalism in 1980, she was a staff reporter, photographer and graphic designer for Nursing Pulse of New England. She has held professional public relations positions for Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston and Newton Wellesley Hospital in Newton. She owned McKie Communications, an agency providing public relations, advertising and graphic design services for eight years before joining the School of Journalism Faculty at Northeastern University. In addition to teaching, she is a student in Northeastern University’s Law, Policy and Society Ph.D. program. Her research interest is communicating public policy. She can be reached at (617) 373-4054 or by e-mail at g.mckie@neu.edu.

Lincoln R. McKie Jr.

Lecturer

Link McKie is a longtime newspaperman who in recent years has added consulting and teaching to his career.

Professor McKie began his career in journalism in 1970 as a regional reporter for the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester, Mass. In 20 years at the Telegram & Gazette, he was also a general assignment and city government reporter, copy editor, assignment editor, assistant city editor, city editor and managing editor for the Worcester Telegram, and managing editor/news for the combined Telegram & Gazette. He later became executive editor of The Sun of Lowell, Mass., and publisher of Journal Transcript Newspapers, a group of five community newspapers based in Revere, Mass.

During the past 12 years, he founded and ran Lincoln Associates, a communication consulting company. Clients in news publishing have included The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, Mass., the Norwalk (Conn.) Hour, the York County (Maine) Coast Star, the Dover (N.H.) Times, and Network World. Other clients have included Worcester Academy, the Worcester Boys & Girls Club, Worcester Memorial Hospital, Tweeds Restaurants, Millbury Savings Bank, Revere Federal Savings, Danvers Savings Bank, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Winthrop Federal Credit Union, and the Worcester Fire Fighters Memorial Committee.

McKie began teaching journalism part-time in 1994, at Northeastern University and Boston University. He has taught journalism full-time as a member of the Northeastern faculty since 2000. His company also is publication manager for the New England Press Association Bulletin, a monthly newspaper for the 500 members of the association throughout New England.

McKie has presented numerous workshops on journalism at newspaper conventions, and on marketing and Netiquette to business groups and corporate clients, during the past 15 years.

He has completed three week-long seminars at the American Press Institute in Reston, Va., for city editors, for news managers, and for publishers. McKie is a 1970 cum laude graduate of Boston University, with a bachelor of science degree in journalism. He can be reached at 617.373.8324 or l.mckie@neu.edu

Walter V. Robinson

Distinguished Professor

Professor Robinson, who teaches investigative reporting and newswriting, joined the Journalism faculty after 34 years at the Boston Globe,, where he won his first investigative reporting prize while he was still a Northeastern coop. At the Globe, he covered local and national politics, the White House during the Presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, four presidential elections and the Persian Gulf War. He reported for the Globe from 48 states and 30 countries. After four years as city editor and metropolitan editor, Robinson directed the Globe's investigative unit, the Spotlight Team, from 2000 to 2006. He and his team won numerous national awards, including the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for uncovering the clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church. He has been a journalism fellow at Stanford University, and holds honorary degrees from Emerson College and Northeastern. He can be reached at (617) 373-4198 or by email at w.robinson@neu.edu.

James R. Ross

Associate Professor of Journalism; Director, Jewish Studies Program

Professor Ross is the author of three books, most recently "Fragile Branches: Travels Through the Jewish Diaspora" (Riverhead Books, 2000), and one of the editors of "From the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to Holocaust Denial Trials: Challenging the Media, Law and the Academy" (Vallentine Mitchell, 2007). He also is the author of "Escape to Shanghai: A Jewish Community in China" (Free Press, 1994) and "Caught in a Tornado: A Chinese-American Woman Survives the Cultural Revolution" (Northeastern University Press, 1994). He served as a reporter and bureau chief for the Hartford Courant for eight years. He also served as a Fulbright professor in Ecuador and as a visiting journalism professor at the Shanghai Foreign Languages Institute.

Professor Ross received his B.A. in American Studies from Yale University and his M.A. in Journalism and Public Affairs from American University.

Professor Ross has served as the Stotsky Professor of Jewish Historical and Cultural Studies at Northeastern and director of the Jewish Studies Program. He also has received a grant from the U.S. Institute for Peace to run a three-week seminar for Israeli and Palestinian journalists on ways to improve coverage of the Middle East conflict. He can be reached by e-mail at j.ross@neu.edu.

Alan Schroeder

Associate Professor

Professor Schroeder teaches a variety of courses in the field of television journalism, as well as Journalism 3 (visual journalism) and Interpreting the Day's News. A native of Kansas, Professor Schroeder began his career as a newspaper reporter, then moved into television. He spent ten years as a TV producer in Wichita, Denver and Boston before becoming a professor. He is a graduate of Wichita State University and Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Professor Schroeder is the author of four books: "Presidential Debates: 40 years of High-Risk TV" (2000); "Presidential Debates: 50 Years of High-Risk TV" (2008); "Celebrity-in-Chief: How Show Business Took Over the White House" (2004); and "Writing and Producing TV News: From Newsroom to Screen" (2008). A frequent media commentator, he has been quoted as an expert source by the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and USA Today, and has appeared on ABC's Nightline and Good Morning America, the BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, MSNBC, the Fox News Channel, and NPR's Fresh Air, All Things Considered, and Morning Edition. Schroeder can be reached at (617) 373-7227 or by e-mail at a.schroeder@neu.edu.