AEJMC Trailblazers of Diversity Interview with Loren Ghiglione

  • Introduction
  • Dr. Ghiglione talks about his childhood and growing up in Claremont, California and seeing the diversity of living situations around him.
  • Dr. Ghiglione explains that his mother died when he was 12 and he moved to New York to live with his father where he recalls some of his first experiences with diversity.
  • Dr. Ghiglione shares a story about attending a track meet in Harlem and the racial comments that he heard along the way.
  • Dr. Ghiglione recounts a story about being an exchange student from Haverford College, visiting Livingston College, an HBCU, in Salisbury, North Carolina.
  • Dr. Ghiglione goes back to talk about growing up in integrated schools in California and being involved in an elementary school orchestra.
  • Dr. Ghiglione recounts his first memory interacting with a Mexican-American man on his uncle's property.
  • Dr. Ghiglione remembers living with native american kids in Palm Dessert, California.
  • Dr. Ghiglione explains that he doesn't remember there being a hierarchy of race and ethnicity where he grew up.
  • Dr. Ghiglione talks about the fact that the area where he grew up was used by General Patton for training.
  • Dr. Ghiglione explains how his mom's passing influenced the way he saw the world and the element of time.
  • Dr. Ghiglione recalls Claremont, California as an ideal place to grow up.
  • Dr. Ghiglione shares his memory of attending a YMCA school in New York and being able to continue the activities he had grown accustomed to in California.
  • Dr. Ghiglione talks about his step-mother working as a backup singer for the Arthur Godfrey show and an experience he had on the show.
  • Dr. Ghiglione explains his feelings about self-identifying as Italian-American and shares a story about interacting with his grandparents and the community they were a part of in California.
  • Dr. Ghiglione takes a second to jump ahead and share a story about when his father died and he invited his paternal grandfather to come and live with him during his last year of law school and into his fellowship in Washington D.C.
  • Dr. Ghiglione explains his experience applying to colleges, what lead him to Haverford College.
  • Dr. Ghiglione recounts how he began working in journalism at the student paper and then later trying to get his first job.
  • Dr. Ghiglione shares how he ended up at the Claremont Courier making $35/wk. and his circumstances at the time.
  • Dr. Ghiglione addresses his feelings towards his job at the Courier and why he returned the money he had been given by the News Fund.
  • Dr. Ghiglione compares his experience at the Claremont Courier and an internship he had at The Washington Post after graduating.
  • Dr. Ghiglione makes reference to meeting Leroy Arrons while working at the Post.
  • Dr. Ghiglione describes the diversity that existed at The Washington Post in 1963.
  • Dr. Ghiglione talks about an experience he had in 1963 during the March on Washington and the plan The Post had in place in case of violence.
  • Dr. Ghiglione explains how the count of participants in the March on Washington was tabulated and how that related to the police estimates.
  • Dr. Ghiglione speaks to transition of ownership from Phil Graham to his wife Katherine that also took place in 1963.
  • He says the civil rights era was a big thing to him. He had an African American roommate at Haverford. Living with him was part of Ghiglione's education.
  • He recalls going to a barbershop with his roommate and they refused to cut his hair. So they went to a black barbershop instead.
  • He describes the neighborhood they went to.
  • He can't recall if his roommate was refused service from restaurants. He says he was "sophisticated about race."
  • He talks about an incident his roommate had when dating a white woman.
  • He says his roommate made him more aware of disparities.
  • He talks about Fifth Day Meeting. It was a spiritual event but in the 1960's the focus was on civil rights.
  • Social justice issues were very important to Quakers.
  • He talks about the Vietnam War and drafting. He was stubborn in continuing his education and not serving.
  • The Quakers made him think about a lot of things more deeply. He talks about an issue he had with the alumni.
  • He's always been better as an independent journalist.
  • A Haverford alum taught at Yale Law School. Ghiglione gained interest.
  • He was inspired by a New York Times columnist. He knew he wanted to put out his own paper or or be a legal reporter.
  • He attended Yale Law School. He says it was a great experience. He and a group of students decided to start the "Southern Teaching Program." They would teach at HBCUs in the South.
  • Black faculty members had support from the foundation to take the summer off. The Southern Teaching Program would teach in their place.
  • He ended up at Rust College in Mississippi. He says it was a wonderful experience for him.
  • He was nervous because he was going to Mississippi right after the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner. He was conscious of being an outsider.
  • He went out to eat with two guys. Four white guys threatened to kill them. They walked out. His back tire had been slashed.
  • When he was teaching at Emory University, he discovered that Rust College had spies from the Mississippi State Sovereignty Comission. They were monitoring civil rights activity.
  • He did the program for a summer and then went back to law school.
  • Yale gave him a fellowship to research a case on two African American men who were on death row for 14 years in Louisiana.
  • He lived in New Orleans. He wrote a petition to interview the men on death row.
  • He had to before a judge. He recalls his experience.
  • "Prisons are overlooked institutions."
  • He found the women in the case that had been attacked.
  • He wrote a book-length about the case. He didn't publish it. The two men got off death row and were freed.
  • He followed both men after. One was in prison and the other stayed free of trouble.
  • He talks about the system in Louisiana.
  • He talks about another case involving Wilbert Rideu. When he was in prison he started publishing "The Angolite."
  • Ghiglione wanted to establish a prison journalist committee at American Society of News Editors. He worked with Rideu.
  • He says there wasn't journalism at Haverford. He wanted to develop a course. He connected with journalists to help him.
  • He talks about the aftermath.
  • He's passionate about journalism and history.
  • He talks about his nature of reaching out and helping people. He created the Task Force of Minorities in the Newspaper Business. "Being collegial diminishes your ignorance."
  • He says he used to know nothing about Native Americans.
  • His father's death. He says he looked up to his uncle as a father figure.
  • He decides he wants to put out his own paper.
  • He was a congressional fellow and worked for Robert Kennedy for the Senate side. He talks about Frank Thompson.
  • He talks about his experience as a fellow. Even though there were opposing views, there was collegiality.
  • The process of him starting his own business. He wanted to be his own boss.
  • He went to work for a new agency, The National Foundation of the Arts and Humanities. He worked for the humanities side, in the office of planning.
  • He took courses on race at George Washington University. He had so many credits so he was asked to write a dissertation.
  • He talks about newspaper brokers. "I had to figure out a way to beat the system."
  • He refers to a system, the broadcast letter. He wrote to 250 small newspapers. He got a 3% return rate of interested people.
  • He got six letters. One was from Massachusetts. The man was writing books on Indian wars in the southwest.
  • He was willing to sell the paper to Ghiglione if he could turn the paper around.
  • He asked Ghiglione to work for him as an assistant before he sold the paper to him. He bought the paper in 1969.
  • The paper was 6 days a week. "It was like being a dairy farmer."
  • His wife worked in the advertising department. He worked multiple positions because the staff was so small.
  • He talks about the selling of the paper. Retailing was changing. He had to think about the business and editorial side, it was a challenge for him.
  • He's worked at Emory University, University of Southern California (USC), and Medill- Northwestern University. He takes students to South Africa to report.
  • Issues of identity are high on the agenda in South Africa. He takes his students to reprogram their thinking. "I knew it would be a great experience for American students."
  • He talks about diversity at his newspaper. It was challenging because the community was fairly white.
  • He went to job fairs to recruit minorities.
  • The first job fair was in Amherst, Massachusetts.
  • He mentions a student he recruited who lacked experience but was a great writer. After nine months, he went to a paper in Ohio. Later, he worked at The New York Times.
  • At one point, 40% of his newspaper staff were of color.
  • Job fairs. He was well-known in the business, he says.
  • Minority reporters enriched his news coverage. He talks about a piece that was printed in Spanish. They tried a Spanish edition of the paper.
  • He talks about a black reporter he had. He says there were only about five black families in the area.
  • He was named head of the diversity committee in the mid 1980's.
  • It became the largest committee in ASNE.
  • He says there was little progress. He talks about the different programs he started.
  • He focused on small newspapers. They usually had four excuses.
  • When he was president of ASNE, he set up interviews all across the country. He wanted to do as much as he could.
  • He talks about The Washington's Post coverage of ASNE. He says they were missing important issues.
  • Diversity throughout his presidency, regarding disabilities and sexuality.
  • Discrimination against gays and lesbians. He wanted to tackle all levels of discrimination.
  • He says there has been an improvement on the LGBTQ community.
  • The coverage of HIV/AIDS.
  • He talks about a survey ASNE did. There was a staff director at ASNE who identified as gay.
  • He says he got pushback from the survey. Criticism was, to be gay was a moral threat to society.
  • He left the newspaper business in 1995 because it was getting tough. The person after him cut the staff by 35 percent.
  • He was a guest curator for a Library of Congress visit. When he left the paper, he went back to the museum.
  • He decided to go into journalism education. He went to Emory University. He persuaded the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association to invite all the black journalists who covered civil rights in the south.
  • They videotaped them and hours of interviews. He gives some stories.
  • Emory was interested in diversity. He talks about his teaching experience there.
  • He talks about a hire he had at Emory, Nathan McCall.
  • He had some disagreements with the department at Emory. He left Emory for USC.
  • He was at USC for two years. He tried to have a mroe diverse faculty.
  • Northwestern calls him. He wanted to be a dean because he was big on independence.
  • He talks about his time as a dean at Northwestern. He worked on diversity, but says he should have been more focused on the digital age.
  • He tried to promote women and people of color into administrative positions. He had some resistance.
  • He expands on the topic of diversity. He says there's always been good staff diversity.
  • Student diversity at Northwestern. There's a chair program for high school students in the summer.
  • He helped with the NAHJ student chapter at Northwestern.
  • He got to know the students from NAHJ and says what he learned from them, such as geograhhy and experiences.
  • He gives one story from a student who was from a border town in Texas. This student learned about the different groups at Northwestern.
  • He recalls when he got involved with AEJMC.
  • More on diversity at Northwestern.
  • Making diversity part of your agenda.
  • Leroy Aarons and how he wanted to bring courses related to the LGBTQ community.
  • He talks about the 2005 parity goal. Even though the goal wasn't achieved, the effort still mattered.
  • He talks about the role of a president at ASNE. There needs to be a recommitment in diversity.
  • He thinks we should do the best we can in whatever organization we're in.
  • He talks about obstacles, one is resistance to change. Another is people who don't grow up with a variety of cultural experiences.
  • He talks about a visit he had with a past student from Mississippi. Resegregation is occurring.
  • Police brutality against people of color. He talks about the criminal justice system. He says the economic disparity is worse now than before.
  • He says news organizations are being pushed to do doing superficial reporting.
  • He talks about a female newspaper editor in Missouri. He talked to her about gender issues.
  • He says we're polarizing coverage. Feeding the people what they want is dangerous.
  • He talks about the Native American initiative at Northwestern. He served on a task force and also created a course relating to oral history of Native Americans in Chicago.
  • Social change requires effort by everybody in each generation.
  • He talks about a student organization that is for biracial and multiracial students. He's optimistic about creating a different world.
  • He thinks it's very important for white people to see the importance of diversity.
  • White people gain enrichment from diversity. Your life experience will be better.