AEJMC Trailblazers of Diversity Interview with Mary Ann Weston

  • Speaker 1: Today is Wednesday, August 8 2018. My name  
  • is Melissa Garza and I am interviewing Marianne  Weston professor emeritus of associate professor  
  • emeritus at McGill and Northwestern University  for the AMG, AMC trailblazers of diversity oral  
  • history project. Thank you, Marianne for agreeing  to do this interview. And I would like you to know  
  • that the interview will be housed at the Briscoe  Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
  • Speaker 2: Yes.
  • Speaker 1: So we'll also post  
  • the interview on the internet. So I'd like  to begin by asking about your early years,  
  • and how you got interested in journalism.  In your time in Detroit, perhaps?
  • Speaker 2: Okay, well,  
  • I guess my first interest in journalism  was when I was in high school,  
  • and I happened to go to a wonderful and  diverse High School in Omaha, Nebraska,  
  • Central High School, where there were many, many  different kinds of people. And we were all there  
  • together. And so that immediately thrust me into a  diverse environment. The journalism program there,  
  • as it turned out, was excellent. And my teacher  there, Harvey sahlberg, was the one that really  
  • sort of helped me pursue my interest in  journalism. So when I graduated, the only place I  
  • wanted to go was Northwestern University, because  they had a good journalism program. I did and  
  • continued on with journalism from  there. Why journalism? Unlike,  
  • I think a lot of people who always say, Oh,  I love to write, I do love to write. But the  
  • impetus for journalism, I think, was that I love  to get out and see new things and meet new people.  
  • And having a profession that would allow  me to do this and also allow me to do  
  • something that was useful in the world,  I think was what solidified my interest.
  • Speaker 1: So if I just could follow up  
  • very quickly on Omaha, Nebraska doesn't spring  to mind immediately as the most diverse place  
  • in the United States. Can you describe the actual  diversity that you saw there in your high school?
  • Speaker 2: Yes. And remember, Omaha was the  
  • birthplace of Malcolm X. There is a long standing  African American community there, as well as  
  • let's see, in our high school, there were African  Americans, Native Americans, Japanese Americans  
  • whose families had been relocated during World  War Two Hispanics, mainly Mexican Americans.  
  • And everyone was this was a high school  in the middle of the city. And it was  
  • what they called Open enrollment. In other words,  anybody could go there who wanted to enroll as  
  • well as people who happen to live in a certain  area. So it also was very good academically, so  
  • a number of people from other parts of the city,  the South Side, where there were a lot of people  
  • from the Czech Republic, the north side, African  Americans, and also Jewish students decided to  
  • come to Central so it was a very big, not meant  not melting pot, really, but salad bowl mixture.
  • Speaker 1: 
  • So you became interested in journalism in high  school? What was your first professional job?
  • Speaker 2: My first professional job  
  • was not in Omaha, because I went to the local  newspaper, the world Herald and asked for a job.  
  • And they said, Keep in mind, this is the  late 50s, early 60s. They said we haven't  
  • had a woman in our newsroom since World War  Two, and we're not going to start with you.
  • Speaker 1: So they actually said that to you.
  • Speaker 2: Yes, they did actually. So  
  • similarly, the wire services at that time had  no women in their bureaus in Omaha at least.  
  • I, with the help of some contacts from my  father, I went across the river from Omaha  
  • to Council Bluffs, Iowa, where I had  actually lived as a very small child,  
  • and I got a summer job at the Council Bluffs not  Curl, which is still there, I believe and it was  
  • the local daily newspaper for Council Bluffs. So  that was my first journalism professional job.
  • Speaker 1: Was that  
  • before Mattel or after Madonna  was the summer of my first
  • Speaker 2: summer after my first year at macdill
  • Speaker 1: Okay.  
  • So what kind of stories did you become interested  in there? What did you work on? Do you recall?
  • Speaker 2: It was  
  • one of those summer rotations where I started  out proofreading and learn that all the brides  
  • that summer carried stephanotis I think that's  where you pronounce it in their bridal bouquets.  
  • And I then rotated through a number of  jobs writing mostly feature stories,  
  • you know, police stories off the blotter, religion  stories, etc, etc. I think concerning diversity,  
  • the newsroom, of course, was all white. But  concerning diversity, one of the things I found  
  • was, as I was looking for something else  in the religion writers and desk drawer,  
  • I found a copy of the Green Book,  which is now fairly well known. Is  
  • was a book showing African Americans who were  traveling in the south where they could safely  
  • go and stay, because at the time,  the South was still segregated civil  
  • rights law hadn't been passed. And  this was a total revelation to me.
  • Speaker 1: Okay, so this is the summer, your first summer  
  • after? After middle? Right? Right. So then,  how long were you there? Where did you go next?
  • Speaker 2: Oh, goodness, my whole resume.
  • Speaker 1: Or just give me  
  • the high points. Yeah. You went  to Detroit and what your? Yes.
  • Speaker 2: Okay. That was after I graduated.  
  • During high or during college, I had a variety  of jobs, including a suburban paper, outside  
  • of Chicago, the Lake Forest paper, which  gave me a very interesting view of what was  
  • then considered to be high society of Chicago.  The paper at that time had two society pages,  
  • one for people in the social register,  which was a compendium of the high society,  
  • and one for people who weren't in the  social register. Anyway, after I graduated
  • Speaker 1: from Adele, I, what year was that?
  • Speaker 2: That was 1963. So way back.  
  • After I graduated from Adele, I spent time  
  • traveling in Europe. And then I got a job on  a paper in England, in the county of Surrey,  
  • which is outside London, and work there for a  time after that, went to Spain for a short time,  
  • and eventually came back home to the states  where I got a job on the Detroit Free Press.
  • Speaker 1: 
  • So anywhere they are in 1967, when the riots  occurred, right. Tell me about that experience.
  • Speaker 2; Well, it was. It was traumatic,  
  • and it was radicalizing, I think, for the  whole staff of the Free Press. The Free Press,  
  • I realized later was perhaps more progressive  than a lot of papers. It had many women reporters,  
  • a number of people of color, who were reporters  and editors, not high in the hierarchy, but at  
  • least they're in the room. during the riots, of  course, it was all hands on deck. And so everyone  
  • covered a number of things during the riots.  And this was what I think a number of people  
  • seem to think was their first time in  combat, their first time under fire.  
  • The Free Press became, as newspapers did in  those days, became a center for other reporters  
  • coming into town because this was a national  story. And I remember somebody on the phone  
  • who was trying to get an interview with a  police officer, I believe police official,  
  • she had come from I think maybe written I'm  not sure. And she said it's okay officer.  
  • I've been under fire before I know  how to handle myself in a war zone.  
  • And I thought this is Detroit, but it was somewhat  of a Warzone I think concerning my own role. The  
  • one of the things that I like to look back on is  I, along with another reporter at the Free Press,  
  • Judy Brune wrote a series of articles  called the poor pay more. And it was a  
  • it was research into how people who  live in the inner city, the ghetto,  
  • the places where poor people live, which  was, in fact, mostly black and Detroit  
  • have to pay more for the necessities of life  because they had to go to corner stores,  
  • they didn't have transportation to go to the big  supermarkets. The supermarkets in the suburbs  
  • were much cleaner, brighter, charged less.  So I documented that in a series of stories.  
  • And as it would happen, it ran  the week before the riots started.  
  • And, in fact, one of the corner stores that I had  written about burn not burned, it was attacked,  
  • it was looted. during the riots. The owner  of the store sued me and the free press for  
  • inciting people to loot the store. They said  in the suit, it had been burned. In fact,  
  • it hadn't although it had been flooded by the  water from the many fires nearby. And they sued  
  • me for telling me how that store had overcharged  its customers had sold them things that would not  
  • be sold in other neighborhoods. Needless  to say the suit was eventually withdrawn.  
  • I think it was withdrawn, eventually, at  least settled, it never went to trial.
  • Speaker 1: So just to clarify something.  
  • What I hear you saying is that prior to the riots  prior to the Kerner commission report, there was  
  • representation at least somewhat of minorities in  the newsroom at the Detroit Free Press, correct?
  • Speaker 2: Yes, there was,  
  • I would say considerable,  reputable representation.  
  • A couple of stories I wrote. Before the  riots Well, before the riots, I wrote one on  
  • outstanding African American women in Detroit. And  among them, this is one of my treasured memories  
  • was Esther Edwards, who was the older sister  of Barry Gordy. And who was heavily involved,  
  • she was one of the executives of Motown Records.  So to interview her, I went to what is now  
  • the Motown museum called hitsville, USA, on  West Grand Boulevard in Detroit and interviewed  
  • her and, you know, saw the whole place, she  was very proud of what they were doing and  
  • introduced me to Barry Gordy and the other people  there and said, Oh, I wish you could meet this.  
  • This little boy that is doing such wonderful  work. We call him little Stevie Wonder,  
  • Oh, my gosh, Stevie Wonder wasn't around  just and so I never got to meet him.  
  • But the Free Press did a lot of stories like  that. They did stories on housing integration.  
  • I went to a suburban meeting where  this was an all white suburban,  
  • it was thought that an African American  couple was going to move in. In fact, they did  
  • no violence erupted, although there was great,  great hostility in the community toward them.  
  • And we never ended up doing a story in the  paper about it. But the free press was doing  
  • a lot of those stories. They, as I said, I  didn't realize at the time because I had no  
  • model to compare it to but they were much more  progressive, I think then a number of papers.
  • Speaker 1: And you  
  • mentioned also that there were  a number of minority journalists  
  • already on the paper prior to the riots.  Yeah, correct. Because of course, one of the  
  • narratives that we have is that everybody got  hired after the Kerner commission report that yes,  
  • when. So this is interesting, and although  you've qualified that by saying that they  
  • weren't in high positions, they were at least some  bright African or African American women as well.
  • Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. Let's see. Susan Watson was hired,  
  • I think, shortly after I was and she was an  outstanding reporter and became a columnist,  
  • had a regular column in the free press for a very  long time. Let's see, there was another reporter  
  • who had just graduated, I think, from Columbia.  Or maybe she left to go to Columbia, I forget.  
  • But anyway, she was unfortunately killed in a car  accident very shortly after. So this didn't happen  
  • in Detroit, but I, you know, deprived the world of  someone who would have been a very good reporter.  
  • We had other African American reporters  I know are, are the free presses,  
  • classical music critic was African American.  I don't recall exactly how many or who, but it  
  • was certainly something that was on the radar of  the people at Free Press Well, before the riots.
  • Speaker 1: So it sounds  
  • like there was no need to challenge any  of the diversity, or did you not there?
  • Speaker 2: No. So at least,  
  • to my mind, as my consciousness  was developed at that point.
  • Speaker 1: And so and you were on the  
  • team of the staff that won the Pulitzer  Prize for the coverage of the riots, z?
  • Speaker 2: Yes. And it  
  • was the Free Press staff that won for local  reporting. So I guess we all shared,right.
  • Speaker 1: So when did you leave the Free Press?
  • Speaker 2: 
  • Well, let's see. I left in probably 72 or 73.  When we moved to Evanston, Illinois. Okay.
  • Speaker 1: So is this  
  • the beginnings of your transition to academia? Or,
  • Speaker 2: yes, in some ways,  
  • it was also my transition to  motherhood which coincided. But,  
  • let's see, one thing I should mention,  and that was that the Free Press had  
  • the riots were in July of '67. In November of  67, the free press and all the newspapers in  
  • Detroit went on strike. And that strike lasted  nine months. So a great deal happened, you know,  
  • a lot of the things we talked about happening  in 1968, the Free Press couldn't cover. I was  
  • on a fledgling TV interview show that covered a  number of these things, including Martin Luther  
  • King's visit to grosse point, which was  a suburb, an all white suburb of Detroit,  
  • which caused a certain amount of controversy  as well. So I was still doing some journalism,  
  • but not at Free Press. Anyway. So we moved to  Evanston in 73. And that changed things a lot.
  • Speaker 1: That was to follow  
  • your husband's career? Yes. Yes.  And he was not a journalist.
  • Speaker 2: I think he was, and he was, he is a lawyer, and he  
  • got a job as a lawyer for Northwestern  University. And I think another impetus for  
  • his pursuing and taking this job  was that Evanston was considered and  
  • for the time integrated suburb it had voluntarily  integrated its schools, its public schools,  
  • several years before, and as a couple of two  young children, this appeal to us greatly.
  • Speaker 1: Right. So  
  • how did you end up in academia? Exactly. Okay.
  • Speaker 2: It was,  
  • I guess, you would say, circumstance and  proximity. After doing a number of things,  
  • freelancing, working at a museum, dedicated  to Native Americans, and doing some  
  • adjunct teaching at Northwestern, eventually, in  the late 80s, I was hired full time on the staff  
  • of macdill. And this too, I think, had to do with  diversity because their faculty was very heavily  
  • white and male, maybe all white and maybe all  male, I'm not sure. No, it wasn't all male. Sorry.  
  • And so I think my hiring had something  to do with the fact that I was a woman.
  • Speaker 1: So talk a little bit about your  
  • work on diversity. You have a, you started a class  there. You've done a lot of research on Native  
  • Americans, and you did the CO editing, the US news  coverage of racial minorities. So I'll just let  
  • you talk about how you got started with maybe that  class on diversity, how to happen, what kind of  
  • reception Did you get for these projects, right.
  • Speaker 2: 
  • As I say, the Faculty was overwhelmingly white  and male when I started and the contrast between  
  • that and newsrooms where I had worked was  striking to me, it was also striking that  
  • there wasn't a lot of diversity in the curriculum.  So it wasn't necessarily because of resistance  
  • as much as nobody had decided to do it. So  I guess, sort of chronologically, I tried  
  • to bring in diverse speakers and make assignments  to my students that would bring them into diverse  
  • environments. When I was teaching, reporting and  writing courses. I started teaching a course on  
  • the history and issues of journalism that had been  taught for a long time by a very highly esteemed  
  • colleague, Dick Schwarzlose, who was just a  fabulous colleague. And as I looked at the class,  
  • I decided, I, you know, to suit my own interests.  And what I thought were the needs of the students,  
  • I brought in a great deal more diversity, a great  deal more on women and feminism, a great deal more  
  • on people of color and their impact on their  representation in and their struggles with  
  • the mainstream press, primarily, it was focused  on the mainstream press, although we did bring in  
  • some of the other papers and efforts as well.  So all of these efforts were received, passed  
  • positively by my colleagues, and about your  students and students pretty much as well there.  
  • It was some grumbling about whether this was going  to be on the test and that kind of thing in the  
  • history and issues class because it was a required  class, and people who might not be interested  
  • in diversity were, however, I think it resonated  with the students of color. In fact, just  
  • last year, which has been how many decades  since I started teaching this class,  
  • I had a note from an African American  woman student who had visited Ida B. Wells,  
  • birthplace in Holly Springs, Mississippi. And  it reminded her of the class that I taught,  
  • not terribly well, at that point, because I  was just, I think she was in perhaps the first  
  • history class I taught. But she still remembered  that experience, and contacted me, she is now  
  • PhD on the faculty of a university in  Georgia. And that really touched me that  
  • something like that resonated with students  over such a long time. So I tried and,  
  • you know, continued all the years that I caught to  try to keep diversity as a major component of that  
  • class. Then, I also began a class called reporting  and reporting across race and culture. And the  
  • idea there was both to teach PE teach students  about various racial and cultural theories and  
  • differences, but also to get them out of their  reporting comfort zones, and get them into a  
  • situation where they were able to report cultures  and races that were very different from their own.
  • Speaker 1: Do you have  
  • a recollection of approximately when  you might have introduced that course?
  • Speaker 2: No, I don't. I'm really sorry.
  • Speaker 1: Do you know I  
  • suspect it was the 90s. The  mid 90s. in there. Yeah. I
  • Speaker 1: 
  • had there been a course like that before  that you were aware of at Northwestern?
  • Speaker 2: at Northwestern.  
  • I don't know about the whole university.
  • Speaker 1: In the middle.
  • Speaker 2: 
  • No, no, not at least not in my experience.  Now, maybe farther back there hadn't been
  • Speaker 1: and as far  
  • as proposing a core a new course. You  didn't meet with any resistance or know.
  • Speaker 2: The way of course was proposed,  
  • I'm sure it's similar in a lot of other places is  you wrote out a syllabus, your goals, your, the  
  • way you were going to teach it the materials, you  were going to use all of that and you submitted it  
  • to a committee, and if the committee approved it,  it would be round on a trial basis for a certain  
  • length of time and Then it never was added to the,  to the permanent curriculum. But it was taught as  
  • a I don't know what they called it the add on  sort of elective special topics, topics. Yeah.
  • Speaker 1: 
  • Excuse me. And so just to give a  little bit of demographic information  
  • that most of your students were white,
  • Speaker 1: Most of them at Northwestern, it is a  
  • relatively expensive school. And yet, you felt  more or less a positive reception to these  
  • overtures, Introduction to to others that probably  most of them had not had much contact with.
  • Speaker 2: That's right there.  
  • I think Northwestern over the years has tried  very hard to, to have more students of color,  
  • and it's succeeded more or less over the  years. So the classes were never all white.  
  • And in fact, a class like this would, I would  attract perhaps more students of color than,  
  • you know, some other class would. But we also  had a number of students, I was really surprised  
  • at students who would come from all white  private schools or schools in the suburbs,  
  • and had really no experience with diversity.  
  • So some of them would be quite challenged,  I think, by a course like this.
  • Speaker 1: Okay. So talk a little bit about  
  • your research interests. I know, you, Native  Americans, there's another interest of yours.  
  • And you actually worked at an art museum for  a while. So talk a little bit about that.
  • Speaker 2: This, before I went to McGill, or before I  
  • went on the faculty there, I worked for a time at  a museum in Evanston, that housed a collection of  
  • Native American artifacts that had been  donated by a local person. And it became  
  • the place for all the children in the Chicago  area to go to learn about Native people.  
  • I of course, learned a huge  amount about Native people  
  • and their cultures and their diversity from my  time at the museum. So when I got to Northwestern,  
  • and I was looking at research projects,  I did a number of them. But one of the  
  • ones that stuck with me the most, the  ones that I pursued most deeply, were  
  • representations of Native people in the mainstream  press. My rationale was the mainstream press was  
  • for, you know, probably most to all of the 20th  century, the main way people got their news.  
  • And since a fair because native people  are not a huge swath of the population,  
  • then it means a good number of people don't  have direct experience with natives. So  
  • how do they learn about them? Well, they  learn certainly from popular culture,  
  • that they are supposed to learn the reality  of Native Americans from the press. So what  
  • was the press doing? How are they portraying  this reality of Native people? That was what I  
  • set out to research. This was in the very early  days of the internet. So we didn't have the  
  • kind of search tools that we do now. And  so I ended up focusing my research around  
  • certain events that happened that hold native  people into prominence in the press. And I  
  • started in the 20s. And I went through various  events up to the African, maybe 90s, maybe 1990s.  
  • And just looked at, what stereotypes were  perpetuated, if so what they were, if not,  
  • how native people were portrayed. And it  proved to be a really good model. I think.  
  • It was a model that I then  started to apply later on to  
  • images of Arab Americans because it appeared  to me really, in the first decade or so,  
  • of the 20th century, I didn't get much beyond 911.  But in the first part of the 20th 21st century,  
  • Arab Americans were undergoing the same  sort of stereotyping that natives were.
  • Speaker 1: 
  • Okay. So just to clarify, the museum that  you work at was the Mitchell Museum of the  
  • American Indian in Evanston, right. And  approximate How long did you work there?
  • Speaker 2: I'm not sure. Okay,  
  • several years, couple of years I came before  going to Northwestern. Okay, full time.
  • Speaker 1: So and and did you use your native  
  • Native American research work in your teaching as  well? And I did, yes. And was that well received?  
  • or How did the students accept that or it was, it  was sometimes received with sort of puzzlement.
  • Speaker 2: 
  • One of the things I did, this class started  with talking about modes of communication. And  
  • one of the modes of communication courses,  oral communication. And I personally think  
  • and thought then that oral communication  isn't given enough credit. So I would  
  • bring in some native artifacts that were used in,  you know, traditional native oral communication,  
  • a wampum, belt or something like that. And  that puzzled the students a little bit because,  
  • of course, they were totally totally in  written and broadcast and that kind of  
  • thing. Oral Communication didn't seem to have  a place in their lives. So I was trying to show  
  • its importance. And then, of course, just in the  general history of mass communications, pointing  
  • out where native people figured prominently how  they were portrayed, it was all part of the mix.
  • Okay.
  • Speaker 1: So you also did this,  
  • co edited the US news coverage of  racial minorities, 1934 to 1996.  
  • What was it like to work on that  project, and that was very interesting.
  • Speaker 2: I worked with Beverly deep keever,  
  • from the University of Hawaii, and the late  Carolyn Martin Dale, Carol Martin Dale,  
  • from Youngstown State. And it was a collaborative  project in which we enlisted a number of authors  
  • to try and assess in their research and  their essays, coverage of various groups. And  
  • so we did, you know, Asian and Pacific  Islanders, African Americans, Hispanics,  
  • Native Americans, etc. And I hope it's  been a helpful book over the years.
  • Speaker 1: That's how significant span from 1934 to 1996. I'm  
  • wondering, in the early years of that there, there  must have been considerably less coverage than in?
  • Speaker 2: Well, I think we chose 1934  
  • for a number of reasons. But one of them was the  New Deal and how it changed a number of things  
  • and brought people some people into  the mainstream who who hadn't been  
  • Now certainly didn't do it greatly.  I know it did for Native people.  
  • More than they had been again, I have to  say, because they've still been marginalized.  
  • But we had to have an arbitrary beginning  point. And that seemed a good place to start.
  • Speaker 1: And then you touched on your  
  • work on Arab Americans, the capitalists was  that you looked at it before and after 911  
  • was the catalyst for that project. 911,  or had you already been working on it?
  • Speaker 2: No. I was, well,  
  • I, I was looking to do more on Arab Americans,  because I'm Arab American. And it seemed,  
  • as I began to look more systematically at  coverage, that there wasn't a lot also,  
  • Detroit has one of the largest Arab American  communities in the country. And the free press was  
  • a good place I thought to start. So I combined  both of those things and as a matter of fact,  
  • I think my last visit to the free press for that  project was a week before 911 Well, of course 911  
  • changed a lot and changed everything. And so  I was also coming up against a number of other  
  • projects that I was working on, not research  projects, but other things. So I after 911 did  
  • a project looking at how Arab Americans had  been portrayed immediately thereafter. And  
  • what was interesting was the hostility, except  in a few distinct cases hadn't really surfaced.  
  • There was this great outpouring. You may  remember George Bush initiated an iftaar. a  
  • feast at the end of the Ramadan fast. At  the White House, I think it was after 911,  
  • not too long after he, in other words, reached  out positively to Arab Americans. Obviously,  
  • that changed over time. But the research project  was a snapshot of that immediate post 911 window.
  • Speaker 1: So I do want to just back up, since  
  • you mentioned to try it again, and refer back  to your earlier comments about the progressive,  
  • relatively progressive nature of  the Detroit Free Press, certainly,  
  • at that time, at least vcv many other metric major  metropolitan daily newspapers. But I'm curious,  
  • did you have any perception of how the  Free Press compared with the detroit news?
  • Speaker 2: We had our prejudices?  
  • perceptions? Yes, the person now I don't,  I don't know that statistics. I don't know  
  • how many people were in their newsroom. But the  perception was that the news was more conservative  
  • and quieter. It was certainly more conservative  in its coverage. It was called to account I think,  
  • by the African American community at  various times because of its coverage.
  • Speaker 1: And just I apologize for asking  
  • us out of order, but just tell me to continue  with that. So when you began looking for a job?  
  • You didn't apply to the news? Or did  you only apply to the Free Press? No.
  • Speaker 2: Actually,  
  • close friend from a deal was a Detroiter  who was working for the Free Press. They  
  • asked her to suggest some people to hire, she  suggested me and a number of other people.  
  • Some of whom ended up at the free press with  me. So that was that was how I was actually  
  • interviewing at the same time with a paper  in Chicago and decided on the Free Press.
  • Speaker 1: 
  • Okay. wouldn't have been  the Chicago Tribune was it?
  • Speaker 2: It was Chicago today.  
  • It was owned by the tribune at that point. Okay.
  • Speaker 1: Oh, okay.  
  • So what kind of reaction Did you hear  from students about the Arab American  
  • representations and the analysis of them? Because  I would imagine that's considerably different.
  • Speaker 2: 
  • Yes. And I don't really have a  clear reading on that. Because  
  • at that point, I was also doing a lot of traveling  for muddles, international programs, and global  
  • programs. And for various reasons, my teaching  had been cut back a certain amount. So  
  • I never really got a clear reading, you know,  certainly nobody jumped up and objected.  
  • But there can be also, you know, a certain amount  of passive disapproval. But I, I can't say that I  
  • encountered that. I do remember one student  and I can't remember what class it was in,  
  • decided she was going to do something on Islam.  And she ended up with a woman who was teaching  
  • her how and why. devout Muslim women wear hijab,  and put this was a Filipina student, she was,  
  • she was not Muslim. And she put a hit job on  her and my student came back and she said,  
  • I wish I could wear what? So this was  her choice, it wasn't my prompting,  
  • and was spurred by a discussion between a  pair of Americans in class I do not know.
  • Speaker 1: But potentially so.  
  • So given today's changing news, media,  
  • what importance do you feel is  being put on diversity? Now?
  • Speaker 2: You know, I think it's kind of a two edged sword,  
  • that the news media are so fragmented at  this point that on the one hand, it gives  
  • people of color, much greater  opportunity, a much greater access  
  • to media a much greater way to have their voices  unfiltered, relatively on unfiltered heard.  
  • But on the other hand, it gives those who  have no interest in diversity who are hostile  
  • to those points of view, a venue to simply  access media that shuts those views out.  
  • I think the mainstream press and the  mainstream media are made. This may be,  
  • you know, starry eyed idealism. But it seems to  me that they have profited from the lessons of  
  • the 90s in the early 2000s. To have more diverse  staffs and more diverse points of view. I'm hoping  
  • that's the case. But again, the mainstream media  isn't as strong or persuasive as it once was.
  • Speaker 1: 
  • So what do you see is the future of diversity in  the news media? in the academy? I know that you  
  • retired in 2005. But what's your  perception, at least at this point?
  • Speaker 2: I see the mainstream media. And this is largely  
  • based on my daily readings, of course of the times  and the posts, but also a great deal of online  
  • reading of a number of things. I think  the mainstream media is fairly well  
  • diversified, not as much as it should  be. And I see still really distressing  
  • images of Native people, Arab Americans,  Islam, Asian Americans, Hispanics,  
  • African Americans still popping up not as  often not as blatantly, but it still happens.  
  • I I don't know. You know, I can't Oh, dear.  I'm sorry. I can't read the tea leaves. But  
  • I think there are more diverse voices  out there. That's my perception.
  • Speaker 1: 
  • Okay, so but specifically, do you? Do you  have a sense of what the academy and what we  
  • as journalism educators are doing at this point? I  mean, it seems like everything you were doing was,  
  • you were a trailblazer. So, and yet, we see  the outcome today, it's not quite matching,  
  • or even close to matching our purpose,  or the reality of the world that we  
  • live in our demographics. Is there  anything else that we can be doing?
  • Speaker 2: That's a great question. And as  
  • I think, a provost at Northwestern said to  me, when I was on one of the many committees  
  • for diversifying the faculty there, it's a  pipeline problem, as they say, in other words,  
  • it's a matter of getting people interested, and  then getting them into the media, once they have  
  • completed their applications. Now, I am told that  applications for journalism schools are up. Now,  
  • that's positive. Economics work against people  of color so often, not always, but very often. So  
  • that needs to be worked on. I know. There  are many programs, what there's one at the  
  • Washington Post I know of that. mentor young  people of color, who are interested in the media,  
  • and also just interested in setting their  sights for for college and university higher.  
  • All of those things are important. Why hasn't it  changed? Well, our circumstances have changed.  
  • For one thing, we have a very different regime  in Washington, that has led to a very different  
  • public atmosphere. And that  has a lot to do with it, too.  
  • So, you know, because it hasn't changed a  lot, doesn't mean it hasn't changed at all.  
  • And I guess we have to just keep, keep working on  it as hard as we can keep renewing our efforts.
  • Speaker 1: Okay, we have  
  • a few more minutes. And I wanted to segue back to  another point that you mentioned earlier. And that  
  • goes to your impetus for looking at diversity  issues, both professionally and in the academy  
  • and that relates to your own background as an  Arab American. Would you talk a little bit about  
  • your family's history, and how that maybe  affected your sensibilities and your viewpoint.
  • Speaker 2: Interestingly, hardly at all.  
  • And the reason is, Arab Americans, of course,  are, at least in the communities where I grew up.  
  • We're not in the mainstream, but  they were so few and far between  
  • that it was almost unremarked on that you  would have an Arab merchant in your town,  
  • just like you might have a Jewish merchant in  your town. Nobody, you know, made a particular  
  • notice of it. Now, there were communities where  there were many more Arab Americans where I think  
  • the Arab presence was noticed. But in, you know,  the community for my mother grew up. There were  
  • a few families in the community where we live.  You know, there were very few families that in
  • Speaker 1: Nebraska,  
  • yeah, in Nebraska, and where was  your mother's family from originally?
  • In Nebraska, you mean are  in Lebanon? Yeah. So okay.
  • Speaker 2: So in the,  
  • in the 19th century, a lot of peddlers a lot of  young people from Lebanon came to this country,  
  • mostly Christian, some Muslim. And they  adopted I guess you would say, the,  
  • the vocation of peddling. And the way it  worked was you would pedal from farm to  
  • farm or town to town with a pack on your back,  you can see these packs. In fact, there's one  
  • in Texas, there's a museum of many cultures or  something like that in San Antonio, I think.  
  • And they have a Lebanese peddlers pack in there.  After you got enough money together, you would buy  
  • a store, and you would have a general store.  That was kind of the route that a number of  
  • Arab Americans took. And that's the route  my mother's family took. So it was also the  
  • era of where the dominant narrative was melting  pot, you fit into America. So you didn't display  
  • you're in this case, Arab is, you know, we, and as  it turned out, my thought, it seems like the one  
  • thing that continues after so many cultural  things are wiped out is food. And my aunt was  
  • a great Lebanese cook, my mother didn't do it  as much because my father didn't like the food.
  • Speaker 1: So your father was not Arabic? He was not
  • Speaker 2; No. So this  
  • was my upbringing. It wasn't a huge  emphasis. And it wasn't anything  
  • that made me encounter diversity, because  there were so few Arabs in our town.
  • Speaker 1: 
  • So in point of fact, it was going to, as you  mentioned earlier, going to the diverse High  
  • School, that was more of a profound impact on  their own history. Right. Okay. Yeah. So it's  
  • been wonderful talking with you, Mary. And  I'm wondering if there is anything else that  
  • you would like to talk about or mentioned that  I neglected to ask you, you feel is important.
  • Speaker 2: I think, in terms of my concern about  
  • an intention to diversity, there was one other  event that I still look back on, and that is,  
  • during the Free Press nine months strike. I was at  fairly loose ends. And one of the things I did was  
  • to take a series of seminars that basically laid  out the theory of what we would now call white  
  • supremacy, white racism. And it, you know, gave it  a theoretical framework. It was something I was,  
  • you know, kind of experiencing but didn't have the  theoretical background to really give a name to  
  • and that I think, helped inform my  ventures into looking more into diversity.
  • Speaker 1: Okay, well, thank you so much. Yeah.
  • Speaker 2: Thank you.