SMPA is a pioneering teaching and research leader. Professor Silvio Waisbord is Editor of the International Journal of Press/Politics, an interdisciplinary journal for the analysis and discussion of the role of the press and politics in a globalized world.
Gain access to countless career opportunities
Students at our annual Communications Career Expo network with a CNN recruiter. SMPA helps students pursue rewarding careers in media, journalism, and communications via internships, networking events, and employment workshops.
Collaborate with faculty on research and special projects
Graduate student Rachel Weisel and Professor Kimberly Gross, in partnership with the Project for Excellence in Journalism, studied how the media uses Twitter. Their findings were published in a groundbreaking report that garnered national press coverage.
World-class speakers and events provide invaluable perspective
Students line up outside GW's Lisner Auditorium before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates speak at an event hosted by SMPA. The event was broadcast on CNN.
Learn and operate industry-standard broadcasting equipment and software
SMPA Faculty and staff use the flash studio for live and recorded professional programming.
World-class speakers and events provide invaluable perspective
Longtime political reporter and broadcaster Gwen Ifill of The Newshour with Jim Lehrer addresses students.
World-class speakers and events provide invaluable perspective
CNN's Christiane Amanpour and SMPA Director Frank Sesno interview five former U.S. Secretaries of State, Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, Warren Christopher, Henry A. Kissinger and James A. Baker III. The free event was sponsored by SMPA.
Study media in heart of Washington, and the world
SMPA is home to Prime Movers Media, an organization that sends student interns and media professionals to public high schools in Washington, D.C. to teach journalism.
Nina Seavey, director of GW's Documentary Center, has recently won numerous awards for one of her productions, "The War at Home." The film provides at once a sweeping, yet intimate, look at the profound changes brought on by World War II, a transformation that ushered America into the modern era.
Produced for the National Park Service, "The War at Home" will be watched by thousands of people as they visit the National Historical Park in San Francisco, California. It will screen every hour for the next two decades in a theater specifically designed to immerse audiences in the emotional experience of the film.
Here's a listing of the awards the film has won so far:
Silver Telly (first place) - History/Biography
Silver Telly (first place) - Sound/Sound Mix
Bronze Telly (second place) - Set Design
Bronze Telly - (second place) - Screen Writing
Special Jury Prize - Best in Video and Film Production, Worldfest Houston
Gold Communicator Award of Excellence - Screen Writing, International Academy of the Visual Arts
Gold Communicator Award of Excellence - Use of Music, International Academy of the Visual Arts
Silver Communicator Award of Distinction - History/Biography, International Academy of the Visual Arts
Silver Communicator Award of Distinction - Set Design, International Academy of the Visual Arts
Last night Professor Jason Osder's documentary, "Let the Fire Burn," won big at the Tribeca Film Festival, taking home the award for Best Editing in a Documentary Feature, as well as a special jury mention for Best New Documentary Director.
The jury said about the film: "'Let the Fire Burn' tells a story we were stunned to realize we didn't know. It offers a time capsule, taking us to a horrific moment in our nation's history with a masterfully structured edit that vividly mines a trove of blistering period archive images without voiceover narration. The film ensures that a criminal and senseless destruction that cost eleven deaths—five children, six adults—shakes us to our core and is remembered with utter visceral power."
The documentary explores the events leading up to and during the 1985 standoff between the extremist African-American MOVE organization and Philadelphia authorities. The police dropped two pounds of military explosives onto a city row house occupied by members of MOVE; even though firefighters were on site, the fire was not fought for over an hour. The clash between groups, destruction of 61 homes and deaths of 11 people devastated the community.
Zeba Blay of Indiewire wrote, "There have been many documentaries comprised entirely out of archival footage, but few as powerfully and masterfully structured as this one... a visually textured and fascinating piece of storytelling that steers clear of editorialization and manipulation by allowing the content to speak for itself."
Although many of our students have departed from campus for summer break, SMPA never takes a vacation from collecting accolades. Recently, the Global Media Institute won top prize at the New York Festivals’ 30th Annual Radio Awards and Professor Nina Seavey was named one of the top fifty journalism and communications professors in the country!
Professor Nina Seavey was named a top professor of journalism.
Professor Seavey, director of The Documentary Center, received her latest honor from journalismdegree.org, a career website. The list of professors, many of whom are internationally recognized experts in the field, were honored for their ability to “inspire future reporters and communicators to explore the field of journalism.” Professor Seavey founded the Center in 1990 and has produced many highly acclaimed documentaries on a variety of subjects. Her work has won many awards including an Emmy, the Erik Barnouw Prize for Best Historical Film of the Year, and the Golden Hugo. Seavey also served as the founding director and executive producer of SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, the largest documentary festival in the US.
Courtesy of the New York Festivals
Also recently, SMPA's Global Media Institute was honored with a Grand Jury Trophy for Best Talk/Interview Special for its production of The Kalb Report: Anchoring 9/11. In this special edition of The Kalb Report, moderator and legendary journalist Marvin Kalb discussed the decade following September 11th with a panel of journalists who covered that tragic day: Charles Gibson (ABC), Dan Rather (CBS), Brit Hume (FOX), and SMPA Director Frank Sesno, who, in 2001, was serving as CNN’s Washington bureau chief. The program, which airs nationally on both Sirius XM Satellite Radio and public television stations, beat out hundreds of broadcasts submitted from around the world to win top honors.
Professor Michael Freedman, executive producer of The Kalb Report, attended the awards ceremony with Kalb to accept the prize—a trophy resembling an art deco radio microphone—on behalf of the Global Media Institute.
“We are deeply touched to be recognized by The New York Festivals which celebrates the most enduring and endearing medium of all – radio,” said Freedman. “To see our students light up when they first feel the magic of the medium is so very special and to have their efforts rewarded with an honor of this magnitude can only deepen their commitment to raise the bar for the next generation.”
This Just In!, another program produced by the Global Media Institute, received a Gold World Medal at the ceremony. The winning entry included a master class conducted last summer by Professor Freedman and Richard C. Hottelet, the remaining living "Murrow Boy."
The Kalb Report: Anchoring 9/11 can be watched below.
SMPA Professor Nikki Usher's 2011 dissertation, Making Business News in the Digital Age, has been selected winner of the International Communication Association's Gene Burd Urban Journalism Research Prize for the Best Dissertation in Journalism Studies. Her dissertation, which she completed as a PhD candidate at USC's Annenberg School for Communication, focused on how business newsrooms are adapting to the changing digital environment, with the The New York Times serving as her primary research site.
Professor Usher currently is shaping the findings from her dissertation field study into the foundation for a forthcoming book.
SMPA Adjunct Professor Michael Doyle, a reporter in the Washington, D.C. bureau of McClatchy newspapers, has been awarded an honorable mention along with his McClatchy colleague Marisa Taylor in the John Jay Criminal Justice Reporting Award competition for their year-long coverage of military justice issues. The award focused on five stories, part of a series of more than two dozen pieces that exposed mismanagement at the military's chief crime lab, unjust appellate delays, congressional missteps, and politically-driven prosecutions.
The awards will be presented at an annual symposium sponsored by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City on February 6, 2012.
To read the series for which Professor Doyle was honored, click here.
Professor Nina Seavey, Director of our Documentary Center, recently completed a radio tour to promote her most recent documentary, 4th & Goal. 4th & Goal, which won the Italian National Olympic Committee Cup award at the prestigious Milano International FICTS Fest earlier this month, has been met with much critical acclaim. The film also was released nationally on DVD and on various video-on-demand services in September.
Click here to listen to a number of her interviews from around the country.
Professor Nina Seavey, Director of SMPA's Documentary Center, just won the Italian National Olympic Committee Cup award for her most recent documentary 4th & Goal. The award is the highest honor from the Milano International FICTS Fest in Milan, Italy, which is considered the most prestigious festival of sports cinema in the world.
The documentary, which has received much critical acclaim, was also recently released nationally on DVD and on various video-on-demand services.
Congratulations, Professor Seavey!
To learn more about 4th & Goal and its recent national release, visit the official film website.
The sport of bullfighting has been making recent headlines as over 600 years of tradition ended yesterday with the passing of a new ban in the Spanish region of Catalonia. Bullfighting also has been making headlines for SMPA Professor Nina Seavey, whose documentary The Matador has been nominated for an Emmy in the category of Outstanding Music and Sound.
The film follows top ranked Spanish matador David Fandila, or "El Fandi," in his quest to complete over 100 corridas, or fights, in one season of bullfighting, a feat accomplished by only 12 bullfighters in the history of the sport. The documentary, with its stunning cinematography of epic battles between man and bull, needed an operatic score to match the images on the screen. Seavey immediately thought of New York composter John Califra, who specializes in what she describes as "big, beautiful orchestral scores." Having composed the music for events like New York City's Times Square millenium celebration and Major League Baseball’s "World Baseball Classic," she knew Califra could create music that matched the intensity of the story. The two spent many months in deep collaboration over the feel and emotion of the film's score; when the soundtrack recording from the Bulgarian National Symphony Orchestra arrived for review, Seavey and Califra knew they had created music that expressed the passion of the bullfighting on the screen.
Tonight, the Emmy winners will be announced. "At this level, the competition is so fierce," explains Seavey, who already has an Emmy for her film A Paralyzing Fear: The Story of Polio in America. "Simply being nominated is a great honor." The School of Media and Public Affairs certainly wishes her much luck this evening!
Prof. Entman accepts his award. Cell phone photo by Prof. Livingston.
Our very own Professor Robert Entman was awarded the 2011 Doris Graber Book Award at the American Political Science Assocation (APSA) convention last week! The annual award is given to one scholar for the best book published in the last ten years with content that is widely considered to be of major influence in the area of Political Communication. It is awarded by the Political Communication Section of APSA, and is a major achievement in the field.
Professors Entman and Livingston during their plenary session. Cell phone photo by Abby Jones.
He won for his 2004 book Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion and US Foreign Policy, which introduced a new model of how media framing works especially in relation to policymaking, governing, and foreign policy.
Professor Peter Loge will be returning to his alma mater in March to accept an award he once helped to create.
As the recipient of Emerson College's 2011 Walter Littlefield Distinguished Speaker in Rhetoric and Communication Award, Professor Loge will be recognized for his professional achievements in the public service communication sector. The award was founded by Loge and many of his fellow Emerson alumni to celebrate the 30-year career of their professor, Walter "Walt" Littlefield, who taught about the ethical uses of communication for political and social advocacy.
Loge has been working in professional politics and communication since 1992. He has held senior positions with three congressional House members and one senator. His roles were Chief of Staff, Communications Director, and Campaign Manager to U.S. Representative Brad Sherman (D-CA), Director of Constituent Services to former U.S. Representative Sam Coppersmith (D-AZ), and Deputy to the Chief of Staff to Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA). He has also advised numerous advocacy and non-profit organizations as the Senior Vice President of M&R Strategic Services, a national public affairs and political consulting firm. His time as the director of The Justice Project led to the passage of the Innocence Protection Act that President George W. Bush signed into law just prior to the 2004 election. Currently, Loge serves as the principal of Milo Public Affairs, LLC, which he launched in 2007.
With his in-depth resume, Loge will be accepting the award that his colleagues originated to recognized public service done by Emerson alumni. He will receive his award on campus in conjunction with Emerson's annual Communications Week in March, and will deliver a lecture as part of the award ceremony. Read the rest of this entry »
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