Jill Abramson speaks at 2015 commencement honoring this year’s J-School grads

May 18, 2015

Abramson, a famously tough reporter who rose through the ranks of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times to become the first female executive editor in the Times’ 160-year history, addressed the future of journalism in her remarks, connecting the days of serialized Dickens novels to the breakout podcast hit “Serial” and the recent two-part Times investigation on the treatment of nail salon workers. She pressed the graduates not to undervalue the power of storytelling, urging them to be adaptable and resilient in a constantly changing media landscape, and to look for opportunity in unexpected places.

Professor Michael Pollan, who also addressed the class, offered some pieces of practical advice: “Get comfortable with the messiness of true stories,” he said. “Cultivate the interesting questions, rather than the answers.” To that he added, “Marry well,” which was received with laughter. Pollan’s wisdom, along with Abramson’s reflections and the thoughts of audio lecturer Ben Manilla, seemed to boil down to the essential nature of adaptation in the face of change. The speeches mixed optimism (“The satisfaction of the work is getting paid to follow the path of your curiosity,” Pollan said) with humor and pragmatism about the state of the industry (“I mean, journalism, really? Journalism? That’s like learning to shoe horses, right?” Manilla joked.)

 

Humor aside, the wisdom these speakers offered was soaked up eagerly by the graduating class, many of whom had only paused production long enough to celebrate the achievements of two years in journalism school, and would be back to work as soon as the festivities wrapped up.

 

Among those who would be back to the grind on Monday was Sara McClure, who would be boarding a plane at 9 a.m. to begin a New York Times videography fellowship. Becca Andrews would be off to Mother Jones for a fellowship beginning in early June. Alexandra Garreton and Justin Richmond would be headed for Los Angeles where Garreton would begin her role as Associate Producer for KCRW’s Vulnerable Populations Project and Richmond would take on a full time job at NPR’s “Morning Edition.”

 

During their tenure, the class of 2015 completed internships from Hong Kong to Buffalo. They went on reporting trips that brought them from the shark-infested waters of western Australia to the chocolate factories of Hawaii, from the struggling fisheries of British Columbia to the developing waterways of Nicaragua. Their theses projects, covering ground on topics as richly varied as police violence, abstinence-only sex education, advances in medical technology, and military corruption, will be published in National Geographic, the Verge and Popular Science, and broadcast on “NBC Nightly News,” “The PBS News Hour,” and “Snap Judgment.” And three students, Sukey Lewis, Mark Kurlyandchik and Mike Milano, even had the opportunity to interview journalist Maziar Bahari and TV personality Jon Stewart during their visit to the Graduate School of Journalism to screen their film, Rosewater, last fall.

 

Milano was also one of two student speakers to address the class during the ceremony. In his speech, he followed the theme of eternal transformation, encouraging his classmates to embrace a field that is forever changing, forever challenging. “Learning makes us feel young,” he said. His classmate, Niema Jordan, opted for a less conventional approach. Jordan drew liberally from a Jay-Z song to offer a pep talk of sorts to her classmates. “When that voice kicks in, ‘You don’t know what you’re doing,’ turn on the music” and just be like, ‘Sure I do,'” she said.

 

The world is recognizing the potential Jordan saw in the class of 2015; several students have won prestigious awards in the past year. Most recently, Mark Boyer traveled to Brussels as part of an EU Delegation program focused on European political reporting. James Reddick received two scholarships through the Overseas Press Club. Emily Gibson won the Abe Schechter Graduate Scholarship from the Radio Television Digital News Association; Kevin Hume won a Pete Wilson Journalism Scholarship, awarded annually to an outstanding Bay Area journalism student; and the Society of Professional Journalists of Northern California named Joaquin Palomino their Outstanding Emerging Journalist for his reporting on state water allocation.

 

As the commencement began, the crowd gathered in the courtyard, cheering and snapping photos as, one by one, graduates were awarded their degrees by multimedia professor Paul Grabowicz and beloved journalism school custodian Art Douglas. Graduate Justin Richmond got a hug and affectionate fist bump from a friend and mentor, and Alexandra Garreton got a whoop and a “That’s my sister!” from a sibling on the sidelines.

 

After the ceremony concluded, the graduates joined their families, friends, and loved ones for a champagne-filled reception, toasting to their impressive achievements and bright futures, which would be taking them all over the world to practice their craft in locales as far flung as New York City, Paris and Cambodia. As Abramson put it, “Humans have a need and want for well-told narrative.” And these graduates have heard the call.

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