John Hughes - editor-in-chief of the Deseret Morning News since 1997, Pulitzer Prize winner and former editor of the Christian Science Monitor - is coming back to BYU to teach journalism classes. We couldn't be more excited.
Like many other professions, journalism is best mastered by practicing it, not by studying its theories in a classroom. Like the many, qualified faculty members we have in the BYU Communications Department, Hughes has honed his journalism skills in the field over decades as a reporter and an editor. We look forward to what he will bring to BYU's journalism program, but, more importantly, we look forward to what we will learn from associating with him.
Hughes' answers to many young journalists' dilemmas will not come from a textbook, they will come from life experience. Eventually, we would like to ask him why, in a profession that stresses experience, his successor at the Deseret Morning News is a man who seems so unqualified to assume the role.
Joseph A. Cannon will assume Hughes' responsibilities at the Deseret Morning News. When Hughes took the helm of the editorial content of the Salt Lake newspaper, he had a wealth of journalism laurels to demonstrate his qualifications. Cannon is not a man without merit. He is a former chairman of the Utah Republican party and served as an assistant administrator for air and radiation in the Environmental Protection Agency during the Reagan administration. We do not question his ability to "keep his thumb off the scale" when it comes to news reporting; that issue has been sufficiently voiced in the Deseret Morning News' letters to the editor this past week. We question whether he has the journalistic qualifications to function properly in such a pivotal newsroom position.
As opposed to his predecessor, Cannon has no impressive list of achievements in the field of journalism. In fact, the only qualification he has is 10 years of service on the newspaper's board of directors. We do not discredit the newspaper board of directors' function. It is essential a newspaper generate sufficient revenue to meet the cost of production, but an editor-in-chief's main concern is with the editorial content, not whether the paper is in the red or not. He is a man that understands the business aspect of operating a newspaper, not the news reporting aspect. The only familiarity Cannon has with the editorial aspect has been learned through association, not practical experience.
The Deseret Morning News has repeatedly stressed the Cannon family newspaper legacy. Joseph J. Cannon, Cannon's grandfather, was a newspaper editor in the 30s. His great-grandfather, George Q. Cannon, was an editor from 1867 to 1879 and Cannon's grandmother wrote a column for more than 25 years. Cannon possesses an impressive pedigree; unfortunately, there is no journalism gene. Journalism isn't learned through osmosis, it isn't a spectator sport; it is learned first-hand.
The BYU Department of Communications faculty teaches students that experience is paramount. Grades are only important in that they indicate mastery of theory and newsroom practices, but, ultimately, the more news reporting experience a student has, the more marketable he or she is. That is why The Daily Universe is operated as a lab, to give students newsroom experience, and that is why our faculty encourages students to complete as much internship as possible; in fact, some students finish as many as three internships with different newspapers before graduation. What does it say of a newspaper's values when they hire someone without news reporting experience to assume one of the newsroom's most important roles?
Copyright Brigham Young University 14 Dec 2006
