I never got to meet Joella Cohen, but this dynamo of a woman has changed my life. The journalist-public relations professional- producer-antiques dealer (and probably many more titles) established the Joella Cohen Endowed Chair in Journalism at Creighton University. I am the inaugural chair holder, an honor and challenge that takes my breath away. Journalism needs this kind of boost as we struggle to find business models that work and with regaining trust. We need to connect with our audiences and build new ones. While I can’t tackle every challenge with this endowed chair, I appreciate the time and freedom to do what I can, where I am to make journalism better.
Ms. Cohen graduated from Creighton in 1948. We share the honor of each of us having held the job as editor of the Creightonian newspaper while we were students here. Her career spanned news and public relations and about everything in between. According to Creighton Magazine, she also worked with nonprofits. She produced commercials and other promotions for a Green Bay, Wisconsin, television station. She worked for Columbia Pictures in New York promoting a movie called “The New Interns.” She came back to Omaha to open her own business and became an antique dealer and curator of the Omaha Auction Center.
My own goals over the next few years are to explore new ways of telling stories such as solutions journalism focuses on responses to problems. Still a rigorous exploration of what works and what doesn’t, but solutions journalism comes at stories with a different frame. I’m also exploring data journalism and how to integrate that into our curriculum. This first year is exploring best data journalism practices, meeting attending conferences and learning how to do data journalism and data visualization.
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