Clarence Page to address School of Communication graduates
Posted by loyolastudentdispatch on May 11, 2010
By Chelsia Marcius
Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Clarence Page will serve as this year’s speaker at the Loyola University Chicago School of Communication commencement ceremony at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Joseph J. Gentile Center on Lake Shore Campus.
Joining the Chicago Tribune editorial board in 1984, Page launched his then local column. By 1987, it was nationally syndicated and in 1989 received the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.
Today, his column appears in about 150 newspapers across the country.
“We invited Clarence Page to be our commencement speaker because of his connection to Chicago, his many years at the Tribune, because he is a nationally known and very highly regarded journalist…and because [of his] outspoken defense of free speech rights,” said Don Heider, Dean of Loyola’s School of Communication. “He seemed like a perfect person to come and inspire graduates as they prepare to enter the world.”
Page said he plans to address the media’s role in the digital age and its sustained impact on American politics and civil discourse.
“Our politics…are more polarized today and more combative because of the nature of our media,” he said. “Political conflict has become a business model in itself for some media, like Fox News vs. MSNBC. And some people will choose one or the other depending upon their political leanings…What really irks me is giving a one-sided portrayal while sitting behind what looks like a news desk…When it comes to confusing the public, that to me is as bad as any other sin such as lying and plagiarism.”
Apart from today’s cable news network rivalries, Page said the Internet has also changed the nature of reporting—challenging the print publication business model of profit-making.
But even with the bloggers, tweeters and other disseminators of information online, Page considers the Internet an advantage to the aspiring journalist. He said budding reporters now who have opportunity to be more flexible and adventurous, and encourages writers to freelance, get creative and market their work.
“Now with the huge amount of choices that news consumers have, you must find ways to break out of that mob scene and be somebody news consumers want to turn to or click on,” he said. “There’s different ways, but that’s the big challenge these days for individual journalists, to be more entrepreneurial and think in terms of building one’s own personal brand as well as the brand of whatever larger organization you’re working with. We’re all competing for people’s eyeballs.”
Aside from his duties as a Tribune columnist, Page continues to serve as a panelist, contributor and commentator on “The McLaughlin Group,” “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” and National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition Sunday.”
In 1972, Page participated in a Chicago Tribune Task Force series on vote fraud, which won the Pulitzer. In 1996, he published the book “Showing My Color: Impolite Essays on Race and Identity.” As a freelance writer, his work has been featured in a number of publications including Chicago magazine, the Chicago Reader, Washington Monthly, New Republic, The Wall Street Journal and New York Newsday.
