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 < back to authors list Jay Black:
"I have always loved writing," Black said. "I've always loved with a passion the idea of getting stories told and out to mass audiences." And he has done a good job at it, too. Black has written five books:
He has also written seven book chapters, 23 journal articles, 24 monographs and research reports, and hundreds of articles for newspapers, magazines and newsletters. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Mass Media Ethics, and was a speaker at the 1996 TAA convention in Chicago, where he discussed the ethics of authoring with his speech "Whose Ethics Are We Injecting Into Our Texts?" He also wrote a column for The Academic Author. Black said he works best at home, or at his cabin in Logan, Utah. "I've worn so many hats at the office that I feel most comfortable writing at home." In the late 1960's, Black wanted nothing more than to be a journalist, but the Vietnam war changed the course of his life. Instead of going to Vietnam, a war he didn't agree with, like many other young men at that time, he opted for graduate school. His wife, Leslie, an award-winning kindergarten teacher, was, Black said, "very inspirational to me. She showed me the value of being a good teacher." Black received his A.B. in English from Miami University in 1965, his M.S. in journalism from Ohio University in 1966, his M.A. in English from the University of Queensland, Australia in 1967 and his doctorate in journalism from the University of Missouri in 1974. He currently holds the Poynter-Jamison Chair in Media Ethics at the University of South Florida-St. Petersburg. "I decided that a better way to improve media was intergenerationally--through inspiring students to go out and do good in the world," Black said. He's done a good job at it too. Since 1987, twelve of his students have placed in the top three finishers in the national Carol Burnett/University of Hawaii/AEJMC annual competition for student research in mass media ethics."My student's achievements make me feel motivated to help others achieve more," Black said. "I try to give them the skills they need to succeed, and then I get out of their way." As a member of the Society of Professional Journalists for 20 years, Black has witnessed the struggle to develop and implement a code of ethics. In the 1980's, when SPJ decided to change the code and educate people about ethics, he took the job seriously, and Doing Ethics in Journalism was the outcome. It went through four printings in the first year, and served as the basis for thousands of seminars attended by journalists all over the country. "We were very pleased with the results of our efforts," Black said. Just last year, SPJ adopted a new code of ethics to add new changes like ethics on the Internet. "The fundamentals of ethics haven't changed," Black said, "but circumstances, crises and dilemmas change." — reported by Kim Pawlak, 1997 |
