Murphy 210
716.375.2511
dwilkins@sbu.edu

Good teachers:

• really want to be good teachers.
• take risks.
• have a positive attitude.
• never have enough time.
• think of teaching as
the highest form of learning.
• try to give students confidence.
• try to keep students -- and themselves -- off balance.
• try to motivate students.
• listen to their students.

photo by Craig Melvin

About your professor ...

I've spent nearly two decades as a working journalist. In that time, I've written about 10,000 news stories and 2,000 editorials and opinion columns. I've written almost 45,000 headlines and edited more than 40,000 news stories. I've designed more than a thousand front pages and another thousand section fronts and more than 15,000 partial inside pages. (Whew!)

During my career I've been a sportswriter and columnist, a science and environmental writer, a general assignment reporter, a features writer, a copy editor, copy desk chief, layout and design editor, an editorial writer, an op-ed columnst and an editorial-page editor. I've worked as a newspaper writing coach.

My newsroom focus on environmental journalism led to a master's degree in environmental studies from The Evergreen State College in 1990. I spent a year running the copy desk at southern New York paper before being drafted to into a doctoral program in media studies.

While a doctoral student at the University of Colorado at Boulder, I advised the student newspaper, the Campus Press. I have served The Bona Venture as one of its advisers.

I received my doctorate from CU in 1996, studying how the media work and why they work that way. My research focused on the sociology of journalists and their socialization within the newsroom. I analyzed how media treat environmental issues as well as how media create images of science.

In the Jandoli school I have taught Writing & Reporting I and II, Language Skills for Writers, Feature Writing, Opinion Writing, Case Studies in Media Ethics and Politics and Economics of the Press.

I serve on the J/MC curriculum committee and study curriculum developments in journalism nationally. [By the way, if you don't like CLAR 105, Inquiry in the Social World, I'm partly to blame. I helped create it.] I serve on the university's library and technology committees. I serve as the university's NCAA-required faculty athletics representative.

In early 2005, I began blogging. I have co-founded two community blogs. I've written several hundred posts, mostly on issues relating to journalism, journalism education, politics and economics of the press and the occasional annoying screed about politics, campaign finance reform and economics. You can read my work at Scholars & Rogues or at my mirror site, drdenny.livejournal.com.

Good journalism and good writing are important to me, and if you're taking a course from me, they should be important to you.

Expect close editing. I'll tell you what you do right as well as what you do wrong. But I'll expect you to refrain from repeating mistakes that are pointed out to you. Making new mistakes each time you write is part of the learning process of becoming a journalist. That's a different problem. But I do expect you to learn from your edited copy.

I encourage you to meet with me outside of class if you feel you are having difficulty (preferably before that point is reached). At times, I may suggest such meetings when I believe them to be necessary.

Should you just wish to "talk shop" about writing in particular or journalism in general, don't hesitate to call me. I am on campus almost every day, and I welcome visits to my office either during office hours or at other times. You might ask to fly one of the kites I keep in my Jeep. You never know when you need a mental-health break.

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