American
Magazine of American University
May 2010
Navigating Ethics
Who will frame the questions?
Would you like pottery with your asparagus?
Some jewelry with your crab cakes? Eastern
Market on Capitol Hill, a Washington tradition
since 1873, closed after a 2007 fire but is filled
again with flowers, food, arts and crafts, and
crowds of shoppers feasting on the atmosphere
and blueberry pancakes. Photo by Jeff Watts
American
Magazine of American University
12
question the answers
16
game changer
20
21
Volume 61 No. 1
Philosophy is experiencing an academic resurgence
nationwide. At AU, students learn to think critically, question thoughtfully, and argue artfully.
Investigative journalism is under siege. The
Investigative Reporting Workshop aims to disarm
the threat.
a creative commons protects
property
As the arts and the law merge on the information
super highway, WCL’s Michael Carroll thrills in
directing traffic.
best practices make space for
creative use
The Center for Social Media helps filmmakers
exercise their creativity legally and ethically.
22
cue the animals
28
marking history
Environmental filmmaker Chris Palmer trains his
lens on documentarians’ ethical issues.
Public history students hope to guide visitors along
one of the most poignant, powerful plots of U.S.
soil: Arlington National Cemetery.
• • •
departments
3
On the Quad
9
Athletics
33 Alumni News
34 Class Notables
48 On your Screen
www.american.edu/magazine
American
American, the official magazine of American
University, is written and designed by the University Publications office within University
Communications and Marketing. Personal
views on subjects of public interest expressed
in the magazine do not necessarily reflect
official policies of the university.
Executive Director, Communications
and Marketing
Teresa Flannery
Director, University Publications
Kevin Grasty
Executive Editor
Linda McHugh
Managing Editor
Catherine Bahl
On the Quad Editor
Adrienne Frank
Staff Writers
Sally Acharya, Adrienne Frank, Mike Unger
Art Director/Designer
Wendy Beckerman
Contributing Designers
Maria Jackson, Evangeline Montoya-A. Reed
Photographer
Jeff Watts
Class Notes
Melissa Reichley, editor; Ken O’Regan,
editorial assistant
UP10-003
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From the
editor
Thinking Like an Ethical Citizen
What is an ethical citizen? What do they do? When do they act?
When mother nature dumps three feet of snow on D.C. streets, is it
reasonable to simply admire the sparkling, hazardous stuff? Or, is more required of us—perhaps deicing an icy walkway to make it safe for pedestrians?
When on January 12 a powerful earthquake killed hundreds of thousands
of people and destroyed Haiti’s infrastructure, were condolences enough?
Many faculty, students and alumni thought not and saw it as a call to
action—a characteristic AU response to disasters (see p. 34).
Those questions, key challenges for higher education and civil society, are
at the heart of this issue of American.
A university education, says College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) dean
Peter Starr, is far more than hitting the books to acquire knowledge and gain
professional skills—even when those skills lead to careers in civil rights law,
international justice, government service, or urban education. The key to a
truly liberal education says Starr is learning how to think.
But think about what?
We posed that question to faculty across campus.
We asked four AU philosophers how they teach ethics, a discipline that’s
experiencing a renaissance at AU and nationwide.
We interviewed School of Communication (SOC) professor Chris
Palmer, whose new book, Shooting in the Wild, looks at ethical practices in
environmental filmmaking.
Writer Mike Unger toured Arlington Cemetery with CAS public historian
Kathy Franz whose students have created historical markers for key sites throughout the site—lest we forget the lessons of history.
MacArthur grant winner Chuck Lewis spoke of his passion for the
Investigative Reporting Workshop he established in 2008 at SOC, which is
working double time to ensure that investigative reporting doesn’t slide into
oblivion along with the print newspaper.
We learned how Washington College of Law’s Michael Carroll and SOC’s
Patricia Aufderheide each are enabling creators and documentarians to share
their intellectual property, copyright it inexpensively, and use important
copyrighted material legally.
As we put the finishing touches on the issue it was clear to us all that at
AU the response to problems is most often to search for answers, take action
when possible, and learn from the outcomes.
The very model of a modern ethical citizen.
Linda McHugh
Executive Editor
Cover: Cameraman Doug Allan gets a close-up of a humpback whale for the “Shallow
Seas” episode of Planet Earth. Photo: Sue Flood
 american
On the Quad
kudos
Model Citizen
courtesy of Matthew Worden
Neil Kerwin: Washingtonian
of the Year.
Washingtonian magazine’s
January issue featured ten
local leaders as the 2009
Washingtonians of the Year—
among them was AU’s 14th
president, Neil Kerwin.
For the last 38 years, D.C.’s
city magazine has honored
Washington’s most influential
figures, from artists and advocates
to politicos and educators.
This year, Kerwin is joined by
former Virginia senator John
Warner and Washington Post
columnist Colbert King.
Washingtonian cited Kerwin’s
leadership in crisis, the completion
of AU’s $200-million capital
campaign, the opening of Kogod’s
expansion building, and his
commitment to strengthening
AU’s ties to Washington, D.C.,
among his achievements.
The president discussed his
plans to expand AU programs
into public health, Latino
studies, and sustainability. He
was photographed in the new
School of International Service
building, AU’s 70,000 squarefoot green gem, scheduled to
open its doors this spring.
WAMU 88.5 radio hosts
Diane Rehm and Kojo Nnamdi
received the local honor in
1998 and 2005, respectively.
may 2010 
On the Quad
musical notes
McFerrin Music
Bobby McFerrin was interviewed by Caleen Jennings,
co-chair, Department of Performing Arts.
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american
One of the world’s best-known vocal innovators and improvisers, Bobby
McFerrin, shared the joy so clearly evident in his music during a lively
workshop and interview as part of the College of Arts and Sciences’ Arts
360 initiative.
Standing alone on stage, as he often does when he performs throughout
the world, McFerrin discussed his philosophies of music, life, and art while
peppering in spontaneous bursts of song. With no band behind him or
instrument in his hand, McFerrin used his body, mind, and spirit to make
music.
“For me performance doesn’t really exist,” says McFerrin, whose
recordings have sold more than 20 million copies. “Music to me is here,
now, and always different.”
Anyone who has followed his remarkable career has seen that. McFerrin
won his first Grammy in 1985, and then exploded into international
superstardom with the 1988 release of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” which
hit No. 1 on pop charts around the world.
Instead of cashing in on his commercial success, he took an 18-month
sabbatical and embarked down new musical paths. He began studying
classical music and developing his love of improvisational singing.
In 1994 McFerrin became creative director of the St. Paul Chamber
Orchestra, and since then he’s conducted orchestras around the world. Yet
on stage at the Katzen Arts Center, he displayed no ego. Instead, he offered
words of encouragement to budding young artists, and as is his staple,
transformed the audience from passive observers to active participants.
“I always felt as an audience member that I wanted to do more than
just listen,” he says. “I have never done a performance where the audience
was not ready to sing.”
On the Quad
foreign policy
Globe-Trotters
What does it take to rise to the rank of ambassador? Five alumni of the
School of International Service who can be addressed as Mr. or Madam
Ambassador shared tips and tales from the diplomatic trenches with
students who hope to follow in their globe-trotting footsteps.
The countries where these SIS alumni have held the top American
post is a C to Z list—Chad, Costa Rica, the Marshall Islands, Paraguay,
Togo, and Zambia—spiced with an even larger sampling of places where
they’ve served on their way up the ladder, from Paris to Morocco.
“It takes skill, luck, and in some cases, having the right friends in the
right places,” says a candid Curtin Winsor, SIS/MA ’64, PhD ’71, who
was ambassador to Costa Rica.
It also takes the ability to speak well, write well, and act as a “good
traffic cop” to keep competing agencies on track. A good foreign service
officer also knows how to work a room, as these diplomats showed when
they circulated among students, learning about the students’ goals and
sharing career advice.
Today’s foreign service officer hopefuls are graduating at a time when
the Obama administration is funding some 3,000 new positions in the
State Department—“numbers you’re not going to see in the future,” the
diplomats agreed.
Competition for those slots will be tough as always. But AU graduates
have an ace in the hole: “You are all at a very good place,” says Clyde
Taylor, SIS/MA ’61, and later ambassador to Paraguay.
Above from left: Ambassadors Edward O’Donnell,
’74; Joan Plaisted, ’69; David Dunn ’74;
Christopher Goldthwait, ’71; and Clyde Taylor,
’61; SIS dean Louis Goodman and Ambassador
Curtin Winsor, ’64, ’71
may 2010 
On the Quad
political persuasion
The Wordsmith
Above: Genevieve Frye, left, Sarah Dohl, and
Philip Zakahi in the Cannon House Office
Building Rotunda. All three were students in
AU’s speechwriting course.
Below: Bob Lehrman’s latest book, The Political
Speechwriter’s Companion
 american
Bob Lehrman revels in the power of a well-crafted speech.
A speechwriter with more than 30 years experience writing for
politicians, CEOs, and celebrities, Lehrman shares his enthusiasm
for the skill by co-teaching a graduate course with Eric Schnure
at the School of Communication.
The author of The Political Speechwriter’s Companion: A Guide
for Writers and Speakers recently invited five young AU alumni
who are working in congressional offices, at the Republican
National Committee, for a polling firm, and for an ambassador
to talk with the class about landing jobs.
“When I left AU I went to the private sector, consulting
for a year,” says Sarah Dohl ’07, a speechwriter for Rep. Lloyd
Doggett, D-Texas. “I applied to hundreds of Hill jobs and
couldn’t even get a call back.”
But her persistence paid off. When Dohl finally landed an
interview with Sen. Maria Cantwell’s office, she used a speech
written for Lehrman’s class to show she had the chops for the job.
Lehrman chose young alums for the panel because their age
proximity to grad students could help students see possibilities
for themselves.
health
Getty Images
On the Quad
Marketing Vices
Children in the United Kingdom soon will be seeing a lot less of the Marlboro
Man, thanks in large part to the work of Kogod School of Business professor
Wendy Boland. Her work with three colleagues was used by antismoking
advocates in Britain to push for a ban on point-of-sale tobacco advertising in the
U.K. The measure passed both houses of Parliament.
The tobacco industry maintains that its ads aim only to entice smokers to
switch brands, not to prompt nonsmokers to pick up the habit. But a paper
published last year by Boland and three colleagues in the journal Addictive
Behaviors argued that cigarette ads do prompt some adolescents to start smoking.
The study showed print ads for cigarettes and other products to children from
seven to twelve years old. Researchers asked them if they understood the product,
understood the brand, or understood both the product and the brand. When they
were shown cigarette ads, the majority were aware only of the product, not the
brand.
“Because they just focused on the product, everything cigarette companies
were saying—commercials are just teaching people about brands—wasn’t actually
the case,” Boland explains. “They remembered things like Tropicana orange juice,
but they didn’t remember Camel cigarettes, they just remembered cigarettes.”
Martin Dockrell, director of policy and research for the U.K.-based nonprofit
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), used the paper to lobby for legislation to
ban point-of-sale tobacco advertising.
“The tobacco industry’s main line of attack on the bill had been that there is
no evidence that tobacco promotions lead young people to smoke,” says Dockrell.
“This study helped to nail that lie.”
Wendy Boland
may 2010 
honors
Getty Images
On the Quad
A 3.9 GPA and an unwavering commitment to public
health helped junior Kelsey Stefanik-Sidener win a
prestigious Harry S. Truman Scholarship. A political
science major in the School of Public Affairs, StefanikSidener is AU’s 17th Truman scholar and the eighth in
the last six years.
Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age seven, StefanikSidener has raised $55,000 for diabetes research, founded
a diabetes advocacy organization at AU, and served as
director of the student government health department.
The Ohio native, who’s interned with the American
Diabetes Association, has her sights set on law school.
Also among this year’s 60 national Truman Scholars
are two Washington Semester students. Eric Dailey
of Rhodes College is currently enrolled in AU’s
Transforming Communities program, while Shoshana
Shapiro-Baruch of Kenyon College participated in the
same seminar last semester.
Established by Congress in 1975 as a living memorial
to our 33rd president—who expressed no interest in
a marble memorial—the Truman scholarship honors
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Courtesy of Kelsey Stefanik-Sidener
Head of the Class
Kelsey Stefanik-Sidener
students with a commitment to public service.
Winners receive $30,000 for graduate school and
leadership training. They also join an elite group of
politicos, journalists, advocates, and academics that
includes Department of Homeland Security secretary
Janet Napolitano and former political advisor and
current journalist George Stephanopoulos.
On the Quad
athletics
On the Cusp
Less than 24 hours after one of the most successful seasons
in American University women’s basketball history came to a
disappointing conclusion, the Patriot League coach and player
of the year paused to reflect.
“I’ll look at this as a team that persevered,” Coach Matt
Corkery says. “They were close knit, had good chemistry, and
understood their roles. They really stuck together in difficult
times, and a lot of it is based on their character and attitude.
A lot of things make up a good team, and we had those things
this year.”
Chief among them was Michelle Kirk. The 6-foot
junior forward led the Eagles in scoring en route to winning
conference player of the year honors. With only two seniors
leaving, Kirk knows AU’s ultimate goal—a Patriot League
Tournament title and berth in the NCAAs—will be there for
the taking next year.
“This summer will play a huge part,” she says. “The summer is when players are made. We need to use the disappointment at the end of this season to motivate us to work hard.”
Kirk has developed steadily since a freshman year in which
she played in all 32 games. Last season she led AU in scoring.
“She’s a player that you have to guard behind the three-point
line, but she can attack the basket,” Corkery says. “She has an
aggressive mentality. We do look to her for leadership in practice
and in the locker room. She’s matured into that role.”
The Eagles got off to a rocky start in which they were
ravaged by injuries, but rather than use that as an excuse the
players rallied around one another and finished tied for first in
the Patriot League with a record of 13-1—the most conference
wins in the program’s history. Their overall 22 victories were the
second most AU ever has recorded.
That lone league loss came at the hands of Lehigh, which due
to a complex tiebreaker hosted the league tournament title game.
Home cooking paid dividends, as the Mountain Hawks
cruised to a 58-42 victory. But AU earned an invitation to
the NIT Tournament for the third-straight year, the longest
postseason streak in the program’s history.
After battling Old Dominion for most of the game, AU
succumbed 63-55.
“Every season has got to come to an end, and you hope it’s
on a high note,” Corkery says. “Not many teams get to end
with a win. We gained a lot of experience from playing in tough
environments on the road. We’re learning. Unfortunately, we’re
learning the hard way.”
may 2010 
On the Quad
cinema
Sugar and Spice
Photos Courtesy of Jon Malis
The film includes the installation of a
Sèvres royal table using plates from the
1700s and a royal garden centerpiece
made of spun sugar by culinary historian Ivan Day, above left.
 american
Ask Christopher Richmond what he wants to do with his MFA from
the School of Communication and he’ll tell you: “I want to make
movies; tell stories.”
SOC’s network of industry connections and collaborative style drew
the aspiring filmmaker to AU. Now, he has his first film credit.
Richmond, along with two other SOC grad students—
cinematographer Jon Malis and production assistant Garrett O’Brien—
and a young alumna—editor Yi Chen, SOC ’08—filmed a short for
the Hillwood Museum’s exhibit, Sèvres Then and Now: Tradition and
Innovation in Porcelain, 1750–2000.
The exhibit includes more than 90 intricate works of porcelain art
from the world’s preeminent porcelain factory—many never before seen
by American audiences.
“You want to try to recreate the life and times represented by
the pieces,” says SOC professor Maggie Burnette Stogner, the film’s
executive producer. “Otherwise people look at something like a plate
and all they see is the artifact.” The film, which includes an interview
with Day, “helps bring the exhibit to life.”
The exhibit runs through May 30, at the Hillwood Estate, Museum,
and Gardens, the estate of the one-time Washington socialite and
General Foods heiress, Marjorie Merriweather Post.
On the Quad
center stage
Windows to a Culture
What do we see when we look at a dance?
There is movement and emotional
power. There is also history, culture, and
a society’s dreams for itself. All of that
can be seen in dance, if you know how to
look.
In February, Idan Cohen, a renowned
Israeli dancer and choreographer, met
with Professor Nina Spiegel’s history
students, held a master’s class for dance
students, performed an evening of dance,
and shared the stage with Spiegel in a
discussion of how the edgy, modernist feel
of Israeli dance grows from and reflects the
country’s history and identity.
The event was sponsored by AU’s Jewish Studies
Program, Department of Performing Arts, and
Center for Israel Studies, the Embassy of Israel,
and the Foundation for Jewish Culture.
“As Jews came to Palestine, they
wanted to create new forms of
expression. It was part of the idea
of creating a new society and a
new Jewish image—of a strong,
tough Jew in contrast to the
Semitic image of the time.
“That idea of people leaving
their homes and wanting to start
a new life became a strong strain
within Israeli history and society,
and you see it in the dance. It’s
bold.”
“There’s something unique
that came out of our historical
background. There is a search for
a new movement, a language, new
aspects of art. It’s a beautiful thing,
because it shows a different aspect
of Israeli society—the people we are
as artists, with things to say that
are sometimes an alternative to
what you see in the news.”
— Idan Cohen,
Israeli dancer and choreographer
— Nina Spiegel,
Schusterman Teaching Fellow
in Jewish Studies
may 2010 
the
By Linda McHugh and Adrienne Frank
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In AU’s philosophy
department, the
conversations
are poignant and
passionate.
Philosophy is experiencing a
resurgence at universities across
the country—and at AU, in
particular.
The philosophy department,
housed in the College of Arts
and Sciences, counted an even
dozen majors just 12 years ago.
Now, it boasts 100 majors,
about half of whom are double
majors. Five general education
courses are always full with
undergrads eager to engage
such pressing ethical issues as
abortion, suicide, drug penalties,
and torture.
“There’s been a shift towards
new ways of thinking and
problem solving,” says bioethics
professor Kim Leighton.
“Putting emphasis on math
for math’s sake and science for
science’s sake doesn’t solve the
kind of problems that emerge
in a multimoral, multicultural,
global society.”
Here, philosophy professors
and CAS dean Peter Starr
discuss the discipline’s rise and
the important role it plays in the
twenty-first–century university.
Ellen
Feder
associate
professor and
acting chair,
Department of
Philosophy and
Religion
Jeffrey
Reiman
Kimberly
Leighton
assistant
professor
American: Ethics and
philosophy are enjoying
a new popularity in
universities. Why do
you think that is?
Tschemplik: A while
ago an article in the New
York Times said that throughout the country there is a
great interest among students
to major in philosophy. The
reporter speculated that . . .
in philosophy, you get to ask
all the questions and try to
rethink some things.
Leighton: I think
ethics is central right now in
American culture because the
conflicts that have arisen in
the last 30 years have been
ethical conflicts. The way we
are questioning and framing
issues now is less about political questions and more about
what is a good life, what is a
quality of life worth having.
Reiman: I agree. In the
1930s people were anxious
to vote for their economic
interests. Today they are not
doing that so much. We see
William
Fraser
McDowell
Professor of
Philosophy
Peter
Starr
dean
College of
Arts and
Sciences
working class people, who are
relatively well off by world
standards voting Republican
because they resonate with
those moral values, while
many prosperous liberals who
would probably do better
economically voting with Republicans are voting Democratic because they resonate
with those moral values.
Leighton: That’s why
I think discussion is central to
teaching ethics, because ethical
issues can so quickly be frozen
into a pro vs. con. We don’t
teach ethics, especially applied
ethics, that way at AU.
American: How does AU
teach ethics? Is it a discipline in philosophy?
Reiman: I think of
philosophy as asking: What
is the nature of the world, in
three questions—What is it?
How do we know that? How
do we live in it? That third
question is ethics. So ethics
is more than a discipline,
it’s part of the definition of
philosophy.
Andrea
Tschemplik
associate
professor
Feder: We teach ethics
as part of the practice of
philosophy, and what is distinctive about that approach
is precisely that we are looking at the questions. Trying
to figure out what questions
there are, what questions
one can ask, what questions
we should be asking. When
ethics moves into other disciplines, the emphasis is no
longer on the questions but
on the answers. We can get
things like ethical codes—a
kind of formula that is designed to provide answers.
Reiman: We’re not
trying to make people better
in some particular way—other
than better thinkers, clearer
thinkers, better questioners,
more aware of the depth of the
questions that can be posed,
and of the range of answers.
And on thinking, you
know, we don’t mind coming up with some answers.
Feder:
Of course not,
but one of the lessons of
history is that the most
egregious moral errors occur
may 2010 
“We need new ways
of problem solving, of
thinking through and
making dialogue.”
— Kim Leighton
when people fail to recognize
that there is a moral issue.
Tschemplik:
To piggyback on that, I used to be reluctant to teach moral philosophy
or ethics because I had this idea
that given today’s state of affairs
everyone would say “I have this
problem: let’s talk about euthanasia, abortion. I have my opinion;
you have your opinion.”
The first time I taught it at AU
there was this struggle. I had to
persuade students that the class
was about reading texts, thinking
about those texts, and articulating
theories from them. And maybe,
I said, after you understand the
theories, you can apply them to
your questions and come up with
a more meaningful answer than
you have right now.
American: It’s very exciting;
you’re not memorizing facts,
you’re thinking.
Tschemplik: Yes, these
are debates that they had in
ancient times, and they are still
relevant to our students. I think
it’s refreshing to them that they
can actually question.
About this story’s art
Alan Feltus and Lani Irwin’s spring exhibition at the AU
Museum at the Katzen Arts Center was a homecoming
of sorts. Feltus taught painting at AU in the 1970s and
’80s, while Irwin earned her MFA at AU in 1973.
The couple, who live and work in Assisi, Italy,
teamed up for Personal Interiors, a collection of
paintings, drawings, and collages. Among the featured
works: Feltus’s A Sharing of Coffee and Letters, above,
and From Page to Memory, previous page.
Much like AU’s philosophers, Feltus revels in
ambiguity. “I leave interpretation to the viewer.
When I walk into a room, I don’t ask what people are
saying or thinking, or who they are. I might be more
interested in what they are doing, purely in visual
terms. I see the world as paintings.”
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American: How do you get your
students to start thinking
critically and questioning?
Feder:
I take a student
through the first 40 minutes of
their day to identify the points
of ethical decision making they
encounter. They’re very skeptical because they don’t think of
themselves as moral reasoners,
but they get it quickly. The
alarm goes off, you wake up, you
have a class . . . hit the snooze
button, or don’t? Moral decision? Sure.
They have roommates. Take a
shower, don’t take a shower? Are
there people in line? How much
hot water is available in the
house? What about water usage?
Are there energy issues?
Go downstairs for breakfast.
Toast or cereal; organic bread,
bacon? The moral decisions can
get piled on.
Tschemplik:
I’m very
much in their face the first class.
I ask why they are here in this
class. Why they’re in college. I
put that question right alongside
Socrates who lived a certain kind
of life and was executed for it.
Are they here because their
What Is the Ethical Mission of a
Modern University?
American: President
Kerwin has said that
one of the foundations
of AU is that it is a
values-oriented institution. How does a
university articulate its
values in a nonpolitical, nonsectarian way?
Starr: Being a
“values oriented” institution is fundamental
to the very notion of a
university. Before access
to knowledge exploded,
everyone brought their
small piece of information to the table and
new knowledge was
accumulated over
generations.
Today, with so much
information at our
disposal, the problem is
no longer one of bringing new knowledge to
the table—it’s sorting
through that information—and developing
a kind of intellectual
judgment. Understanding what really is important and what isn’t is
the first step towards
understanding what
values are.
Leighton: The
values ethics teaches
include the value of
contextualizing, of complicating, of looking at
and trying to justify our
moral commitments.
parents told them to? Because
they have nothing better to
do? They don’t like that. But,
I want to know—are they
here for no reason other than
the fact that they had the
money and they’re going to
get a better job?
I try to get this unexamined life is not worth living
thing across.
Leighton: I bring in a
problem. The Monday after
the Olympic luge accident, I
said it seems that the way the
sport is developing involves
greater and greater risk. So my
questions for this class are: Do
we have an ethical responsibility to limit risk? Is there such
a thing as ethical risk? If there
is, how would we ground
the claim that we should put
a limit on the development
of technology based on the
amount of risk?
American: Where did
the students end up?
Leighton: Many of
them relied on the argument
the media made, that as long
as the participants were fully
My top commitment in
teaching is to develop
“ethical citizens”—people
who learn to think
through the issues and
participate in public and
private practices that help
form ethical concepts.
Starr: I think that’s
precisely what a university education is all
about. We try to teach
students to flip an issue
around in their minds, to
project themselves into
the positions of people
they disagree with. That
develops empathy, which
is truly liberal.
informed, they were making
autonomous decisions.
Reiman: You don’t
like that?
Leighton: No, I
don’t. So the students started
to complicate what a free
decision was—if this is your
sport, and this is your goal,
and the end goal of your
sport where the highest competition can happen is the
Olympics, simply saying ‘Oh
no, that’s too scary, I won’t
do that’ isn’t an easy choice.
It isn’t a possible choice for
many people who dedicate
their lives to the sport. But,
we were trying to get to the
question of how far should
we push human nature, and
to what end? What would
justify that much risk?
American: As the semester
goes on how do you know
they’ve “got it?”
Leighton: My whole
course last semester was
secretly about ambiguity and
uncertainty in ethics. Sometimes that’s frustrating and
they’d say “well, we can just
keep going.” At other times
they had intuitions about
where to stop an argument.
They recognize that if we
start from the claim that the
meaning of ethical conflicts
is how we discuss them and
how we engage with them—
if they are not participating
in the discussion other people
are making the decisions.
Reiman: I heard a
philosopher once characterize
himself as an argument-smith
who teaches people how to
think about and understand
arguments. That’s part of
what we do.
It’s one reason to study
philosophy no matter what
you’re going to do. The skill
of identifying an argument,
seeing how it works, how it
goes through its steps, seeing
the kinds of questions that are
raised is a universal skill.
Feder:
No one studies
philosophy for vocational
reasons.
Tschemplik: Not often, but last semester I taught
a freshman philosophy class.
Quite a few of them got
American: What are the
challenges to accomplishing this?
American: So, how do
you develop what you
call an ‘ethical citizen?’
Starr: We have to
do it in the context of
polarizing public debates
between people who
don’t acknowledge the responsibility and humanity
of the other person’s position. That’s a paradox.
I also think technology
and the media are pushing us in two directions
at the same time—in
the direction of polarization and the direction of
empathy.
Leighton: Humans
can’t have access to
absolute truth because
that requires stepping out
of human life to decide
what’s true or not. So we
always have to keep questioning our arguments;
and the questions keep
changing.
With the expansion
of access to information,
I think we have a greater
responsibility to help our
students find answers to
these questions. But our
really involved, and one
young woman said, “I am so
sorry this class is over . . . because I have to do the major
that I signed up for . . .”
I told her it was possible to
double major and she asked
“What does philosophy have
to do with international
affairs?” I invited her to my
office, we talked it through,
and she was delighted that
she could double major in
SIS and philosophy.
I also enjoy watching our
students listen to outside
speakers and then ask a really intelligent question. The
speakers are sometimes taken
aback when they’re asked this
very constructed question,
that shows “I’m thinking
along with you and I’m
wondering what the next step
would be.”
Leighton: You watch
students become stronger and
excited and jubilant, even . . .
almost like learning a sport
. . . there is a kind of power
that comes with it. n
society doesn’t always
encourage the kind of
processing and time that
real ethical thinking
can require.
Starr: That’s a critical
point. Ethics takes place
in a dialogue in time.
While online and
distributed learning have
value, the key issues of
our time take time to
grasp, and that dialogue
takes place as a back and
forth exchange—with
yourself, with others, with
a community.
If you want to talk
about what’s truly robust
in an ethical education,
you need that face-to-face
dialogue that you get in
a classroom, when all of
the sudden sparks start
flying. But a lot of it is
also what’s happening at
11:30 at night when you
and your friends get into
an issue in a very serious
way.
What we do in modern
universities is teach the
hard things, we revel in
difficulty, particularly in
the difficulty of ethical
choice. n
may 2010 
investigativereportingworkshop.org
Game
Changer
Charles Lewis wants the
Investigative Reporting Workshop
to help shape the future of journalism.
Nothing more, nothing less.
By Mike Unger
 american
A
mid the grim statistics
that litter the ominous
journalism landscape
—5,900 newsroom positions
cut in 2008 alone—flickers a
glimmer of hope: flourishing
nonprofits producing exemplary stories.
At the nexus of this new world order
of reporting sits American University’s
Investigative Reporting Workshop—
recent winner of a MacArthur Foundation Award. With a bifurcated mission
of producing top-rate journalism while
incubating new models intended to shape
the future of the craft, the barely twoyear-old workshop already has established
itself as a key player in the changing
journalistic ecosystem.
“There is a wild kind of adventurism going on. It’s really a thrilling time,”
says School of Communication professor
Charles Lewis, the workshop’s cofounder
and executive editor. “I don’t know what it
all means, but we’re clearly on the cutting
edge of whatever is unfolding here. I hope
that we help shape the future of journalism.
If we do anything less, I’ll be disappointed.”
If anyone can figure out where investigative journalism is headed, it’s Lewis, a
former 60 Minutes producer and the Yoda
of journalism nonprofits. Two decades ago
he founded the Center for Public Integrity,
a nonprofit dedicated to “producing original investigative journalism about significant public issues.” It was a game changer.
No longer would investigative reporting be
the exclusive purview of big-city dailies and
television networks, whose executives often
targeted the investigative desk when they set
out to trim newsroom fat.
“Investigative reporting is very
expensive, and it takes a lot of time and
reporting firepower,” said Rem Rieder,
editor and senior vice president of American Journalism Review. “It’s one of those
things that’s very vulnerable as traditional
news outlets face economic problems. If
it’s a question of whether I’m going to
keep three investigative reporters or staff
the school board beat, city hall, and the
cop shop, you can see where that choice
is going.”
Lewis went on to found other
journalism nonprofits, and today there
are upwards of 30 similar organizations
churning out investigative news.
“There’s a diaspora of immensely
talented journalists with nowhere to
work,” he says from his New Mexico
Avenue office in Washington, D.C.
“They’re starting these things themselves
and becoming publishers. It’s happening
directly because of the implosion of commercial newsrooms. The profession and
business of journalism are in crisis, so it’s
our job to assist.”
At the School of Communication
Lewis hopes not only to continue his life’s
work of effectively, as he says, “investigating the bastards,” but to create new ways
“There is a wild kind of adventurism going
on. It’s really a thrilling time . . . I don’t know
what it all means, but we’re clearly on the
cutting edge of whatever is unfolding here . . .”
Chuck Lewis in his office. Behind him is a photo from 60 Minutes.
may 2010 
for investigative journalism to survive,
and possibly even thrive.
“We’re the only investigative
reporting or nonprofit center looking at new models devoted to the
future entrepreneurialism of investigative journalism,” he says. “I hope
we become a beacon of information
about what people are trying, and also
will create new models that are useful
around the world. I have great hopes
and ambitions.”
And a track record of success.
I
t didn’t take Lewis, a native Delawarean, long to find his calling.
“The first signs of me being a pain in
the ass in terms of asking inconvenient
questions was when I worked at the
Wilmington News Journal at age 17 in the
sports department as a clerk,” he says. “I
was there four years from six [p.m.] to
one in the morning while I was going to
college. I started to investigate subjects
like the football team. I found out the
captain was only taking one class.”
But Lewis’s true epiphany struck when
he wrote a 189-page undergraduate thesis
during his senior year at the University of
Delaware about the U.S. destabilization
of Chilean president Salvador Allende
Gossens in the early 1970s.
“I interviewed Seymour Hersh, who
had broken the first news story about
how we had spent millions of dollars directed by Nixon and Kissinger,” Lewis recalls. “[Allende] was a Marxist president,
but he was also democratically elected.
My youthful idealism was fascinated and
slightly offended; what right did the U.S.
have to go into a sovereign country?”
After earning a master’s in advanced
international studies from Johns Hopkins
University, Lewis landed a job at ABC
News, where he worked in the investigative unit for six and a half years. From
there he climbed to the mountaintop: 60
Minutes, where he was a producer for the
legendary Mike Wallace.
His second story was a 1986 piece on
the savings and loan crisis. It was the first
investigative story about the S&L finan american
On the changing newspaper business: “People
serious about public life
worry about the impact on
democracy. Are citizens
going to be informed
enough to make intelligent choices?”
cial scandal on prime-time television in
the United States, but over the course of
his run at 60 Minutes, he found that serious, investigative pieces were not always
easy to get on the air.
“As I look back, I think there was
something in my craw,” he says. “Mike
Wallace, when I quit 60 Minutes, said
that all investigative reporters are angry.
We started screaming at each other using
expletives, and I realized there is something about investigative reporters that
there’s a sense of injustice that things
are not as they should be. I always loved
the description John Kennedy gave to
himself, ‘An idealist without illusions.’
Investigative journalists are not the grim
reaper, they actually do have a sense of
idealism, because their sense of idealism is
offended. The gap fascinates us.”
I
n 1989 Lewis embarked on his new
life path as a “serial foundation founder,”
which today has led to the Investigative
Reporting Workshop at AU. Hatched in
2008, its first project was BankTracker, a
search tool created by senior editor and
workshop cofounder Wendell Cochran
that allows anyone to check the financial
health of any bank in the nation.
Released online in conjunction with
msnbc.com, it drew 50,000 hits its first
day. Since then, investigativereporting
workshop.org has registered 6.5 million
page views (BankTracker has racked up 2
million hits on msnbc.com).
“It’s a good marriage,” said Bill Dedman,
an investigative reporter with msnbc.com.
“Useful information for our readers,
and we can bring a wider audience to
the work of the Investigative Reporting
Workshop. Msnbc.com is the mostvisited news Web site in the U.S., with
roughly twice the number of users as the
New York Times.”
Partnering with commercial news
organizations is one of the workshop’s
key strategies. Along with the msnbc.com
deal, it has an agreement with the PBS
show Frontline and has partnered with
or been covered by Financial Times, ABC
World News Tonight, Huffington Post
Investigative Fund, the New York Times,
the Washington Post, and McClatchy
newspapers. In addition, it is one of four
nonprofits whose content is distributed
by the Associated Press.
“Our projects have to be seen by a
lot of people, so in terms of visibility, it’s
not enough to just put them on our Web
site,” Lewis says. “The eviscerated newsrooms need content, and the nonprofits
need eyeballs because if they’re not doing
anything useful and no one notices,
they’re not going to get funding.”
F
inding funding is a serious challenge
for the nonprofits. A project by AU’s
Institute for Interactive Journalism has
found that from 2005 through the end of
February foundations handed out $142
million to organizations for news and journalism (not counting public broadcasting).
But with those dollars come questions
about influence and impartiality.
“Several years ago there would have
been a lot of hand wringing and gnashing
of teeth over this, because there’s always
the fear that if you’re taking people’s
money, that is going to [affect] content,”
Rieder said. “But the crisis has made
people a lot more open to trying new
things. People serious about public life
worry about the impact on democracy.
Are citizens going to be informed enough
to make intelligent choices?”
In January the workshop received a
$600,000 MacArthur Foundation grant.
That, plus an annual budget of $1.5 million
enables 11 full-time employees, including
four AU alumni, to produce content across
the spectrum of new media. Workshop
journalists have reported on issues including
stimulus money going to foreign companies, the nuclear energy lobby’s push, and
the rise in thyroid cancer.
It’s all done with an eye toward the
ultimate goal: exposing the unvarnished
truth.
“So much journalism is stenography
now,” Lewis says. “There’s a function required to report what those in power say,
but there’s a need to also tell us whether
or not what they just said is a crock.
That’s where I come in. I just have to do this.
I have a DNA problem, it’s just part of who I
am. I should be in rehab or something.
“My goal in life now is very simple: to
enlarge the public space for investigative
journalism.” n
HED
Investigative
Impact
The Investigative Reporting Workshop has published eight major projects since its inception,
including Big Nuke’s Power Play, Connected, Flying Cheap, and Wired for Health Care. Four
reporters share in their own words what motivated them to undertake their investigations.
Thyroid Cancer “I was intrigued by data that showed
The DeParle Portfolio “The DeParle story raised
thyroid cancer diagnoses were increasing at a faster rate than those for
any other cancer.
The project shined
a light on the
medical community’s about-face:
The increase in
thyroid cancer cases was real and not just the result of better detection
and screening.”
—Caroline Stetler
questions about the new administration’s promises of transparency.
While promising a fresh start, the White
House was drawing on people with long histories on the for-profit side of the health care
industry and in the case of health czar DeParle
had made millions of dollars from those interests, which of course had a huge stake in the
outcome of health reform.”
Blown Away “I first ran across the story when I was working as a reporter at [the Bureau of National Affairs]. I was assigned
to write a story about job-creation potential of wind energy, but I
noticed all of the
companies I was
looking at were
based overseas.
Statistics from the
American Wind
Energy Association indicated that, at best, just under 50 percent of turbines were
built in the U.S. “This clashed with my image of what the wind industry is—it
struck me as something as almost iconically American. I thought of
images of wooden windmills spinning in Kansas and environmentalists
in California in the 1970s. It’s true, the U.S. did invent the modern
wind turbine, but a lot has changed since then. “Knowing that a lot of the companies involved in the industry
were foreign-based, and that the stimulus bill had a lot of money for
renewable energy, I thought it might be worth looking at who was
asking for all this money—were foreign companies inserting themselves into our legislative process via lobbyists? It turns out that they
are, but their lobbying is still fairly small-scale. What was stunning and
undeniable was the amount of money foreign-based companies began
picking up when grants were announced.”
—Russ Choma —Fred Schulte
BankTracker “I first started covering banking in the late
1970s as a reporter in Kansas City and Des Moines and later covered
the S&L crisis in Des Moines and Washington. So I have been interested in banking for much of my career.
“When the financial crisis of 2008 came along, we had just started
the workshop and I was looking around for a topic and this seemed
like a natural fit. The difference now is the ability to use the Web to let
the audience have a much more interactive experience with the data.
“I think we have made it clear that the banking crisis was not
confined to a small group
of very large banks, but
that the bad lending
practices, especially around
mortgages, affected a wide
segment of the industry. I
also have been somewhat
startled that the problem of
troubled loans and foreclosures continues to grow. The overall decline
in lending also is remarkable, actually historic.”
—Wendell Cochran
Graphics by Lynne Perri and Lisa Hill
may 2010 
A Creative Commons Protects Property
By Mike Unger
T
he dawning of the digital age has led the arts and
the law to a crossroads, and Washington College of
Law professor Michael Carroll is helping direct traffic.
A teacher, scholar, lawyer, and a
founder of the landmark nonprofit online
licensing site CreativeCommons.org,
Carroll has immersed himself in cyber law,
an umbrella term for the myriad ways the
law responds to the Internet. “I want these bodies of law to do their
job properly,” he says. “Intellectual property law has a job to do in society, and it’s
generally to promote the progress of science and useful arts. We’ve always known
that progress requires a balance of interests.
“Copyright is automatic. You have
to do something to change the deal. We
wanted to make it quick and easy for
creators to let the world know, hey, I’m
sharing this, but I want to keep a couple
of rights.”
Creative Commons’ copyrights have
become ubiquitous on the Web. There are
more than 200 million links to its license
page, and in 2008 President Obama’s
campaign page used one of the organization’s copyrights.
“We’re now up to about 50 countries,”
Carroll says. “There’s a whole network of
people who see the value of open content.
For me there were different moments of
"This is as powerful as the
introduction of the printing press. It changes the
way we communicate, it
changes the way we think.
It's thrilling."
Michael Carroll
“The speed of technological advance
makes it hard, because even if we get the
balance right, it’s yesterday’s balance.”
Seeking to bring some order to
the Wild West of information on the
Internet, Carroll cofounded Creative
Commons in 2001. The nonprofit creates
online legal and technical tools that
enable people to copyright their work
for free.
 american
fulfillment. The first one was when the
New York Times started telling people
their content was under a Creative
Commons license.”
The organization now is delving into
the worlds of education and science, hoping to make it easier for people to share
their research in a legal manner.
"This is as powerful as the introduction
of the printing press. It changes the way
we communicate, it changes the way we
think. It’s thrilling." n
Copyright cartoons from CreativeCommons.
org, the nonprofit Web site Carroll cofounded
to provide legal tools so people can copyright
their work for free.
Best Practices Make Space for Creative Use
By Sally Acharya
T
o Pat Aufderheide, ethics has more to do with tools
than rules.
Tools to ensure that the subjects of
films know what they’re getting into
when they agree to be filmed. Tools to
shine a light on the ethical challenges of
documentary filmmaking. And tools that
allow creators and scholars to navigate
the changing media world, where people
who want to use snippets of copyrighted
work—such as a song playing on the
radio during an interview—are often
stymied by fear of lawsuits.
Aufderheide and Washington College
of Law professor Peter Jaszi helped create
codes of best practices of fair use to
empower artists to exercise their creative
freedom boldly and safely.
Talking with filmmakers about their
challenges opened the floodgates to an
even broader topic: ethics in documentary films. That led to the report “Honest
Truths: Documentary Filmmakers on
Ethical Challenges in Their Work,” which
has caused a stir in the film community
with its frank discussion of concerns that
are seldom laid on the table.
“There’s a strong belief among
documentarians that it’s really important
to be ethical. At the same time, they’ve
found themselves routinely in situations
where they felt they were betraying this
fundamental part of their identity,” says
Aufderheide, whose work with the Center
for Social Media has established her as a
leading voice in new media scholarship.
Promised anonymity, filmmakers
spoke frankly for the report. The School
of Communication professor and her fellow researchers were focused not on finding out what’s “right,” but on providing a
map of the perceived ethical challenges.
For instance, is it ethical to pay subjects
for their time? In journalism, the answer
is a clear no. “But many filmmakers find
that’s far too rigid a rule,” Aufderheide
notes. “They’re not just interviewing
someone and walking away. They’re effectively living with them, maybe for years.
They also get asked to do things that are
very complicated. Are you supposed to
bail somebody out of jail? Get them into
a drug treatment program?
“What we discovered is not only do
they have these ethical conflicts, but they
don’t have any public conversation about
them. They live in a small world where
they’re very sure if they don’t take a job
somebody else will, and it would be unsafe to their reputation, to their careers,
to openly acknowledge their conflicts.”
Her goal isn’t to regulate practices,
Pat Aufderheide
but to spark honest and open discussion.
“I think nobody wants to be lectured at,
nobody wants to be told how to behave,”
says Aufderheide. “But if people themselves deliberate, what they come up
with is not a set of rules, but a way to
think which will help them deal with
these issues.” n
may 2010 
Cue
the
Animals
How did they get that shot?
By Sally Acharya
 american
You turn on the television and seem to get a glimpse into the secret
lives of bears. Deep in the woods, a bear is scavenging in the carcass
of a deer. She seems eager to enjoy her feast. The camera in the wildlife
documentary zooms in for a close-up.
The animal turns, rises, and bares her fangs in a heart-stopping snarl.
Watching on television, you’re fascinated. What an amazing image to
capture! How many weeks or months were spent in the wild, battling the
elements, braving danger, waiting for that moment?
Shooting in the arctic during the production of Sea Ghosts. Photo: Carrie Vonderhaar, Ocean Futures Society/KQED.
may 2010 
Warning: If you don’t want to be disappointed, don’t
On wildlife
shows as reality TV:
Wildlife documentaries,
like all documentaries, are
reality television, but in a
good sense: they feed a
hunger we have for a direct
experience that isn’t always
available to us. But more
recently we’ve seen that
devolve into an appetite for
watching human beings do
stupid, humiliating, and
even dangerous things . . .
As many producers see it,
the public has seen so
much that well-behaved
wildlife films no longer
cut it.
—Shooting in the Wild
read any farther. The photographer’s secret isn’t just
patience. It may also involve jelly beans.
Wildlife filmmaker Chris Palmer lets
the public in on the secrets of the trade
in a book released this spring, Shooting in
the Wild: An Insider’s Account of Making
Movies in the Animal Kingdom.
It’s an outgrowth of his teaching
approach in his classes and at the School
of Communication’s Center for Environmental Filmmaking, where students learn
to make films that focus attention on the
conservation of the natural world.
An environmental documentary is,
at its heart, an ethical endeavor. It’s also
entertainment, of course, or it wouldn’t
succeed. But unlike narrative filmmakers,
documentarians have to come to terms
with what Palmer calls the “unspoken
promise” made to viewers: that what is
shown on the screen really happened.
When an action hero leaps a chasm
or escapes a fireball, no one is surprised
that visual trickery is involved. “But when
you make a documentary,” Palmer says,
“there’s an understanding between the
director, producer, and audience, that
what’s there is real.”
But that’s not always the case. “The
bottom line is there is so much deception,” Palmer says.
When his students go into the real
world of wildlife filmmaking—much of
which is produced in Washington, D.C.,
often called the capital of documentary
filmmaking—they’ll face a form of pressure familiar to Palmer. In a field increasingly dominated by what he calls “Fang
TV and Nature Porn,” the main goal
of many shows is simply to get the audience’s heart racing with stories of
“killer” beasts.
A capuchin monkey climbs on the cameraman’s shoulder at a Peruvian animal orphanage during the
filming of Return to the Amazon. Photo: Carrie Vonderhaar, Ocean Futures Society/KQED.
 american
Even in the most scientifically
focused projects, tight budgets and
schedules can mean the pressure is on
to “get a shot quickly.” If that means
stuffing a deer carcass with jelly beans,
bringing in a trained bear to fish them
out, and then getting it to snarl at the
camera on cue, that’s more efficient and
cost-effective than waiting weeks or
months for the “money shot.”
Palmer tells of the filmmaker who
placed a rattlesnake in a mouse cage to
ensure it would smell like a mouse and
be tantalizing to a king snake, who then
obligingly devoured it on film. A great
image, and not untrue to life—snakes
do eat other snakes—but also not quite
what it seemed.
Shots are sometimes staged on
created sets. The famed director David
Attenborough defended his use of staging in nature films—filming scorpions,
for instance, in a studio with a painted
sunset and Styrofoam clouds—in the
most practical of terms.
Palmer quotes Attenborough as
saying. “If you say, ‘I wish to explain
Filming an arctic fox for the BBC documentary Polar
Bear Special. Photo: Doug Allan
how scorpions copulate, because it’s very
interesting,’ then you have to do that as
clearly as you can. It may involve getting
them to do it on glass, so that you can
see underneath. It will certainly involve
getting an adult male scorpion and an
adult female scorpion together. What it
does not involve is sitting around in
the Mojave Desert for nine months,
waiting for some scorpions to copulate
by your feet.”
Many of the best wildlife filmmakers
do, indeed, spend months in the wild
waiting for a shot. That’s what was
done for the BBC’s Planet Earth. The
hugely popular show proved that conscientious filmmaking could also be a
ratings grabber.
But blue-chip wildlife programs
spend about $1 million per hour of film.
Most filmmakers don’t have that luxury,
and have to balance their desire to tell
an interesting and scientifically accurate
story with the realities of funding and
the challenges of getting shots.
Get the Money
Shot
Palmer has produced hundreds of hours
of television and IMAX films, including
Whales, India: Kingdom of the Tiger,
Dolphins, Wolves, Coral Reef Adventure,
and Bears. He is distinguished film
producer in residence at the School of
Communication, where he founded the
Center for Environmental Filmmaking.
In his book and classroom, Palmer
uses his own experiences with ethical gray areas to illustrate the real-life
challenges faced by filmmakers. In the
IMAX film Whales, Palmer and the film
crew were scrupulous about scientific
accuracy, but they were also out to
create an exciting piece of cinema. They
needed a story, and a good story needs a
narrative arc: a hero or heroine presented
with a difficult task, facing obstacles, and
finally winning against the odds.
So the film introduced a humpback
mother they called Misty and her calf,
Echo, who set out on a 3,000 mile
journey from Hawaii to Alaska. It’s true
captions here Palmer tells of the filmmaker who placed
of the filmmaker who placed a rattlesnake in a
A sea lion approaches the camera during production on the IMAX film Under the Sea 3D. Photo: Michele
Hall/howardhall.com
may 2010 
On digital
manipulation:
Audiences don’t
realize the degree to
which some wildlife
films contain digitally
manipulated images.
They assume they’re
watching authentic
and natural images of
wildlife behavior, but
they may not be. Animals in herds can be
multiplied, blood can
be added, unsightly
roads or people can be
erased, and the gap
between predator and
prey can be reduced.
—Shooting in the Wild
that whales make such journeys, and that
they face the precise dangers described in
the film, such as accidental collisions
with boats.
But the whales filmed at the end,
in Alaska, were not the same “Misty”
and “Echo” filmed swimming off from
Hawaii. For practical reasons, they simply
couldn’t be. The invented story made the
film more dramatic, served the cause of
whale conservation, and painted an
accurate picture of life among whales.
Yet Palmer found that when he told
people the story behind the films, they
were visibly disappointed. He realized
that he’d let his audience down. It was as
if he’d betrayed a trust. They didn’t think
they were getting an invented story that
showed a truth; they wanted to see the
truth itself. He now believes that, if such
devices as staging and trained animals
must be used—which sometimes is the
most practical and least invasive approach—the audience should be given the
information in voice-overs or credits. A
documentary filmmaker should educate as
well as entertain, and finding subtle ways
to share information with the audience
about how a film was made is part of
the job.
Fang TV and
Wildlife Paparazzi
Perhaps the greatest challenge faced by
young filmmakers is the networks’ need
to generate ratings, which often means
hyped-up footage that portrays wildlife as
dangerous and deadly.
“Networks are driven by money,” says
Palmer. “When the head of a network
is assessed by his or her board, do you
think anyone asks, ‘What did you do for
conservation?’ No, they demand profits.”
So instead of a balanced depiction
of, say, ocean predators such as sharks
or squid, filmmakers under pressure to
capture heart-pounding footage may seed
the water with bloody tidbits to incite
man-made feeding frenzies.
There is also the growth in popularity of the charismatic, in-your-face host
who grabs snakes, walks up to bears, and
may even eat grubs by the handful. It’s
gripping television, Palmer says, and some
of these hosts are sincere conservationists
who may be trained naturalists.
But in the pressure to grab viewers,
they’ve set a trend of getting close to
animals—stressing the animals, creating
unreal scenarios, and putting themselves
in danger—that is being emulated by
lesser-skilled hosts in a slew of relatively
cheap shows, and may also be tried by
amateurs with video cameras for
YouTube sites.
Easier Taught
than Done
One of the goals of SOC’s Center for
Environmental Filmmaking is to produce
a generation of environmental filmmakers
who are excellent craftspeople and also
behave ethically in the field. Of course,
notes Palmer, that’s easier taught
than done.
“The reality is, you’re sent out and you
get three days to get footage of certain
On sound:
Getting a cameraman close enough to a bear or other wild animal to record those sounds
is risky. The cameramen I work with use long telephoto lenses to get close to our subjects. Sounds are usually added in post-production . . .
A person chomping on celery becomes a lion biting into a wildebeest, squeezing a rubber
glove full of talcum powder doubles for footsteps in the snow, and flapping an umbrella
suggests an eagle taking off. —Shooting in the Wild
 american
animals doing certain things,” he says. “If you
come back without footage you’re not going
to get hired again. You’ve got to pay for your
food, rent, mortgage. The pressure is immense.”
It’s a difficult balancing act, and one that
has to be approached in both practical and
ethical terms. Palmer proposes a plan for wildlife filmmaking reform modeled on the work
of ethical filmmakers highlighted in his book.
AU’s Larry Engel, for example, has managed
to shoot in Antarctica without interfering
with wildlife. It was harder, and took a lot
of patience, but Engel won an Emmy for
his work.
If pressure from ratings and networks has
led to ethical lapses, he believes, it can also
correct those lapses. “I hope the audience will
become much more informed, and much
more demanding of these films—that they’ll
look at them and say, ‘Wait a minute. How
did they get that shot? Was that really an animal caught in a storm, or was someone hosing
it? When that character jumped in next to the
mother and cub, was that a smart thing to do?’
By truth telling and providing ethical alternatives that work, Palmer hopes to generate a
different kind of pressure—one that demands
honesty between filmmakers and viewers and
ethical practices in the field.
“Filmmakers have lots of pressure to get
these incredible ‘money shots’ that will dazzle
the audience. If they’re under pressure to
behave honestly and authentically, and not
to so sensationalize animals that they give the
wrong impression, then we can have riveting
television that also fights the good fight.” n
Top: A giant cuttlefish is filmed for the IMAX film
Under the Sea 3D. Photo: Peter Krag, used with
permission of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.
Middle: Filming a sidewinder snake for the documentary
Death Valley. Photo: Rachael Wilson, NHNZ.
Bottom: A marine cinematographer shoots highdefinition footage of a 15-foot great white shark. Photo:
Dennis Coffman, SOS Ltd.
may 2010 
Marking
History
AU public history students work to tell the stories
of one of America’s most moving landmarks
J
ust before one hour bleeds into another on an unseasonably warm March morning, the masses begin filing onto
the Memorial Amphitheater steps across from the Tomb of the Unknowns.
The changing of the guard that perpetually stands vigil over this iconic American landmark is a can’t-miss for
most of the four million camera-clutching tourists who each year visit Arlington National Cemetery, one of the most
poignant and powerful plots of U.S. soil.
Yet most of the cemetery’s 624 rolling acres remain a mystery to the public, an unfortunate fact that
American University history professor Kathleen Franz and a handful of her students are hoping to change.
Working with the National Park Service, Franz and her public history graduate students have developed an interpretive plan to create 20 to 25 wayside exhibits—informational signs—that would educate visitors about important
sites throughout the cemetery and Arlington House, once Robert E. Lee’s home.
“People get a certain level of interpretation from their tourmobile guide, but if they start walking around there’s
nothing to tell them what they’re seeing or why it’s important,” Franz says. “Arlington Cemetery is full of monuments
put there mostly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to remind the American
By Mike Unger
public of their great losses. But the memorials don’t speak to us the way they spoke
to Americans in, say, 1910, so what we’ve done is go back and mark the markers to
give people more historical context.”
The project largely is the result of collaboration between Franz and her former student, Emily Weisner, CAS/MA ’07,
now a park ranger at Arlington House. Located on 19 acres within the cemetery, which is a Department of the
Army entity, Arlington House was built by Martha Washington’s grandson, George Washington Parke Custis, and
his slaves. It was a working plantation and home to the Custis-Lee family for three decades before the Union army
 american
“People come and they
know about Arlington
House and they know
about Kennedy’s grave
and the changing of the
guard . . . We’d like to tell
the stories of the nurses’
section, or the chaplains’
section, or the astronauts
who are here.”
Proposed wayside exhibits for
Arlington National Cemetery
and Arlington House
—Emily Weisner ’07
may 2010 
“The thing about public history is not necessarily to give
visitors answers, it’s to have them question themselves.”
—Loren Miller ’10
occupied it during the Civil War and began burying
fallen soldiers on its grounds.
“We were looking for ways to partner with the
cemetery, and we thought this was a great way to
draw attention to some of the lesser known stories,”
Weisner says. “People come and they know about
Arlington House and they know about Kennedy’s
grave and the changing of the guard, but there are so
many sections of this place that nobody thinks about
visiting. We’d like to tell the stories of the nurses’
section, or the chaplains’ section, or the astronauts
who are here.”
Park ranger Emily Weisner ’07 giving a tour at Arlington House
 american
A
rlington Cemetery is a paradox. The final
resting place for more than 300,000 of
the nation’s bravest warriors and greatest
leaders—presidents, Supreme Court justices, generals,
explorers, athletes—is also an unquestioned tourist
attraction.
“There are few wayside exhibits in Arlington because we are still a very active cemetery,” says Thomas
Sherlock, Arlington’s official historian. “There are 27
to 30 funerals a day, and we don’t have signs in our
active burial sections. But we would place some of
these signs in our older sections to educate visitors on
The Tomb of the Unknown
Civil War Dead
Partial text of proposed wayside exhibit
“This tomb includes the remains of Union and
Confederate dead that were collected from the
battlefield at Bull Run and along the Rappahannock
River and reburied here in Arlington. Like almost
half of the men who died in the Civil War, the soldiers buried in this tomb remain unidentified . . .
“Across the cemetery, a newer Tomb of the
Unknowns, built after World War I, continues this
tradition as a focal point of public ceremonies such
as Memorial Day. Each of the unknowns honored
at Arlington represents all the servicemen and
women who gave their lives for their country in
both past and present wars.”
the historical significance of locations in the cemetery.
These signs will put a historical perspective on not
only Arlington’s history, but also the history of our
armed forces and country.”
Since 2008 about 10 students have worked on the
project. They began by researching the cemetery and
Arlington House, studying visitation patterns, and
identifying specifically which landmarks might benefit
from a wayside exhibit.
“Interpretation is important for public history
because it gets us all talking about the past,” Franz
says. “What it meant then but also what it means for
our lives today. This is a very important public space,
and it contributes to our civic life in deep ways.”
After selecting more than 20 sites for signs,
students researched, wrote, and designed five. Loren
Miller ’10 worked on a wayside for the Women’s
Memorial, which was dedicated in 1997.
“I wanted to focus on the process of creating the
memorial,” she says. “It wasn’t created until the early
’90s, and women have been serving in the military
since World War I. I was interested in why their
official memory wasn’t created until the ’90s. I didn’t
want to come to a conclusion, I just wanted to make
visitors question that. The thing about public history
is not necessarily to give visitors answers, it’s to have
them question themselves.”
Other exhibits already created include Freedmen’s
Village, a community of former slaves that included
a hospital, church, and school in what is now Section
47 of the cemetery.
“There’s no imprint on the property, so the sign
will address the place and connect it to Arlington
House, where some of the slaves worked, and back
to Section 27, where a lot of former residents of
Freedmen’s Village are buried,” Weisner says. “It allows people to have a more complete experience.”
The five completed signs are in the hands of
the park service for review. Whether the exhibits,
which cost about $2,000 each, are produced is up
to the park service and cemetery. While that process
unfolds, a new group of Franz’s students continues
to create more.
“There’s no way I could train public historians
without a class like this, which is based on learning
by doing,” Franz says. “You can learn how to write a
history paper in a history class, but you couldn’t really learn how to do this kind of public work unless
you were working on a team, with a partner, with a
real objective subject to the same constraints that it
would be if you were working on site.”
S
hortly after one soldier from the Third U.S.
Infantry assumes the guard over the Tomb of
the Unknowns from another, in a ceremony
sure to send goose bumps up the spine of even
the most indifferent observer, most of the tourists
quickly disperse.
None stroll to the north, where in Mary Lee’s
rose garden stands another tomb of unknown soldiers, this one honoring 2,111 nameless men slain
in the Civil War. If a wayside exhibit, above, slated
for this tomb is constructed, perhaps its inhabitants
won’t rest so alone. n
may 2010 
Class notables
SO YOU CAN CATCH UP WITH PEOPLE YOU KNEW AT AU
Helping Haiti
In Washington and on the ground in Haiti, January’s devastating 7.0 earthquake moved the AU community to
action. Here, three alumni and a student—some with deep ties to the Caribbean nation and some simply with
a deeply-rooted desire to help—share their stories of despair and hope in Haiti. For stories of other alums who
worked to help Haiti, see american.edu/americanmagazine.
Nicole Dionne, SIS/BA ’07
Dionne graduated summa cum laude from the Honors Program with
a degree in international relations. After the earthquake devastated
Haiti in January, she wrote of her remarkable tale.
I’m a second year master’s student in public health at Emory
University. Since the beginning of the summer, I have been collecting thesis data on diabetes at Hôpital Albert Schweitzer Haiti.
The hospital is located about 90 km north of Port-au-Prince and
serves nearly 300,000 patients in the Artibonite Valley.
I was in the car stopped outside the hospital’s office in Portau-Prince when the earthquake hit. I didn’t understand what was
happening until I saw the buildings around us start to fall. We ran
down the street because a three-story school had collapsed. People
rushed to help free children and teachers from the rubble. Thousands
flooded the streets and other open spaces in fear that aftershocks
would ruin the few remaining buildings. A heavy cloud of dust rose
over the city as the sun began to set.
On the ride back to the hospital, we listened carefully to the radio
broadcasts. Reports of collapsed buildings and fatalities rushed the
airwaves. In our packed van we sat in stunned silence for the entire
four-hour ride. Despite the broadcasts, it wasn’t immediately ap-
 american
Nicole Dionne ’07
parent how catastrophic the earthquake had been. It wasn’t until the
following morning that the gravity of the situation became clear. We
were without functioning phone lines, so many people waited to hear
news from missing friends and family. The mood in the street shifted
constantly—hugs and shouts of “hallelujah” when loved ones were
found safe and tears and wails when they were not.
While there was no damage to the hospital or its immediate
surroundings, it was flooded with patients. They arrived by any
means possible: motorcycles, the back of pickup trucks, buses.
Hundreds waited to be seen by doctors, many with makeshift
splints and other bandages. A week later, patients were still arriving. Hospital staff have been working non-stop, despite the fact
that they too had missing or injured friends and family. There
were more than 250 patients waiting for surgery, many with
multiple broken bones and other trauma.
The ability of people to come together in a time of crisis is
inspiring. Community members and local organizations brought
hot meals, water, and care packages to patients. Non-medical
hospital staff worked around-the-clock to help any way they
could, including comforting patients. Even the aid community
banded together by sharing medical supplies and other resources.
It would be nice if the media had portrayed Haitians as I have
witnessed them: giving, compassionate, and community-minded,
rather than focusing on the few acts of ill will in Port-au-Prince.
As a student of global public health, I have learned a lot from
seeing the emergency relief process. We spend all this time in the
classroom learning about preparedness, and to see the plans in
action is completely different. With every disaster response, we can
improve. If it weren’t for school starting, I would’ve stayed at the
hospital and continued helping. This tragedy has motivated me to
finish my degree and get out working in the field.
—Nicole Dionne
Kenneth Merten, SPA/MPA ’86
On January 12, U.S. ambassador to Haiti Kenneth Merten and
his family were busy with their daily lives when the earthquake
struck, killing 230,000 people and leaving a million more
homeless.
“I was in the house,” he remembers. “Lt. General [Kenneth]
Keen had arrived, and we were going to have a reception that
evening to introduce him to his counterparts from the Haitian
government. We had just sat down when the earthquake struck,
and we ran out of the house. I was screaming for my wife and
daughters and dog—all were upstairs. You couldn’t get your balance because the earth was shaking so much. I could see the brick
and cement house shaking.
“Often people have a terrible stereotype [of federal employ-
U.S. ambassador to Haiti Kenneth Merten ’86 speaking to media shortly after the earthquake.
may 2010 
The reality is the Haitian people have behaved
with tremendous grace and dignity. Most have
lost everything they ever had, and they’ve
lined up peacefully for food; they’re dealing with huge levels of uncertainty, a lot of
personal loss, and I’m not sure how many other
nations on the planet would deal as well.
—Kenneth Merten ’86 ees], but I’ve seen a lot of dedicated diplomats, aid professionals, and soldiers out there. We’ve evacuated more than 16,000
Americans and a lot of people who worked to make that happen
are State Department and consular. They’re working 20-hour days
and sleeping in the office. [Despite] having lost everything, they
have to make it happen for others.”
Since the earthquake, Merten’s routines have changed.
He used to talk mostly to the Haitian press; now, he’s speaking with reporters from all over the world. And his wife and two
daughters are in D.C., after being evacuated with other “nonmission critical personnel . . . A lot of folks are doubled up,” says
Merten, who now shares his house with colleagues.
This is his first post as an ambassador, but it’s his third tour in
Haiti. In 1988 and 1989, Merten was vice consul issuing immigrant and tourist visas. When he returned from 1998 to 2000, he
was “economic consular looking out for U.S. investments, encouraging those looking to invest.” Between those posts, he worked as a
special advisor to the Clinton administration.
“We want to work with the Haiti government to make sure
whatever we do helps them take control of the situation,” says the
ambassador. “I think 13 of the 15 ministries physically don’t exist
anymore, and a lot of people were trapped or died . . . So, they
have their challenges.
“One thing I’ve found is this misconception about the
Haitians [that they] were going to turn violent and what would
provoke them . . . The reality is the Haitian people have behaved
with tremendous grace and dignity. Most have lost everything
they ever had, and they’ve lined up peacefully for food; they’re
dealing with huge levels of uncertainty, a lot of personal loss,
and I’m not sure how many other nations on the planet would deal
as well. ”
—Melissa Reichley
 american
Ari Katz, SIS ’11
Inaction wasn’t an option for Ari Katz.
The AU junior is a volunteer firefighter and former cadet in
the United States Air Force Auxiliary Civil Air Patrol, so when he
saw the horrific images of human suffering in Haiti following the
devastating earthquake, he knew what he had to do.
That he would eventually catch a ride to Haiti as a passenger
on Hollywood legend John Travolta’s plane speaks to the 20-yearold’s stubborn persistence. After inquiring about joining the
relief effort with a number of organizations only to encounter
dead ends, Katz simply walked to the front door of the Haitian
embassy and knocked.
“They put me in contact with a woman who was putting together a trip sponsored by John Travolta,” he says. “It took a little
selling, but they eventually agreed that it was a good idea.”
Katz boarded a plane from Reagan National Airport to Clearwater, Florida, where he disembarked carrying enough food and
water for two weeks.
There, standing
among 20 other volunteers, Katz was introduced to the pilot of the
next leg of his journey—Travolta himself.
Ari Katz ’11 speaks with
John Travolta, who flew
volunteers, including Katz,
into Haiti to work in the
relief effort.
“He made an effort to meet everybody there,” Katz recalls. “He
was a really nice, genuine guy.”
Travolta piloted his personal 707 to Port-au-Prince, where
he helped the volunteers unload supplies. Once on the ground,
the chaotic nature of the situation immediately struck Katz. The
Haitian embassy had asked him to coordinate security and supplies, and secure shelter for a team of doctors (and later 18 water
filtration systems), but with no agency seemingly running the
relief effort, he had to freelance.
“I had to hang out with people and kind of talk up my projects,”
he says.
Katz managed to set up one team of doctors in a hostel and
one in a soccer field, and then ventured out with another medical
team to villages surrounding the city. In these towns he treated
Haitians using donated bandages, saline, IVs, scalpels, antibiotics,
Tylenol, and ibuprofen.
“I was helping people not only with trauma issues from the
earthquake, but also primary care issues that had been neglected
for years and years,” he says.
Particularly poignant was an encounter he had with a baby
boy and his mother.
“He had an injured foot from the earthquake,” Katz says.
“The baby was crying, you could tell he was traumatized from
the whole ordeal. I didn’t do much for this kid, all I really did
was clean out his foot, bandage it, and put some ointment on it.
But the baby stopped crying, and you could tell the mother was
thankful. I tickled the kid and he started smiling again.
“I’m extremely glad I did it,” he continues. “I had a desire to
get hands-on. I felt like I connected to it a little more than just
seeing it on the news.”
—Mike Unger
Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, SIS/MA ’70,
SIS/PhD ’77
The dinner table was where Haitian history was taught in the
Bellegarde home and a young Patrick Bellegarde-Smith learned
from a master.
“It was a very patriotic household,” he recalls. “My grandfather was born on the same day as the Haitian flag”—an oftenrepeated family point of pride.
His grandfather, renowned Haitian diplomat and philosopher
Dantes Bellegarde, made his own contributions to Haitian pride
and history. In a career that spanned six decades, Bellegarde served
as the Haitian ambassador to the United States, France, the United
Nations, and the League of Nations.
Taking a cue from the family patriarch, Bellegarde-Smith, 62,
immersed himself in history, but forged his own trail to the U.S.
Virgin Islands and then to the United States. The international
Patrick Bellegarde-Smith ’70, ’77
expert on Haiti and its Vodou religion is a professor at the
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
When the earthquake hit Bellegarde-Smith was in Cuba en
route to a speaking engagement at the French Institute of Haiti.
In the survivors who just kept on going, “I saw history passing
before me,” he says. He wasn’t surprised when, several days after
the tremors, CNN reported on a parade that included praying and
singing in the streets.
The nation has a history of making the best out of a bad
situation, he says.
“Haitian slaves sang while on the auction block. Outsiders
couldn’t understand that, [believing] they must love slavery. But what
do you do when you have no choice? I’d rather be singing, too.”
—Sonja Patterson
may 2010 
on your screen
Buzz
We love your feedback—and, it seems,
you’re happy to oblige.
Within two hours of posting the
commencement speakers on Facebook
and Twitter, 260 people had clicked on
the link and read the announcement.
After 24 hours, more than 700 people
had found the announcement through
social media, including 250 clicks
on Twitter and more than 450 on
Facebook. Here are a few of the 26
tweets that went out regarding the
commencement speakers. A Facebook
update about AU’s exciting, new
partnership with the Smithsonian
Associates also got people talking.
2010 Commencement
on Twitter
caitdouglas Great speakers this year!
RT: @AmericanU: 2010 Commencement
Speakers Announced. http://bit.ly/ckBMM8
#AmericanU
8:44 PM March 24th via web
ianvalentine Awesome speakers all around.
RT @AmericanU: 2010 Commencement
Speakers Announced. http://bit.ly/ckBMM8
#AmericanU
9:17 PM March 24th via Tweetie
BrianKal Wow @americanu some great
grad speakers this year. Chile prez, atty
genl, and dhs secrtry. Good job AU!
9:28 PM Mar 24th via UberTwitter
Singleintheciti RT @AmericanU 2010
Commencement Speakers Announced
http://bit.ly/ckBMM8 #AmericanU I want to
hear Eric Holder~ JBS
10:05 PM Mar 24th via Twitterrific
Let’s keep the conversation rolling.
E-mail editor Linda McHugh at
lmchugh@american.edu or join in
the discussion on Facebook.com/
AmericanUniversity or @AmericanU
on Twitter.
Alexpriest Wow, Eric Holder and Janet
Napolitano will both be speaking at @
American commencements this year! #cool
10:13 PM Mar 24th via Tweetie
Join the conversation
American University “The Smithsonian Associates at AU”
brings world-class Smithsonian programming to American
University’s Katzen Arts Center and Greenberg Theatre in
April. AU alumni, students, faculty and staff can enjoy the
Smithsonian member rate. Visit http://bit.ly/bO9Q7B and
enter code 182304 at checkout.
Smithsonian Resident Associate - Programs at
American University - A Partnership in Learning
bit.ly
We are very pleased to partner with the Smithsonian
Institution to make the distinctive Resident Associate
programs available to an even wider audience.
Washington, D.C., is a remarkable place to learn, ...
02 April at 14:44pm · Comment · Like · Share
21 people like this.
Amy Levine Herman How exciting!
This is a great project!
02 April at 5:05pm · Report
Nancy Morowitz What a great alliance!
02 April at 6:40 pm · Report
Thilina Madushanka great!
03 April at 11:51am · Report
Karen Leckie The joining of two great institutions!
Wonderful opportunity for collaboration to benefit
the wider community!
04 April at 6:27pm · Report
Jane Wilson A terrific partnership!
05 April at 4:25pm · Report
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Call it the architectural icing on the cake. In March, workers
installed solar panels atop the new, 70,000-square-foot School
of International Service building. AU’s green gem will open its
LEED gold-certified doors in May. Photo: Jeff Watts