Justice and Journalism

Director of USC institute talks about listening well, covering social justice issues

by Dawn Withers

Steve Montiel is director of the Institute for Justice and Journalism at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication. Montiel began his journalism career in 1967 at The Arizona Daily Star. He has also worked for The Associated Press, Los Angeles Times and Pacific Stars and Stripes in Vietnam. He also was a spokesman for the 1984 Olympic Games, vice president for communications of the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles, and was the 1985 campaign press secretary for the re-election of Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. Montiel is a co-founder of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, and served as the institute's president and chief executive officer from 1988 to 2000. He can be reached at smontiel@usc.edu. What are some ideas you have for USC's new institute?
The institute's new mission is to strengthen reporting, editing and commentary about issues of justice and civil rights. We're looking at editing as well as reporting and commentary, as well as news coverage. We're going to pursue this mission through fellowships for journalists, through working with non-journalists, especially in the area of commentary. There will be conferences we'll be involved with and we'll be developing model curriculum for university-level education and professional development for experienced journalists and research. Is diversity going to play a factor in the programs offered by USC's Institute for Justice and Journalism?
Racial justice is central to all of the work I feel we'll be doing. There's no doubt that diversity, diversity the way the Maynard Institute thinks about diversity, which is within the Fault Lines framework, all that is integral to the way that I think and I think will be central to what the Institute for Journalism and Justice does also. What made you decide to leave the Maynard Institute to be director of USC's Institute for Justice and Journalism?
I didn't know I was going to do this when I left Maynard. I am a co-founder of the Maynard Institute. I have been involved with institute activities dating back to the original summer program at UC Berkeley in 1976. I had been involved so long as a board member and then I had been president of the Maynard Institute for 12 years when I decided that it was time to move on, to look for other challenges. So my decision about leaving the Maynard Institute was simply that I had been president for 12 years, which was longer than any other individual, and I thought it was time for me to do some different things. It was also time for the institute to have new leadership. Incidentally, the School of Journalism at USC, the Annenberg School of Communication, they were in the process of waiting for funding for the new institute and the director asked if I would be interested and I was immediately interested. What do you think the role of such institutes as the Maynard Institute and USC's Institute for Journalism and Justice is in educating journalists?
I think their roles are slightly different. I think the Maynard Institute's role is to provide journalists with the framework and resources that help them hear and see what they otherwise might not hear or see. The role of the Institute for Justice and Journalism is to provide knowledge, expertise and resources that will help journalists tell stories that otherwise wouldn't be told. Also to bring new voices to the public square, non-journalistic voices, to make sure that people who have expertise have the opportunity to share their thoughts with the public through commentary but also provide a source for journalists writing about social justice issues. Both of those are essential to having news coverage that helps us all see ourselves in our communities. What lights my fire is the notion of all of us having stories and commentary, photography, video images that help us see ourselves whole, as individuals and see our communities in their entirety. That is something I feel pretty passionate about. When it comes to the training of journalism students, what do you feel is the most important lesson they can be taught?
I think the most important lesson is how to listen, how to listen well. When you were on Maynard's faculty for the first summer program in 1976, what did you gain from that experience?
To be on the faculty in 1976, I gained an appreciation for local news coverage. It broaden my horizons, it made me think bigger than I had ever thought before and made me realize the impact that very few people can have and the change few people can bring about. How has your thinking of diversity evolved throughout your career?
From the beginning, I shared with the other founders of the Maynard Institute a truly multiracial, multicultural perspective. I always believed that you don't turn on the diversity faucet for one group of people and not for all groups. All of us, whatever our race and ethnicity, are the beneficiaries of news coverage and staffing of multiracial, multiethnic and multicultural persons. Bob Maynard's Fault Lines framework made me more conscious of generation and geography as fault lines. I think I had been aware of class also but I would say Bob Maynard's Fault Lines framework helped me to think in a fuller way about diversity. What do you feel is the biggest problem facing newsroom diversity today?
The biggest problem is a lack of energy and commitment to having diversity and content in staffing. It doesn't seem that diversity is really a priority for news organizations, especially in the current economic climate. Lack of will in the industry is the biggest problem facing diversity. What advice can you offer to journalists just beginning their careers?
To learn how to listen, to all voices not just voices of officials that conventional wisdom would say are credible. Listen well. Also to let yourself be passionate about journalism and what is possible through journalism.