JEWISH WORLD

BY KARL GROSSMAN T his year 2018 marks my 40th year as a professor of jour- nalism. I started teaching at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury on Long Island in 1978. Each year I’ve had a couple of hundred students which, times 40, comes to a total of thousands of students. We happily recall our teachers, and the opposite is true, too: I fond- ly recall students—and relish in their successes. As a teacher you get to know your students well. Your lives intertwine. Larry Lawson is now director of news and coordinating producer at the New England Sports Network. After I began to teach classes at SUNY/Old Westbury, I started an internship program placing students in media all over the New York Metro Area. I feel internships are vitally important—it’s how I was inspired to go into journalism, an internship as an Antioch College student at the Cleveland Press. I helped Larry, keenly intelligent and personable, get an internship at WCBS-TV in New York. He did well and then, as he told the story on a visit back to Old Westbury a while back, he was offered a job—but working in the mail room at the CBS network. He spoke of not wanting this, of seeking to be a producer, and calling his old professor and asking me — I remember the conversation well — what to do. I advised him to take the job as a “foot in the door.” He said that even though but a mail clerk, he was noticed—and taken under the wings of 60 Minutes’ Ed Bradley and Andy Rooney. And in short order, this young man “from the projects in Brooklyn,” he noted, was a producer at CBS, then moving on to CNN, Black Entertainment Television and ESPN, and is now at the helm of an important sports net- work. There was Sid McCain, daughter of U.S. Senator John McCain. She was my student at Southampton College where, in addition to teach- ing at SUNY/Old Westbury, I taught for 25 years part-time as an adjunct professor until, sadly, it was shut down. Sid has courage and sharpness like her dad. She took my Investigative Reporting course and, being an animal-lover, decided to do a hard-hitting expose in the college newspaper on the treatment of test animals in the psychobiology pro- gram at the college. The professor who ran the program was furious and went after Sid and me, as advi- sor to the paper. I recall the times sit- ting with Sid waiting for a set of tense meetings to begin. In the end, Sid and a free press won. She’s now promotions director at WMSE radio in Milwaukee. A few weeks ago I received an email from Old Westbury graduate Michael Schuch: “Mr. Grossman, This is atypical of me to contact one of my profes- sors — or dare I even say mentors. I want to thank you. A long time ago — about 30 years — you suggested that I intern at Cablevision. I don’t know why. It was a surprise to me. Your recommendation gave me the start to a productive career. I fin- ished the internship and realized I had a love for the technical side of the industry. Since then I’ve started a company that is respected as one of the best in the world at what we do. I often reflect and appreciate that without your suggestion—whatever you saw in me — it may have not been possible. I thank you.” I t doesn’t get any better than that for a professor! Turns out Michael has a compa- ny, CMS Audio/Visual, with offices in New York and London and numerous major global clients. My former student Michelle Imperato is an anchorwoman at WESH-TV in Orlando, Florida; Ed Easton, Jr. is at WINS radio in New York; last year’s Old Westbury grad- uate Moses Nunez, Jr. just got a job as a broadcast operations coordina- tor at NBC in NewYork; Selena Hill Thank You, Professor! Mr. Grossman gets a hand from his former journalism students continued on page 27 24 JEWISH WORLD • JANUARY 26 - FEBRUARY 1, 2018 FIRST PERSON Tim Gannon of the Riverhead News-Review, one of Grossman’s students. Annette Hinkle, community news editor for the Shelter Island Reporter, and an author. Larry Lawson, director of news and coordinating producer of the New England Sports Network.