Monthly Archives: June 2014

Brian Williams to receive SMC award this fall

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By Joe Brandt

Brian Williams, a 12-time Emmy-winner, will speak at the SMC awards ceremony this fall. | Photo courtesy of Justin Stephens, NBC

Brian Williams, a 12-time Emmy-winner, will speak at the SMC awards ceremony this fall. | Photo courtesy of Justin Stephens, NBC

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams and six alumni will receive honors from the School of Media and Communication this fall, SMC announced Monday.

Williams, who has anchored NBC’s national news program since 2004, will receive the Lew Klein Excellence in the Media Award on Sept. 26. Additionally, six SMC alumni will be inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame.

Among these alumni are musician John Oates, of the duo Hall and Oates, and Tracy Davidson, a reporter and anchor from Philadelphia’s NBC 10.

Williams, a 12-time Emmy-winner, will speak to attendees at a special luncheon held in Mitten Hall.

Proceeds from the luncheon will fund approximately 24 SMC scholarships, according to the school’s press release.  Tickets for the reception and luncheon are currently $150 per person.

Past recipients of the Excellence in the Media Award include CNN’s Anderson Cooper, former “The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg, Today Show host Matt Lauer and Robin Roberts of Good Morning America.

Oates commuted to Temple in the late 1960s and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1970. Oates and his musical partner, Daryl Hall, recorded songs in the WRTI studio, back when the station was student-run.

Davidson joined NBC 10 in 1996 as a morning anchor and received a graduate degree from SMC in 2006.

The other Hall of Fame inductees will be Gerhart “Jerry” Klein, chairman of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia, Larry Margasak, formerly of the Associated Press’ Washington bureau, Claire Smith, news editor at ESPN, and Meredith Avakian-Hardaway, director of communications and marketing at the Philadelphia Bar Association.

Joe Brandt can be reached at jbrandt@temple.edu or on Twitter @JBrandt_TU.

Oversight by pilots a possible cause of Katz plane crash

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By Joe Brandt

Pilot error may have contributed to the plane crash that killed Temple trustee Lewis Katz and six others while taking off from an airfield near Boston on the night of May 31, according to a federal report.

The National Transportation Safety Board, a federal entity that investigates transportation accidents, released a preliminary report of the incident on its website Friday, June 13.

The Gulfstream IV was equipped with a gust-control system that could lock certain plane components in place such as the tail flaps, known as elevators, and the wing flaps, called ailerons. The system is intended to protect these parts from potentially damaging wind gusts while the plane is parked, according to the report. The report stated that winds were calm during takeoff.

NTSB analysis of the cockpit’s flight data recorder showed that the pilots performed no control check before the flight, and that “elevator control surface position during the taxi and takeoff was consistent with its position if the gust lock was engaged,” the report read.

Investigation of the cockpit showed that the gust lock switch was found in the “off” position and that a separate latch to gust lock the tail flaps was off as well.

The plane, which was co-owned through a limited liability company and had logged nearly 5,000 hours of flight, never took off and instead went off the end of the runway and crashed through lighting and an antenna before landing in a gulley and erupting in flames.

According to the report, tire marks that indicate braking started 1,300 feet, or nearly 400 meters, from the end of the runway. According to a flight data recorder, numerous braking mechanisms were activated and the plane was going 100 knots, or roughly 115 miles per hour.

The NTSB added that the report is preliminary and subject to change.

The three passengers—Susan K. Asbell, 68, Marcella Dalsey, 59, and Anne Leeds, 74—were all friends of Katz. The crew on-board included pilot James McDowell, 51, copilot Bauke “Mike” de Vries, 45, and flight attendant Teresa Ann Bernhoff, 48 had all worked for Katz for at least 10 years.

Katz was honored in a memorial service held June 4 at Temple’s Performing Arts Center, with speakers including former President Bill Clinton, Governor Corbett, trustee and comedian Bill Cosby and Katz’s family.

Joe Brandt can be reached at jbrandt@temple.edu or on Twitter @JBrandt_TU.

AxisPhilly to be disbanded

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By Marcus McCarthy

Temple’s Center for Public Interest Journalism announced Friday that its nonprofit news website AxisPhilly will cease operations, and a new project will be started in its place.

Started in 2012, AxisPhilly was intended to cover local civic issues but, according to a press release on the organization’s website, “did not achieve consistent local impact and fell short of serving as a collaborative hub for the emerging news ecosystem, both of which were goals at founding.”

Run through the university’s School of Media and Communication, the CPIJ, which oversaw AxisPhilly, will change its focus to a startup by former Digital First Media and WashingtonPost.com executive Jim Brady. The news startup will be called Brother.ly, according to Technical.ly Philly.

Brady’s startup will seek to “hit younger audiences that may not be using traditional journalism resources,” Temple’s journalism department chair Andrew Mendelson told        philly.com.

As well as starting Brother.ly, Brady will teach a course in entrepreneurial journalism at Temple. OpenDataPhilly, the city’s official open data portal that was run by AxisPhilly, will be managed by the CPIJ.

AxisPhilly last year received a national online journalism award for general excellence. The website, which had four full-time employees who will receive severance, was created with funding from a $2.4 million grant by the William Penn Foundation. With lacking readership and dwindling funds, the project needed work, something SMC Dean David Boardman said was not worth pursuing.

“The burn rate was such that this was going to come to an end one way or another unless we could find new funding,” Boardman told Philly.com. “It was our judgment that finding funding for this…was not where we wanted to put our energy.”

Operation of AxisPhilly will cease June 13.

Marcus McCarthy can be reached at marcus.mccarthy@temple.edu or on Twitter @marcusmccarthy6.

Lewis Katz memorial to be held Wednesday

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By Patricia Madej

Temple will hold a memorial service for Lewis Katz, alumnus and former trustee member, Wednesday, June 4, at 11 a.m. at the Performing Arts Center. The service will be open to all.

Katz, 72, died Saturday evening when the private Gulfstream IV he was on erupted into flames. Katz was traveling from Massachusetts to New Jersey with seven others members aboard. There were no survivors.

In addition to being a board member, Katz was an avid donor to the university. In November, he donated $25 million to the school, the largest in the university’s history. The Temple Medical School will be named after Katz in his honor.

Katz was also a co-owner of the Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com after winning a bid to buy the trio along with other media subsidies for $88 million last week along with trustee H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest.

Katz received his bachelor’s degree in biology from Temple in 1963.