Learning on the Fly

ohn Softness, A.B. ’55, ran a successful public relations company in New York for 37 years before returning to Miami, where, among other things, he penned a thousand speeches for former Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas. “And the start of it was The Hurricane,” Softness says.

He remembers his very first assignment—covering the UM-Tulane football game in 1951. “The editor asked me, ‘Have you ever covered football?’ And I said, ‘Oh, yeah.’ Frankly, not only had I never written sports, I hadn’t written anything.”

Softness went to the library, checked out a book on sports writing, attended the game, anddelivered the story.

“I was an overnight sensation,” he says, amused by this even 50 years later. “I learned that, as it turns out, I can in fact write.”

Indeed. During his senior year, Softness wrote an editorial that the venerable Editor and Publisher named the finest college editorial in the country. He worked at The Hurricane for four years and ultimately became editor in chief.

“I give tremendous credit to the University for letting me find what I wanted to do, and for letting me do it.”

Stick to the Facts

n 1961, a 19-year-old editor in chief, Mel Frishman, A.B. ’63, was challenged by two former Hurricane editors to editorialize about national politics and U.S. involvement in Vietnam. These former editors—one of whom had recruited Frishman to join The Hurricane staff his freshman year—circulated flyers and posted them all over campus, stating their opposing views. Frishman, a sophomore, chose to remain neutral.

“I didn’t want to spout national opinions in the campus paper. I wanted to focus on totally campus issues, where I was in control of the facts,” he says.

Years later, when he considers what he might have done, Frishman still believes he made the right decision. Frishman is the Broward news editor for The Miami Herald.

“The UM experience—when the country was being torn by war and civil rights struggles and I was being torn also by former editors as to which direction to go—helped shape me into who I am today,” he says.

Stirring Things Up

an Barber, Ed.D. ’68, was editor in chief during the turbulent time of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. The mood on campus was restless and antiestablishment. Barber took a stand on the meal card plan. “It was one of the raging issues of the day,” he deadpans. “You weren’t allowed to take your meal card to another dorm. So if your girlfriend or boyfriend was in another dorm, you couldn’t go eat with them.”

He published an editorial about it, but he drafted it as an open letter to Oscar E. Dooley, the University’s chairman of the board of trustees, and he invited students to submit their own letters to Dooley.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Barber went on to a career in public policy. This spring, he retired from his position as a professor in the Graduate Center for Public Policy and Administration at California State University, Long Beach, where he taught for 30 years.

And did his lobbying pay off on the meal card issue? “They did change the policy,” he says.

Help Wanted

ike those who went before her, Lisa Gibbs, B.S.C. ’87, remembers how easy it was to jump in and learn. She was majoring in math when she happened into a work-study job at The Hurricane. “Whoever came in and said, ‘I’m interested,’ was put to work. As a result, the people who worked there were really interested in journalism.”

Today, as the executive business editor at The Miami Herald, Gibbs is very much in the public eye. She credits her experience as editor of The Hurricane with teaching her what she needs to know to do the job.

“The things I’m doing now are things that I had a chance to do on a smaller level back in college—what it took to manage reporters, to put out a section, to plan coverage, and make decisions about what went on the front page.”

Test of Character

ynn D. Carrillo, B.S.C. ’97, J.D. ’00, faced many controversies during her time at The Hurricane. While she was editor, there was a student death and a stink about student records at the School of Law. “All these different controversies really tested my character,” she says.

Today, Carrillo is an attorney specializing in media law at Akerman Senterfitt’s Miami office. She represents Clear Channel Broadcasting, tabloids, and advertising agencies. She says her experience at The Hurricane makes her a far better media lawyer.

“One of the things that really helped me in the challenges that I face now as a lawyer, is that doing the right thing was ingrained in us at The Hurricane. That’s still with me today—choosing the high road, even when it’s controversial.”

The National Spotlight

iami Hurricane students are pretty much on their own when it comes to making decisions.

“The best thing about The Hurricane is that the students are responsible for putting out a real newspaper twice a week,” says faculty advisor and School of Communication associate professor Sigman Lee Splichal. “They operate without prior review.”

They turn to Splichal very infrequently, only for major issues. Like last fall’s presidential debate on campus. The students held a strategy session with Splichal prior to the Bush-Kerry face-off.

“We planned as best we could for the stories we thought would be big,” says Leigha Taber, A.B. ’05, editor in chief at the time.

But then there was the unexpected stuff—like the clutch of national reporters leaving messages on Taber’s voice mail, asking for interviews. She appeared live on Fox News just one week before the debate. This, as Hurricane Jeanne buzz-sawed toward Florida’s coastline.

“Fox News had a background behind me with palm trees whipping around in the wind. They wanted to know what the atmosphere was like on campus,” she says and laughs. Taber recently accepted a position in Gannett’s circulation specialist program.

What the Future Holds

hese days, you might be disappointed if you visited The Miami Hurricane newsroom. There are no monkeys, pianos, or singing ensembles. And no print shop. The students send electronic files of page layouts to The Miami Herald, where the paper is printed.

On a recent deadline night, everything was on schedule, and editor in chief Patricia Mazzei took time to hang a plaque on the wall—second place for Newspaper of the Year from the Collegiate Press Association. Most recently, Florida Leader magazine recognized The Hurricane as the best newspaper in its private college and university category. Watching Mazzei, you wonder what she’ll remember about The Hurricane years from now. For now, she’s studying economics and journalism.

“I’m taking a management class now,” she says. “But this is my real management class.”