Posted 4-24-01
photo by Judith BaileyFour journalists spent last week at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences through a media fellowship on the issues and impact of welfare reform. They are (clockwise from upper left) Rich Exner, Michael O'Malley, Susanne Alexander, and Bill Rice. |
CLEVELAND -- Four local journalists spent the week of April 9-13 at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences as participants in a media fellowship on the issues and impact of welfare reform.
Entitled "Beyond Welfare Reform: Reweaving the Social Safety Net through Community Partnerships," the MSASS fellowship is part of a national program sponsored by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) in Washington, D.C.
This year's media fellows were Rich Exner and Michael O'Malley of the Plain Dealer, Bill Rice of WCPN Cleveland Public Radio, and freelance writer Susanne Alexander.
The MSASS media fellowship week featured seminars with faculty, staff, and community experts and included a day at the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations for an exploration of faith-based organizations and welfare reform.
Exner, a Plain Dealer staffer since 1991, has been covering Cuyahoga County government, including the impact of welfare reform, since last August. Earlier he was a reporter in the PD's Lorain County Bureau and a sports copy editor.
Before joining the PD, he was with the Cleveland Bureau of United Press International (UPI), where he served as reporter, bureau manager, and state editor.
Exner's professional experience also includes five internships at the Wheeling News-Register and Intelligencer newspapers in Wheeling, West Virginia. He was assistant editor and writer of Back Home, a two-volume coffee table book on the return of the Browns to Cleveland in 1999.
He earned a B.A. in journalism at Ohio State University.
O'Malley also has been a Plain Dealer reporter for 10 years and earlier worked for UPI in both the Cleveland and New York City bureaus. Before UPI, he was at newspapers in Lorain and Youngstown.
A graduate of Cleveland State University, O'Malley has won numerous awards, including first place from the Associated Press in 1980 for his coverage of asbestos hazards in industrial work areas. In 1997, the Cleveland Press Club honored him for exposing child labor in Cleveland's poor neighborhoods. His work prompted a U.S. Department of Labor investigation, which resulted in back pay for 134 workers and put an end to the child labor.
In 2000, he received an award from the Society of Professional Journalists for exposing problems with enforcement of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development rules involving rent subsidies.
WCPN's Rice has done several in-depth reports on welfare reform, including coverage of issues surrounding last October's deadline, when the first Ohio recipients met the state's lifetime limit on cash assistance. His media fellowship experience at MSASS is serving as a part of his research for a possible documentary or series of reports on welfare reform that WCPN expects to air this fall.
Before joining WCPN last June, Rice served two-year stints as news director at two radio stations in Indiana -- WVPE-FM in Elkhart and at WBNI-FM, Northeast Indiana Public Broadcasting in Fort Wayne. Earlier he was at New Hampshire Public Radio in Concord, serving variously as morning drive host/news producer, operations and engineering director, and weekend program host. He began his radio career at WBJC-FM in Baltimore as a recording and production engineer.
A graduate of the University of New Haven in Connecticut with a B.A. in communications, Rice is the recipient of five awards from the Indiana Associated Press and three from the Indiana Society of Professional Journalists.
Alexander, a freelance journalist for three years, writes for publications such as Crain's Cleveland Business, the Cleveland Free Times, Catalyst: For Cleveland Schools, and the Plain Dealer. During 1998-2000 she also served as staff writer and associate editor of The Shifting Times, an Ohio monthly that has ceased publication. Earlier she was managing editor/writer for T&D Times, an in-house national monthly publication of the BP Oil Company.
Alexander is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the Society of Professional Journalists. She is a 1996 cum laude graduate of Baldwin-Wallace College, where she earned a B.A. in communications.
The purpose of the CASE National Media Fellowship Program is to improve journalists' knowledge of the areas they cover or will be covering and to inform the media about the intellectual resources of colleges and universities.
The MSASS fellowship was among 24 selected for this year's program by a panel of top journalists and marks the school's fifth year as a participant. More on the program is available at http://www.case.org/awards/fellowsh.htm.
