Talking With Journalism's New Blood In Florida

I should have recalled my own student days at Kent State's journalism school, when I had little knowledge, and less interest, in who owned what, and how their stock was doing. But when I talked of going to Venezuela with other Inter American Press Association directors on a trip to investigate conditions for working journalists, the questions and comments came fast and passionately. FIU's j-school prides itself on taking a practical, working reporter approach to journalism, which is why its faculty includes people such as Jane Daugherty, the investigative reporter who was a finalist for the 1994 Pulitzer, and Frederick Blevens, who was a 20-year veteran of newspapers ranging from the old Philadelphia Bulletin to the Houston Chronicle before he started teaching full-times and Lilliam Martinez Bustos, who also put in two decades in journalism as a reporter and producer for mainstream networks such as ABC and CBS, and the nation's two biggest Spanish-language broadcasters, Telemundo and Univision.