FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: (July 11, 2007) Loren Ghiglione, the Richard Schwarzlose Professor of Media Ethics at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, has been named the first recipient of the Roy F. Aarons Award for his contribution to education and research on issues affecting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered (GLBT) communities. The GLBT Interest Group of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication will present Ghiglione with the award at the Association’s annual convention in Washington, D.C. in August. Chris Burnett, GLBT Interest Group head, will present the award at the interest group’s business meeting on August 11.

About the Roy F. Aarons Award
The Roy F. Aarons Award honors individuals who have made significant contributions to the promotion and inclusion of GLBT materials in education and research. The award is named after Roy F. Aarons, an accomplished journalist who shocked the news industry in 1990 when he acknowledged that he was gay at a conference for the American Society of Newspaper Editors. That announcement, in conjunction with the results from a landmark survey of gay and lesbian journalists, spearheaded the creation of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA), an organization of journalists, media professionals, educators and students who work to foster fair and accurate coverage of GLBT issues. Aarons spent 14 years as a reporter and editor at The Washington Post, was a founding board member of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, and executive editor of The Oakland Tribune. He later worked to revive an educators’ group within AEJMC to assist educators in incorporating GLBT materials in journalism courses. Aarons died in 2004.

“It is surely arguable that without the alternatives study, Roy Aarons would not have come out so publicly, and without coming out so publicly, Aarons probably would not have founded the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association nor re-launched a GLBT interest group in AEJMC,” said Dane Claussen, teaching standards chair and former head of the GLBT Interest Group.

The Aarons-Ghiglione Link
The Aarons-Ghiglione link spans 44 years, when Aarons, a Washington Post editor, supervised Ghiglione, a summer intern. Later they worked together on the board of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. As president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors (1989-90), Ghiglione asked Aarons to survey GLBT journalists on homophobia in newsrooms and news coverage. When Aarons, then senior vice president for news of the Oakland Tribune, presented the resulting study, Alternatives: Gays and Lesbians in the Newsroom, (Newspaper Research Journal 11, no. 3 (summer 1990): 38-49), at the ASNE convention, he took the occasion to come out to all of his colleagues and the general public. Later, as director of The Annenberg School of Journalism at the University of Southern California, Ghiglione encouraged Aarons to launch a course on sexual orientation in the news and create a Web site to disseminate information to other educators. In 2000, Ghiglione wrote an article for The American Editor, magazine of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, commenting on the follow-up study, Lesbians & Gays In the Newsroom: 10 Years Later. In the fall of 2004, Ghiglione, as dean of The Medill School of Journalism, went on record in support of a student-founded NLGJA chapter after finding virtually no attention to GLBT issues in the Medill curriculum.

Throughout his career, Ghiglione has been recognized for his commitment to diversity in journalism and journalism education in numerous organizations and publications, most notably the Newspaper Association of America and its magazine, presstime. In addition to calling for the Alternatives study, Ghiglione headed ASNE’s diversity committee, established the Task Force on Minorities in the Newspaper Business and spoke regularly on discrimination in newsrooms. He also profiled Aarons for an ASNE book, Leading by Example: How leaders make a difference in their newsrooms and communities. As an advocate of globalism, Ghiglione began undergraduate reporting programs in South Africa and India, and has worked to emphasize a multimedia approach to journalism education in developing specialized programs in business, religion and legal reporting. The National Association of Minority Media Executives, in a report funded by the McCormick Tribune Foundation, named Ghiglione one of 59 “leaders who made diversity happen” in journalism. As president of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication (2007), Ghiglione continues to advocate integration of GLBT issues, faculty, and staff into journalism and mass communication education.

More on Ghiglione
Prior to working in journalism education, Ghiglione owned and operated a New England newspaper company for 26 years, won national awards for his reporting and research, and wrote and edited six books on journalism. Ghiglione is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has served on four Pulitzer Prize juries, and was a founding member of the now-defunct National News Council, and acted as a consultant to The Freedom Forum on the creation of The Newseum. Ghiglione holds a B.A. from Haverford College, an M.U.S. and a J.D. from Yale University and a Ph.D. in American civilization from George Washington University.