As Professor Donald Gillmor conducted his last class after 45 years of teaching, he admittedly had mixed feelings about ending his academic career at the University of Minnesota’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

On Dec. 4, Gillmor’s two-hour First Amendment lecture theory to 25 graduates and undergraduate students in his "Contemporary Problems in Freedom of Speech and Press" course marked the final time this internationally respected media law scholar would stand in front of a class as a college professor.

While lecturing from with his yellowed note cards, which showed signs of constant updating over the years, Gillmor couldn’t miss the crowd of staff and faculty gathering outside the classroom door. On behalf of thousands of grateful students and fellow scholars, they had gathered to honor the award-winning Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law – even if he would be "embarrassed" by the party.

"I’m always embarrassed in situations like that," Gillmor, who will be 72 in April, admitted later. "And as I analyze myself, in answering the question why I don’t like farewells, I think it’s because I grew up as a fairly shy person, and I don’t like to make friends and colleagues feel obligated to attend something like that. That’s as difficult for me [to handle] as the last day of class was."

Yet there was also "a certain amount of relief’ involved with that final lecture. The constantly changing area of media law can be "challenging," even for the co-author (with Jerome Barron and Todd Simon) of the field’s classic textbook, Mass Communication Law: Cases and Comment, just published in its sixth edition.

"I do think I feel a certain amount of relief since I’m at the age where normal wear and tear begins to show," he said. "And it gets more challenging to keep up in a field that is as fluid as the media law and ethics area – it never, never stands still."

His writing and lectures might be completed, but that doesn’t mean Gillmor’s scholarly mind will rest. In retirement he intends to cultivate his interests in art, music and architecture under the tutelage of his two younger brothers, a musicologist and an architect, both active Canadian university professors. He also intends to travel with Sophie, his wife of 46 years, seeking out art museums, cathedrals and concerts. While home in the Twin Cities, he will spend "a lot more time" with his two young grandsons.

"I have never had time to do these things before because I have been very much wrapped up in my work," Gillmor explained. "I have been very single minded about my teaching and my research, and so it’s a bittersweet feeling to be sure. But there’s something to be said for it. It’s not as if I’m being denied a future. I have a future to explore."

A native of Fort Francis, Ontario, Gillmor began his journalism career in 1950, at the Winnipeg Free Press, after earning his bachelor’s degree at the University of Manitoba. Prior to that, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force at age 17, but wound up with the army infantry due to heavy Canadian losses in Europe. Gillmor’s mother was a registered nurse and his father was "a mechanical genius of sorts," credited with several inventions.

Lured by an offer of double his reporter salary, Gillmor left his native Canada in 1953 for a teaching job at the University of North Dakota in 1953, where he eventually became a full professor and started the All-University Honors Program. Receiving both his master’s and doctoral degrees at the University of Minnesota, he joined the faculty in 1965. During his distinguished tenure, he also helped established the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law, thanks to his fellow Canadian and best friend, Jerry Kline, then SIMC director, and benefactors Otto and Helen Silha.

Gillmor credited his original interest in media law to former Minnesota professor J. Edward Gerald, to whom he dedicated his first book, Free Press and Fair Trial, based on his doctoral dissertation. Since then, Gillmor has authored or co-authored a library shelf worth of books, articles, essays, reviews and legal briefs, and has lectured nationally and internationally.

When asked what accomplishments he was most proud of, Gillmor mentioned his four teaching awards – one from the University of North Dakota; the first Horace T. Morse Distinguished Teaching Professor, awarded by the Minnesota Alumni Association; and two from the Minnesota Press Club – along with his first published book, and the respected textbook he co-authored with Jerome Barron.

"There’s only one thing in the world more exciting than your first book, and that’s your first child," he remarked. "That is something I cherish. After that, you tend to take the publication of books for granted...So I am very, very satisfied. I couldn’t ask for anything more."

How does the veteran professor feel when former students thank him for the wisdom and knowledge he passed along?

"Oh, I feel grateful," he answered humbly. "I just feel very, very grateful."

And judging from that loyal group gathered for that "last class" party – many, many feel the same way.

JACK BRESLIN

Bulletin Editor

The Silha Center is gearing up for what it hopes will be the first of many gatherings of professional editors and reporters, mass media attorneys, and communications scholars. Our National Media Ethics and Law Conference, on April 17, 18, and 19 at Minneapolis’ Regal International Hotel, features three panels with some of the nation’s leading First Amendment lawyers, prominent journalists, and well-known ethics and law researchers.

The Conference is co-sponsored by the American Bar Association’s Media Law and Defamation Torts Committee, and we have made application with the State Board of Continuing Legal Education so that lawyers may be able to receive CLE credit for attending. The Minnesota Journalism Center also is a Conference co-sponsor.

While the Conference begins with a Friday evening reception on April 17, the panels will be on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday’s 9:30-11:30 a.m. panel focuses on New Technology and the Law. Moderated by Prof Everette E. Dennis of Fordham University’s Graduate School, Session I will examine:

• Whether technological advances enhance or threaten the First Amendment.
• If the U.S. Supreme Court’s medium-specific approach to the First Amendment is becoming outdated and unworkable.
• How the global nature of the communications industry affects freedom of speech issues.
• The viability of technological solutions (such as the V-chip and blocking software) on the Internet.

Included on the Session I panel are Prof. Jerome A. Barron of George Washington University, Ann Kappler of Jenner & Block, Prof. Donald Pember of the University of Washington, and Prof. Robert Trager of the University of Colorado.

Saturday’s 2-4 p.m. panel addresses the Convergence of Legal and Ethical Issues, focusing on such issues as:

• Whether ethics and law collisions in a case such as Cohen v. Cowles Media are inevitable.
• Given the increasing intrusiveness of both stablished and new media technologies, whether "turning off’ the media should be our only recourse.
• How it might be possible to balance the public’s need to know with individuals’ concerns with an ever-intrusive media.
• Whether ombudsmen, ethics codes, and news councils are viable alternatives to litigation.

Chaired by Prof Theodore Glasser of Stanford University, Session II’s panelists include Prof. Clifford G. Christians of the University of Illinois, Prof. Deni Elliott of the University of Montana, Dean Timothy Gleason of the University of Oregon, and Prof. Louis W. Hodges of Washington & Lee University.

Sunday’s 9:30-11:30 a.m. panel on Newsgathering is moderated by James Goodale of Debevoise and Plimpton. Focusing on Newsgathering, Session III examines:

• The legacy of Food Lion.
• Whether we might expect future litigation to skirt the First Amendment, focusing instead on issues such as trespass.
• What should be the appropriate level of First Amendment protection.
• To what extent shield laws can be expected in the future to provide journalists with adequate newsgathering protection.

Session III panelists include John Borger of Faegre & Benson, Joanne Byrd of the

Seattle Post- Intelligencer, James Naughton of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, and John J. Walsh of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.

A question and answer session will follow each panel. In all three sessions, panelists’ formal papers will be collected and published in a book to be given to each participant attending the National Media Ethics and Law Conference. Additional books may be ordered at a cost of $60 each.

A banquet (black tie optional) dedicated to the contributions of Donald M. Gillmor, Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law will be given Saturday night, April 18, at 6:30. A blue-colored Conference information and registration form is included with this Bulletin. If your form is missing, please contact the Silha Center at (612) 625-3421 or by email at silha@tc.umn.edu. -WILLIAM A. BABCOCK

Director, Silha Center

This paper was accepted for presentation

at the Newspaper Division of the AEJMC Southeast Colloquium, March 12-14,1998,

New Orleans.

By Genelle Belmas, Jennifer Lambe, and William Babcock.

The American public is becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the media. Many such people – those either annoyed with or hostile toward newspapers – have for the past few decades railed against the media, urging the creation of news councils as a means of controlling or "getting back" at the press. While the public’s wrath is not directed against newspapers alone, it is clear that, amid steadily declining readership, newspapers must have a stake in trying not only to manage their credibility, but also to be more accessible and responsive to public needs and desires.

News councils are one possible mechanism for increasing understanding between the press and public. The Minnesota News Council is the nation’s longest-running statewide non-legal media dispute resolution body. This paper examines the determinations of the Council in which newspapers are respondents. Given the media’s increasing lack of credibility with the public, our findings indicate that newspapers would be well-served to examine their long-standing distrust of news councils and instead see such councils as a means of helping the news industry regain the public’s trust.