Ed Madison is the walking definition of a team player. As a professor in the School of Journalism and Communication (SOJC), at University of Oregon, Madison not only teaches, he makes things happen. Madison and a team of students created the school’s first tablet publication, OR Magazine, winning four Columbia Scholastic Press Awards. He also lead a team of students to Ghana so they could experience its culture and share it through multimedia pieces. I sat down with Madison to discuss where his passion for journalism originated and what the future has in store for him at the SOJC.

Your father was the one who influenced you greatly to follow the path of journalism. How has he influenced you?
My father saw a lot of history. He covered Kennedy, Nixon debate and Doctor Martin Luther King. I think I sort of took it for granted. He was really well educated and it took me a while for me to figure out the history of that. My dad had professors in high school because the African American college graduates couldn’t get hired at universities – I was used to him walking around and reciting Shakespeare.

My dad was very focused on making sure his kids were well prepared to accomplish anything they wanted to do. He had me doing a resume at age twelve or thirteen because at his first job interview they asked him for a resume and he didn’t know what that meant.

What pre college experience did you have in journalism? During college?
When I was 16… Well maybe I was 15 almost 16 but I was driving so I would have to be 16. So I went to the counselor’s office and there was a poster on the wall and it was announcing an essay contest and the opportunity to submit an essay and they were going to choose three people all over Washington D.C. to be in an internship program at the local tv station. The station was owned by the Washington Post. I got in. This was during the height of the Watergate Scandal, so a great time to be in media. Within months I had a desk and a rolodex, you know before we had computers on our desk. I had the privilege of getting comfortable with talking to people and scheduling things and writing questions and figuring out what was interesting and how to shoot things.

What did it feel like to get a job as a producer for CNN at age 22?
When people hear founding producer at CNN it sounds very grandiose and everything else but CNN was very bootstrap. We had to bring our own pens and pencils. Once I called the president of the company and I said  “Reese we got three phone lines and they’re all lit up, I can’t dial out, I can’t book the show” and he said “Go to a phone booth.”

Being an SOJC alum, what influence do you hope to have on professors and students?
I have always been an early adopter of technology. I really gravitate and keep abreast of the new things that are changing and I embrace all that, I’m not afraid of it. I am also trying to get us beta access to new software, have us try new things that are outside the box. Being around students kind of keeps you young. I learn as much as I teach, if you will. It’s not like I stand at the front of the room and have all this infinite wisdom. It’s kind of like, let’s roll up our sleeves together and see what we can accomplish.

What do you hope to accomplish at the SOJC this year? 5 years?

I need to slow down a little bit, in terms of coming up with new things because that’s its own trap. What I really want to do is establish Northwest Stories as an annual project that we do in the summer. I want establish the Booklandia tv project with Powell’s as a major point of recognition for the J school because we are creating this consortium of other student media groups at universities and high schools around the country that can contribute to Booklandia. In an ideal world we would only be producing 10% of the content and the rest of it would be coming in from other places.

Ed Madison
Assistant Professor, Media Partnership Coordinator at University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communications
madison2@uoregon.edu
324 Allen Hall
(541) 346-9140
Twitter: @edmadison
Skype: emadison3
Web: http://www.edmadison.com/