Undergraduate Admission
Emerson College
Undergraduate Faculty: Janet Kolodzy
http://admission.emerson.edu/admission/undergraduate/faculty/Janet-Kolodzy.cfm
Janet Kolodzy

Janet Kolodzy 

When you contemplate the world of journalism, you may not envision an orchestra. Janet Kolodzy wants to change that perception. She is a passionate advocate for —  and practitioner of — "convergence," cooperative relationships between television, online, and print media. She believes journalism needs to shed its compartments and embrace the potential harmony of all outlets coming together to tell the tale.

Through her optimistic yet seasoned lens, Professor Kolodzy prepares undergraduates for the world they will face upon graduation — and ultimately shape over the coming decades. Her classes such as The Culture of International News and TV News Producing emphasize both solid journalistic skills and keen ethics.

"Few people get their news from one source anymore," she says. "Just look at all the ways people get news about the war in Iraq. They use TV for immediacy, online for diversity, and print for context." She believes that by playing to each medium's inherent strengths, the mix will create an informed dialogue and produce more literate citizens. Journalism students today need to be ready for it all.

Professor Kolodzy has lived a life that aspiring journalists dream about. She started out in print journalism and worked on newspapers in Little Rock and Cleveland for nine years before heading to Georgia in the late 1980s.

As it happened, she landed in Atlanta just as an upstart cable station called CNN was beginning to revolutionize broadcast journalism. To get a job as a writer and copyeditor for CNN, she taught herself how to write for broadcast. During her tenure of more than a decade there, she worked in positions ranging from producer of  "International Hour" and  "World Report" to senior writer, editor, and producer at CNN International.

"Emerson attracts students who take action," she says. "They are intent on leaving Emerson with real skills. So I constantly change my curriculum and real-world examples to bring relevance to the learning."

But above all, Professor Kolodzy emphasizes the timeless skills of journalistic excellence. "Simply knowing how technology works is not knowing how to make it communicate. Students leave Emerson as capable storytellers ready to take on assignments, no matter what form they take."

Janet Kolodzy's Links