Four Distinguished Media Pioneers to be Inducted into C&IS Hall of Fame at UA

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Four distinguished communication pioneers will be inducted into The University of Alabama College of Communication and Information Sciences’ Hall of Fame Oct. 25. The induction ceremonies will be at the NorthRiver Yacht Club.

Established by the College of Communication and Information Sciences’ Board of Visitors, the Communication Hall of Fame was created in 1998 to honor, preserve and perpetuate the names and accomplishments of civic and communication personalities who have brought lasting fame to the state of Alabama. This year marks the 10th class of inductees into the Hall of Fame. These honored individuals include:

• James C. Barton
• William H. Melson
• Charles L. Moore
• Mignon C. Smith

The Communication Hall of Fame Gallery is located in the rotunda of Reese Phifer Hall on the UA campus. Permanent archives will be established and maintained for the collection of memorabilia related to the lives and careers of those chosen for placement in the Hall of Fame.

The College of Communication and Information Sciences is among the largest and most prestigious communication colleges in the country, having graduated more than 12,000 students and ranking among the top institutions in the country in the number of doctorates awarded. Communication graduates have earned four of the six Pulitzer Prizes awarded to UA alumni.

2007 College of Communication and Information Sciences Hall of Fame Inductees

James C. Barton

James Barton was devoted to helping reporters investigate and report their stories over a legal career spanning 55 years.

Since the 1950s, Barton had represented The Birmingham News, and one of the most frequently told anecdotes about him involves 2005 Communication Hall of Fame inductee and “News” reporter Ron Casey. Casey had been interviewing Shelby County Sheriff C. P. “Red” Walker in 1974 regarding Walker’s re-election campaign and charges of corruption in his department. Walker threw Casey and another reporter into jail on charges of plotting to murder him, and it was Barton who secured Casey’s release.

An editorial in The Birmingham News at the time of Barton’s death stated that he helped that newspaper and others “vigorously report news by defending against libel or defamation suits that would sometimes spring from tough stories and by pushing the paper’s legal right to public information from public agencies.” His law partner, Gilbert E. Johnston Jr., calls Barton “the dean of the First Amendment bar in Alabama for many, many years.”

A graduate of The University of Alabama and the UA Law School, Barton was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1944 and served as a fighter pilot. In Birmingham, he was an attorney with the Johnston, Barton, Proctor & Powell firm. The legal community recognized James Barton’s contributions in many ways; in 2002 he was chosen as the Outstanding Lawyer of the Year of the Birmingham Bar Association, was named in the “The Best Lawyers in America” in the First Amendment category, was appointed by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals to its Disciplinary Committee, and, based on his love of the outdoors, was appointed as a special deputy attorney general for the state of Alabama in the 1970s, to work in the area of environmental matters.

William H. Melson

Students of today’s College of Communication and Information Sciences owe a great deal to former dean of the College William H. “Bill” Melson. During the years he served as dean, 1976-1983, his professionalism, leadership and devotion to education laid the groundwork for the College as it is today.

Since its inception in 1973, the College has grown to be one of the top 10 largest programs in the country, with enrollment growing from 275 to more than 2,300 students. It’s home to nationally and internationally recognized faculty, and its facilities for teaching and research in broadcast, graphics, print, communication performance and new technology are among the best in the nation. “Bill is the architect of the current College of Communication and Information Sciences, a national powerhouse in all aspects of academic and professional communication,” said Dr. Ed Mullins, retired journalism professor and former dean of the College. “Under him, C&IS became a first tier school and has remained so ever since.”

Melson, a native of North Carolina who received his bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina, entered the world of communications early with part-time announcing positions in radio broadcasting in his home state. After graduating from college, he gained various and valuable experience as a radio production manager, program supervisor, sales representative, personnel manager and assistant vice president at station WBT in Charlotte, N.C.

For many people, this would constitute an entire career, but in 1965 Melson returned to UNC for a master’s in communication and doctorate in social psychology, entering the world of academia, where he would continue to thrive. He joined the faculty of the UNC department of radio, television and motion pictures in 1969, rising to full professor in 1974, and he taught in the North Carolina High School Radio-TV Institute 1969-74, directing the institute in 1969 and 1975. With additional experience as assistant dean of the UNC Graduate School, and as chairman of the UNC radio, television and motion pictures department, Melson was well prepared to take on the challenges of being only the second permanent dean, and the first to serve for any length of time, in the College of Communication.

In 1977-78 Dean Melson led the way for the program to regain Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication accreditation. He adopted hiring standards for the College higher than those of the University in general at that time. As Melson’s friend Skip Hinton put it, “He had an absolute determination to build both the ethics and the operating standards of a strong academic unit. It was not an easy thing to do. . . . He had a determination to get things done right.” He oversaw the renovation of the main wing of what is now known as Reese Phifer Hall and wrote the final proposal to begin a doctorate program in mass communication.

In 1983 Melson stepped down as dean but continued to teach in the department of advertising and public relations until 1992. In the year he retired, he gave the commencement speech at the College of Communication’s graduation ceremony, telling the students that “You and I are together at important junctions in our lives. But, whereas I’m ending a career, you are beginning yours.” After giving the graduates some practical advice about job-searching, he went on to say, “Education should have prepared you not just for your career and the sustenance of life, but for the improvement, enjoyment and celebration of life.”

Charles L. Moore

Charles Moore, at the age of 16, could not have known how valuable his training as a Golden Gloves boxer would be. At about the same time, Moore developed an interest in art and in photography and became skilled enough, at age 17, to be admitted into the United States Marine Corps school for combat photography. Moore would, in the course of his career, see a lot of combat, most of it here in America, on the streets of Oxford, Miss. and Montgomery, Birmingham and Selma.

After the Marine Corps, Moore briefly trained to photograph fashion models, but this, fortunately for the Civil Rights Movement, was not to be. In 1957 Moore returned to Alabama, to work at the Montgomery Advertiser. He had had no real exposure to the Movement, but that was to change, and fast.

Moore began what was to be the most important work of his career covering Dr. Martin Luther King and SCLC meetings, and arrests, in Montgomery. It was his photo that depicted King being booked at the Montgomery Police Station on Sept. 3, 1958. Leaving the paper to work as a southern photojournalist for the Black Star photo agency, later under contract to “Life” magazine, Moore would document and show to the world what was happening in the South, from Ole Miss to Selma and beyond. As Rep. John Lewis put it, Moore had “an unbelievable eye.” He was able “to capture the essence of what the Movement was all about. . . . It took people like Charles Moore to make it real.”

At the Ole Miss riots, with only a limited supply of film, and shooting with a gas mask on, Moore took the photos that showed how violent the resistance to the Civil Rights Movement was likely to become. Rep. Lewis, himself a profile in courage, praises Moore’s “raw courage.” Lewis points out that “During those days, it was very dangerous to have a camera.” Reporters as well as activists were targets.

The Marine-trained combat photographer would gain world-wide acclaim with his photographs of the confrontations on the streets of Birmingham and Selma. Television news also told the Birmingham story, but it was Moore who took the shots seen round the world: men and women and children being assaulted by billy clubs, then fire hoses, then German shepherd police dogs. These images are now iconic, a word that should be used sparingly but certainly may be used here. The best of his photos are collected in “Powerful Days: The Civil Rights Photography of Charles Moore.”

The historian Arthur Schlesinger said, “The photographs of Bull Connor’s police dogs lunging at the marchers in Birmingham did as much as anything to transform the national mood . . . .” New York Sen. Jacob Javits has said that Moore’s pictures “helped to spur passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” Moore, now residing in Florence, also would cover conflicts in places such as the Dominican Republic and Vietnam.

Mignon C. Smith

Carrying on a family tradition that goes back more than a century, Mignon Comer Smith has worked for the betterment of Alabama and Alabamians throughout her life, in journalism, politics and higher education. Her great-grandfather, Alabama Gov. Braxton Bragg Comer, doubled the state’s support for public education while in office. He founded Avondale Mills which, under the leadership of Mignon Smith’s father, J. Craig Smith, was one of the first in the country to offer profit-sharing, educational opportunities for mill workers and their children, and even recreational facilities to its employees.

Sen. Richard Shelby says Smith is proud of her family and follows in their illustrious footsteps: she is “pleasant, diligent, honest . . . she comes from a distinguished Alabama family. She’s had a lot, and she’s given a lot.” He adds that she knows how to work hard but has “a great sense of humor.”

Smith has lived for many years in Washington, D.C., where she worked as Washington correspondent for the Alabama Radio Network for more than 30 years. A member of the Congressional Radio & TV Galleries, National Press Club, and a White House news correspondent, in February 2007 she was honored by the Alabama Broadcasters’ Association with the award of Lifetime Membership.

“Mignon was committed to bringing news from Washington to the state and, for more than a quarter of a century, that commitment never wavered,” said Carol Bennett, a Washington, D.C., reporter for the Alabama Radio Network who worked with Mignon for 20 years.

Smith recently established the J. Craig and Page T. Smith Scholarship Foundation, an endowment charged with choosing worthy high school graduates for full college scholarships. Unlike most scholarships, these do not require straight A’s or top test scores but rather reward students who have worked hard for their family and community, perhaps while overcoming economic or familial hardships. Most scholarship recipients are the first in their families to attend college and would not otherwise have been able to seek higher education. “She wanted everybody, everybody to have a chance,” notes television executive Everett Holle. “She believes people can succeed.”

Smith has also sought to honor her father with the establishment of the J. Craig Smith Endowment Chair for Integrity in Business at UA. Distressed by recent corruption scandals in the business community, she hopes that her father’s values of integrity, honesty, and fair play will be supported by both the endowed chair and the Initiative for Ethics and Social Responsibility, a campus-wide initiative at The University to support and enhance citizenship among students. The Initiative includes the development of a “justice-based anthropological documentary filmmaking/journalism class,” as well as service-learning opportunities, lectures and curricular programming.