MADISON, Wisconsin – Four members, three alumni from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, have joined the advisory board of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Journalism Ethics. Since its founding nine years ago, the board has contributed to the direction and growth of the Center while giving it direct connections to news and media industries.
The new board members are:
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James Causey
James E. Causey. Causey is an award-winning editorial columnist, special projects reporter and contributing editor for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He has spent more than 25 years as a professional journalist since becoming at age 15 the first African-American high school intern at the Milwaukee Sentinel. He holds a bachelor’s in journalism and an MBA from Cardinal Stritch University. In 2008, Causey received a Nieman Fellowship from Harvard University. During his time there, he studied the effects of hip-hop music on urban youth. After returning from his fellowship at Harvard, Milwaukee Inner-city Congregations Allied for Hope-MICAH, recognized his work on the mass incarceration crisis affecting black men. Causey also received a National Association of Black Journalists award in 2014 for his business piece, Buying Black. Causey is an active member of NABJ, former president of the Wisconsin Black Media Association, and member of Phi Beta Sigma Inc. He was also awarded the 2013 Morse-Marshall High School alumni of the year. Causey was a Scripps Howard Award finalist in 2013.
Katie Harbath
Katie Harbath (BA 2003). Harbath leads the politics and government outreach and economic growth policy teams at Facebook as a global programs director. She was the chief digital strategist at the National Republican Senatorial Committee. She previously led digital strategy in positions at DCI Group, the Rudy Giuliani for President campaign and the Republican National Committee. In 2014 Politico named Katie one of the top 50 people to watch and in 2009 she was named a Rising Star by Campaigns and Elections magazine.
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Phil Haslanger
Phil Haslanger (BA 1971 & MA 1973). Haslanger worked at The Capital Times from 1973 to 2008 as a reporter, city editor, editorial page editor and managing editor. He was part of the team that launched madison.com in 1995. During his time on the editorial page, he served as president in 2002 of what was then the National Conference of Editorial Writers. More recently, he was on the board of the Religion News Service and served as president in 2016. During the 2000s, he began exploring a career in ministry and was ordained in 2007 as a minister in the United Church of Christ. He served as a pastor at Memorial UCC in Fitchburg until retiring earlier this year.
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Carrie Johnson
Carrie Johnson (MA 1996). Johnson is a justice correspondent for the Washington desk of National Public Radio. She covers a wide variety of stories about justice issues, law enforcement and legal affairs for NPR’s flagship programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Prior to NPR, Johnson worked at the Washington Post for 10 years, when she closely observed the FBI, the Justice Department and criminal trials of the former leaders of Enron, HealthSouth and Tyco. Earlier in her career, she wrote about courts for the weekly publication Legal Times. Her work has been honored with awards from the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, the Society for Professional Journalists and the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. She has been a finalist for the Loeb award for financial journalism and for the Pulitzer Prize in breaking news for team coverage of the massacre at Fort Hood, Texas.
The new board members will join returning board members Kathy Bissen, Jim Burgess, Rick Fetherston, Peter Fox, Ellen Foley, Jill Giesler, Marty Kaiser, Carol Toussaint, Owen Ullmann and Dave Zweifel.
The board will convene this month with Jack Mitchell, a longtime board member and a professor emeritus in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, in his first year the Center’s board chair.
The Center also sends deep thanks to board members Tom Bier, Scott Cohn, John Smalley and Rich Vitkus, who wrapped up their terms of service. These four members contributed many years of service to the Center, seeing it through the transitions of two new directors and significant growth.
The Center for Journalism Ethics, housed in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, provides an international hub for the examination of the role of professional and personal ethics in the pursuit of fair, accurate and principled journalism. Founded in 2008, the Center offers resources for journalists, educators, students and the public, including internationally recognized annual conferences exploring key issues in journalism.
For information, contact Megan Duncan, project assistant, at megan.duncan [at] wisc.edu.