Diplomatically speaking, Fiedler’s hiring had the potential to be more than a bit awkward. In late 2006, the journalism department formally proposed splitting off from COM and forming a separate School of Journalism. This proposal — which was unanimously backed by the journalism faculty — came on the heels of the aforementioned scandal surrounding Schulz, the former COM dean. Schulz, who’d been a professor in the mass-communications department before becoming dean, had been accused of exaggerating portions of his résumé (involving his education at Oxford University and his experience reporting on the Soviet-Afghan war). A faculty panel subsequently decided to drop the matter, but he resigned in September 2006.
The push for a separate J-School actually predated Schulz’s exit. But outside the journalism department, the two developments were seen as intimately linked — perhaps because Schulz’s most vocal critics came from the journalism side, and because journalism’s formal proposal to secede and form its own school followed Schulz’s resignation. And this interpretation, in turn, generated some tension between journalism and COM’s other departments.
In the end, the journalism department didn’t get the autonomy it was seeking, largely because Fiedler’s external-review committee concluded that it would be a bad idea. Nonetheless, the professors in the journalism department — even when given a chance to talk off the record — had overwhelmingly good things to say about their new boss.
“I’m absolutely thrilled,” says Lou Ureneck, a former editor of the Portland Press Herald and former deputy managing editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer. “Tom has a deep grounding in journalism, and has a distinguished career as an editor at a terrific newspaper. So right away, as journalism chair, I appreciate the understanding he brings to the issues that I face.”
Some of this enthusiasm may be mere politesse. After all, when a new leader comes into any organization — especially if they’ve crafted a program for change at the behest of those even higher up the food chain — it’s smarter to praise them than to pick a fight.
That said, there’s reason to think that the excitement in BU’s journalism department due to Fiedler’s arrival is genuine. For one thing, his journalistic bona fides are impeccable. In 1988, Fiedler was feted by the Society of Professional Journalists for his reporting on that year’s presidential election. In 1991, he was part of a Miami Herald team that won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Nation of Yaweh cult. In 1993, the entire Miami Herald staff won a Pulitzer for coverage of Hurricane Andrew and its aftermath. And in 2006, when Fiedler was executive editor (the Herald’s top editorial job), the paper revealed that reporters at its sister Spanish-language publication, El Nuevo Herald, were working for a US-government sponsored, anti–Fidel Castro radio station — a scoop that incurred the wrath of many in Miami’s Cuban-American community. (Marty Baron, the editor of the Boston Globe and Fiedler’s predecessor as the Herald’s top editor, calls him “an excellent journalist and a thoughtful, caring individual.”)
