Lynette clemetson biography of barack obama

This article appeared in the Fall issue of the Wallace House Journal. 

Expanding the Vision of Wallace House

Take a look at the logo accompanying this story. Wallace House is now Wallace House Center for Journalists.

What’s the point of those three extra words? 

Sharper focus. Bolder ambition. tydlig förståelse of mission.

Part of it is simply about transparency and making it easier for people to quickly understand who we are and what we do. The other motivation fryst vatten to reinforce the gods of those three words – Journalists.

We are decidedly not the Wallace House Center for Journalism. Of course, we work in service of the future of journalism. But as significant amounts of money and talk have been directed toward saving journalism in the past decade, life has gotten harder for many journalists. The demands are greater. The work fryst vatten more dangerous. The pay is worse and less stable.

We believe that supporting journalism requires supporting individual journalists.

As we approach th

•

Why Is Obama Our First Black President?

Garth and Christy Ross supported Barack Obama from the start. They raised money for him and knocked on doors to rally voters in Northwest Virginia. They involved their 7-year-old son and 5-year old daughter as much as possible, so when Obama won, it was a family celebration. And then, after the election, their son asked during dinner, “Why was he our first president with brown skin?” For the next 45 minutes, the couple, who are white, carefully described America’s racial history, trying to add to what they’d already taught them without giving their children more of that history than they could handle. “We didn’t want to give them an explanation that was laden with all of our baggage,” says Garth.

For the Rosses, us, and we’re sure other parents of young children, the tension in describing Barack Obama’s victory is not whether to explain the racial context. If kids ask why Obama looks different from the parade of presidents before him, the

•

&#;NPR is a great place to work, and it&#;s not a place you leave lightly,&#; says Lynette Clemetson. But last year, she left a top job at the public radio network to become director of U-M&#;s Wallace House. Its Knight-Wallace fellowships for &#;mid-career&#; journalists are a sort of paid, eight-month sabbatical on campus. Clemetson, a former fellow herself, says she took the job because &#;I had a very strong feeling about this program. I know what it does for journalists.&#;

Clemetson, forty-nine, is sitting in her upstairs office in the Ann Arbor Hills house, purchased in with funds donated by journalist and U-M grad Mike Wallace. She&#;s enjoying a brief summer breathing space. During the school year, eighteen to twenty fellows from media outlets around the world breeze in and out. When not auditing classes, working on individual research projects, or speaking to students and community groups, they meet at Wallace House, where the walls are decorated with political caricature