SBU School of Journalism Adds Four New Members to its Prestigious Professional Advisory Board

By Meagan O'Connell and Katie Serignese

The School of Journalism has added another four members to its already diverse and prestigious Professional Advisory Board: David Ng, Matthew Moskowitz, Randall Pinkston and Adi Ignatius.

David Ng, executive editor at the New York Daily News, became a member of the board last spring. Ng said he was flattered to be asked, especially when he saw who else he was working with. "There are some serious heavy hitters on the board," he said.
Ng, who rose through the editorial ranks from an entry-level job at the Daily News, is one of the highest-ranking Asian Americans at a major metropolitan newspaper. He is active in the Asian American Journalists Association, serving frequently as a speaker and offering his support to other Asian Americans pursuing news management.
He doesn't like to consider himself a role model, he said. But if his story encourages, inspires or at least makes other people feel that their dreams are within their grasp, "I'm more than happy to put myself out there and talk to folks," he said.

Another newcomer to the board, Matthew Moskowitz, a New York-based producer and editor at CNN, became interested in joining after sitting in on the first professional advisory board meeting about two years ago. That was a special experience, he said, because "I wouldn't be here if it weren't for Stony Brook, and I'm looking to give back."
Moskowitz is a Stony Brook University alumnus, Class of 1995. He minored in journalism; at the time, there was no journalism major and no journalism school.
Moskowitz said that he was involved with newspapers throughout middle school and high school, and wrote occasionally for the Stony Brook Statesman while in college. He decided in his sophomore year to explore television. He interned at WNBC-4 during the summer of 1994 and held three internships at News 12 Long Island.
Although the advisory board acts as a resource and sounding board to the journalism school, Moskowitz is also looking to bridge the gap between current students and alumni. "I am very excited and honored to be doing this," he added.

CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston brings to the board a broad experience in television reporting, having covered news from New York City to Washington, D.C., to war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
Pinkston said he hopes to offer students his perspective on what broadcast media is like today and how it is has changed technologically. He has visited several journalism schools and said the the Stony Brook School of Journalism is one of the most dynamic programs he has seen. He has spoken twice at Stony Brook, once as part of the journalism school’s My Life As program and again as the keynote speaker for the university’s celebration of Black History Month in 2008.
As the school works to shape a journalism program that teaches students to work across all platforms, Pinkston said, he is “fascinated and pleased to have a front-row seat to that evolution.”
And although he praised the school’s access to advanced technology, he said with emphasis that the most important part of being a journalist is to seek out the truth. Journalism has “nothing to do with technology and everything to do with ethics,” he said.

The final new member of the board, Adi Ignatius, deputy managing editor of Time Inc., brings with him extensive international experience. He said he spent 20 years in China, Russia and Western Europe, and he urged students to explore reporting overseas. If you are going to pay the dues somewhere, he said, he wants students to know that a foreign adventure is an option. “The English-language writing skill is still valuable overseas,” he said.
Like the other new members, Ignatius said he hopes to bring a real-world perspective to the board that would help shape the program and prepare students. He said his magazine looks for multimedia skills, but at the end of the day, “writing skills are still No. 1.”

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