Ann Compton will visit FPC as the first Visiting Fitzwater Fellow of the year
by Juliana Spence
Exchange Staff

     Ann Compton, national correspondent for ABC News Radio, will be on campus September 25^th and 26^th as this year's first Visiting Fitzwater Fellow.

     Compton was recently elected president of the White House Correspondents Association and who has been reporting from the White house for more than 30 years. 

     Most of Compton's time on Monday and Tuesday will be spent visiting classes and discussing her career, as well as the role of media in the U.S.  Compton will be in Mass Comm. Senior seminar, Media Criticism, Communication, Media, and Society, Convergent Journalism, as well as the American Presidency class.

     Compton will also have a luncheon with The Women in Leadership Certificate Program members on Monday.  The Women in Leadership Certificate Program along with the Fitzwater Center for Communication will sponsor her visit.

     Graduate Assistant and Fitzwater Scholar Frank Blais has been helping to coordinate Compton's visit along with Dr. Kristen Nevious, the director of the Fitzwater Center for Communication.

     Blais said, "What's great about our Visiting Fitzwater Fellow is that these professional not only give a lecture to the campus community, but they also interact with students and faculty members over the course of two days."

      The Pierce Media Group Broadcast News Workshop that Compton will participate in is an opportunity for students to show Compton their work and have her critique it.  It will also be a beneficial time for students to ask questions about what it takes to be successful in the broadcast journalism field. 

     Junior Brittany Bonesteel will be showing a DVD compilation of her work with clips from her show Up Close and Personal with Brittany Bonesteel, new this semester, as well as her previous weather and news anchor reports to Compton during the workshop.  Bonesteel is both excited and nervous to meet with Compton to critique her work.

     Bonesteel said, "She's such a powerful woman, she's climbed the latter of success and now she's at the top of her game."  She said, "I think it's phenomenal what she's done and I think it says a lot about female journalists."

    Having Compton here as a Visiting Fitzwater Fellow has been in the planning process since last winter said Blais.

     Some of Compton's career highlights include the coverage of eight presidential campaigns, the first woman to be assigned to cover the White House by a television network only weeks after the Watergate scandal, as well as receiving an Emmy for her coverage of 9/11 for ABC News.  Compton was the only broadcast reporter allowed to remain on Air Force One along with President Bush on his return trip to Washington oimmediately after the attacks September 11^th.

     Compton was also inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2005 and holds a place in the National Museum of Broadcasting.

     Blais said, "What I am most excited about is that the Fitzwater Center for Communications is able to bring professionals in the media industry to Franklin Pierce that are well known on the national level who are willing to share their stories and advise students based upon their experiences."

     Blais will be directing the production of the live Tuesday Briefing in the Television Studio on campus, which will also be a live webcast on the internet.  A link to the webcast is now available on the FPC homepage.  The Tuesday Briefing will begin at 11 a.m. and run till noon.