University News
Three Journalists Join WIU Teaching Faculty
August 22, 2006
MACOMB, IL - - Three experienced journalists have joined the teaching ranks of Western Illinois UniversityÂ’s growing journalism program, which includes 132 majors and 83 minors.
They are Scott Sievers; Lisa Kernek; and Rich Moreno, who was named the director of student publications at Western Illinois, effective Aug. 14. Sievers and Kernek are instructors and Moreno is an adjunct member of the journalism faculty, which includes five other full-time teachers.
Sievers, who is teaching the law of mass communications, is a former reporter with the Champaign (IL) News-Gazette and the Belleville (IL) News-Democrat. He served as an Illinois Press Association attorney, and in Spring 2006 he was appointed an assistant public access counselor by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to help her office address the number of inquires about the Illinois Open Meetings Act (OMA) and the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Renowned press-law attorney Don Craven’s comments about Sievers include, “He has demonstrated a real passion for the work of defending newspapers in libel and privacy matters, and in advocating for greater access to public records and public meetings.”
Kernek was an award-wining reporter for The State Journal-Register in Springfield (IL) for 12 years, winning accolades from the Illinois Associated Press and the Illinois Press Association in 2002 and 2004 for investigative and enterprise reporting and feature writing. She previously worked as a reporter at the Jacksonville (IL) Journal-Courier and newspapers in Massachusetts. Kernek is teaching reporting for mass media.
Moreno, who provides administrative management of the Western Courier staff in the production of the University newspaper, was the editor and publisher of Nevada Magazine in Carson City the past 14 years. He was a newspaper columnist, book reviewer and radio scriptwriter as well as a reporter for five years. Moreno also is the author of several travel books. His writing has been praised by the Society of American Travel Writers, United Press International and Gannett Newspapers. He is teaching introduction to mass communication.
Posted By: University Communications (U-Communications@wiu.edu)
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