I couldn’t disagree more with the recent letter in which 70 Syracuse University faculty members and administrators criticized the two-part Daily Orange profile of SU Chancellor Nancy Cantor and, worse, disparaged its authors.
The profile, titled ‘Fait Accompli,’ was, in my opinion, an extraordinary piece of journalism in which both critics and admirers of Chancellor Cantor were given equal voice.
I speak as one who, during the course of a 33-year newspaper career, held supervisory editing positions – many at the executive level – at the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Miami Herald and at the Syracuse newspapers. The faculty and administrators of SU who wrote the critical letter should take a deep breath, open their minds and reread ‘Fait Accompli’ with dispassion. They may, in private, anyway, find they have reason to be proud to have turned out graduates the likes of authors Kathleen Ronayne and Beckie Strum. Their profile of Chancellor Cantor was a thorough and fair portrait of one of the most important people in Central New York.
Ronayne and Strum excelled in their study of journalism at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication, unquestionably one of the five best journalism schools in the world.
I see nothing but the brightest of futures for these two young women, and I’m proud to be associated with them as a Newhouse graduate.
Timothy D. Bunn
Newhouse, Class of 1972