Dr. Gregory Borchard
Kevin Stoker
Welcome to Inside JMS the stories behind the people who work at the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies. I'm Kevin Stoker, I'm the director of the school and I'm here with my cohort in crime. Dave Nourse.
Dave Nourse
Great to be here as always, my friend,
Kevin Stoker
And we welcome today, Dr. Gregory Borchard. Greg, how you doing today?
Gregory Borchard
I'm good. Thanks for having me here.
Kevin Stoker
We're glad to have you. You know, we've been looking forward to having you Greg, you know, you are around a lot. But for some reason, we maybe it's because, you know, we, you're one of the you're the veteran here on the faculty, you've been around a long time and also your full professor. You know, one of the things that really interests me, why, what was it about the civil war that caused you to kind of that become your obsession or passion? Which one is it?
Gregory Borchard
Well, I've been asked this before, and I usually give the same answer. When I was a kid, I page through my dad's collection of books, he was a history student in Minnesota, we're known as state and he'd been drawn to the Civil War as a natural curiosity, I guess. And he had books about the era along with others too. But I had a combination of Dr. Seuss books, The Cat in the Hat and Civil War history books. When I was a little kid, I dabble in both of them. And it's a hard event process for a little kid or for a grown adult, for that matter to people are still trying to figure out exactly what happened on all those years ago. As I grew up, I first went into newspapers when I was only 10, I guess I was starting to deliver newspapers to the neighbors and had a route that got me turned on to the press. And just, I suppose serendipitously, the two subjects merge together. Once I got into college, I started writing for newspapers and pick this area of interest. Originally, it was actually ancient history, I was more intrigued by the Greeks and Romans, but in time, and it all came back to the Civil War. And I can still to this day, see some of those images from my dad's textbooks and narratives, that I would paint you as a kid. And some of it was really graphic. Some of it was just really intriguing. These people who had lived 150 or 200 years ago, and black and white, and were very human, and at the same time, kind of mysterious and always wanted to try to tell that story. And it turned out that the newspapers themselves were the best source for being able to tell that story. And it wound up becoming an academic career of sorts. I've been doing this media journalism history on the 19th century for more than 20 years now. And there's still tons out there. That's the other beautiful thing about it. You can never exhaust all of the sources and resources on this era. Every year somebody will find a new primary source to dig through and keeps it interesting. keeps it alive.
Kevin Stoker
That's great. Well, so you obviously grew up in Minnesota then. Yes, I think I've been them in Winona. Winona. Yeah, this place nice area a little cold in the winter.
Gregory Borchard
Well, the joke I've had for too long now is that I used to deliver the newspapers through six feet of snow, uphill both ways. So got their papers, rain or shine like the post office. Minneapolis was a great place to grow up. I actually grew up in Minot Tonka which is a suburb west of Minneapolis about 15 miles made famous by the prince film where he advises his girlfriend to go get baptized in the waters of Lake Minnetonka. Haha, right. I know that area. Well still go back from time to time have family they're so far away from the desert. I went from Minnesota to Florida to do my graduate studies. It was going from the tundra to the swamp, and then from the swamp to the desert. So think I've got pretty much everything covered at this point.
Dave Nourse
That's pretty good. You've been a student of history for a long time, Greg, you What keeps you what keeps you motivated? Now, you've been looking at the Civil War. And as you mentioned, there's always a new primary source that people can dig into. But what are you working on? You've been busy recently. So maybe you can tell us a little bit about what you've been working on. And what's exciting you these days. So that's two donations, all these projects.
Kevin Stoker
I mean, he's had several big projects.
Gregory Borchard
The big projects lately have been more about the big picture. I mean, after specializing in a specific event for a long period of time, yeah, I do tend to get a little antsy or even bored with certain subjects. So I've gone from, say, focusing on just newspaper coverage of the Civil War to the 19th century, to the 20th century, the 21st century, the 18th century. The real exciting developments in 19th century history, as far as I'm concerned, are the availability of archival materials online that include images and the more time goes on, the more access, we have to more and more imageries to be 20 years ago, you're lucky if you could access a handful of appropriate materials in the Library of Congress's archives. But now they're popping up all over the place all over the world even. And that's the other angle on all this, we used to be really limited in our understanding of what happened in the United States, to sources from the United States. But now, more and more archives are opening up in places like London, and Berlin, and Paris. And we're able to tap into press accounts from newspapers and media all over the world, which is mind blowing, really, it completely changes the understanding of historians over the past 100 or 200 years in a lot of respects. But some cases, it gets to be a little overwhelming to because no one person can do all that study and interpretation and processing and all the rest. I've relied on colleagues to help in their contributions to projects, including co authored books, the biggest project over the past five years or so as definitely that Encyclopedia of journalism that's both of you, and others in the school contributed to that was a million words, more than a million words in the end is for volume, piece of work that had contributions from hundreds of authors who tried to do the impossible. And that's address all of the contemporary salient issues in journalism in a single issue, or multi volume issue of the encyclopedia. And I was pleased, surprised, satisfied, even that it actually happened. It happened. Under some pretty adverse circumstances, there was a pandemic, after all, about halfway through the development of this whole project. It would have been entirely possible to expect nobody would finish this. Everything was an upheaval, the people who contributed were primarily university professors who were in the process of switching their courses online and the lot of chaos and anarchy at the time. But I mean, to their credit of everybody involved, they followed up in a few cases with a little prodding, but for the most part on their own volition, everybody contributed and we wound up with, I think, a nice product. There have been some good reviews coming in, even from people who contributed. Our colleague, Steven Bates is kind of entities. Wow, this is great. I'm using in class and I was like, Okay, what more do you need? There is that and now currently, a textbook I'm working on, it's actually a revision to a previous textbook that had been published. A different publisher, Peter Lang has agreed to take on the project and swimming all things go well, by this time next year, there should be a manuscript ready to go to print, which I know both of you have heard about in one shape or another, but we'll leave it at that.
Dave Nourse
So I need to go back to the encyclopedia journalism for a minute. So you're you did allude that it was quite quite the effort, Herculean effort, one might say, over a million words for volumes. Greg, what in you? What were you thinking when you agreed to take on this monumental task?
Kevin Stoker
He wasn't thinking, maybe. And maybe
Dave Nourse
that's what it was. But I think the enormity of this project, you understated. And I need to, I want to make sure that for everybody who's listening, even if it's just for the people in this room, we have to give credit where credit's due, that was a huge project that you undertook. And very difficult circumstances, pandemic not withstanding. But we'd love to hear kind of how in your in the trajectory of your career. Why did that make sense at the particular time? I think I think that would be very enlightening.
Gregory Borchard
Well, sure. I had picked up an editorship of the journal journalism history before. Anybody at Sage approached me about this project. And the journal itself was quite a feat. Just going through a major transition with the publishers, they're getting everything online, keeping all the contributors on board, and self publishing. And it was a strange scenario in which the editor had put together the actual design and layout mailing lists and everything associated with the journal itself. I think as my understanding that the people at Sage recognized my name from journalism history as an editor who was actually able to keep that production intact. And they approached me with this idea of putting together the second edition of the encyclopedia journalism, the first edition had come out in 2008. So it was about 10 years lag time. And they were pretty blunt, they didn't know exactly how it was going to turn out themselves. At the time, it was just an idea. And as you know, Journalism and Media change all the time, there was some discussion as to whether or not they would even bother with second edition. Because here we are, what, a year, two years later, I'm willing to bet some of the contents in the second edition are already in need of updating. There was a sense that, okay, if we do this, we're going to have to be kind of organic in the process and just see where it leads us. But I was contacted initially by an acquisitions editor, who wanted to see if I was interested in doing it, she didn't really have very specific guidelines or an outcome in mind. At that time, we had to discuss the direction that the second edition would go, that would make it different from the first edition and decided we'd come up with different general categories. And also a blueprint for the geography involved. I think, actually, in hindsight, out of all of the nuances to the encyclopedia, the geographical dimensions was probably the most challenging to determine. It wasn't supposed to be about the United States exclusively, it was supposed to include areas around the world that readers around the world would take interested in. So in order to determine our target audience, we had to go into rankings of populations globally, to figure out where the press was most widely used in certain areas. And we came up with a listing of the 10 most populated centers on the planet, which is subject to change as well and some cities grow and others lose populations. But from there, we came up with geographical designations that would include certain subjects for certain readers. Based on I believe it was six geographical areas, I'd have to double check on that. But in other words, a lot of this did not happen overnight. It took a good year or more of planning to figure out how you're going to execute this whole project. And once it did to sages credit, those people are very professional in the way they administer projects. This is something they'd done before. On other projects they had correspondents lined up already. They had ways of determining word counts in which material Wilson needed revision for updates and alerts. Fortunately for me, I did not have to go in and scour word for word, a million words to determine if it was publishable or not. My job was primarily to screen the materials and find out if the author's had followed their instructions appropriately. And then there were people in production who would make sure that the styles were correct that everybody use citations appropriately. It was a multi tiered process, it was very much collaborative. Yes, my name does show up on the front cover. But ultimately, they needed a name on the cover. And everybody else that contributed to it included. The people who wrote the individual articles and the editors and the production assistants. There is a lot that went into the project that was actually out of my hands to a large extent.
Kevin Stoker
Well, and you've also in the meantime, published two second editions or of previous books, right. Plus two before the encyclopedia, you finished up that textbook on history, journalism history textbook.
Gregory Borchard
Yeah, without blowing my horn too much here. I did get some advice long ago from mentors back in Florida at grad school. Leonard Tipton ring a bell, yeah, good guy, love the guy. He's still around, he's helpful. He always had this really wise sage advice on how to do things correctly, but at the same time, enjoy it too. Long ago, the strategy was to compile as much material as possible in a database and just scour everything you could get your hands on, pull it into the massive library archives, primary sources and all the rest. Forget about publishing it right away. I mean, that's just putting the horse before the carrot, you just gotta get this stuff ready to go. And that was my story here at UNLV. For the first five years or so it was kind of frustrating, actually. Because I'd send stuff out for publication and get rejected or kickback for presentation at conferences and others. And what am I doing? What am I doing wrong, you know, I'm ready to throw in the towel and all the rest. But the whole process was building up that pool of information. So that in time, you get to learn the craft of getting published and get feedback from reviewers and all the rest. And by the time my application for tenure was coming up, I had gotten the system down through trial and error and experience rejections and all so that it almost became a assembly line, I'm able to crank this stuff out, left and right and start to see these publications pile up. It did take time. But once everything started to fall in place, yeah, the the books and the journal articles and the encyclopedias and all the rest. And they just kind of float out naturally. And it's satisfying, it's made life easier to to not have to worry about this stuff so much and banging your head on the wall as if it's like a futile enterprise or something. But it does take time, especially with historical studies. That's the thing that most people cluding some administrators, not you, Kevin, but some administrators don't get it that it will take years in some cases to get just a simple journal article published, I mean, let alone a book and all the rest, you
Kevin Stoker
know, and there are certain challenges for those who choose history. And you've been able to be to win at that game. I, I guess I'm going to ask you one of these questions where it's kind of just my curiosity. Why, as historian and why do you think history is so important for young people who want to go out in the field of journalism and in practice, why? Why is history an important aspect for them to learn?
Gregory Borchard
Oh, at least two reasons. One is everybody likes a story. It's just true. One of the reasons people turn on the news. Listen to the news read the news is because there are stories embedded in them. At least with a good reporter. They're going to ask them write questions to develop a personality or story about an event. That's what drives the readership. Some cases, they want some sensationalism or suspense of some kind. But really what we're doing is putting flesh on bones for readers, and history dust set. On a deeper level, I think I mean, that's my own personal persuasion is that you have to dig deep in order to put the flesh and bones on people who are no longer with us. And at the same time, you're using the same techniques of asking the questions that elicit answers, and fill in the blanks of the who, what, where, when, why, how so what history and journalism are very much interrelated in that respect. Generally, when it comes to reporting, we're talking about stories that have happened within the past 24 hours. Or if it's soft news, maybe week or month, you get the same result with history, except it's not within the past 24 hours, sometimes it's within the past 200 years. Those people who preceded us can be just as intriguing if not more so than some of the folks alive today. For a more practical purpose, I suppose is you have to have context in telling stories for an immediate audience, if you, the writer do not understand what's preceded the events that you're writing about, it's not going to make much sense to anybody. So we do have to have context and background information. In some cases, that background information doesn't have to go too far back. But if you got a sense of the big picture, it's going to show up and the writing, you're writing is going to be much more meaningful and multi dimensional to try to impress on students in any class, whether it's history reporting, media criticism, you name it. You can't know who you are, unless you know where you've been. And at the same time, you can't tell where you're going unless you know where you are. So if you want a truly multi dimensional approach to storytelling, yeah, you need to find out some of your past and the past of all of us or shared past to
Dave Nourse
tell us a little bit about your teaching. Right? Okay, first of all, what do you teach? And then how has your teaching philosophy shifted in the time that you've been a professor, you've gone from assistant to associate to fall, I'm sure you've learned some things along the way. And Alice that informed your teaching.
Gregory Borchard
I just about 20 minutes ago, left, advanced reporting class. They've been hitting sections of that for about five or six years now. And I've learned like it I mean, there have been some sketchy semesters, especially during that pandemic business where nobody knew what they were doing. But lately, the advanced reporting classes have been very satisfying. And as much as the students have been producing published, or publishable work, and getting some actual portfolio material that they can show off when it comes time to do a job interview. And all of the lessons and discussions that go into the semester revolve around that, along with lectures and PowerPoints and all the rest. For a long time, the history of journalism class was the primary focus of my teaching. Not so much anymore and little bittersweet about it, but not really, it's okay. Still offer it online and get some good returns that I do miss this story telling that takes place in person is is a natural part of the class. You can't really do the class without being in front of people and telling stories. That's what drives it. But that's done well over the years. There's a grad version of that class. There's a historiography class that gets offered from time to time at a 700 level. Lot of writing and reporting classes along the way over the past 20 years as far as the Well the biggest change right now is that relaunching this media criticism class online, which is very exciting. I don't want to say too much about it because it's too soon to really comment on And what's going to happen, but it does have the potential of having an influence on curriculum depending on how things turn out here, we're going to wait and see. But everything's going online. That's one of the big changes, of course, for everybody. When I first started here in 2003 20 years ago now, I was in the habit of trying to put together a script for every lecture, every appearance in class, before I'd show up in front of the students, I'd try to have at least an outline, prepared so that all of the hour and 15 minutes were accounted for that everybody got exactly what they came to hear. And it works. There's nothing wrong with that I do some see some people reading from a script. And it sounds very artificial and lame if they try that. But if you're comfortable enough with your own lecturing, it can work. What I've done since then, is just take a much more natural approach to things. Yeah, there are some ideas sketched out on the schedule. And there are certain points that we need to address. But instead of being so methodical, and tied to the script, see what the students want to talk about, it's a much more effective approach, they respond appropriately, they appreciate it much more than me coming in and trying to ram certain points down their throats. I enjoy it more to it's just a more relaxed and meaningful experience, I think, for everybody that I've seen both work, by the way, in my own experiences, it seems like a former lifetime, but I remember two different approaches. As a student, when I was at the University of Minnesota, there was this professor named Harvey Sarles who specialized in American Studies, and he blew my socks off, this guy was amazing. we'd all sit around in chairs in a circle. And he just walked through the door at the beginning of class and sit down and start throwing softballs out to the students, there was nothing on the agenda. But somehow, by the time the hour and a half had wound up, everybody was totally engaged in the course materials and discussing and debating and asking questions and all the rest. It was just very natural approach for him. And on the other extreme, was another professor I had, who taught Greek and Roman history, he would show up an hour before class, and this is before PowerPoints and all the rest of it. There's a big Blackboard in front of the auditorium where he'd write out by hand in cursive with Roman numerals on the Blackboard using chalk, an entire outline of the class that he is about to deliver this lecture. That was brilliant, too. I loved it, because I mean, you could actually absorb the material on Greco Roman history was pretty heavy stuff. But you could follow along in writing what he had done. Either approach works, but I think over the years, I've gone from that chalkboard outline approach to the much more just okay, what do you want to talk about approach? And I'm starting to like the latter.
Kevin Stoker
Well, Greg, we is there something that we should have asked you in this interview that we haven't asked you? That something that you feel like you'd want to share with our audience?
Gregory Borchard
What do I do for fun? What was that?
Dave Nourse
Oh, yeah. There you go.
Gregory Borchard
I don't have fun what I have nothing to talk about. I've got a wife and a five year old at home. And between mommy and daddy, we got our hands full. Lately, the primary source of entertainment has been bowling, which is great. I think bowling is a great activity. It's healthy and fun as well. Little Allen's learning how to get strikes and spirits and everything. As far as my own individual diversions. I know this is gonna sound really nerdy, but I like puzzles. I've put together huge massive puzzles over the span of 20 years here that include almost all works of art. There's a 13,500 piece Hieronymus Bosch Garden of Earthly Delights up in the loft right now that took two years to complete. There's Another boy goal in my office right now the Tower of Babel that was 5000 pieces. There's what's the Last Judgment by Michelangelo hanging up in the office to? Yeah, on one level, it's just idle stuff. But for me, it's a wonderful distraction. When you are immersed in puzzles, you can just discard all of the distractions of the day, all of the junk and all the nonsense. It's almost like doing Zen meditation with puzzles where you get to focus on finding two pieces that belong together. It may take 30 seconds, it may take 30 minutes, but that's the only thing that matters is focusing on these pieces that belong and may sound corny, but it's true. It's also sort of a metaphor for doing historical studies or academics in general, just looking for pieces that belong together. Right. And when you're done, wow, it's like having a book published. It's like really satisfying to see this final project that's all falling into place. So yeah, puzzles are cool. Despite their sort of common stigma. I like them. I like puzzles
Kevin Stoker
That's pretty cool. I did not know that. Greg.
Dave Nourse
That's really great.
Kevin Stoker
We, man, we appreciate having you and sharing these things with us today.
Dave Nourse
This is fantastic. Thank you for leading off season two of inside JMS, Greg. We appreciate you.
Gregory Borchard
Okay, thank you.
