A Brigham Young University communications professor was recently named the winner of a distinguished annual award by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
Thomas Griffiths, associate professor of broadcast journalism, will be given the 2004 Edward L. Bliss Award for Distinguished Broadcast Journalism Education Aug. 5 at an AEJMC convention in Toronto. Griffiths is the 22nd winner of the Bliss award.
Griffiths has taught at BYU since 1974, when he left work as a reporter and anchor in Salt Lake City to establish a broadcast news program with a live television newscast at BYU.
He has influenced a number of regional and national news anchors and reporters who studied at BYU, including Michelle King, Ruth Todd and Kim Johnson in Salt Lake City, Carlos Amezuca in Los Angeles and Jon Du Pre in Phoenix.
"Tom was my mentor," King said. "He was always there to encourage and kindly correct."
"Griffiths gave us tough current events, taught us how to extract the salient details and then convert the information to understandable broadcast prose," Amezuca said. "I recall struggling mightily but feeling a true sense of accomplishment when the story was completed to his rigorous standards."
In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Griffiths has worked at BYU as news director of KBYU-TV and as an executive of BYU broadcast operations.
Griffiths earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from BYU and a doctorate degree from the University of Utah. He also served for 23 years in the Air Force Reserve.
The AEJMC exists to promote the highest possible standards for education in journalism and mass communication by encouraging a wide range of communication research and implementing a multicultural society in the classroom, as well as defending and maintaining freedom of expression in day-to-day living.
For more information, call Thomas Griffiths at (801) 422-9228.
Writer: Thomas Grover
