Brothers make their marks on journalism

Salisbury native Brad Hamm, center, speaks to participants in an Indiana University School of Journalism travel course in Seoul, South Korea.

Benjy Hamm speaks during a readers' forum at the Kentucky standard.

Benjy Hamm, Brad Hamm and Mari Will, wife of columnist George Will, display their Distinguished Alumni Awards.

By Elizabeth Cook

ecook@salisburypost.comWhen former Post Sports Editor Ed Dupree took an interest in twins Benjy and Brad Hamm, he set in motion two award-winning journalism careers.

Benjy is editorial director of Landmark Community Newspapers, guiding the news side of 56 paid-circulation papers, seven college sports publications and several free publications.

Brad is the dean of the Indiana University School of Journalism, expanding a tradition-rich program and leading some of the nation's top journalism students on foreign study trips.

Now 45, the sons of Alice Owens and L.P. Hamm of Salisbury recently received Distinguished Alumni of the Year Awards from the University of South Carolina College of Mass Communications and Information Studies.

For a night, Brad and Benjy were together again, receiving twin awards.

"It was good to do it with Brad," Benjy says. "We're just pleased that they thought what we've done was worthy of this award."

Brad is equally humble.

"I always am surprised when other people think something I do is worth an award," he says.

Dupree got to know the Hamms through the Faith Flyers, a track club he coached from 1974 to 1986.

"From the beginning, as 10- or 11-year-olds, they were great boys," Dupree says.

He invited them along to the Post newsroom occasionally and had Brad writing sports stories before he was out of high school.

Benjy says that exposure made all the difference.

"A lot of people helped us in a lot of ways," Benjy says, "but I don't think we would have even known about the newsroom and the possibilities if it hadn't been for Ed."

They graduated from East Rowan High School and, as communications majors, worked part-time for the Post while students at Catawba.

After graduation and one year of full-time work at the Post, they were off to graduate school at USC. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Dupree says they exceeded even his expectations.

"I could see them being good journalists, but to go all the way to the top is very impressive," Dupree said. "I like to think I encouraged them along."

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Benjy, who reported for the Associated Press while working on his master's, dove into newspaper work in South Carolina after getting his degree. The Herald Journal of Spartanburg and the Lancaster News won more than 250 awards under his leadership.

Benjy lives in Louisville, Ky., a short distance from Landmark's headquarters in Shelbyville. Editorial director for six years, he has busy days juggling issues at several newspapers.

One recent day, for example, included leading a four-hour training session for a regional editors meeting (Kentucky, Tennessee and Indiana) in the afternoon.

He also worked with attorneys to take care of a subpoena a photographer at one paper had received. And, for another newspaper, he reviewed an article and editorial about wrongdoing by a top government official before they went to print.

The falling circulation and falling profits that hang over part of the newspaper industry have not affected Benjy's work to a great degree, he says. Small, community papers like those he oversees have weathered the recession better than large metro papers. While the metros are saddled with debt, the privately held Landmark does not have that problem, he says.

He describes people lining up their cars outside weekly papers' offices in anticipation of the latest edition.

And he has participated in reader forums. "You can't help but feel the loyalty and commitment and passion that readers have for their papers," Benjy says.

Married and the father to three, he sees younger people coming along in journalism and has no trouble telling them there is a future in the industry.

"When I started in the newspaper side of journalism, I just thought I'd do it as long as it was fun. I never had a longterm plan. ...

"It's still fun."

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Brad went the academic route with his passion for journalism.

He earned a doctorate in mass communication research from the University of North Carolina and was associate dean of the Elon School of Communications when he was offered the top position at Indiana's School of Journalism in 2005.

He took charge of one of the top programs in the country, one that has produced the likes of the late journalist Ernie Pyle, legendary for reporting on the lives of soldiers from the front in World War II, and Nelson Poynter, for whom the Poynter Institute is named.

While with Elon, Brad had taught courses on American culture and global media in Britain, China and Japan, and his wife is from Japan.

At Indiana, he said, "we wanted to help our students learn more about the world," and the school created classes and programs that involved overseas travel.

The Ernie Pyle Course, for example, includes a spring break trip that goes to London, Normandy and Paris. The students meet a journalist in his 90s who knew Pyle.

Issues important to Korea, Chile and Kenya have been the focus of classes that involved travel to those lands.

Brad has worked with the Roy W. Howard National Collegiate Reporting Competition, named for the longtime head of Scripps Howard Newspapers. He goes with nine top, aspiring journalists on a guided study tour of Japan and South Korea, an area of special interest to Howard.

Since he became dean, enrollment in the journalism school is up about 65 percent, he says.

Brad estimates undergraduate scholarship money at the journalism school has increased by about 50 percent. A fund drive that had a goal of raising $5 million by June 2010 has already reached $5.6 million, he says. "That helps."

Like his brother, he is confident about the future of journalism.

"Someone told me everyone is excited about the the future of journalism except the people in it," he says.

Hundreds of Indiana students work on the daily student newspaper, and graduates are getting jobs, many with new media like rollingstone.com and billboard.com.

They are eager to get going with their careers, just as the Hamms were a couple of decades ago.

Brad credits Dupree, former sports editor Horace Billings and many at Catawba College for getting him started in the right direction.

"To be honest, I've been very fortunate, with a lot of good people looking out for me," Brad says. "Very fortunate."