Ta-Nehisi Coates Will Take Over David Carr’s BU Class for the Semester
The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates will be the primary instructor of David Carr’s journalism course for the rest of the semester, Boston University College of Communication said Wednesday. He will share teaching duties with Martin Nisenholtz, formerly of The New York Times.
Carr, The New York Times’s longtime media critic and one of the faces of the company, collapsed at his desk last week and was later pronounced dead. He had been teaching a course since January 2014 at BU’s College of Communication centered on journalism and the rapidly changing media landscape.
His BU course will effectively be split into two parts, as Coates and Nisenholtz take over on an interim basis. Coates, a national correspondent at The Atlantic, will teach the parts of the course related to media analysis and criticism. Nisenholtz, a key leader in The New York Times digital revamp over the past two decades, will teach on topics related to emerging business models in the media industry.
Tom Fiedler, Dean of the College of Communication, said he recognized that Carr has no replacement, and so decided that two heads were better than one.
“David Carr was extremely rare in having the ability to speak about, write about, teach about all facets of the media, everything from emerging business models … to be able to dissect the quality of the media,’’ said Fiedler.
Fiedler said he believed Coates was “answering the call here because of his friendship and respect for David, and we reached out to him that way.’’
Carr first hired a 20-year-old Coates as an intern at the Washington City Paper, and Coates has described him as his mentor. When Coates was awarded the George Polk award for his June 2014 cover story “The Case for Reparations’’ earlier this week, he dedicated the award to Carr.
“The thing to understand is that he did more than hire me,’’ Coates told The New Republic last week. “He changed my life. He changed my life. There’s no one, no man who had more of an effect on me than David Carr.’’
Michelle Johnson, an associate professor at BU College of Communication and a former editor of The Boston Globe, said Coates and Nisenholtz were “excellent choices’’ to fill the position in the interim.
“I’m thinking about sitting in on the room,’’ she said.
Johnson said Coates in particular will give a “different voice’’ to the department.
“I’m excited to have another African-American in the department, because I’m the only one,’’ she said, referring to the College of Communication’s Journalism department. “It’s sad that David’s not here, but it certainly opens up some interesting opportunities to hear from [these] voices.’’
Students enrolled in the course this semester had only attended one class because of cancellations due to the snow, according to Carr’s teaching assistant Clinton Nguyen.
“I’m really intensely interested in Ta-Nehisi’s take on this, because he’s been brought up with David as his mentor,’’ Nguyen said. “It’ll be interesting to see what sort of lessons that David can echo through Ta-Nehisi’s work.’’
He said he was not sure if Coates and Nisenholtz would attempt to continue the course as is or create a new syllabus. Coates, Nisenholtz, and Nguyen plan to meet Thursday night to discuss their plans for the class in more detail.
“With the two of them together, with Ta-Nehisi and Martin together, we’re certain we can offer a very high-quality course,’’ Fiedler said. “We also recognize that this is not going to replicate what David Carr would do.’’
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