My name is Arthur Walton and I was born and raised in Marietta. I am American but my parents have a background from Europe and South America. Both of my parents were born in Brazil, but my dad lived in a secluded English community and he moved back and forth from England and Porto Alegre. I am fluent in Portuguese and currently learning Spanish in the International Spanish Academy at my high school, Walton.

My biggest passion is sports, and no other is close. I was on Walton’s freshman team last season, and I hope to jump up to the JV team. After basketball, the 2nd place trophy goes to football. I have minimal experience playing tackle because I am an only child and my mom doesn’t want anything bad to happen. Off the court and field, I love everything about the two sports; playing fantasy football and basketball, looking at analytics to compare players, and reading articles of draft recaps, predictions, power rankings, etc. Since I read a lot of media articles, I decided to look into journalism.

With my new interest, I decided to join the Sports Media club. To start off the season, I wrote a piece summarizing one of our games, and one more for the girl’s flag football tournament. One day I would like to be a sports analyst, broadcaster or journalist.

As a journalist, it is evident that Joe Dennis uses empathy and kindness when writing any story he finds.

“I’m always thinking about how decisions impact people, not so much about the politics of issues.”

Joe Dennis is a journalist and teacher. Although his career is very important to him, he puts his family above all. This prioritization began during his childhood. He grew up in Chicago with his family close by. His mother immigrated from the Philippines and his Filipino heritage dominated most of his childhood. Additionally, catholicism played a huge role in the way he was raised. Saying grace before every meal, going to church every Sunday, and celebrating Easter was a regular in the Dennis household. Even though he does not practice this religion anymore, his core values lead his journalistic career a well as his family.

“As I got older I really started to embrace it more” he said. “Family is everything.”

This mindset stayed with Dennis into his adult life. As a dad of three kids, Dennis is constantly trying to help his children embrace their heritage as well. Cooking traditional Filipino dishes like Pancit, Adobo and Lumpia allows his children to stay close to their Filipino culture. While he does not reside in Chicago anymore, his family still visits his hometown to see their relatives. Dennis’ love for his family turned into love for his community through his journalistic career.

“I’ve always had a heart to look out for people that may have been forgotten,” he said.

During his time of being a community journalist, Dennis attended a city council meeting. At the open comments section portion of the meeting, an African American man voiced his complaints concerning his landlord. His house had mice and rats everywhere, but his landlord did nothing to settle the situation. Dennis reached out to the man after the meeting and scheduled a time to see his home in person. Dennis investigated this issue called slumlording. He created a series that took about three months and was nominated for several awards. While winning awards was a huge accomplishment, the main purpose of his journalistic writing was to write for those who were unable to speak for themselves, a principle that has been enlisted in him since his childhood.

“My religion has always taught me to look out for the people that are less than.”

During this year’s commencement of the University of Georgia’s annual Summer Academy, journalism instructor Heaven Jobe is trekking on her own journey to understand the art of reporting.

“I’m still wanting to get better and learn, but at the same time teach you about my own experiences.” Jobe said.

On June 13 at the Grady College of Mass Communication located in Athens, Georgia, the University of Georgia kicked off its week-long annual Summer Academy for students ages 13-17 learning about careers in communication. Jobe, who is a first-year graduate student pursuing a degree in journalism, health and medical communication, will serve as a graduate assistant to Dr. Joe Dennis. This week, they will be instructing 20 students on the craft of journalism.

“I initially went to school to be a secondary [education] teacher, I guess my decision just changed after my first year of college.”

Jobe obtained her bachelors degree in literature, language and writing from the Eastern Michigan University before choosing to attend UGA under an assistantship. Prior to accepting the offer from UGA, Jobe had almost no experience with journalism, but credits her choice to move to Georgia and pursue another degree to her love of learning.

“I wanted to go to school for mass communication, because I did my minor in communication. And then, once I turned in my application to come to UGA, admissions reached out to me with this opportunity.” Jobe said. “So, to answer your question, why did I make that switch– because a door opened, and why not walk through it.”

Since beginning her studies in journalism, Jobe admits there has been some difficulty in transitioning to AP Style and a journalistic style of writing from her experience writing poetry. But as she continues to ask questions and learn from Dr. Dennis, Jobe hopes her experience this week and throughout her assistantship will teach both herself and her students about the intricacies of the fourth estate.

Jobe encouraged young students pursuing a career in journalism to embrace criticism.

“My advice to you is… don’t be afraid to get told that you’re doing something wrong. Because as soon as I feel like I’m doing something wrong, I’m like… I can’t do it. But I can do it, and that’s why I’m here. So just keep going, and take that constructive criticism.”

Today the story of Joe Dennis, a professor at Piedmont University, the man with the striking fedora, is uncovered during a journalism camp interview.

“Bruno Mars was popular around then, and I come to learn he’s Filipino, which is what I am too.” said Dr. Joe Dennis, when asked why his signature item is a fedora. “I was like that’s it, i’m going to wear a fedora.”

The interview held in Grady’s Journalism building for the University of Georgia’s summer journalism camp took place on June 13, where Dr. Dennis participated in one of two interviews, and provided deep moments and big change in his life. He set the groundwork for many students to write a piece about him by giving statements along with multiple stories.

“Family is everything,” Joe said when talking about his upbringing. “When I was a child I wanted nothing to do with my Filipino background because I was embarrassed by it, but as I got older I really started to embrace it more.”

With his career as a teacher and experience as a journalist, Dr. Dennis is guiding upcoming aspiring journalists to pursue their dreams.

June 14, 2022

Joe Dennis had lots of aspirations as a child, but one collage crush shockingly led him to his successful career. 

“That was really how I got into journalism, and then I discovered I actually really liked it,” said Joe  laughing, talking about the start of his career. “Even though the Tara thing didn’t work out I really ended up liking journalism”

During his college years he started out as a sports journalist so he could do reports on his crush, Tara. One day his professor/adviser recommended him to think about pursuing it as a career and to get a journalism major at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. He listened and ventured into other areas of journalism as well. 

“I got taken away from my kid because I was on call, I love journalism but I don’t want to be on call 24/7,” he said. “So thats when I got into teaching.”

After 10 years of being a journalist, Joe realized the commitment of being on call all the time got in the way of his child – and he wanted to be present in the early life of his son. He also wanted to keep putting his knowledge of journalism to use, therefore he had to find the in-between. He decided to start teaching other people about journalism, and continues to do that currently.

“Thats when I became a teacher”

20 students attending the UGA Media and Leadership academy interview their journalism teacher Joe Dennis.

“The first thing I knew I wanted to be when I grew up was a Baseball player… but I wasn’t very good at it” Dr. Joe Dennis elaborated to us about his first interaction with journalism. “During my summer orientation group my orientation leader was a sports editor and asked me,” Hey Joe I know that you’ve dabbled into some journalism, can you write volleyball for me?”

During college Dennis’s first interest wasn’t journalism, it was the Music Industry. He stated his passion of really wanting to be a disc jockey and even stating how he majored and took classes for it. After taking on his first story he began to find a liking to journalism. At first Dennis only wrote sports journalism as a hobby but as time went on he ventured out and learned different ways of journalism. He then switched majors and took on Journalism, getting his masters and PHD at the end of his college career.

“After being a Journalist for about 10 years I’ll never forget why I switched to teaching” he said.

Although Dennis decided to switch to teaching, his career is still alive. He stated he has gotten to write a few stories and dip his feet back into the journalism world.

Rock junkie, fedora wearer, journalist, professor, announcer and coach Dr. Joe Dennis took a 46-year-long journey through life to discover his strengths, flaws, and ability to change the world through writing.
“The first thing I wanted to be when I grew up was a baseball player, but I wasn’t very good at it so the next thing I wanted to do was to be a rockstar but I literally tried every instrument and sucked…So really I wanted to be part of the music culture, so being a disc jockey, because I wanted to be a radio star, is what I went to college for.” Dennis said.

Although Dennis seemed to struggle to find his calling, his fondness for a girl opened up a new door for him. It opened a door to a career that took him more places than being a rockstar or baseball player ever could. Some people call it lying, and some call it fake news, but Dennis calls it journalism. His journalism career helped him expand his reach, form connections, and express what he felt was important.

“I remember my orientation leader was a sports editor for the newspaper at my college and he said ‘Hey Joe I know you’ve dabbled in some journalism, can you write volleyball for me…I started as a sports journalist and the professor said ‘Hey Joe you’re really good at this you should pick this up as a major. Then I eventually got into other areas of journalism,” Dennis said.

However, Dennis did not give up music completely. As a child, he gained his fondness for Rock music from his older cousin and he loved it ever since. He questions the new music of today, but he feels like music is subjective and it depends on the listener. No one should feel obligated to judge another’s music taste because music caters to different people.

“Music is something that has even stayed with me to this day and it’s interesting because my kids listen to music that I consider weird music and I never thought I’d be so old that I thought other music was weird, but I totally respect their taste in music….I respect it because music is very personal to people. Yes, it’s subjective, you don’t like some music, but no one sucks because music is like art, some people love it some people don’t and that’s ok.” Dennis said.

Continuing to experience and learn about journalism, Heaven Jobe explains her call to the applicability of journalism.

“Really the interest came to me, the opportunity was brought to me, and I took the opportunity because it’s something that applies to everyone, it doesn’t expire,” Jobe says, “It’s not something that I won’t be able to use in 20 years.”

Being only 24, Heaven describes her interest into writing stems at a younger age. “I just really liked being able to be free in rules, but also write about whatever I wanted to,” Jobe says.

She explains that she shifted and changed her studying pursuits from “mass communication” and wanting to “be a high school teacher,” to journalism because “I guess my decision changed after my first year of college…because a door opened, and why not walk through it,” Jobe says.

Jobe said that she found a certain interest into the field of health journalism because of her father. “With my dad being older…it was important to me to kinda learn more about African Americans and health, and just learn more about things he’s dealing with…so I’m trying to learn as much as much as I can to be able to help him and advocate for him,” Jobe says adding that she enjoys writing about stories that ‘I can relate to in some kind of way”.

Although Jobe enjoys journalism, she is eager to continue to learn more about the subject and is still “wanting to get better and learn.”

Her biggest piece of advice to anyone aspiring to study journalism is to “Don’t be afraid to get told that you’re doing something wrong…so just keep going, take that constructive criticism.”

Getting to know my instructor Joe Dennis for my journalism camp this summer has been an amazing adventure.

“I would dress the part” , said Joe when he was asked by one of my camp members about his continual action of wear fedora’s. A hat brand that became popular in in the 1920’s.

Back in 2011 when Joe was working as a disc jockey for a radio company in Athens, Ga, Bruno Mars was hot at the time. He wanted something to “define him” as stated in an interview about him. Bruno always wore fedora’s and later on Joe found out that him and Bruno share the same ethnicity, which drew Joe into wanted to wear the hats. But it wasn’t until he went to New York that he bought his first fedora and has been in love ever since. Over the past nine years he has collected many of them include colors and textures. As of now he was 15 fedora’s in his collection.

With me only knowing Joe for two days now it’s clear that he can make up his mind pretty fast. As stated in his interview on June 13th, 2022 , “That’s it i’m going to wear a fedora”. You could infer that he really did not think long on his action of this new look and what can I say, his quick thinking turned out well for him. I have only seen him wear a grey colored on but with many being in his collection I am sure that he has a hat for every color/outfit.

We can learn that choosing a new style can turn out good for you. Life goes by fast so why waste it on sticking to the new “trend” of clothes. After all we can’t take it with us when we leave. Joe said in an interview about this , “It’s just a look”.

Nevaeh Wilson June 14th, 2022

Using the interview audio from yesterday, write a very brief story (no more than five paragraphs) about Joe or Heaven (as assigned) following the “Anatomy of a Journalism Story” prompt.

The audio for both interviews is available here: https://joedennis.com/2022/06/14/interview-audio-for-mla/