Richard Benedetto is one of American University’s greatest professors. As an accomplished political journalist, Professor Benedetto uses his years of experience to teach courses in both the School of Communications and the School of Public Affairs. One of Professor Benedetto’s most notable accomplishments is being a founding member of the country’s second largest newspaper, USA Today. Over the course of his career, Professor Benedetto covered innumerable local, state and national elections, became the White House correspondent for USA Today and created a legacy that will never be forgotten.
HCAU: What inspired you to get into the field of journalism?
Professor Richard Benedetto: As a young high schooler, I went to a city council meeting and discovered that I liked politics and I also worked on my high school newspaper. In college, I majored in political science and minored in journalism, but in the back of my mind I wanted to be a journalist. I was good at it. I had good grades in English, I did well in writing, I liked telling stories…it just seemed like a good place to be, in the middle of the action.
HCAU: What was the process of founding USA Today?
Benedetto: It was very intense. We went to work about four months before the paper went to actual publication. We experimented with different styles and the people who were making those kinds of decisions said, “We’ve got to make this reader-friendly…how do we do that?” The decisions came to be more use of color, lots of graphic art, well written but shorter stories, and that’s a formula that still holds to this day. It’s a very successful formula.
HCAU: USA Today is a major source of news for so many Americans. Are you proud of what became of it?
Benedetto: Oh yeah, I’m very proud. Not only because we created something out of nothing, but also because you want, as a journalist, to work for a paper that’s respected. In the early days, journalists didn’t respect it, they sort of stuck their noses up. I wrote the very first cover story printed on page one of the first USA Today. It sits in the Newseum now.
HCAU: If you could define one moment of your career when you thought “I made it!” when would it have been?
Benedetto: I never thought about it that way. I think it was one of the first jobs I had. I was covering a major’s race in a small city in upstate New York. Here I was, lead reporter covering a mayor’s race that was closely followed by the community and I was the go-to person. It made me feel good; I was doing what I wanted to do. There have been a lot of highlights.
HCAU: Being a journalist for so long, you’ve witnessed a lot of historic moments. Is there one in particular that sticks out in your mind?
Benedetto: There are several. I was covering the White House when 9/11 occurred, so I was covering that story. I actually was an eye-witness to the Pentagon; I spent the entire day of 9/11 there, calling in reports. They held a press conference to show the public the Pentagon was still operating; it was filled with smoke and you could smell the kerosene from the jet fuel. I was around for the first Persian Gulf War with the first President Bush. I attended summits when the Soviet Union was still in existence, conferences between presidents. I travelled all around the world with presidents.
HCAU: What do you enjoy most about teaching at American University?
Benedetto: The interaction with the young people here. I like the chance to tell them there’s a right way and wrong way to do things. I really do enjoy being with the students and enjoy telling them how history is so important. News media today tend to be so caught in the here and now that they forget things happened in the past that might have influenced or make it more clear as to why it’s happening now. Without that historical background, the stories that are being reported are out of context. So I think that sense of history is important.
HCAU: What courses do you enjoy teaching the most and why?
Benedetto: The ones that are related to history and I probably put in more history than other instructors might. I like to do a lot of the early days of women’s suffrage movement, the early days of the abolition movement and how that comes full-circle to today. I don’t teach writing courses per say; I don’t teach writing or reporting classes. I prefer to teach the courses where you look at things in a more historical way. I teach Dissident Media every fall term and I’m teaching in the spring How News Media Shaped History. I also teach Politics of Mass Communication and American Political Parties. Putting things into perspective is what I like to do.
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