Media Center named following major donation

The Media Center in Wallis Annenberg Hall will be named the Julie Chen/Leslie Moonves and CBS Media Center following a donation of an undisclosed amount to USC.

Moonves, the president and CEO of CBS told the Daily Trojan that the Media Center will change the way student journalists tell their stories –but urged students to remain committed to the basic principles of journalism in the face of such technology.

“As much as technology has changed, and the world and how we are receiving our information in is vastly different and will become different, learn the tools of journalism,” Moonves said. “Learn how to tell the story. Learn the who, the what, the where, the when and tell it truthfully, tell it straight ahead, tell it from your point of view, because that never changes.”

The newly named 20,000-square-foot Media Center is home to Neon Tommy, Annenberg TV News and Annenberg Radio News.

Ernest J. Wilson III, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, spoke of the Media Center’s importance in shaping a generation of students in rooms that are “connectors, not containers.”

“The Annenberg center is an all-school center,” Wilson said. “This is not just a room to make the news. This a room where the next generation of newsmakers are also made.”

President C. L. Max Nikias reiterated his appreciation for Wallis Annenberg’s generosity in helping to create the space that now holds the forum and Media Center possible.

“For journalists, the search for truth, for the story, is never ending,” he said. “Even as we celebrate today this new center and its cutting edge technology, the values and educational beliefs about the proper training for journalism students remain.”

USC alumna Julie Chen, the host of CBS’s “The Talk,” “Big Brother” and CBS Morning News, praised USC at the event and said she wished she could have taken advantage of the Media Center herself.

“This school helped grow my skills as a journalist and as a broadcaster, but there was nothing like this Media Center when I was here,” she said.

Willow Bay, director of the Annenberg School of Journalism, echoed Chen’s sentiments about the powerful potential of the media center for students.

“I’m not sure we realized back then — I certainly didn’t — just how transformative this building and Media Center would be,” she said. “It’s reshaping our culture, changing how we teach and changing how our students learn.”

Sami Goldberg, a senior studying communication, said the Media Center is one of the reasons she is excited to be a student at USC.

“The Media Center that we have here at USC Annenberg is one of the reasons that this school will continue to be one of the best journalism and communication schools in the country,” she said. “The fact that we have the support of CBS, Les Moonves and Julie Chen speaks to the fact that USC Annenberg offers aspiring journalism and communication students the best opportunity for success.”

Moonves reiterated that spirit to the Daily Trojan.

“What the Media Center does is give you all the mechanisms for being out there,” he said. “This truly is better than any studio I have seen across the country. It really is extraordinary.”