Family and friends of the late James Thomson joined Boston University students and alumni in a symposium at the School of Management yesterday to honor the former BU journalism professor.
Thomson “was a man full of stories; some printable, some not,” according to Nancy Day, director of advanced journalism studies at BU, who moderated the symposium. Thomson, who retired in 1997, died in August at 70.
A four-person panel recalled memories of a man they said clung to his principles and “was an idealist in the sense of being a man of conscience,” according to panelist Anthony Lewis, a former New York Times columnist, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and friend of Thomson’s.
“He lived his life with the charge from his parents of changing the world,” said panel member Alex Jones, also a Pulitzer Prize winner and Thomson’s friend.
Thomson began his life with political ambitions and served in both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Jones said, but relinquished his State Department position because of his opposition to the Vietnam War.
“Jim was headed on a steep trajectory for [a political] life, but he ran smack up against the fact of who he was and what he believed. Jim could not be other than true to himself,” Jones said.
After resigning from government work in 1966, Thomson published a 1968 Atlantic Monthly article called “How Could Vietnam Happen?” The article opposed the United States’ involvement in Vietnam. The article won an Overseas Press Club award and has since become common fare for college journalism courses worldwide.
Thomson was curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, a fellowship for journalists, from 1972 to 1984. Jones, Lewis and Day all spoke of the inclusiveness that Thomson brought to the program.
Under Thomson’s guidance, the program grew to include more female and minority journalists, as well as broadcasters, photographers, and editorial cartoonists, Day said.
Thomson also “made himself into a South Africa person,” as the Neiman Curator, Lewis said. Thomson brought black journalists from apartheid-era South Africa and became committed to the issue, Lewis said.
Thomson joined BU’s faculty in 1984 after his stint at the Neiman Foundation.
CBS legal analyst Andrew Cohen, a BU alum and former student of Thomson’s, spoke of Thomson’s far-reaching influence. “There isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not faced with a situation and think about what Jim taught me.
“Most teachers I think of are transmitters. Jim Thomson was more than that. He wasn’t just a transmitter, but a conduit to a larger world,” Cohen said.
Hugo Shong, another panel member, told of coming to BU from China as a graduate student with $38 in his pocket. Thomson hired him as a teaching assistant, despite University officials’ statements that international students could not be hired their first semester. “Jim, to me, is a mentor, also a teacher and a great friend,” Shong said.
The symposium also featured the announcement of a memorial fund to be established in Thomson’s honor. A $9,999 scholarship will be awarded to one outstanding BU journalism student per year for the next nine years.
Anne Butler, the daughter of Thomson’s wife, Diana, said she was “thrilled” with the scholarship fund. “I think he [Thomson] would have been, too.”
She also said she enjoyed the symposium.
“I had no idea there was such a wealth of feeling about Jim’s teaching and mentorship. I feel like I learned a lot more about him,” Butler said.
Pei-Ning Lo, one of several BU graduate journalism students who attended the symposium said she could “see a vivid picture” of Thomson from the stories told, even though she didn’t know him.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
