American Journalism Historians Association Intelligencer

AJHA 2026 Convention: Submission Updates and Reminders

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 13:38:33 GMT

By: Jennifer E. Moore

Greetings, colleagues!

The 45th annual AJHA Convention is going coast to coast this year, moving from the Pacific shores of Long Beach, California, to the heart of Greenville, South Carolina. This year’s conference is later than usual, November 5-7, 2026, at the Westin Poinsett Hotel. Plan accordingly. Our board continues to recommend that the submission deadline remains close to our usual June deadline. Original research papers, panels, and research in progress submissions are due June 15, 2026 (11:59 p.m. CST). Visit the AJHA website see the full call.

As your Research Committee Chair, I’m also writing to clarify some of the long-held guidelines our organization has honored to ensure we continue our tradition of excellence that defines our gathering—from students to senior scholars, along with the journalists we honor and the local community members we welcome each year. Page limits, formatting, blind review requirements, and required components are essential to make the process go smoothly for all involved. Submissions that do not meet guidelines may not be considered.

Please remember that AJHA permits one entry per competition category. If you choose to submit in more than one category, your topic areas must be significantly different from one another. Submissions must be original and not under review elsewhere.

Individuals may participate on only one panel, and moderators may not also serve as panelists. These policies are not merely procedural; they also help make sure we have a diversity of topics, broad participation, and a program that reflects the richness of our field.

Please consider submitting your own work, encourage your students to submit, and share our convention call broadly with colleagues on your campus and beyond. Our strength as an organization depends on seasoned scholars, emerging researchers, and those who work closely with graduate students seeing AJHA as a vibrant and welcoming home for their scholarship.

This year, there are some new colleagues helping with the competition. I’m grateful to Dianne Bragg, who is serving in her new role coordinating Panel submissions, and Patrick File, who is overseeing Research in Progress submissions this year. I also want to extend heartfelt thanks to outgoing Panel coordinator Susan Swanberg and Research in Progress coordinator Gwyneth Mellinger for their thoughtful leadership and dedicated service.

Speaking of service, this is my third and final year serving as Research Committee Chair. Who wants to step up and serve? I welcome the opportunity to train and mentor anyone interested in stepping into this role. It has been an honor to serve, and I’m committed to a smooth transition.

Ready, set, write! See you in Greenville this November.

Jennifer E. Moore is an associate professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth and the AJHA Research Committee Chair.

Member Spotlight: Joe Jones

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 13:29:49 GMT

Joe Jones is an assistant professor of journalism in the Reed School of Media and Communications at West Virginia University.

How did you become involved with AJHA?

In 2017 during my doctoral program, I was a research assistant for longtime member, Earnest Perry. While looking up some research for him, I found some fascinating documents on the tobacco industry and funding of the Black press. We then started a side project and dug a little deeper. He then recommended we take it to AJHA which was in Salt Lake City in 2018. I met some other early career folks there like Bailey Dick and Ashley Walters and the rest was history (pun intended)!

You describe yourself as an interdisciplinary scholar, how does that outlook inform your research?

I received my bachelor’s in history in the early 2000s at a small liberal arts school. At that time, postmodernism had challenged the fundamentals of the discipline. One response was to approach the world as radically interconnected, resisting the silos of discipline-specific thinking. I was also taking classes on philosophy, global politics (9/11 was a big influence on my course selection), gender, and colonization. Combine this with my master’s degree in German history (and the work of the Frankfurt School) and the advanced feminist theory of my doctoral program, and my research took on a specific flavor.

Basically, I found I couldn’t talk about anything without talking about history, power, and ethics. In my mind, to adequately understand any phenomenon we need to think about how it developed over time (history), how it is implicated in relations of power (sociology, political economy, Critical/Cultural theory), and how it contributes to living a good life or not (ethics). Given my undergrad training, I even see history itself as inherently interdisciplinary. To do good history you need to have a fundamental understanding of politics, how social structures work, a grasp on the mechanisms of culture, etc. And what’s the point of talking about history if not to live a better life or cultivate wisdom?

So, for example, in my research on food journalism I have to look at how it developed from the women’s pages and evolved into “lifestyle” content (history-shout out to Kim Voss), how it can potentially serve hegemonic notions of consumer culture and industrialized food production (power), and how it might operate to improve the lives of community members entangled in various systems of power, culture, discourse, and resource distribution (ethics).

My research on the Black press certainly involves history, but I am also interested in how Black journalists and media makers negotiated structural limitations (power) and responded with different orientations towards the world and ways of doing (ethics). My work on AI in media examines how the news and other media industries developed their economic models over time (history-power), how AI is currently employed, and what implications these hold for our moral autonomy and democratic worldmaking (ethics). I also look at the fundamental misunderstandings of what AI is—with such misinformation perpetuated by industry interests and routine-following journalists—and correcting these misperceptions to bring focus back to where we might assert our humanity (power-ethics). So, I’d probably consider my work on AI transdisciplinary but really, I can’t even imagine what my research would look like without a baseline of being interdisciplinary.

What makes you most excited about teaching or research?

As far as teaching, there is just something about talking with students and not knowing what’s going to come up or what kind of insights you’ll witness in real time. I teach courses on ethics, law, sociology, theory, and even my history course is more Socratic and conversational than a traditional lecture. It’s these conversations that get me most excited about teaching and the notion that I’m not just conveying information, I’m helping people develop their own sense of (socially grounded) self and moral character.

I get the most satisfaction when students tell me how a course made them rethink their relationship to the world and what they have the ability to do. My program, for example, has a lot of sports media majors (I try to convince them to think of themselves as sports journalists). One of these students recently told me that in his sports classes, he can tell which students have and haven’t taken my ethics course yet. Those who had, he argued, were more informed, attentive, critical, and caring, asking more piercing questions and pushing class conversations in more fruitful directions (well, he said this in so many words). Helping students to ask meaningful questions and having the confidence to assert their informed views and morally preferable ways of doing? Yes please!

Talking with students also helps keep me grounded. If I could have my way (and I’m glad I can’t), I would probably read books and just think abstract thoughts all day.

As far as research, I’m under no illusions that what I’m doing will radically alter the world. But at the very least, it does radically change who I am. Undertaking a new research project means I will learn something new, see things differently, and appreciate life all the more. Ideally, I can use this in my teaching, my service, my daily life as a community member, partner, and friend, to help improve the world in whatever small way I can. I also hold out hope that someone who reads my work (should I be so lucky!), will have their perspective changed, even in the slightest way, that helps bend the moral arc of the universe more towards justice, care, and those things necessary for our collective flourishing. We humans have so much potential for genuine happiness and wisdom, and research is my own humble means of helping to cultivate that potential.

As someone who co-led a study abroad course, what advice or lessons would you have for other faculty in that position?

First, if you have the opportunity, do it! I’ve done it three times now and each time is a lifelong memory. A related bit of advice is to be honest with students about the experience and not romanticize it. Yes, it’s potentially fun and exciting. But studying abroad is also about making yourself uncomfortable in a way that encourages greater understanding and growth. It’s not a vacation, it’s a learning experience, and there will be times when students (and you!) are confused, frustrated, and maybe even homesick. This is all part of it. Some of those challenging times can even make for some of the strongest memories.

Second, I’d recommend an assignment that helps ground students. My own trip is built around art, design, and culture, so the first assignment is something called “Design Connections” where each student picks out some element (like doors, statues, street art/graffiti, archways, fountains, etc.) and has to document different iterations as we tour around. Being in a foreign country can be overwhelming, so giving something students to focus on can be quite helpful. Students also talk to each other about their chosen element, so they’ll even collaborate and point things out to each other. The assignment then requires students to articulate the differences and similarities between how these elements manifest and are used compared to back home.

Another useful assignment plays to the strengths of media students where, as a class, we create a culture/lifestyle magazine of our host culture. Students pitch their own stories, take their own photos, do research, identify sources, and really talk things out to articulate the cultural nuances they have observed. While each student has their own story, they are also encouraged to help each other by bouncing ideas of one another and sharing photos. Students thus have a sense of ownership over a specific cultural aspect while also engaging in conversations that help them reflect on the experiences they are having.

So in a nutshell, recognizing the challenges of studying abroad while also having very intentional assignments is key.

What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of academia?

I love to eat, so I also love to cook! Living so often in my head as we all do, it’s nice to do something physical and have a delicious outcome at the end of it. On a related note, I also like to swim, bicycle, hike, and paddleboard (and West Virginia is certainly great for such activities). Above all, I love spending time with my wife, going on long walks or dwelling over meals as we talk about life, wonder at the silliness of us humans, or contemplate the meaning of it all!

Introducing the Defense of History Committee

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 20:32:46 GMT

By: Michael Fuhlhage, AJHA President

The academic freedom of AJHA members is under growing threat as a result of state-level anti-DEI legislation enacted since 2023 and executive orders imposed since Donald Trump’s second presidential administration began in January 2025. In response, as president of the American Journalism Historians Association, I have established the Ad Hoc Defense of History Committee with these charges:

To give voice to our more vulnerable members who may fear retribution if they speak against violations of their academic freedom.
To chronicle the challenges our scholars face.
And to give all AJHA members the means to help track the erasure of diversity, equity, and inclusion in public institutions where Americans expect to learn about our nation’s history, both the good and the bad.

By doing these things, we aspire to strengthen the academy, bolster accountability for our country’s deeds in the past as well as the present, and guard against the erasure of historical memory.

I am thankful to AJHA Vice President Erin Coyle, who will chair the committee, and AJHA members Deborah van Tuyll of Augusta University, Gwyneth Mellinger of James Madison University, Marquita Smith of the University of Mississippi, A.J. Bauer of the University of Alabama, and Susan Swanberg of the University of Arizona for agreeing to serve on the committee.

Threatening teachers and scholars for our discussion of race in the fabric of American society and history and all matters of diversity, equity, and inclusion is just part of an arc of tyranny under Trump’s second administration.

This arc extends from the classroom into the streets of Minneapolis and every place where the administration has run past its immigration enforcement responsibilities to quash dissent.

Its agents have killed eight people in 2026: Alex Pretti, Renee Nicole Good, Luis Gustavo Nuñez Cáceres, Geraldo Lunas Campos, Víctor Manuel Díaz, Parady La, Luis Beltrán Yáñez-Cruz, and Heber Sánchez Domínguez.
It has, as the American Civil Liberties Union states in a lawsuit against ICE, CBP, and other federal agents, violated the constitutional rights of Americans “by racially profiling, unlawfully seizing, and unlawfully arresting people without a warrant and without probable cause” because of racial and ethnic characteristics.
It has threatened, arrested, and detained observers who sought to collect evidence that could hold Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents accountable, as detailed in a KQED news podcast.
And it has assaulted and arrested reporters covering anti-ICE protests, treating journalists as agitators and participants, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, which accuses police of using arrests to silence protest coverage.

These pieces add up to a picture of a federal government attempting to evade accountability in the present. But it is also trying to hide the evidence of its historical misdeeds and prevent educators from even discussing them when they pertain to the racism in America’s past. Historical memory and teaching are under siege. Our public museums and public lands are in the crosshairs. At the expense of telling a complete history of the United States that includes an accounting of not just its triumphs but also its less noble chapters, the Trump administration has targeted the Smithsonian Institution with a comprehensive review of selected museums and exhibitions.

The administration framed this review as an effort to “reflect the unity, progress, and enduring values that define the American story” in the name of ensuring “alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.” This includes a review of exhibition text, websites, educational materials, and social media content with an eye on “tone, historical framing, and alignment with American ideals.”

The result will be the substitution of the triumphalist history of great white men and their institutions that James W. Carey warned we didn’t need more of for the whole truth that recent generations of historians have labored to build. Most recently, Trump officials ordered national parks to remove signs and displays about settlers mistreatment of Native Americans at the Grand Canyon and George Washington’s ownership of enslaved people at the President’s House in Philadelphia.

Since 2023, Republican lawmakers have been targeting colleges that emphasize diversity, equity and inclusion in their recruitment and retention of students and faculty on grounds that these efforts violate free speech and waste public funds. In 2025, state legislatures enacted 14 laws in 12 states to dismantle DEI efforts, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Targets include DEI offices and training, diversity statements, and teaching about white supremacy in courses required to graduate. These efforts, the Chronicle reports, were accelerated by Trump’s executive orders banning race-conscious programs, and they reach as far as the academic freedom of classroom instruction. In Mississippi, for example, HB 1193 prohibits teaching concepts that include “transgender ideology, gender-neutral pronouns, heteronormativity, gender theory, sexual privilege, or any related formulation of these concepts” in any university program, academic course, or office.

New laws constrain the academic freedom of administrators as well as teachers. In Iowa, HF 856 barred administrators from referencing “unconscious or implicit bias, cultural appropriation, allyship, transgender ideology, microaggressions, group marginalization, antiracism, systemic oppression, social justice, intersectionality, neopronouns, heteronormativity, disparate impact, gender theory, racial privilege, sexual privilege, or any related formulation of these concepts” in programs, training, or policies. Texas’s SB 37 went so far as to give public colleges’ boards of regents curricular control to prevent courses from including DEI and establishing a DEI complaint process and a statewide committee to determine what curricula should include.

These concerns are not abstract. AJHA members are affected in a variety of ways expressed privately in conversations at our conventions in Pittsburgh and Long Beach and in discussions via social media. When an instructor was suspended in Texas for including transgender identity in her teaching, it was chilling. Could the same happen to any of us?

My hope is that the AJHA Defense of History Committee can fashion a process through which members can confidentially deposit their accounts of living with DEI restrictions. What is the use of this? To ensure that the vulnerable are heard without fear of retribution. These accounts will be part of the historical record and part of historical accountability in the future.

I also hope that it can devise a clearinghouse for members to report instances where diversity is erased as part of journalism, media and communication history in their own locales, a sort of crowdsourced database of historical amnesia. Members could then engage in acts of guerrilla history, replacing the deleted diversity aspects in rebellious acts of remembering.

James Baldwin wrote in Notes of a Native Son, “I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” To criticize honestly and rigorously, we must have evidence. The Defense of History Committee will provide the ideas and means to implement the collection of that evidence.

Member Spotlight: Jonathan Daniel Wells

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 19:51:42 GMT

How did you become involved with AJHA?

I found out about the AJHA via American Journalism and the annual conferences. Professor Kathleen Endres, whose work I had long admired, introduced me to several folks at my first AJHA conference many years ago!

How did you develop your interest in the nineteenth century and media history in the South?

This may be a combination of a couple of different motivations. First, I was born in North Carolina and had a strong interest in the South growing up. That upbringing dovetailed with my father’s interest in the nineteenth century and specifically in early periodicals. He was a literature professor at the University of South Florida and introduced me to the fascinating world of journalism history.

How have you seen your field change since you started?

It has changed a great deal, and for the better in my opinion. We are much more attuned to the journalistic work of marginalized peoples, which has revealed really valuable history, some of which I wrote about in Women Writers and Journalists in the Nineteenth Century South (Cambridge, 2011).

You have been interviewed by a variety of news outlets, podcasts, and public organizations. What advice do you have for other researchers who want to engage in public scholarship?

It is important, of course, to know your audience so that you can pitch your responses the right way. And it is also important to be brief in your answers—something I’m very much still working on!

What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of academia?

I am a big baseball fan and also enjoy traveling and hiking.

Jonathan Daniel Wells is a professor of history in the departments of Afroamerican and African Studies, history, and the Residential College at the University of Michigan. His most recent publication The New York Kidnapping Club: Wall Street and Slavery before the Civil War (2020) won the New York Library Society Book Award 2020-2021 and the Victorian Society Book Award.

AJHA Southeast Symposium set to return to Panama City Beach in 2026

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 15:47:22 GMT

By: Anthony Montalto

What started as a retreat for professors to take a step back and share research has blossomed into a thriving yearly conference for scholars of journalism history to connect.

On Feb. 7, 2026, the American Journalism Historians Association will hold its annual Southeast Symposium in Panama City Beach, Florida. Last February, 16 students attended the Symposium and gave presentations on topics ranging from method acting, to media coverage of Olympic gymnastics, to how cult leaders used media to brainwash their followers.

As in previous years, the 2025 symposium began on a Friday night, with students and faculty from five universities gathering to share a meal together. In true Gulf Coast fashion—it was seafood! Saturday morning, the conference room buzzed as the group prepared for a day of swapping experiences and knowledge.

For many student presenters, this was the first time they had shared their work at a conference. University of Alabama graduate student Lyric Franklin was one of the presenters.

“My favorite part was having the experience of presenting my work at a conference, getting to meet other students, and learning about their journalism passions,” Franklin said about the event.

Attendees also heard from David Bulla and 2025 AJHA President Debbie van Tuyll, editors of the Southeastern Review of Journalism History. Bulla and van Tuyll shared the journal’s story and described the process of submitting a paper for publication.

Beyond the presentations, the symposium was a place for students and faculty alike to bond over a shared love of history. University of Alabama graduate student Chloe Rigdon summed it all up: “Meeting professors from other universities, and gaining career advice from them, was such a valuable experience. I am so grateful I was able to attend this conference!”

The 2026 AJHA Southeast Symposium will be Feb. 6-8 in Panama City Beach, Florida. For more information about participating in 2027, contact Dianne Bragg at dmbragg@ua.edu.

Anthony Montalto is a Master's student at the University of Alabama.

AJHA Board Member Greene-Blye Appointed to Indigenous Journalists Association Board of Directors

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 14:25:14 GMT

Editor’s Note: This release was originally published by the Indigenous Journalists Association and reposted with permission.

Indigenous Journalists Association President Sunnie Clahchischiligi (Diné) appointed Melissa Greene-Blye (Miami Tribe of Oklahoma) to fill the board vacancy left by Jourdan Bennett-Begaye (Diné), who stepped down last month. The board voted to approve Greene-Blye during the Dec. 4 board meeting.

Melissa Greene-Blye (Miami Tribe of Oklahoma) worked as an anchor and reporter for 20 years in the news business, covering local news in television markets big and small. She enjoys using her knowledge and experience to educate the newest generation of journalists.

Greene-Blye is the director of the Center for Indigenous Student Media and is a professor in the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas where she created and directs the KU Native Storytelling Workshop, a summer media workshop for Indigenous high school students, and is the faculty supervisor for Good Morning Indian Country, an award-winning student-led weekly Native news and information program produced collaboratively by students from KU and Haskell Indian Nations University. She serves as chair of the IJA Education Committee and also serves on the board of IndiJ Public Media.

Clahchischiligi said she is appreciative of Bennett-Begaye’s service to the organization and that Greene-Blye is an excellent candidate to fill the appointment.

“I offer my deepest gratitude to Jourdan for her contribution to IJA and its members,” Clahchischiligi said. “And I extend that gratitude to Melissa, who has agreed to step in. She is a longtime IJA member who has already demonstrated a steadfast commitment to serve the organization.”

The remaining officers and members will continue to serve on the board of directors for the duration of their elected terms.

Member Spotlight: Kimberly Voss

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 14:18:54 GMT

Kimberly Voss is a professor of journalism in the Nicholson School of Communication and Media at the University of Central Florida. Her recent research has examined culinary journalism and women in the media during the mid-twentieth century.

How did you become involved with AJHA?

My dissertation advisor Dr. Maurine Beasley introduced me to AJHA. I attended my first AJHA conference in Wichita, Kansas in 2006. I have attended many AJHA conferences ever since and thoroughly enjoyed the experiences. My favorite conference was in 2016 in St. Petersburg. I was able to give the Donna Allen Award to food editor Janet Keeler.

What media artifacts or questions are you examining in your current book project?

I am looking at the papers of the Miami Herald beauty editor and advice columnist Eleanor Hazlett, who wrote under the name of Eleanor Hart in the 1950s and 1960s. Her papers reveal what was a significant part of the women’s pages of newspapers. I am also working on a project about wine journalism history in the women’s pages, focusing on Ruth Ellen Church.

What tips or advice do you have for others interested in researching the history of food media?

Scholars should look at the stories that have not been told, especially food journalism from the Midwest. Those stories are often overlooked by scholarship about food on the coasts or the South. Overall, in the 1950s and 1960s, newspaper food journalism has always been framed as simplistic. It was much more than that.

How do you balance finding time for research with your other roles?

I try to make sure conference papers turn into books or journal articles. I also try to make sure that one project leads to another.

What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of academia?

I cook and bake—often based on recipes from historical newspapers. I garden and am looking into newspaper garden columns which were once common. I have also become a track fan since my high school son runs and jumps.

AJHA 2025 Convention Recap

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 20:27:26 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association annual convention returned to California for the first time in 24 years for its 44th meeting held September 25-27, 2025. About ninety scholars attended sessions on key issues impacting how media history is researched and taught including freedom of speech in the press and on university campuses, artificial intelligence, and capturing untold histories.

AJHA President Debbie van Tuyll welcomed attendees to Long Beach, California in her opening address before describing new opportunities or areas of growth that media historians should consider. van Tuyll acknowledged that some communications scholars believe journalism history is in a “rut,” but argued that contextualizing historical research and examining the bigger picture of media within history can help students and other scholars recognize the importance of the field. She also noted that journalists and academics are experiencing similar attacks against their right to free speech. Drawing on her own expertise in Civil War journalism, van Tuyll encouraged AJHA members to examine how journalists overcame similar threats during war times and use the growing public interest in First Amendment rights to examine free speech in “a systems context.” Those goals, van Tuyll explained, citing a 2024 article from Inside Higher Ed, can be accomplished by refocusing on interdisciplinary research areas and methods, building bridges with transnational critical/cultural scholars, and increased training in quantitative methods.

The seven paper sessions and eight panels explored research on representation and advocacy in media history, contributions to print and broadcast journalism from the Black Press, and challenges to historical research brought by a decrease in federal funding and threats to free speech.

Special panels highlighted the life and research of long-time AJHA member Pam Parry who passed earlier this year along panels from American Journalism and the AJHA President each exploring the role of media history and the press in challenging political moments.

Attendees gathered throughout the event to honor dissertation, teaching, lifetime achievement, and book of the year award winners. The 2025 Margaret A. Blanchard Dissertation Prize session featured Robin Sundaramoorthy’s award-winning research on the Federal Communications Commission’s failure to diversify the airwaves in the mid- and late-twentieth century and the important services and community building Black radio stations offered listeners. Holly Swensen’s research on the impact of British media on Australia, Robert O’Sullivan’s study of nationalism and anti-slavery sentiments in the trans-national Irish-American press, and Karlin Andersen Tuttle’s history of five Christian women’s magazines all received honorable mentions.

Keith Greenwood accepted the National Award for Excellence in Teaching and encouraged his fellow educators to help students understand the value of critical thinking, evaluating sources, and investigating new ideas. Patrick Cox, awarded the Sidney Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism History, echoed those ideas in his reflections on running The Wimberley View. Cox reminded attendees that honest mistakes should be acknowledged and forgiven. Additionally, criticism is a natural part of many professions, and their critiques may hold helpful lessons. Applying those ideas to media history research meant removing past blindfolds, view history through multiple viewpoints, and ask difficult questions.

The AJHA Book of the Year Award featured a talk from the prize’s winning author Gwyneth Mellinger for her monograph, Racializing Objectivity: How the White Southern Press Used Journalism Standards to Defend Jim Crow. Mellinger’s research exposed how White reporters in the South used journalism standards to rationalize White supremacy and resist desegregation during the Jim Crow era. Titles from Ira Chinoy, Jeremiah Favara, along with a collaboration between Larry Heinzerling, Randy Herschaft, and Ann Cooper all received honorable mentions.

Additional research awardees included Mark Bernhardt (Wally Eberhard Award for best Historical Research Paper on Media and War), Kaelyn L. Hannah (Maurine Beasley Award for Outstanding Women’s History Research Paper), Felecia Jones Ross (J. William Snorgrass Award for Outstanding Minority-Journalism Research Paper), Rich Shumate (David Sloan Award for Outstanding Faculty Research Paper), and Erin K. Coyle (Jean Palmegiano Award for Outstanding Transnational Journalism Research Paper). Natascha Toft Roelsgaard also received the Rising Scholar Award from American Journalism.

Multiple panels and activities highlighted journalism in the greater Los Angeles area and the region’s history. The local panel brought together scholars from two universities in the area and two journalists to examine how community journalism has impacted Los Angeles.

Later, a poolside reception honored NBC4 “Today in LA” co-anchor Lynette Romero and former editor of Long Beach’s Grunion Gazette Harry Saltzgaver for their contributions to local journalism. Nancy Rivera Brooks, a former deputy business editor at The Los Angeles Times, was honored during the Donna Allen Luncheon for her continued coverage of the Latino community in the region.

Many attendees enjoyed the convention’s proximity to the ocean with tours of the luxury British passenger ship the Queen Mary, time on the beach, and sightseeing along the boardwalk. Others explored the greater Los Angeles area through daytrips to archives or extended their stay to visit theme parks and national parks.

van Tuyll thanked local conference organizers Madeleine Lisebland, Noah Arceneaux, and Christina Littlefield along with Aimee Edmondson, Patti Pilburn and Erin Coyle for their administrative efforts in her closing remarks during the business meeting. Outgoing board members Elisabeth Fondren, Tom Mascaro, and Ashley Walter were also acknowledged before confirming Andersen Tuttle, George L. Daniels, and Melissa Greene-Blye as incoming members. Coyle was confirmed as first vice president and Pamela Walck as second vice president before the president’s gavel was turned over to Michael Fuhlhage. The AJHA Auction, raising funds for the Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Fund, held a silent auction and several live mini auctions throughout the conference which raised over $2,700.

The AJHA convention will be returning to the east coast in 2026 for a meeting in Greenville, South Carolina, November 5-7.

Research Grant Report: Hugh Maxwell’s Business Journal and the Earliest Irish-American Press

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 20:40:39 GMT

By: Debbie van Tuyll

Historians contend the Irish-American press started with the wave of Irish emigrants brought to the United States by the devastating famines of the 1840s, especially the on in 1848, An Gorta Mór. Cian McMahon, the only historian to date to produce a history of the Irish-American press, dates it to 1842 (McMahon 2009). However, research shows that somewhere around twenty Irish American newspapers were issued in the United States well before 1842. The earliest one found thus far dates to the 1810s. Dozens of Irish-American journalists plied their trade in America much earlier, as far back as 1704, if the American Antiquarian Society’s Printer File is correct, an Irish emigrant, John Campbell, became the second editor of the Boston Newsletter. Others would follow, including well-known eighteenth and nineteenth century editors Mathew Carey, John Daly Burk, and William Duan. It is this project to uncover the history of the earliest Irish-American press and the Irish-American journalists who helped create and build the American press that the McKerns grant to Debbie van Tuyll has supported.

Specifically, the grant was used to obtain the business journal of Hugh Maxwell, editor of two Lancaster, Pennsylvania newspapers, the Gazette, and the Journal from the American Antiquarian Society. Maxwell was born in 1777 at Portaferry south of Belfast in what is today Northern Ireland. At age 12, he traveled to America where he became the ward and heir of a wealth uncle, Archibald Bingham, then in partnership with Mathew Carey who was editor of a Philadelphia literary magazine, the Port-Folio. Maxwell later published his own literary journal, the Maxwell Intelligencer and served as Port-Folio editor. Maxwell learned not only printing but also how to cast type and how to make wood cuts. He also patented a printer’s roller used to spread ink efficiently on lead type (J. I. Mombert, An authentic history of Lancaster County, in the state of Pennsylvania).

In 1817, he moved to Lancaster, about halfway between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, where he established the Lancaster Gazette and eventually purchased the Democratic Lancaster Journal, which he published until 1839, the same year the business journal is dated. He sold the paper in September 1839 to a young man who had been his apprentice, John W. Forney. One might be tempted to wonder if this business journal was prepared as part of the transfer of the business, but there are enough mark-throughs and marginal notes to indicate the journal predated the transfer by a good margin.

Business records are exceedingly rare, particularly business records that are a) detailed and b) accurate and that is why this the 130-page journal is so important. Some newspapers might print circulation figures but given there was not Audit Bureau of Circulation at the time, those are always suspect. This journal does not list circulation figures, but it lists not just individual subscribers but also the exchange papers Maxwell worked it, the taverns, post offices, and publications offices to which he sent newspapers, and individual subscribers and their locations. The journal also includes which days papers were sent to different locations—most see to have been mailed either on Wednesday or Thursday, accounts that had been sent for collection, and, perhaps most valuable, copies of letters Maxwell wrote regarding the running of his business. One of those letters was to Miss Louisa L. Johnson, who had apparently written to see what Maxwell knew about a Mr. Appleton, who, he reported in his return letter, was a drunkard who had left his family, fallen in love with a woman in York, Pennsylvania, and married her. This first wife discovered what he had done, and her relatives sought out Appleton for revenge. He fled but had since come back. Maxwell summarized what he had learned by writing, “Really it appears to me there is, to use a common phrase, more truth than poetry in the above description.”

Having only recently obtained this document, I am still perusing it and working out how to fit it into my current project. I suspect it will become part of the introduction where I explain how newspapers functioned in the early nineteenth century. This journal gives me evidence to back up distribution methods—the journal lists, for example, which subscribers received their papers by carrier and which by mail. The listing of taverns can be used to help explain how availability in public places extended the reach of newspapers. Lacking any further information about business operations, I do not see this making a chapter in-and-of-itself in this project. That said, this project is very likely going to lead to another that consists of a collection of short biographies of Irish-American journalists from the colonial period forward, and I can definitely see all the letters at the end of the journal being a very important component in Maxwell’s biograph. So, it appears this business journal will be used in two separate projects.

Debbie van Tuyll is a professor in the Department of Communication at Augusta University. She previously served as the president of AJHA.

Remembering scholar Jeremy J. Chatelain

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 19:44:33 GMT

By: Kimberley Mangun

Jeremy J. Chatelain, a longtime AJHA member who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Utah Department of Communication, died on Sept. 15 in Denver. He was 51.

Dr. Chatelain was a Seminary Teacher for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and an independent historian who studied the power and influence of the 19th-century press in American religious history.

He discovered what he called “an unexpected interest” in First Amendment theory, law, and research during a Free Speech in Society graduate seminar taught by Dave Vergobbi, a past president of AJHA and recipient of AJHA’s National Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Dr. Chatelain found his passion for journalism history in a graduate seminar on historical research methods taught by Kimberley Mangun, a past president of AJHA. They subsequently co-authored a paper for the AEJMC History Division about Abner Cole, publisher of the Palmyra, NY, Reflector and a staunch proponent of the Freethought Movement. Their submission garnered a top-paper award at the 2012 convention held in Chicago. A revised manuscript was published in American Journalism in 2015.

Dr. Chatelain’s 2018 dissertation, chaired by Prof. Mangun, was a deeply researched cultural history of the influence of 19th-century American print on Mormonism in Kirtland, Ohio, between 1831 and 1837. He located and analyzed more than 1,600 articles published in 325 newspapers to demonstrate how “print culture and texts about and by the Mormons created, shaped, changed, and directed the trajectory of Mormonism in its formative years.” Essentially, he tracked the cross-country spread of articles and editorials about Mormons during the 1830s and showed how editors “created and shaped” a consistently negative perception of the uniquely American religion. Dr. Chatelain also studied the early development of the Mormon press and concerted efforts to dispel or correct disparaging commentary on Mormonism.

His dissertation was awarded an honorable mention, Margaret A. Blanchard Dissertation Prize, at AJHA’s conference in Dallas in October 2019. He was delighted to receive the award and discuss his work at the convention, even though quadriplegia made it very difficult for him and his wife, Connie, to travel.

In 2023, Dr. Chatelain received one of the inaugural AJHA–AEJMC History Division diversity microgrants to study anti-Mormon rhetoric in Thomas C. Sharp’s Warsaw (IL) Signal. He discussed that research-in-progress during a panel session at the Columbus, Ohio, convention. His analysis of Sharp’s incendiary articles and Extras, which motivated mob actions and led to the murder of Mormon leader Joseph Smith in 1844, was published in Journalism History in March 2025.

Dr. Chatelain presented additional research at several Sperry Symposiums at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and published peer-reviewed work in books released by the BYU Religious Studies Center.

His ongoing, diligent research ultimately led to the discovery of nearly 14,000 articles about and by the Mormons published in more than 400 newspapers. Shortly before his death, he was drafting a book proposal based on his voluminous archive that he planned to submit to Oxford University Press.

Scholars interested in newspaper history, religious history, First Amendment theory, and many other topics will soon be able to use his vast collection, thanks to Dr. Chatelain’s generous, forthcoming donation of primary sources to the LDS Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

Member Spotlight: Roy J. Harris

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 19:13:16 GMT

How did you become involved with AJHA?

In beginning research for my University of Missouri Press book [Pulitzer's Gold], and after it came out, I gave a number of presentations around the country, often under the auspices of AJHA, which I joined before the book's first edition came out in 2006. I gave a number of talks for AJHA around the country in connection with early editions of the book. At the same time, I was teaching for Emerson College and was a senior editor at The Economist's monthly magazine, CFO, based at the time in Boston at the time. Before that I’d been a long-time Wall Street Journal reporter, serving in Pittsburgh first, and then, for nearly 20 years, in Los Angeles. During my journalism career, I continued to do research on the Public Service Pulitzer Prize—awarded in the form of its famous Gold Medal.

How do your decades in journalism inform your research?

I was raised in a “newspaper family” in St. Louis, where my father, Roy J. Harris, was a Pulitzer-winning reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. (He was named in the citation when the Post-Dispatch and Chicago Daily News jointly won the 1950 Public Service Pulitzer.) Because my own career took me from the Post-Dispatch—as a reporter serving as a summer intern—to the Los Angeles Times, after my graduation from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism in 1968, I became very familiar with the reporters and editors who had led Pulitzer-winning research. When I joined The Wall Street Journal (with its own Pulitzer-winning tradition) after getting my master's from Medill, and serving in the U.S. Army, I continued pursuing my interest in the Pulitzer Prizes, and the men and women who’d been involved with winning therm.

What surprised you most while researching the history of the Pulitzer Prize?

My earliest surprise was that so little had been written about the history of the Pulitzers, and especially the Public Service Prize. It seemed to cry out for research attention. And I decided to become the person to do it. The University of Missouri Press was most supportive, especially because I had so many “inside sources” from my Post-Dispatch years. The Post-Dispatch was the only paper to have won five Public Service Pulitzers over those early years.

What topics or questions are you pursuing in your current research?

I continue to use the approach of digging into the “story behind the story” of how editors and reporters decide to pursue a project; to help it grow into a major story; and to perfect the work to the point that it qualifies for Pulitzer Prize contention. I found, in my research, that little had been written about the Pulitzer “award process,” as it had grown over the decades at Columbia University, which administers the Prizes. People who ran the Prizes seemed very excited that I was dedicating myself to digging into the “back stories” of the award system, as well as each winner. And in the end, Columbia University Press took over later editions of my book.

What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of your research work?

In addition to continuing to write about prizewinning journalism, something I’ve done for more than two decades in my connection with Florida’s wonderful Poynter Institute. I am also very interested in music and musical theater. I have acted in community theater in Massachusetts for decades. But the Poynter Institute has been my main “hobby” with examples of my work for them available on their website.

I have also taught journalism course over the years—including at Emerson College in Boston—where I became more involved with AJHA, and occasionally writing for Intelligencer. I also enjoy traveling, and writing travel articles when I visit places in Europe and elsewhere.

Roy J. Harris Jr. has written for The Washington Post, Boston Globe, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Los Angeles Times, and The Economist. His website provides additional background on the current edition of Pulitzer's Gold: A Century of Public Service Journalism along with study guides for students.

Research Grant Report: Finding Girl Newsies in the Archives

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 13:25:45 GMT

By: Autumn Lorimer Linford

With the help of funding from the AJHA Hazel Dicken-Garcia Research Grant, I was able to travel to New York City and conduct research for my upcoming book, Extra! A History of America’s Girl Newsies, soon to be published by the University of Nebraska Press. While there, I was able to find archival materials focused on publishers’ rationale for lobbying Congress in the 1930s to exclude boy newspaper carriers—but specifically not girls—from the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

In Extra!, I detail the lives and gender-specific experiences of girl newsies and paper carriers. Since before the founding of the United States through the twenty-first century, the newspaper industry was held up by circulation departments that relied almost exclusively on children of all genders for distribution. Despite both girls and boys hawking the news, however, pop culture (and much of scholarly literature) surrounding newsies focuses on the boys. There are several wonderful works on newsies that successfully incorporate a handful of newsgirl stories in with the boys, but without fully exploring newsgirl experiences and contributions to news labor. As historian Jon Bekken lamented in a 2000 article in the journal Media History, “Popular mythology has little room for the women and girls who also worked as ‘newsboys.’”

By focusing the story of newsies on the newsboys, however, it has been too easy for pop culture to paint the history of child news labor as an example of the American dream. "These boys were not child laborers!" the movies and books seem to say. "They were independent young businessmen pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and getting a leg up in life!" Newsboy proponents point to the senators, presidents, sports heroes and movie stars who all started their careers as boys delivering newspapers, as if it were paper routes and selling papers on streetcorners that destined these men for greatness.

A surprising amount of newsgirl artifacts were archived, but as other scholars have often found when researching women and girls, first person documents written by newsgirls themselves were limited. I was able to answer many of my questions about their lives using workarounds any historian would be familiar with using, but I couldn’t answer everything. When and why did newsgirls and papergirls disappear, and when and why did they return? Even more vexing, how involved were newspapermen in that decision? Many of the presses who used child labor for circulation were the same newspapers and magazines that pushed for child labor regulation. Did the adults running newspapers understand their reliance on newsies and papergirls and boys was a reliance on child labor, or did they truly believe (as they often touted) that delivering newspapers was different than the other jobs children held in other industries?

I couldn’t find the answers to these questions in online newspaper archives or the scrapbooks, letters, and ephemera of newsgirls I’d found on other research trips. It was on my research trip to New York, using the generous funding of the Hazel Dicken-Garcia grant, that I finally discovered the truth about the role newspapers played in the lives of newsgirls. The archival materials I found in newspaper business files and correspondence between publishers and editors informed two of the final chapters in my book. Without the grant funding and this trip, Extra! would be incomplete. Instead, I hope to offer an addition to media and gender history that challenges some of the existing notions of newsie labor and helps grow our understanding of the contributions of women and girls to journalism history.

Autumn Lorimer Linford is an assistant professor of journalism at Auburn University.

Editor's Note: Extra! A History of America’s Girl Newsies is scheduled to hit shelved early fall 2026 through the University of Nebraska Press. Other research conducted during the same trip to New York City helped inform "'Is This an Evil Practice?' Newspapers and Newsgirls,” which won top faculty paper at AEJMC History Division 2024.

Member Spotlight: Felecia Jones Ross

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 03:00:27 GMT

How did you become involved with AJHA?

My mentor Joseph McKerns was a founding member, and Wally Eberhard one of the professors at The University of Georgia where I earned my doctorate, was an active member. They both inspired me to submit my research to the AJHA conferences eventually leading me to submit it to American Journalism for publication.

My first conference was in Louisville, Kentucky where I served as a discussant for one of the paper presentations. This turned out to be a family trip in that my husband and then 3-year-old daughter drove there from Columbus, Ohio. Over the years, I’ve participated as either a panelist, moderator or paper presenter.

One of the many things that I like about the AJHA conferences is that they tend to be located in mid-sized cities where, depending on distance, one can comfortably drive to them. I have been able to drive to two other conferences: Cleveland in 2004 and Pittsburgh in 2024. Of course, I must include Columbus as being another convenient location where I had the pleasure and honor of serving as a co-host.

I also like the camaraderie at the conferences. We can share and critique our research ideas and teaching strategies in a friendly, non-judgmental atmosphere.

You have previously discussed that watching and reading coverage of the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War as a child in the 1960s inspired you to become a journalist and that you aim to transfer the notion that journalism can change society to your students. How do you communicate the powerful role journalism has to students during a time when many in the country distrust the press and believe journalists do not have the public’s best interest in mind?

For the past five years I have taught Crime and the News Media, Stereotypes in the Media and Strategic Communication Writing. In each of these classes, I’ve encouraged my students to tap into and embrace the power of their own, unique voices, and that they can and should use their voice in all areas of their lives. While they are made aware of how traditional, legacy media has changed society, they are also shown how they can use the newer, evolving media to make a difference. I also share with them the challenges that they are likely to face, regardless of profession, in advocating for the public’s best interest.

I stress the importance of seeking the truth even if it is unflattering to one’s viewpoint. While I encourage students to express different viewpoints, I also lovingly correct them if the viewpoints are not based on facts.

What question(s) do you wish fellow researchers or colleagues would ask about your work and/or interests?

What are the connections between my research and personal experiences?

How can we use historical media as tools for searching our family histories?

How can we use the Black press as a tool for either filling in historical gaps or correcting historical inaccuracies?

What tips or advice do you have for others exploring similar topics, archives, or questions that you examine in your research on the Black press?

Don’t limit yourself to digital sources. They only go back so far. Because we are doing historical research, we may have to look at hard copies of print media sources. Use hard copy indexes such as The Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature and The Reader's Guide to Business Periodicals

Record interviews with older relatives and friends and ask them details about their lives. This can include such details as their first day of school, games they played when they were children, favorite outfits and of course the media they consumed.

What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of academia?

I love consuming media about crime. I’ve practically memorized the plots and lines to episodes of Law & Order and Law & Order SVU. One of my favorite authors is John Grisham. I’m currently reading Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions by Grisham and Jim McCloskey. I plan to assign one of the chapters to my students in the Crime in the News Media class.

I also love to travel, especially to places that are driving distance. I enjoy stopping in some small towns and shopping at some of the independently owned boutiques.

In my spare time I also do Jazzercise, an activity that I’ve done for more than 30 years. When time permits, I have gone to classes during my travels.

Felecia Jones Ross is an associate professor in the School of Communication at The Ohio State University.

Research Grant Report: Archival Silences in the Washington Post Historical Collection

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 21:00:09 GMT

By: Ashley Walter

As the spring semester comes to a close, so many of us hang our heavy doctoral regalia in the back of our closets and start packing for research trips. It might be summer “break,” but for most of us, it’s no break at all.

Thanks to the American Journalism Historians Association, Joseph McKerns Research Grant, and the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Research Grant, I was able to visit the Library of Congress this past May. Specifically, I worked with the Washington Post Historical Collection, which spans from 1877 to 2015.

This research trip helped to support my manuscript tentatively titled Settling: Women Who Sued the News, which is contracted with the University of Massachusetts Press Journalism and Democracy book series. Stemming from my doctoral dissertation, the book examines sex discrimination lawsuits at major U.S. national press organizations during the 1970s.

In response to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which banned sex and race discrimination in the workplace, U.S. women working at print news organizations sued for equal rights throughout the decade. My research traces the history of class-action sex discrimination suits against news organizations at some of the most prestigious news outlets in America. Women sued the news at the Washington Post, Associated Press, New York Times, Register Publishing Co., Detroit News, Reader’s Digest, Time, Life, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, and Newsweek.

I’ve spent the last seven years visiting archives and conducting oral history interviews for my book. While I was able to capture the oral histories of several women who worked at and sued the Washington Post for sex discrimination, I was hopeful that the archive would include legal documents and pay wage data.

Unfortunately, I came across many “archival silences” at the Library of Congress. The Washington Post Collection generally focused on men, who for decades ran and operated the newspaper. For example, I was thrilled to find a folder in the archive vaguely titled, “Lawsuits.” But the lawsuits in the box contained information on Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, and defamation suits. Indubitably, these are important historical documents, and I am very glad that they are housed in an archive. But where are the women, I kept asking myself. I was grateful to access a few key lawsuit documents. But the most information I found about a woman’s life was about a Washington Post newswoman who won a beauty contest called the Front Page Girl in 1943.

To be sure, I left the archive with threads for future media history projects as well. But I am reminded of the importance of oral history interviewing to help overcome stories that are missing from traditional brick and mortar archives.

Logistics and Reading Room Reservations:

If you plan to visit the Library of Congress, you might be disappointed to learn that you won’t be in the picturesque “main library” officially known as the Thomas Jefferson Building. Rather, you will be down the street at the Manuscript Reading Room inside of the James Madison Memorial Building. Be sure to arrive early to file paperwork and request a library card, which you need to access the Reading Room.

Additionally, if you are interested in accessing the Washington Post Historical Collection, it’s important to note that most of the materials in the collection are stored offsite. This means, a Library of Congress archivist told me, you’ll want to request materials at least two weeks in advance of your visit.

Image: The front of the Library of Congress James Madison Memorial Building, which houses the Manuscript Reading Room.

Ashley Walter is an assistant professor of journalism and media at Saint Louis University.

A Spirit of Generosity: Impact of the Sweeney Fund on First-Time Convention Attendee

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 20:32:37 GMT

By: Ryan Busillo

Attending last year's convention in Pittsburgh was invaluable to my professional development. Academic conferences are simply the best way to engage with colleagues and fellow students outside of your typical department bubble. The paper I presented in Pittsburgh blended archival research and theory, demonstrating how the ideology of two social movement organizations influenced their communication strategy. It was my first foray into novel academic writing. The project's supervisor, Dr. Lisa Burns, professor of media studies at Quinnipiac University, recommended the American Journalism Historians Association’s 2024 convention as an excellent place to submit. I couldn't have attended without the support provided through the Michael S. Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend.

Having the opportunity to present my research to a supportive community of scholars was a big step towards crafting meaningful research. The suggestions and critique I received were helpful in understanding where to take this article next. Notably, I had the opportunity to discuss the paper with Aniko Bodroghkozy, whose book Groove Tube: Sixties Television and the Youth Rebellion (2016) served as a major source. Beyond my own presentation, attending other panels exposed me areas of history I had never explored in my own work but now want to interrogate.

The AJHA has cultivated a uniquely welcoming atmosphere for emerging scholars. This spirit of generosity, which should not surprise anyone who has attended an AJHA convention, is felt by every graduate student I spoke to in Pittsburgh last year. The best way to keep the AJHA and its convention a welcoming space for graduate students is to support the Sweeney Travel Stipend by participating in the annual auction.

Despite the importance of attending academic conferences during graduate school, financial realities make that a challenge. The rising cost of tuition, coupled with the nil to paltry compensation graduate student labor receives from universities, has deepened the precarity we study in. The travel expenses, hotel costs, and registration fees associated with academic conference travel compound this. Recognizing this is particularly important as the academy becomes more sensitive to the way these structural realities disincentivize career development of rising academics from disadvantaged communities. Financial assistance can be the difference between a graduate student attending a conference or not. Conference participation often requires choosing between professional development and financial stability, especially if you live in a city with high cost of living as I do.

A cash-strapped graduate student myself, the Sweeney Travel Stipend made traveling to the convention a far easier decision. The stipend covered my hotel stay at the conference venue, allowing me to fully participate in both scheduled sessions and valuable informal discussions with peers. The auction that funds the Sweeney Travel Stipend provides a direct way to address these challenges and supports emerging scholars.

The annual AJHA auction is an investment in the future of journalism history scholarship. Every vintage publication, piece of memorabilia, or regional gift basket donated and bid on opens the door for another graduate student to join our scholarly community. Your participation in the auction directly supports the next generation of researchers through the Michael S. Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend, ensuring our field remains vibrant and accessible to all.

Ryan Busillo is a graduate student at the New School for Social Research in New York City. He serves on the AJHA public relations committee.

Member Spotlight: John Ferré

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 20:04:38 GMT

How did you become involved with AJHA?

I attended my first AJHA meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1987 and my second in Lawrence, Kansas five years later, but I became a regular after Roanoke, Virginia in 1994. When I saw the call for the convention at the Roanoke Airport Marriott, I remember thinking, “Either these folks are clueless, or they care more about their papers than their location.” Wanting to find out, I went. And I wasn’t disappointed. I met Maurine Beasley, Janice Hume, and Steve Knowlton there. It didn’t hurt that the bus returning us from our excursion to Thomas Jefferson’s retreat, Poplar Forest, just happened to break down at a roadside bar with a nice selection of draft beers.

How do your undergraduate and master’s degrees in religion shape your understanding of journalism and/or film history?

Communication and religion are inseparable. Religion is always mediated by communication. Oral storytelling, exhortation, and suggestion helped tribes find cohesion. Print added the dimensions of documentation and permanence, creating the idea of “going by the book.” And electronic media foster a compelling sense of immediacy. In so many ways, my study of media shapes my understanding of religion. Along this line, I have to recommend Dennis Ford’s illuminating 2016 book, A Theology for a Mediated God: How Media Shapes our Notions about Divinity. His subtitle says it all.

But the opposite is also true. Among its many features, religious faith is a way of valuing intensely. As Kierkegaard understood, religion reminds us of the enduring subjectivity of human experience. So my study of religion tells me that all communication, journalism included, is subjective.

How have your experiences holding visiting teaching and research positions outside of the US informed your teaching or research at the University of Louisville?

When I joined the University of Louisville as an assistant professor, I had briefly visited just two other countries: Canada and Mexico. Since then, I have had the good fortune to give papers in Europe, South America, and Asia, to serve on the ecumenical jury at the Montreal World Film Festival, and to participate in a faculty development seminar in Jerusalem and the West Bank offered by the Palestinian American Research Center. I have also taken students overseas, most recently 18 honors students who studied Irish Tourism and Identity here on campus and then accompanied me to Ireland.

The effect, I hope, is to make me less provincial. I like the title of the PBS documentary series, "The American Experience." My teaching and research focus on American experiences, appreciating that we live in an interconnected world. My Faith and Film course, which examines the history of the most significant films about religion from the silent era to today, includes movies from Italy, Sweden, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Poland. I hope my teaching helps to mitigate xenophobia in my corner of the globe.

How have you seen your field change since you started?

I contribute to two subfields of media studies—media ethics and religion and media—and they have developed in parallel ways since I joined the faculty of the University of Louisville in 1985. First, each professionalized. The Journal of Mass Media Ethics (now the Journal of Media Ethics) started publication in 1985, and Media Ethics became a division of AEJMC in 1999. Similarly, Religion and Media became an interest group of AEJMC in 1996, and the Journal of Media and Religion began in 2002. Both journals are now Taylor & Francis publications. Both subfields increasingly focus on digital media and embrace publications from scholars across the globe.

The gender composition of the journals’ editorial advisory boards differs, though. Volume 1:1 of the Journal of Mass Media Ethics listed an editorial advisory board that was 84% male and 16% female. Today’s board is nearly equal: 51% male and 49% female. By contrast, volume 1:1 of the Journal of Media and Religion listed an editorial advisory board that was 78% male and 22% female. Today’s board shows a similar imbalance at 76% male and 24% female. The Journal of Media and Religion is currently in the process of “repopulating” its board, presumably to correct this imbalance.

What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of academia?

I’ve loved music at least since I watched the Beatles play on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1964. My taste ranges from rock to symphonic. These days I sing bass in a church choir directed by a Ph.D. in musicology who treats us like session musicians.

I also enjoy cooking, especially when I have fresh vegetables from my garden. And then there’s travel—mostly to see my children and grandchildren, but sometimes to international destinations. In another life, I’d be Phil Rosenthal, creating season after Netflix season of "Somebody Feed Phil."

John Ferré is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Louisville where he teaches courses on media history, media ethics, and religious media.

2025 AJHA Election Information

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 20:44:27 GMT

Our election this year will be a little unusual. Pamela Walck, who has two years remaining on her board term, is the lone nominee for second vice president. If she is elected, we will have four open board seats.

Four members were nominated for the board of directors: Karlin Andersen Tuttle, George Daniels, Melissa Greene-Blye, and Susan Swanberg. Members will vote for three board members as usual; the one that receives the least votes will take over Walck's partial term if she is elected second vice president.

Additionally, the membership will vote on whether to confirm the appointment of Erin Coyle, whom the board of directors appointed to second vice president upon the passing of Pam Parry. Coyle has been serving in that role since February. Per the AJHA Constitution and Bylaws, the Board is tasked with appointing officers to vacated positions, subject to confirmation by the AJHA membership at the next election. If confirmed, Coyle will ascend to first vice president.

The 2nd VP, under normal circumstances, rises to the presidency in two years, then serves on the board as ex-officio for an additional two years. Board members serve for three years and are expected to attend board meetings at the annual convention. 

The election will be conducted via online survey, distributed in early September. A write-in option will be available for each position. 

Below are brief bios for each nominee.

Second Vice President

Pamela Walck, an associate professor at Duquesne University, has been nominated for the position of second vice president. Walck has been a member of AJHA since she was in grad school at Ohio University (2013) and has attended every year—including the online days of COVID.

Walck wrote that she joined AJHA because Mike Sweeney told her she should. “But in all seriousness, it only took one conference for me to see the immense benefit of being a part of AJHA,” she wrote. “From the beginning, I found a group of scholars who were incredibly passionate about media history AND building up new scholars. That forward focus is what keeps me coming back each year – and bringing grad students along from time to time.”

Thanks to her membership in AJHA, Walck has been able to become friends with scholars across the globe in research areas that run the gamut. They have challenged her to look at her own research in new ways and have inspired her with their work.

“I have also found a community that is passionate about preserving the past – in an era where many wish to rewrite history to reflect what they wished it to be, rather than the reality of what it was,” she wrote. “That unblinking gaze into the past is critical to understanding tomorrow – and the AJHA membership understands that and stands up for that.”

Walck started out as a member of the Oral History Committee and eventually became the chairperson of the group. In 2020, she became editor of American Journalism, AJHA’s flagship publication. She served in that position until 2024, when she joined the AJHA board of directors.

Walck wrote that she feels like she is a strong collaborator – probably a result of her time in the newsroom. “I am also a good communicator and enjoy working with others to accomplish common goals,” she wrote. “I am getting better at understanding that conflict is not a bad thing – and trying to tackle disagreement with clarity and precision. I am fairly organized and definitely understand the importance of a deadline. I am open-minded and willing to hear multiple sides of an argument in a way that feels increasingly rare these days. And I value the importance of bringing and engaging journalism students (undergrad and grad) into our community of scholars.”

Board of Directors

The nominees for the board of directors are Karlin Andersen Tuttle, George Daniels, Melissa Greene-Blye, and Susan Swanberg.

Karlin Andersen Tuttle, an adjunct instructor at Penn State University and journals production editor at the American Academy of Pediatrics, has been a member of AJHA since 2020.

She joined because she was excited to join a community of support, mentorship, and shared enthusiasm for journalism and media history. “My research is interdisciplinary, but AJHA members welcomed my interests and helped me create a growing network of religious media historians,” Andersen Tuttle wrote.

She stated that benefits of AJHA include meeting faculty and graduate students from around the country who are also passionate about journalism history and the vital role it plays in a well-rounded undergraduate education in mass communications. She also benefited from the travel support AJHA offered while she was a graduate student to attend the annual convention and the encouragement she received as she found her research focus.

Andersen Tuttle currently serves as editor of the Intelligencer and co-chair of the AJHA Auction supporting the Michael S. Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Fund. She was a member of the Auction Committee for the 2024 conference.

"Serving on the Auction Committee over the last year gives me insights into some of the Board’s functions and processes,” she wrote. “Additionally, editing the Intelligencer has increased and strengthened my connections to many AJHA members from graduate students to retired faculty. Those two existing roles will help me more easily take on this position and understand how to best serve fellow members.”

George L. Daniels, an associate professor in the Department of Journalism and Creative Media at The University of Alabama, has been a member of AJHA since the 2009 convention in Birmingham, Alabama.

Daniels said he joined AJHA because "I was amazed at how one could write and do study on a topic that is of great interest—the way media were produced in the past and how that understanding informs the present. I’m working on several research projects that involve media history. I need AJHA to help ensure I’m on the right track with the way I’m contextualizing, analyzing and interpreting lots of historical data.”

Daniels described the benefits AJHA membership as being associated with like-minded, supportive colleagues who can mentor and challenge you as you strengthen your skills as a researcher. He also enjoys receiving American Journalism several times a year.

Daniels’ service to AJHA has included reviewing AJHA research papers for the past three years. He has been actively involved in other journalism organizations, so he is familiar with how to liaison. He wrote that he gets things done when it involves collaborating with others.

Daniels stated, “I would like to learn more about the inner workings of the organization, especially as it relates to getting more journalism/media history into one’s general media course requirements.”

Melissa Greene-Blye, Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, is an assistant professor in the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas, where she is also affiliated faculty in the Indigenous Studies Program.

Greene-Blye has been a member of AJHA since 2016, encouraged to join by Amber Roessner, who assured the then-graduate student that she would find a supportive space to present research on Indigenous issues and representation in media as well as a welcoming community of like-minded scholars. Greene-Blye certainly has found AJHA to be exactly that—a very warm, welcoming space where she has been able to connect with other scholars for research and presentation collaborations as well as mentorship during those challenging pre-tenure years. She points to the networking and social connections and opportunities as some of the "gravy on top" benefits to being part of the association.

Greene-Blye has served on the graduate student and membership committees during her time with AJHA, stepping in to chair the membership committee when there was a need for an interim leader in that position.

Greene-Blye brings a unique perspective to the purpose and mission of the association. Her ability to build bridges and create collaboration opportunities with other organizations such as the Indigenous Journalists Association and IndiJ Public Media ensure she would continue to make a strong contribution to helping build a strong future for AJHA, supporting the work already being done and helping to raise up a new generation of scholars who are committed to continuing the important work of our discipline, connecting the past with the present to reinforce the critical role media and journalism have played and continue to play in the stories we tell.

Susan Elizabeth Swanberg, associate professor at the University of Arizona School of Journalism, has been a member of AJHA since 2016.

She was recruited by Ross Collins at an AEJMC meeting. “AEJMC seemed large and impersonal, and all the AJHA people I'd met seemed friendly and helpful,” Swanberg wrote. “Since I am a science journalism historian, joining AJHA seemed to be a good fit. I have enjoyed immensely my affiliation with AJHA.”

Swanberg is in her third year as research panels chair. She also has judged Blanchard award and book award entries.

Swanberg stated that she has been a member of AJHA long enough to have an appreciation of the organization, its goals and processes. She has a legal background, which helps her understand the workings of bylaws, policies, and guidelines. She also is a multidisciplinary researcher (science journalism history, law, and the natural sciences).

Swanberg wrote that she enjoys giving back to the organization that has provided her with a lot of support, including the 2018 Rising Scholar Award that helped fund a research trip to the Smithsonian Archives. She is interested in recruiting more AJHA members, including students.

Member Spotlight: Katrina Jesick Quinn

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 15:18:50 GMT

How did you become involved with AJHA?

The 2007 Joint Journalism Historians Conference in New York City (held that year at NYU’s refurbished Kimball Hall on Greene Street) was one of the first conferences I attended after starting my faculty position at Slippery Rock University (SRU). I was still completing my dissertation and trying to balance a four-course teaching load with three young children, so a one-day conference within driving distance seemed to be just the ticket.

Little did I know that the conference would be a turning point. While I had been an “outlier” in my graduate program by studying historical media as narrative, at AJHA and the Joint AJHA-AEJMC History Division conferences, I found researchers who shared similar interests and research. They provided meaningful feedback and encouragement just when I needed it.

Presentations at the joint conference also led to other opportunities. For example, a number of AJHA attendees encouraged me to also present at the Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War and Free Expression in Chattanooga—another supportive forum for collaboration, generating ideas, and finding inspiration.

Finally, in 2024, Dr. Pamela Walck of Duquesne University invited me to join her on the local planning committee for the AJHA convention in Pittsburgh. It was great to see many newer faculty in attendance and to feel like my participation had come full circle.

How does your industry experience in public affairs with the USDA Food & Nutrition Service inform your teaching?

I had a fantastic eight years working with the USDA Food & Nutrition Service, the agency that administers the nation’s domestic food assistance programs like food stamps and school meals. The agency is a heavy-hitter, serving one in four Americans each year with an annual budget of more than $160 billion—the largest single agency within the USDA.

Little of that money was at the disposal of the public affairs staff, however, and we “did it all.” Like the table of contents in a PR textbook, my role included media relations; collaborative programming with corporate, nonprofit, congressional and governmental entities; advertising and publications; communication around policy and programming initiatives; advance work for political appointees; issues management; and a focus on diverse populations. It taught me that one must be nimble, creative, and collaborative, and that textbook scenarios of PR campaigns with “a year to plan” and a “million-dollar budget” are not always what you find in the “real world.”

Although that experience has helped me immensely in preparing students, it was sobering to realize that my career with USDA came to a close before they were even born. We worked in a now-unfamiliar pre-website, pre-social-media, pre-digital-cameras world.

To update my skills, I completed two projects during a sabbatical this past year. The first project took me into the newsroom of the Butler Eagle in Butler, Pennsylvania, where I worked several days a week on reporting, editing, design and photo management for print and digital editions.

A second sabbatical project included collaboration with my former colleagues at the USDA and PR work with an environmental action group, Groundwork USA. I also connected with policy and programming figures at the state and federal level to learn more about the state of legislative affairs and policy action.

You advise a student organization, College Dress Relief (CDR), at Slippery Rock that helps students prepare for careers in social media communication and marketing. What are some tips or resources you can share with others who help students enter an industry that continually shifts and adapts to digital trends and technology?

My suggestion is to find topics that motivate students and let them “run with it.” I’m not particularly knowledgeable about fashion, for example, but, like sports and entertainment, it’s one of the topics that generates excitement and productivity. There’s also room in this type of organization for many types of students, from PR and integrated marketing to digital media and journalism—and even dance, English, and art majors.

CDR members put their classroom skills into action by writing fashion-oriented blogs, taking photos and videos, writing a monthly column for the campus newspaper, learning about social media management and analytics, branding, updating the website, and managing social media campaigns and in-person events. They also engage with broader issues like sustainability, diversity, and wellness. Their work with CDR builds up-to-date skills that translate into any field.

What makes you excited about your current research?

My newest projects have a bit of sentimental value for me as I’m taking a look at 19th and early 20th century reporting on industrial America—coal mines, steel mills, railroads, and so on. How did the local press represent these industries, with their promise and their dangers, within the community? The project taps into my previous research into 19th century reporting on American national identity, disaster and breaking news reporting, and journalism in the Gilded Age. Plus it’s a new opportunity to work with local historical societies and to remember the experience of my coal-mining, steel-working, railroading Pennsylvania ancestors.

What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of academia?

I am a piano player, former church organist, and lover of old stuff. I also love to travel. My three boys—who came to SRU with me in kindergarten and first grade—were subject to years of vacations to Civil War battlefields, museums, ghost towns, historic newspapers, etc., where mom was on the lookout for the precise location of the Frank Leslie’s illustrator or Mark Twain’s Virginia City, Nevada, writing desk. Now that they are on their own, I’ve spent quite a bit of time helping them move in and back out of dorm rooms, apartments, new jobs, a house, etc. Lucky for me, those trips have taken me down Historic Route 66, to historic cemeteries and churches, to incredible national parks and monuments, and to coffee houses on many adorable—and historic—Main Streets across the country.

Katrina Jesick Quinn is a professor and former chair of the Department of Strategic Communication and Media at Slippery Rock University. She teaches courses in public relations, news and media writing, advanced reporting, and publication design.

Nominations due Aug. 1 for 2nd VP, Board

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 16:28:29 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association is seeking nominations for three board positions and second vice president.

Board members serve for three years. The second vice president will ascend to first vice president after one year and then to president the following year. Board members and officers are expected to attend board meetings at the annual convention.

A nominee to the Board of Directors or to any officer position must be a member of the AJHA for at least one calendar year immediately preceding the date of the election. No more than one person from an institution can serve on the Board at one time.

To make nominations and to vote in an election, an individual must be a member of AJHA.

Those who wish to nominate candidates may do so by sending an email with the nominee's name, contact information, and affiliation to Election and Nominations Committee Chair Cathy M. Jackson, cmjackson@nsu.edu. Self-nominations are accepted.

Please confirm the candidate's willingness to be nominated before sending the name to Cathy.

You should send a brief bio and photo of the nominee along with a statement of why the person wants to serve.

To standardize bios, the bios should contain statements and answers to the following questions. Answers may be obtained from the candidate or their vitae.

Candidate’s name, title, university affiliation
How long has the candidate been a member of AJHA?
Why did they join AJHA?
Benefits of their AJHA membership
Roles and duties the candidate performed for AJHA
Strengths and qualities the candidate possesses for the office

The deadline for nominations is 5 p.m. ET, August 1, 2025.

This year, voting will occur electronically, which means members do not have to come to the convention to vote. A write-in option will be available.

Patrick Cox Honored With Lifetime Achievement Award In Journalism History

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Thu, 19 Jun 2025 21:12:36 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association Service Awards Committee selected Patrick Cox, Ph.D. as the 2025 recipient of the Sidney Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement, AJHA’s highest honor.

Cox is retired from the University of Texas at Austin where he was associate director of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History and taught at the UT Austin College of Journalism. He is a Distinguished Alum of Texas State University. Prior to his academic career, he was an award-winning journalist at The Wimberley View newspaper in Wimberley, Texas. Currently, he is the president of Patrick Cox Consultants, LLC.

He is the author and editor of 10 books, including The First Texas News Barons, Picturing Texas History and Ralph W. Yarborough - the People’s Senator. He was a finalist for the Robert F. Kennedy National Book Award, the Western Writer’s Association Book Award, the Texas Philosophical Society Book Award and many others. Cox has also served two terms on AJHA’s Board of Directors, was the association’s convention sites chair for 12 years, and has received two President’s Awards for Distinguished Service to AJHA.

"Dr. Cox has contributed so much to the field of media history and AJHA. His scholarly work, especially in the area of Texas history, is strong, and his work through the Briscoe Center at the University of Texas opened numerous doors for other scholars. We are delighted to celebrate such a wonderful career in Long Beach later this year," said Willie Tubbs, chair of the selection committee.

First awarded in 1986, the Kobre Award recognizes individuals with an exemplary record of sustained achievement in journalism history through teaching, research, professional activities, or other contributions to the field of journalism history. Cox will receive the award at the AJHA's 44th annual convention to be held Sept. 25-27 in Long Beach, California.

“I am very grateful and honored to be the AJHA Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement recipient for 2025. We have a very distinguished group of recipients in the history of the Kobre Award, many of whom I had the pleasure to know and work with over the years,” said Cox. “As a journalist, historian, author, and active participant in AJHA since 1998 (going way back in the 20th century), I value all of the professional support, camaraderie, and lasting friendships I have made.”

Letters of support for Cox lauded his work as a storyteller and historian, as well as his years of service as AJHA’s convention sites chair.

“Patrick is a terrific, award-winning historian and a long-time supporter of AJHA, and I can think of no one more worthy of this award,” wrote Janice Hume of the University of Georgia. “When I think of Patrick, it’s “storyteller” that comes to mind. His history credentials are strong, his research methodology impeccable, and his productivity admirable, but he just knows how to weave good stories about politics, journalism and life in Texas. That storytelling trait spills over to his involvement with AJHA. He has been a wonderful colleague making many members, including new graduate students, feel welcome and a part of the AJHA community. That, too, is an important contribution to journalism history.”

“New to the role last year, I have such an appreciation for the hard work that Patrick did to make our annual conferences so impactful,” wrote Aimee Edmondson of Ohio University. “Few people know how much goes into choosing our convention city and hotel as well as guiding the local hosts in planning the historic tour, gala and so forth. Patrick wrote the book on AJHA conferencing in modern times. His work has helped create the AJHA faithful, historians who agreed this conference was not to be missed, and that is no small feat.”

“His work with AJHA is legendary,” wrote Mike Conway of Indiana University. “Patrick was more than a convention planner. He worked with the AJHA leadership on various issue throughout the years and made it a personal mission to make people, especially graduate students, welcome at our conferences.”

“For many years, it was Patrick to the rescue when it came to our annual convention. He is well deserving of the Kobre Award for ALL his key involvement in making sure our convention got off the ground, ran smoothly, and then weren’t saddled with fines,” wrote Julie Hedgepeth Williams of Samford University. “I admire Patrick’s take-charge, commanding presence that inspires so much confidence.”

Cox received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Texas at Austin. He is a sixth generation Texan and lives in Wimberley, Texas with his wife, Brenda.

Member Spotlight: Brian Gabrial

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Thu, 19 Jun 2025 20:54:22 GMT

How did you become involved with AJHA?

I cannot remember exactly when I became a member of AJHA, but I am sure it was when I was a graduate student in the mid-1990s. Most likely that would have been when I presented my first paper ever at an academic conference at AJHA’s annual convention in Mobile, Alabama, 1997. That would be the first time when I would be surrounded by like-minded journalism historians who were doing all sorts of interesting research and who seemed to be interested in what I was doing. (I learned something else at that conference. I learned that Mobile had a legitimate claim to hosting the first Mardi Gras celebrations in what became the United States and not New Orleans.)

After a career in broadcast television, what drew you to studying the nineteenth century press?

While I knew that I wanted to pursue a graduate degree, I had no intention of going any further than completing an M.A. and planned to stay in TV news. Yet, I was always curious how the press reported events because I worked in the news media and understood that our choices affected what people learned about their world and the people in it. I knew that the 19th-century press told us much about our cultural, social, and political past. I also had a topic I had always wanted to explore: The Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. My program at Minnesota gave me methodological tools and theoretical connections to develop that idea. Plus, I had an amazing advisor, Hazel Dicken-Garcia who gave me the encouragement to pursue my research interests.

After completing the M.A., I realized my desire to explore the 19th-century press had only heightened, so I made the commitment to enter a Ph.D. program and to continue working with my advisor. I eventually turned my attention to the press and slavery in the antebellum years. I do not regret that decision.

Journalists are curious people and so are historians. Plus, the ethos of journalism demands that all questions are addressed as fully as possible for a story. The same holds for historical research. The digging goes on until all (or as many as possible) questions are answered.

What topics or questions are you pursuing in your current research?

I am still very much interested in how 19th century ideas found expression in those old newspapers and how they continue to resurface in contemporary media. Pick up any major newspaper after John Brown’s 1859 raid, and it is easy to draw comparisons between the political vitriol appearing in newspapers with what can be found in today’s splintered and divisive media environment. For example, I cannot help but see similarities in the dangerous and destabilizing rhetoric of Southern fire eaters who wanted to silence speech about slavery or dissolve the Union over it with today’s politicians who label their opponents enemies and create chilling effects on the press or to silence the speech of those who disagree with them.

I continue work on a media discourse I call “Manifest Destiny North.” This 19th-century discourse is a corollary to “Manifest Destiny.” Instead of westward expansion, it looks northward, suggesting that Canada should be a part of the United States. Some of America’s most powerful 19th-century editors thought it was a good idea and said so. (Thus, the current president’s rhetoric about annexing Canada is nothing new.) Importantly, Canada became Canada as a direct result of the U.S. Civil War and to resist potential American aggression in the post-Civil War years.

What advice would you offer a recently retired or emeritus faculty about making the transition away from full-time academia?

I cannot say that I am fully retired yet. I just finished teaching a media law class this spring at my alma matter, the University of Minnesota. I contribute news stories and features to a local newspaper. Plus, I work on my research projects. By the time this reaches AJHA readers, I will have made two presentations at the International Association of Literary Journalism’s annual conference in May. My other work includes a book chapter about Montréal literary journalism for the proposed book Charting the Global: Urban Literary Journalism, and I recently contributed a chapter about the 19th-century press and the Ghost Dance Movement to a proposed book on the press and 19th-century spiritualism.

Still, I would urge anyone who has retired recently to stay engaged with your local community, however defined, and your academic community. This is essential, in my view, and worked for me. Plus, I don’t believe scholars ever retire, really.

What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of academia?

The usual: walking, bicycling, going t the gym. I love to read poetry (and at my age, I finally understand it). I do volunteer work at the county history museum and at a small science museum for children. Plus, once a week, to work with patrons at the Hennepin County (Minneapolis) Central Public library as a computer tutor. Go figure.

Brian Gabrial is professor emeritus of journalism at Concordia University Montreal where he taught since 2004. He currently teachings at the University of Minnesota and researches the intersection of nationalism, race, and gender in the 19th century press.

Sundaramoorthy Wins 2025 Blanchard Dissertation Prize

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Wed, 28 May 2025 19:11:58 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association has announced Robin Sundaramoorthy as the winner of the 2025 Margaret A. Blanchard Dissertation Prize.

The Blanchard Prize, awarded first in 1997, recognizes the best doctoral dissertation dealing with mass communication history. Three other scholars received honorable mentions for their dissertation work from the AJHA Blanchard Prize Committee.

Sundaramoorthy’s dissertation, "Black Radio Ownership and the FCC's Failed Attempt to Diversify the Airwaves," was completed under the direction of Linda Steiner at the University of Maryland.

"This year's nominees included a competitive group of scholars and an interesting selection of topics. On behalf of the AJHA Blanchard Prize Committee, I congratulate this year's winner and finalists—the best of the group,” said committee chair Pete Smith. “We look forward to seeing their research presentations at the AJHA conference in Long Beach.”

“I am incredibly honored that my dissertation won the AJHA Margaret A. Blanchard Doctoral Dissertation Prize. Radio has been called 'the background sound of our lives,' but for far too long, African Americans and other marginalized groups of people were denied the chance to have their voices heard on the airwaves,” said Sundaramoorthy. “While the FCC effort to increase minority broadcast ownership failed, at least nine African Americans were able to benefit from this rule. They all faced significant challenges—limited access to capital, racism, sexism—but they loved working in the industry, and they used their stations to uplift and empower their communities. Who owns the media matters. I hope my research brings some much-needed attention to issues surrounding media ownership and representation in broadcasting.”

Holly Swenson, a postdoctoral teaching fellow at Northwestern University, received an honorable mention for her dissertation "Cultural Commerce: How Media Exports Made the British World in Australia, 1850–1990,” written under the direction of Deborah Anne Cohen at Northwestern University.

“As a British historian working across the fields of imperial history, business history, and media history, I am particularly proud to be recognized as a Blanchard Prize honorable mention,” Swenson said. “I am gratified that my work, which seeks to explain how the business of media export from Britain to Australia cemented the cultural links of empire, is both legible to and impactful among scholars of mass media and communication history. I look forward to engaging more with the community of the AJHA in the future!”

Robert O'Sullivan, a postdoctoral teaching fellow at the University of Notre Dame, was honored for his dissertation, “Revolutionary Nationalism, Imperialism and Anti-Slavery in the Trans-National Irish-American Press, 1840-1865," completed under the direction of Gary Gerstle at the University of Cambridge.

“I am delighted that my PhD dissertation has been judged an honorable mention of the 2025 AJHA Margaret A Blanchard Doctoral Dissertation Prize,” O’Sullivan said. “It is a great privilege that my research has received this accolade.”

Karlin Andersen Tuttle, an instructor at Penn State University, received an honorable mention for her dissertation, "Your Trusted Friend: Untold Histories of Five Christian Women’s Magazines, 1974-2023," written under the direction of Ford Risley at Penn State University.

“Studying religious media history—and the intersection of women’s roles in that history—is an interdisciplinary task that makes finding space in academic conferences and journals challenging. My research is often seen as not contemporary enough for general media studies, not theoretical enough for gender studies, and not theological enough for religious studies,” Andersen Tuttle said. “From my first conference, AJHA provided a warm welcome for my interests and connections to scholars asking similar questions. I share this recognition with the many AJHA members whose valuable feedback and encouragement helped shape this project. The range of Blanchard honorees this year demonstrates how multifaceted our field is and I am thrilled to be recognized among such company.”

All four scholars will present their research on the Blanchard Dissertation Award Panel at the AJHA National Convention in Long Beach, California from September 25-27, 2025.

Member Spotlight: Christoph Megerson

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Mon, 26 May 2025 14:38:42 GMT

How did you become involved with AJHA?

Professor Ira Chinoy, who recently retired from Merrill College, encouraged me to join. We both share a love of history.

How does your background in political science and policy work inform your research on public-serving journalism?

Pretty much everything I teach and research relates to why journalism matters to liberal democracy. I have a bachelor's degree in political science, a master's degree in public affairs, and job experience in policy, and I'm a Black Southerner with a firsthand understanding of the consequences of illiberalism.

My great-aunt got her bachelor's degree and master's degree in education from Prairie View A&M University at the height of Jim Crow in Texas, in a county with a long history of voter suppression and White supremacist violence—so that's who I'm descended from. I don't need to be reminded why liberal democracy matters, and it's not a thought exercise for me.

So, I agree with those who believe that an ideal purpose of journalism in our society is to provide everyone—meaning, all persons—with the news and information they need to be well-informed about their needs and interests. This enables them to be effective participants in our democratic system. I also talk with my students about how a core principle of liberal democracy is the principle of amelioration, or the belief that you have the agency and the responsibility to improve society and repair the world through civic participation. And one of the most significant forms of civic participation is journalism. So, as it relates to journalism history, I'm interested in how journalism as an institution in the United States has lived up to its purpose or betrayed it.

What advice do you have for recently graduated PhDs or other early-career scholars about making the transition into a full-time faculty position?

In terms of research, be very imaginative about what you want to accomplish and think a lot about its practical applications. How can you produce research that captures the interest of people inside and outside the academy?

One of the more interesting things I did as a Ph.D. candidate, when I lived in Philly, was sit in a bar, and people would ask me what I did for a living, and I'd tell them—and they couldn't have cared less. On the one hand, I loved it, because it's good to not wrap your entire identity around a job. On the other hand, it inspired me to think about how I can produce work that people outside of academia might find compelling and useful—because research can be a form of amelioration, if we relate it to the needs and interests of people who live outside the walls and lawns of a university.

In terms of teaching, I say, remember that students don't care about how much you know until they know how much you care. You can push your students harder if they believe that you have their best interests in mind, and if they understand that you care about them as people first and students second.

Also, students love variety and to be entertained. They love seeing how creative you can be in presenting information, so don't disappoint them. Hit the cowbell hard in the classroom and really explore the space. Try new things. Some teaching ideas may succeed and others will fail, but students appreciate the effort. They can tell when you've put a lot of effort into a class and when you're just going through the motions, and it's that latter thing that will provoke them to light your course evaluations on fire.

I want to underline how important it is to care for students as people. Don't just see yourself as someone whose job is to disseminate information, and then to test how well students remember it. An app can do that. You, as a professor, have to teach with an ethic of care. Caring requires actively listening to students so that you can learn about them; making yourself available so that they can talk to you; and being willing to share relevant experiences of your own, so that students feel comfortable enough to tell you what's going on in their lives—so you can figure out how to get the best performance out of them. It's a lot like being a coach, in that sense. Coaches have to connect with their players in a similar fashion.

Part of the reason why teaching can be exhausting is because doing all these things requires a lot of energy, and your full attention and concentration while you're doing it. But if you want to be the kind of professor that students remember in a positive way 20 years from now, that's the level of commitment that's required. So you have to decide if that's who you want to be.

You joined the staff of the AEJMC History Division in fall of 2024 as the Member Q&A editor for Clio, how has that role impacted your view of the media history field and what are your goals for that section of Clio?

I’ve always found history to be an intriguing pursuit, so I don't know that I needed to be convinced of that, or that participating in this role taught me that. But it is interesting to learn about other people's backgrounds, and what motivates and inspires them. [I hope to] find more people who are willing to be profiled. People should reach out to me if they're interested. I promise to ask good questions.

What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of academia?

Finding and eating good chocolate chip cookies, writing handwritten letters to the people who are lucky enough to receive them, visiting New Orleans and the coastal South, listening to music, and watching sports and professional wrestling.

I'm also trying to get back into the habit of reading for pleasure. I'm currently reading the recently released biography of Perle Mesta by Meryl Gordon called The Woman Who Knew Everyone. It's the story of the original "hostess with the mostest" in Washington, D.C., and it's fascinating to read about social life in political Washington in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s. She was born Pearl Skirvin, and she comes from the family who built the Skirvin Hotel in Oklahoma City from 1910-11, for those of you who know and appreciate that hotel.

I enjoy the book because it evokes nostalgia about how certain aspects of Washington used to be in the days before ignorance and vulgarity were celebrated and normalized, and promoted in a 24/7 media culture. I really am tired of it. Granted, we know that nostalgia is a selective tool that captures aspects of a time that we idealize the most while filtering out the most regrettable parts—and we've never truly lived in a society that didn't have serious problems in its discourse. But it's not hard to dream of a society where people making a spectacle of themselves for clicks, and votes, and profit isn't something that's rewarded in the worlds of politics and policy—and where necessary conversations can be had, but in good faith and with respect for the principles of liberal democracy. And probably with some amazing food and drink. All of that would be useful today.

2025 Microgrant Winners Selected for Journalism History and American Journalism Diversity Research

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 19:11:56 GMT

Five media historians will receive funding supporting their research related to diversity and media history. The microgrants are sponsored by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s History Division and the American Journalism Historians Association. It’s a collaborative effort to stimulate more diversity research in their journals, Journalism History and American Journalism.

“The microgrants program reflects a unified commitment by our journals to support the unearthing and amplification of underrecognized voices and experiences from media history,” said Journalism History’s Editor Perry Parks. “The more of these stories we are able to tell, the richer all of our histories will be.”

Here are this year’s microgrant winners:

Andrew T. Daws is a doctoral candidate in the College of Communication and Information Sciences at The University of Alabama. His research primarily focuses on LGBTQ+ publications. His microgrant project expands on his dissertation research on classified advertisements in Southern gay newspapers and how they shaped queer community and identity from the 1980s to early 2000s. The grant will allow him access valuable archival material, offering a broader context of how these ads functioned as sites of community-building and resistance across diverse queer landscapes and cultural contexts.

Michael Fuhlhage is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Wayne State University. He researches newsgathering with a focus on Latinos and Latino immigration and how cultural identity shapes journalists’ perceptions. Fuhlhage’s microgrant project, while building on his previous research on the prehistory of stereotypes about Latinos, represents a new research agenda for him, as he will study how Chicanos pushed back against mainstream media misrepresentation through counter-narratives. His research will focus on how Chicanos told their own stories to their people and mainstream media in the late 20th century.

Takeya Mizuno is a professor in the School of Political Science and Economics at Meiji University in Tokyo, Japan. His research centers on the history of Japanese American journalists in Hawai’i and the mainland United States. His microgrant project expands on his current research to examine how the military government began licensing and censorship of the Japanese “enemy language” press in Hawai’i during World War II. By using archival material, he will examine the press licensing system, censorship, and how Japanese newspapers and readers reacted to stringent press control.

Robin Sundaramoorthy is an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland and American University. Her research focuses on silences, gaps, and omissions; she feels strongly that the people the media leave out are more important than those they include. Her microgrant project will build on her award-winning dissertation, which examined efforts by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the 1980s to increase broadcast minority ownership. Her new research will focus on Jo-Al Broadcasting, Inc. and KTOY Radio in Texarkana, Arkansas. Her microgrant will help her conduct oral history interviews.

Wafa Unus is an associate professor of journalism at Fitchburg State University. Her research interests include minority press, local news deserts, and journalism history. She authored A Newsman in the Nixon White House, examining political image-making and journalistic integrity. Unus develops local academic-news partnerships to address news gaps. She is also a columnist for the Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise. Her microgrant project is a case study of advocacy and reporting in The Moslem World & The U.S.A., the first monthly journal about Islam in the United States, examining how minority journalism historically united marginalized communities and shaped narratives around intersectional struggles.

"The American Journalism Historians Association and American Journalism are grateful for the opportunity to partner with the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s History Division and Journalism History to help fund scholarship that gives voice to and amplifies diverse media histories,” said Amber Roessner, editor for American Journalism. “These undertold narratives can help us reckon with challenging chapters of our history, and they contribute to a more complete, holistic understanding of our past and how it relates to this present moment.”

The microgrant winners have until June 1, 2026, to finish their research and submit an academic journal article to American Journalism or Journalism History for review.

This microgrant program was launched in 2023. Counting this year’s awardees, a total of 14 media history scholars have been helped financially by these grants.

Member Spotlight: Chad Stuart Owsley

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 13:44:51 GMT

How did you become involved with AJHA?

I first learned about AJHA through my dissertation chair and research advisor while pursuing my Ph.D. at Mizzou. At the time, I was researching the history of digital camera technology in photojournalism, particularly the roles of the Associated Press and the Olympic Games in driving its adoption. My advisor, a media historian and an active member of AJHA, encouraged me to submit my research to AJHA’s conference as a place where it could find a strong scholarly audience.

My path to media history has always felt like a natural progression, albeit one that could be described as an aberration of sorts. My career has been built on working with the newest technologies, the most cutting-edge tools and techniques. But I have always believed that in order to understand where we are going, we must understand where we have been. I don’t see history merely as a tool for course correction—it is a story, one that deserves to be explored and respected. The people we study in history were acting in their present, just as we are acting in ours. Historians in the future will examine our decisions, just as we analyze those of the past. There is something profoundly humbling in that.

This mindset has shaped how I approach research. Years ago, while living in China, I was hired as a consultant for Guangzhou Daily Press. My job was to modernize the layout and editorial structure of their English-language newspaper. But before making any changes, I first went into the archives to understand how the paper had evolved to that point. At Mizzou, when studying emerging digital technology, I wanted to trace every innovation since the telegraph that led to the tools we use now. That curiosity—the need to ask, "What led us to here?"—has defined my work.

AJHA provided a scholarly home for that perspective. It connected me with other researchers who see media history as more than just a chronology of past events, but as an ongoing conversation that informs how we understand journalism, technology, and culture. The association continues to influence my research through its daily newsletters, research calls, and conferences, keeping me engaged with new scholarship and opportunities. If anything, I need to do better about fully engaging—attending more in-person events and taking part in networking opportunities. The first year after completing my Ph.D. and relocating to a new position was a whirlwind, but now that the initial chaos has settled, I look forward to becoming more involved in the years ahead.

How do you connect your research on emerging digital technology with media history in the classroom?

I treat media history as an intrinsic linkage to learning emerging digital technology. Every tool, every industry standard, and every decision that seems taken for granted today was once an innovation. By exploring the origins of these tools and practices in the classroom, students develop a robust professional foundation on which they are able to engage with future technologies.

In my Media Production Principles course, for instance, I guide students through the invention of the kinetoscope, the rationale behind 35mm film as the standard for full-frame digital sensor technology, and why we continue to rely on a 4:3 aspect ratio in digital motion picture for standard television in North America. We also explore why movies are presented at 24 frames per second in major motion pictures (Director Peter Jackson, notwithstanding)—a decision rooted in early technological constraints and cost efficiency rather than any inherent natural law. Students swiftly recognize that many of the tools and formats they use daily were shaped by historical decisions made long before their time.

I have often observed a profound fascination for these lessons on history in my students—they frequently express surprise at understanding why certain media conventions exist and gain a deeper appreciation for the industry once they do. Many have commented in their course evaluations that my approach to teaching these lessons captivates them. Some students even remark that, despite their best efforts, they could not remain uninterested because it is too engaging for learning. This is one of the greatest compliments I can receive as an educator.

At times we explore transcending current industry standards, contemplating how present-day choices might influence media in the next century. We’ve contemplated alternative histories, such as, what if Edison and Dickson had selected a 1:1 or 3:4 format instead of 4:3? What if spatial computing leads us to entirely break away from traditional frames? While students sometimes laugh at such forward-thinking ideas or give the imitation shiver, these discussions help them realize that they are part of an ongoing evolutionary process, not passive users of technology.

Ultimately, my goal is to assist students in recognizing that history is not merely something to study for the sake of studying it. History is something they are living and shaping right now. By fostering this perspective, I aim to instill a sense of responsibility and agency among my students, encouraging them to contribute meaningfully to the future evolution of media.

How has your extensive international travel and twelve years living outside the U.S. informed your understanding of media history in the U.S. and/or abroad?

Spending over a decade in China fundamentally shaped my understanding of media history—not just in terms of studying it, but in living it firsthand. I worked inside state-controlled media as a visual editor at Guangzhou Daily and as a voice-over reporter for GDTV’s World Channel, where I saw how journalism functioned in a system with direct government oversight. Each week, we received a white paper outlining which stories had to align with Xinhua's [News Agency, China's state news outlet] official version. It was an accepted reality of the newsroom, and while there were moments when editors might have quietly joked about running a different version, there was no question about what would actually go to print.

What many people don’t realize, however, is that even in state-run media systems, investigative journalism still exists—it just operates within defined boundaries. Local corruption, consumer protections, and infrastructure failures were fair game for reporting, and I saw firsthand how these stories could still have real impact. Working within this system didn’t make me more cynical about press freedom; rather, it deepened my understanding of journalism as an impartial act that is shaped by the structures in which it operates. In the West, journalism serves one set of interests; in China, it serves another. No system is without influence.

My time in China also made me view Western media through a more critical lens. While American journalism prides itself on press freedom, the U.S. has its own forms of narrative control—through omission, misdirection, or the economic realities of media ownership. Teaching this perspective to students often results in pushback, which I welcome. Many have grown up immersed in American ideals of free press, and it can be jarring to confront the reality that all media systems, even democratic ones, have constraints. But as someone who has lived in both worlds, I try to bring that complexity into the classroom.

Beyond China, my travels across Southeast Asia—Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Sri Lanka—exposed me to even more varied approaches to journalism and media governance. Seeing how different nations handle media access, censorship, and digital communication reinforced my view that media history isn’t just a timeline of technological advances, but a reflection of each society’s values and power structures.

Having graduated semi-recently, what advice do you have for other PhD candidates or recent graduates? This could be about the job market, dissertation writing, first year at a new job, etc.

Transitioning from PhD candidate to tenure-track professor has been both rewarding and overwhelming. One of the biggest adjustments wasn’t just stepping back into the instructor’s role. A professorial role carries with it a substantial burden of responsibilities. Doing this at an American university after years of teaching in China added an additional challenge of shifting into a new culture. While I had extensive experience in the classroom, the cultural and institutional expectations were more of a transition than I had anticipated.

One of the hardest realities of this position is the workload—upwards of 70-80 or more-hour workweeks, constant pressure to publish, committee service, professional service, curriculum development, and teaching. Unlike in China, where I had long semester breaks, there is no real downtime here. Winter break is for writing and prepping courses; summers are spent teaching, revising curriculum, attending conferences, and producing research. This is the reality of tenure-track life at a research university in the U.S., and no one should enter it under any illusions that the workload eases up once the dissertation is finished. The pressure of the tenure clock is real. Defending your dissertation helps to prepare for that ticking pressure.

Financially, the transition has been jarring as well. The most important piece of advice I can offer to PhD candidates is this: Make sure your program is fully funded with a living stipend. The dissertation process is all-consuming, and unless you are in an extraordinary situation, working a full-time job while writing a dissertation is nearly impossible. You may find yourself starting to fund your studies on credit, and I cannot stress this enough—do not charge your way through school. The financial burden of paying down that debt after graduation will follow you for years.

As for the job market, it’s an intense but thrilling process if you know your worth. I was writing my dissertation while applying for positions, meeting search committees at AEJMC, and flying to universities for campus visits. The experience was high-pressure but ultimately rewarding, and I was fortunate to receive multiple offers. Timing and my research area contributed favorably, as I’ve known others who applied to 50 or more institutions and heard back from only a handful. Applying for a tenure-track line is highly competitive, but when you find the right fit, the process is worthwhile.

What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of academia?

Travel, photography, and fitness. Photography is the longest throughline in my life. It has been with me from childhood, through my travels, into my career, and even into my academic research. My father taught me how to use a camera when I was a kid, letting me experiment with his Pentax 35mm SLR film camera. We practiced photographing everything—macro photography of coins on the kitchen table shooting through extension tubes to get right down into the scratches and nicks, documenting birthdays, holidays, and everydays, whatever caught our curiosity. My grandfather was also an avid photographer, a hobbyist who never ate a warm meal because he was too busy photographing his food—long before Instagram was ever a concept, my grandpa photographed everything. My father took photography a step further than his dad, turning it into a small business when he and my mother ran a video rental store and eventually expanded into video production. My brother and I would use the editing decks to make skate videos, cutting together footage of us out on our boards.

I carried this passion forward. In high school, I ordered a photography class-on-tape from the Seattle Film School and dreamt of attending the Art Institute, which I eventually did—earning my BA from the Art Institute of Colorado. I took my father’s camera on my first-ever solo trip to New York City in 1991, where I photographed everything—including a worm’s eye view shot looking up at the tall palm trees inside the World Trade Center. That trip was a turning point in my life. For one, I’d never seen palm trees inside a building before. It galvanized my passion for travel, a passion that deepened when I served in the Marines as I traveled to almost every country with shores on the Mediterranean Sea—Egypt, Tunisia, Israel, Greece, Italy, and Spain. I have been a traveler ever since, always with at least one camera in hand.

Photography became the foundation of my career. It took me to China, where I documented a mid-tier city for my master’s thesis, and later, it led me into journalism and academia. Photography got me here, and now, though I don’t have time to make photos the way I once did, my research is taking me where I’m going next.

Fitness has also played an important role in my life. I ran track in high school, ran in the Marines, and later, I picked it back up while living in China. Running has been a constant, though my passion for fitness deepened in 2014-2015 when I decided I wanted more than just running. I joined a gym, started resistance training, gave up the sweets, colas, alcohol, even meat, and trained religiously—lifting on gym days, running on the in-between days.

Fitness was also what connected me to my brother, so when he passed away in 2021, my fitness routine unraveled. Now, though my training regimen isn’t what it was, every time I train, I think of him, and it keeps him.

Travel, photography, fitness—these have all shaped me (no pun intended). Even when one fades into the background, it never truly disappears.

Chad Stuart Owsley is an assistant professor of communication in emerging media studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Erin Coyle named second vice president

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:35:31 GMT

The AJHA Board of Directors has named Erin Coyle as second vice president, filling the position vacated upon the death of Pam Parry. Per the AJHA Constitution and Bylaws, the Board is tasked with appointing officers to vacated positions, subject to confirmation by the AJHA membership at the next election.

Coyle thanked the board for the opportunity to serve AJHA at a time when we need to strongly defend education, journalism history, historical research, journalism, press freedom, and civil rights.

“I am proud of this organization for providing opportunities for historians to research communication and underrepresented members of society,” Coyle said.

“This organization provides essential mentorship and support for journalism historians,” she said. “I am looking forward to working with our members to continue fostering mentorship and support for communication historians.”

Coyle researches advocacy for free expression, rights to access government information and government proceedings, and conflicts between free expression and privacy rights. Winner of the 2023 AJHA National Award for Excellence in Teaching, Coyle teaches courses in journalism history, media law and ethics, writing and reporting, and theory as an associate professor at Temple University.

She is the author of The Press and Rights to Privacy: First Amendment Freedoms vs. Invasion of Privacy Claims and articles in top media law and media history journals.

Coyle has served two terms on the AJHA Board of Directors and has been chair of the Research Committee. She also has been a liaison to the Graduate Student Committee and assisted with the silent auction.

President Debbie van Tuyll said Coyle is an outstanding choice to join the AJHA leadership.

“She is an excellent scholar and teacher, energetic and organized,” van Tuyll said. “I've been so impressed as I've worked with her in various capacities over the years—everything she does is done thoughtfully and well. I am truly looking forward to serving with her.”

First Vice President Michael Fuhlhage said he is thrilled that Coyle will be joining the leadership team.

“I have known her since joining the doctoral program at UNC, and she conducts herself as a scholar with great care, skill, and integrity,” Fuhlhage said. “It will be a pleasure to serve AJHA alongside her."

Coyle will fulfill the tasks associated with the second vice president for the remainder of this year, which includes assembling the conference program. If confirmed by the membership on the fall ballot, Coyle will ascend to the position of first vice president after this year’s convention in Long Beach and then to president the following year.

AJHA Board Meeting February 2025 Takeaways

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 16:59:33 GMT

Board Members React to US Archivist Firing

In an emotional meeting on Friday, Feb. 21, AJHA board members approved signing on to the American Historical Association statement regarding the firing of the archivist of the United States, Dr. Colleen Shogan.

Board members also asked President Debbie van Tuyll to craft a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump that directly protests his firing of Shogan. The letter follows this story. Members who wish to add their names to the letter can let van Tuyll know at dvantuyl@augusta.edu. You must sign on no later than Friday, Feb. 28, which is when the letter will be mailed and emailed. Members are also welcome to use the letter as a template for their own individual communications.

Ad Hoc Committee to Support Members’ DEI Research

A new ad hoc committee is putting together a cache of resources for members who work in areas related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and who are threatened by either state or federal attacks on their work. Those resources might be publications, websites or even experts who are willing to offer pro bono services.

A University of California system tenured law professor told Inside Higher Education that President Donald Trump's recently issued executive orders are vague when it comes to defining DEI and that concerned the professor, whose specialty is critical race theory, enough to ask for certain information to be removed from their website biography. They have also declined teaching a class on that specialty for the duration of the Trump presidency.

The AAUP and others have filed a federal law suit arguing that President Trump's DEI orders violate both the First and Fifth Amendments and threaten academic freedom.

Michael Fuhlhage of Wayne State University will chair the committee. Members include Yong Volz, University of Missouri; Robbie Byrd, University of Memphis; Gwen Mellinger, James Madison University; and Melita Garza, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. A sixth appointment is pending and will be announced once it is made.

"This is the work of angels right now," AJHA President Debbie van Tuyll said. "Government interference with Hi what happens in the collegiate classroom or individual research is a form of censorship, and we want to help our colleagues prepare to respond to such interference."

The committee began compiling links and documents for members whose work is threatened by pending legislation or other government actions that target diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and teaching during its first meeting on Friday, February 21. The committee also recommended that AJHA sign on to the American Historical Association’s statement opposing Trump’s executive order “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.” The committee will also host a listening/discussion session in late March for anyone who wishes to discuss the impact of the anti-DEI government action on their work. The time and date will be announced soon.

Van Tuyll has asked the committee to have their full report ready for presentation at the fall board meeting.

AJHA to Apply for Organization Credit Card

Board members also approved applying for an organizational credit card to handle convention expenses that are too great for the limits on the organization's debit card. According to Treasurer Ken Ward, the card will be paid off immediately after the conference and will not carry a balance. He will also seek a card that offers the best rewards for the organization.

Closing Note on 2024 AJHA Convention Budget

Aimee Edmondson, convention planner, sent the good news that the Pittsburgh convention did not lose money, thanks to a last-minute donation by the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Letter Regarding US Archivist Firing

February 21, 2025

Dear President Trump:

I am writing on behalf of the American Journalism Historians Association to protest your firing of the archivist of the United States, Dr. Colleen J. Shogan. We are an organization that seeks to advance education and research in mass communication history and is committed to upholding the principles of our democracy.

Dr. Shogan was appointed to a role that is required by law to be non-partisan. Further, the law requires that her appointment be grounded in her professional qualifications. The law also requires that you inform both the House of Representatives and the Senate of the reasons for her dismissal. That was almost a month ago.

We urge you to follow the law and forward your reasons for her dismissal immediately. We also remind you that any replacement must be non-partisan in order to conform to the rule of law. As president of the United States, you are pledged to uphold the laws of our country. Such a pledge should not be taken lightly.

Sincerely,

Debra Reddin van Tuyll, Ph.D.

President

American Journalism Historians Association

Michael Fuhlhage, Ph.D., First Vice President, AJHA

American Journalism Seeks Digital Reviews, Feedback on Renaming

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 21:12:54 GMT

By: Amber Roessner, American Journalism editor

Seeking digital media reviews for American Journalism: A Journal of Media History

Any digital media resource or production (website, social media account, digital archive, or film) about journalism, media, film, or public relations history.

Are you interested in writing a digital media review for American Journalism: A Journal of Media History? The Digital Media Reviews (DMR) section of the journal showcases digital archives, websites, social media accounts, and film resources that would be useful to media historians or media history educators. Past submissions have highlighted digital archives authors have consulted in their own research or that are housed at their own institutions, while others have explored popular media (social media, film, or television series) that engage with relevant historical topics or issues.

I am currently collecting reviews for 2025’s Volume 42, Issues 2 through 4. Please visit American Journalism’s website to learn more about the journal itself as well as the DMR section. If you have an idea for a digital media review, I warmly encourage you to contact me at cteresa@niagara.edu for further information about submission guidelines. Thank you!

Review length: 700 to 800 words long

Deadline: Flexible

Contact: Carrie Teresa, Digital Media Reviews editor, cteresa@niagara.edu

Upcoming American Journalism Rename Feedback Survey

American Journalism Historians Association members should be on the lookout for a Qualtrics survey that is designed to offer feedback around calls to rename the organization’s journal, American Journalism. The survey will be distributed to AJHA’s membership through Wild Apricot within the next month.

As the survey introduction explains:

At American Journalism’s 40th anniversary, former editors Barbara G. Friedman and Kathy Roberts Forde (2023) asked: ‘why should a journal that publishes media history, not only journalism history, across national contexts and boundaries continue to call itself by a name—American Journalism—that excludes content it welcomes?’ (p. 356). Incoming editor Amber Roessner heard similar calls for a more inclusive name during the journal’s editorial transition and approached the boards of the American Journalism Historians Association and American Journalism about continuing a dialogue more than a decade in the making. With support from both boards and our Taylor and Francis representative, this survey is designed to gain insight into the perspective of our community of scholars.

Roessner further contextualized calls for a name change in her recent editor’s note published in American Journalism Vol. 42, No. 1, citing the 2024 AJHA Presidential Address. “It’s time,” AJHA president Tracy Lucht noted in her address. “The name of our journal should respect and reflect the research of those among us who study the histories of public relations, advertising, entertainment, and other forms of media communication, not just within the US but globally. We can be exclusionary, or we can be inclusive. To me, the choice is clear” (Lucht, "Noise and Numbers"). In response to these continued calls, the Qualtrics survey was designed in consultation with the AJHA board to gather feedback from our community in the coming days. So, please be on the lookout for the AJHA Wild Apricot survey announcement in your in-boxes within the next month. Moreover, as we engage in dialogue around this topic, please remember to heed the voice of former American Journalism editor Jim Martin, who once reminded reviewers to “let courtesy prevail.” (Jim Martin, “Editor’s Note,” American Journalism 22, no. 2 (2005): 6.).

Member Spotlight: Jonathan Rose

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:30:36 GMT

How did you become involved with AJHA?

Ever since I edited my high school newspaper and read W. A. Swanberg's biographies of Pultizer and Hearst, I've had a keen amateur interest in the history of journalism. I planned a career as a journalist but changed direction and became an historian—that is, a journalist without deadlines. I was never formally trained in journalism history and did not even begin to teach the subject until fairly late in my academic career. My university, Drew University, created a new major in Media and Communications, so I decided to work up a new course on the History of American Journalism, which is the only American history course I teach (I'm a specialist in modern Britain and Europe). And so I joined AJHA to keep up (or rather, catch up) with the scholarly literature.

Around the same time, I began researching what was for me unknown historical territory: Playboy magazine's female readers. There were literally millions of them, about a third of Hefner's audience. And that was another good reason to join AJHA. In my journalism history course, I have my students read the May 1963 issue of Playboy and write a short paper analyzing it as a document of American popular culture in the age of MadMen. They can focus on the articles, the fiction, the interviews, the cartoons, the ads, the letters to the editor, or (yes) the ladies. But none of my students has ever chosen to write about the centerfolds. What's wrong with kids nowadays?

How do you see your research on the history of the book, publishing, and reading in Britain contributing to the study of media history?

My research has always focused on readers. Frankly, I'm more interested in how a Victorian chambermaid responded to Middlemarch than I am in the novel itself. And that has important implications for journalism history. Why do we study newspapers and magazines and newscasts anyway? Obviously they're tremendously influential, but how exactly did they influence readers? We can only know that if we study readers directly, rather than focusing on the printed page and trying to guess how readers might have responded. To take the most basic question, which we should be asking at a time when media credibility is sinking to an all-time low: Did readers believe what they read in the papers? I tackled that and other problems of reader response in my book Readers' Liberation.

The historiography of reading leads us again and again to counterintuitive conclusions. In The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes I found that Victorian laborers did not limit themselves to penny dreadfuls, they were also enjoying Shakespeare and Shelley and Charles Darwin. I investigated a Black working-class public housing project in Louisville in 1943, where the most popular novel turned out to be (are you sitting down?) Gone with the Wind. And though feminists reviled Playboy, they were far outnumbered by the women who read it as a feminist magazine (which in many ways it was).

What has your role as co-editor of Book History taught you about reviewing and publishing research?

While Book History wasn't the first journal in the field, it was pioneering on several fronts. Ezra Greenspan, my coeditor, and I had to decide what the history of the book was, what was included within its disciplinary limits. And from our first issue in 1998, we definitely included journalism history. Those early issues featured articles on press coverage of Jenny Lind's American tour, an eighteenth-century German women's magazine, and an English magazine that published sheet music. Later, we had studies of editor-reader dialogue in the Russian dissident journal Kolokol, "bohemian" reporters in the American Civil War, Canadian pulp magazines, Duke (a short-lived publication much like Playboy for a predominantly Black readership), government manipulation of Spanish Armada news in Elizabethan England, the Christian Science Monitor and the professionalization of journalism, how technological information systems transformed the Times of London in its first century, and digitally archiving nineteenth-century amateur newspapers. So we not only published journalism history, we expanded its methodological range.

Since practically everything we did was innovative, we had a large proportion of graduate students and junior faculty among our contributors. To attract younger scholars, we created an annual prize for the best article by a graduate student. Of course we also published distinguished senior scholars, but we especially wanted to showcase the work of young people who will be distinguished senior scholars thirty years hence.

How has your approach to teaching changed since you were part of the team that redesigned the graduate history program at Drew University? What lessons or advice can you offer to other graduate instructors looking to update their history media course or add media history into their syllabi?

We designed our graduate program to train students broadly in cultural and intellectual history, not just journalism history. I did teach a graduate course on journalism history, and there I had students read, analyze, and criticize books that cast light on the whole of American culture: for instance, Alan Brinkley on Henry Luce, William Hammond on covering the Vietnam War, Laurel Leff on the New York Times and the Holocaust, Neal Gabler on Walter Winchell, John McMillan on underground newspapers, and Jennifer Scanlon on Helen Gurley Brown.

What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of academia?

I'm so far behind the times, I still read paper-and-ink newspapers! In fact just about all my recreations are anachronistic. I enjoy visiting historic towns and museums, I watch old movies on TCM, I love live theater but almost never watch anything on a screen. I have no Twitter or Instagram or Facebook accounts, I don't even have a smartphone. For a media scholar I'm fairly allergic to new media.

Jonathan Rose is the William R. Kenan Professor of History at Drew University. He specializes in British history, intellectual history, and the history of the book.

Remembering Pam Parry

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 19:39:36 GMT

Pam Parry was among the outgoing committee chairs honored at the 2017 AJHA conference. From left: Amber Roessner, Parry, David Vergobbi, Pete Smith, and Michael Fuhlhage.

Pam Parry, second vice president of AJHA, passed away on Feb. 4. Pam was a professor of public relations at Southeast Missouri State, where she taught media history.

A Lifetime Member of AJHA, she joined in 2009 on the advice of David Davies. She was a doctoral student at the University of Southern Mississippi at the time. Davies required his students to write and submit a conference paper to AJHA.

“He told my class that the organization would change our lives, and he was right,” Parry wrote in a 2023 AJHA member spotlight. “I was hooked by meeting these kindred spirits, and I’ve never looked back.”

Pam served on the AJHA Board of Directors from 2015 to 2018. She also chaired the Education Committee (2015-2017) and was a member of the Public Relations Committee (2010-2013).

Additionally, Pam served our field as editor of Journalism History from 2020 until 2024. She was the author of Eisenhower: The Public Relations President and co-editor of the Women in American Political History book series.

In her bio as a candidate for second vice president, Parry wrote:

As a 15-year member of AJHA, I want to give back to the organization that advances the discipline to which I devoted my life. My professional goal involves progressing media history as a discipline, and that goal aligns with the mission of AJHA. My love of this organization drives me to want to lead it.

Through her teaching, research, and service to the field, Pam has touched the lives of many AJHA members. Some of them sent comments, which are included below.

Kaylene Armstrong

Pam and I first met in the PhD program at Southern Miss and quickly became study buddies — and great friends. We graduated together in December 2013, both of us David Davies' protégées. She pulled me into activity with AJHA by cajoling me into being on the education committee, which she chaired at the time. Then when she left that position, she encouraged me to accept the chair position, which I did. She and I shared a room at every AJHA conference we attended together. We were talking about doing it again this year and meeting up this summer. Through the years we often called each other about issues at our respective teaching assignments, commiserating over injustices and providing validation for each other's feelings. Many times she said to me, "I'm asking your opinion about this because I know you'll tell it to me straight. Is this a bad idea?" Our last visit was talking on the phone about the possibilities of her next adventure working with David Sloan. We chatted while she drove to visit Sloan just a few weeks before she died. Her death leaves a huge hole for everyone who knew her, and I am no different. She was certainly one of the rocks I counted on in my life.

Maurine Beasley

I was horrified and so sorry to get the sad news. I knew Pam for at least two decades. She always was affirmative, exhibiting a love of life, teaching, and scholarship, a great friend to all in the media history community. I never heard her say a cross word or encountered a harsh message from her. I had no idea she was ill. We have lost a beautiful soul too soon.

Dianne Bragg

It is still difficult to fathom that Pam is no longer with us. I had met her through AJHA and the AEJMC History Division, but our friendship bonded during our time together as we edited Journalism History (along with Kim Mangun). Pam’s generous and supportive nature made that work rewarding, as she spent innumerable hours ensuring that the journal was something in which we could all take pride. Pam nurtured the authors, graciously navigated bureaucratic minefields, and maintained high academic standards that resulted in work that was always better because of her attention. But even more than that was her attention to people. Pam was an encourager and someone who looked for ways to build bridges between people rather than pull them down. She never ended a phone call without asking about me and my family. And, likewise, she would share news about her beloved family and her students, who all meant so very much to her. I will always regret that she was not able to join us at AJHA in Pittsburgh. We promised to get together soon, never dreaming that our communication a few weeks ago would be our last. In our loss, may we all strive to remember Pam by embodying her spirit, with an encouraging smile or word for someone. That would be our greatest testament to her and her life.

David Davies

Losing Pam is heartbreaking. She was an incredible friend, research partner, and scholar. She was unmatched in her dedication to her friends, her work, and her profession. Her loss is a huge personal loss as well as a loss to journalism and public relations scholarship.

While I have so many friends and colleagues deeply committed to their students, I've never known anyone who cared so deeply for her students as Pam. Her teaching and her students were so very important to her, and students returned her affection. She told me repeatedly that the relationships she forged with her students was the best part of her life as a professor.

Here's a few tidbits of background on Pam you more than likely already know but that I'll pass along just in case:

She finished her PhD at Southern Miss in Fall 2013 and had a book contract to get it published before her defense. For all of us on her committee, we had never had a student who worked as hard as Pam and who did such comprehensive, incredible work as a graduate student. She was one of a kind.

She led the way in founding the book series Women in American Political History with Lexington Books, recruiting an advisory board of leading scholars and me as co-editor. The seven books in the series are one more testament to her drive.

AJHA members David Sloan, Jinx Broussard, Erika Pribanic-Smith, David Davies, Debbie van Tuyll, and Parry met for dinner during the 2017 AJHA conference.

Elisabeth Fondren

Dr. Pam Parry was a giant in the field of government-press relations. We will cherish her memory and her important scholarship. Her warmness, her extraordinary peer-support, and her mentorship of early career scholars are an inspiration to all of us. We will miss Pam terribly and keep her family in our prayers.

Michael Fuhlhage

I'm at a loss for words. Pam’s SEMO bio page lists this advice for students: “Be honest. Take responsibility. Do your best. Exude kindness and generosity. Repeat all of those things all day every day.” She lived every one of those. She was devoted to her students and to the discipline; she was a hardworking, careful scholar; and she was a meticulous, patient editor. Above all, she was a good, kind person.

Carolyn Kitch

Many people have noted how kind and supportive Pam was toward other researchers. It strikes me that that is what editorial and academic leadership really is -- having sustained faith that what we do in our research matters, deserves respect, makes a difference in our students' lives, and will have meaning for scholars of the future. Pam's genuine and unwavering belief in the value of historical scholarship -- and the value of the people who do such work -- is a model for the field.

Meg Lamme

Pam was all energy, loved history and teaching (we had many conversations about her book, Eisenhower: The Public Relations President), and worked so hard and so successfully to create and build the Lexington (now Bloomsbury) book series. She recruited and supported newer and established scholars to elevate their work, serving as a coach, a mentor, and an editor.

Kim Mangun

Pam Parry called me in 2020 with an invitation: Would I consider teaming up with her and Alabama professor Dianne Bragg to edit Journalism History? I asked for a few days to think about it, but it really wasn’t a tough decision. Working on the journal with two terrific scholars and editors would be personally and professionally interesting and rewarding. And, being part of the publication’s upcoming 50th-anniversary celebration would be memorable.

Pam’s leadership style was one of inclusiveness and collegiality. She respected our opinions and suggestions and valued our service to the journal. The three of us quickly developed a close working relationship and a seamless process for reading, copyediting, and proofing accepted manuscripts on deadline. Pam worked closely with authors throughout this prepublication process to ensure that their best work appeared in Journalism History. Occasionally, someone would take the time to acknowledge her help in an email or a handwritten note; such gestures meant a lot to Pam. But, she knew that the journal would not exist without teamwork. Pam was unstinting in her praise and so very generous with compliments.

Pam, Dianne, and I collaborated for close to three and a half years. During our tenure we shared professional passions—for history, journalism, stellar research, teaching—and celebrated many family milestones, like births, weddings, and graduations. Pam often talked about her nieces and nephews, whom she was very proud of, and the service she did through her church community. She also was thrilled to tell Dianne and me about the invitation she received to deliver the keynote address at a gala at the Eisenhower Presidential Library in October 2023. In photos emailed to us after the event, Pam beamed with pleasure; the expert on Dwight Eisenhower was in her element with members of the Eisenhower family and community and political leaders.

Pam Parry was kind, thoughtful, and big-hearted. Pay someone a compliment today and remember our good friend and colleague.

Parry and Teri Finneman enjoyed a dinner celebrating their retirements from Journalism History during the 2024 AEJMC convention.

Will Mari

She was always so engaged and thoughtful, especially with junior scholars. I was fortunate to be able to work with her and learn from her kind and generous example.

Jon Marshall

Pam was one of the first people I met at my first AJHA conference in Birmingham. Since then I came to know her as a brilliant, kind, wise, and generous friend who was completely dedicated to the study of media history. Every conversation with her left me with a smile. She was an excellent editor who managed to be both rigorous and encouraging.

Cayce Myers

Pam Parry was a brilliant scholar and a truly kind soul who left us far too soon. She was generous with her time, her knowledge, and her encouragement, and I was fortunate to communicate with her as she shared her insights and inspiration. Her passion for her work was contagious, and she was not only a guiding voice but also a genuinely good person—good-natured, thoughtful, and always willing to help. It is heartbreaking to lose someone so bright and giving, and she will be deeply missed.

Erika Pribanic-Smith

I remember meeting Pam at the Birmingham AJHA conference in 2009; Dave Davies introduced us at the Thursday evening reception, and she was genuinely happy to be there. When I took over as chair of the PR Committee the next year, she enthusiastically joined the committee. That was the first of many opportunities I had to work closely with her, and I enjoyed being not only her colleague but also her friend. She would have been a stellar president. For that and many other reasons, her passing is a tremendous loss.

Parry, Lexie Little, Rachel Grant, Lisa Burns, Amber Roessner, and Jason Lee Guthrie participated on a 2024 panel at the American Political History Conference in Nashville.

Amber Roessner

Pam's advice to her students was: "Be honest. Take responsibility. Do your best. Exude kindness and generosity. Repeat all of those things all day every day." She lived by those words.

Pam was the kindest and most constructive editor I have ever encountered both as editor of the Women in American Political History series and as editor of Journalism History. She was a consummate advocate of the scholarship in our field and so generous with her wisdom and her praise.

She offers an instructive example to live by. "Be honest. Take responsibility. Do your best. Exude kindness and generosity. Repeat all of those things all day every day." I will remember her words each and every day as I navigate the world, and I know our AJHA family will, too.

David Sloan

Pam was one of the most energetic media historians I’ve ever known. Even with all the projects she had going on, she recently took her school’s MLK holiday break to visit my wife and me. The roundtrip required a drive of twelve hours. The purpose was for Pam and me to discuss some research and publishing projects. It hadn’t been long since she had completed her tenure as editor of Journalism History, and at that time she had accepted a position on the editorial board of the journal Historiography in Mass Communication. She knew it was just an honorary position but required work. During her visit with me and Joanne, she talked enthusiastically about book-length projects she was working on.

With her work ethic, she combined the human graces of graciousness, genuineness, friendliness, and humility. When she talked about her research, it was never to boast but simply to share information about projects that excited her.

Parry, Vanessa Murphree, Jinx Broussard, Willie Tubbs, and Dianne Bragg at the 2015 AEJMC Southeast Colloquium.

Willie Tubbs

Pam, who I met at my first academic conference in 2014, was the best colleague a person could hope for and a scholar of immense skill. I can't recommend her book, Eisenhower: The Public Relations President, enough. Media history at its finest. On a personal note, I sincerely would not be where I am as a faculty member without Pam. She invited me to contribute chapters to one of her books, involved me in numerous service opportunities, advocated for me to become an editorial board member of an academic journal, and served as one of my external reviewers when I went up for tenure. She stood to gain very little from helping me; she just had a heart for people and helped everyone she could. It's my hope that I can one day do for some of my students and younger colleagues what she did for me.

Debbie van Tuyll

Pam was more than just a colleague; she was a true friend, someone I could rely on for honest opinions and ideas. I will truly miss her positive energy and lovely presence. She was one of those people who I looked forward to seeing every year at AJHA

Kimberly Voss

Pam was one of the most significant mentors I ever had. I worked with her on two books and was starting a third. She was a wonderful editor - helpful with revision ideas and gentle with criticism. We shared a love of the Kansas City Chiefs and often exchanged messages about the team. She will be dearly missed.

Proposing a New Public History Committee for AJHA: Part I

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 16:17:30 GMT

By: Wendy Plotkin

Are AJHA members typical of their communication colleagues in their appreciation for history? In answering this question, most members would probably cite the unwillingness of their colleagues to read much of the scholarship produced by journalism historians. This lack of enthusiasm for communications history is attributable, in part, to the divide between AJHA members and their colleagues on another issue: the inclusion of communications history courses in undergraduate and graduate media programs. In its 2019 publication, “History in the Curriculum” and the “Statement of Principles on History in the Curriculum,” AJHA articulated its commitment to the principle that all graduate communications programs and undergraduate majors in communications should require at least one communications history course. It also offered data on the relatively low proportion of existing programs conforming to this principle, revealing the huge gap between AJHA’s goal and the situation at the time of publication.

Another potentially important, but unrecognized, gulf between AJHA members and their colleagues is the indifference of most communicators, their employers, and their organizations toward the preservation of the raw materials needed to produce such history. At the most basic level, this includes print and digital newspapers, audio and video broadcasts, and Internet content such as websites and social media sites that are the fruits of their labor. At another level, this includes the process-oriented materials emerging from the organizations that create and influence these media—the media corporations, trade associations, labor unions, and advocacy organizations. Can AJHA take it for granted that these sources will be available for their histories—especially sources in digital form that require different means of preservation from the print sources that are most familiar?

I came face-to-face with these questions when, in 2021, I (a retired historian) volunteered to serve as “historian” for a 75-year-old affiliate of a national organization that advocates for equal treatment of women in the communications industry. The position, established shortly after the organization’s founding in 1949, had been vacant for some time.

In this two-part article, I describe my surprise and concern that the organization seemed to accord little value to its history and the historical records that contained it. Its board was open to allowing me to work with its print records, but willing to sacrifice preservation when faced with the challenges of preserving its digitally created records. It also refused to allow me to use its history to strengthen organizational identity—at a time when it was experiencing a significant drop in membership and its 75^th anniversary was approaching.

I attempted to educate the board on the importance of its history to three audiences: the organization itself, young people considering communications careers, and historians of women and communications. Finding the board resistant to these arguments, I queried an archivist association for other examples of this phenomenon, and undertook research in the communications, history, and archival scholarship. They revealed an emerging concern within the journalism community about past and potential future losses of digitally created newspapers and broadcasts. However, articles about the preservation attitudes and practices of organizations that produced media or influenced its production did not surface.

Already an AJHA member, I joined the history division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). An initial review of the flagship journals of the two organizations, American Journalism and Journalism History, provided two insights: little attention was paid to the problem of sources, and the articles contained few citations to the work of the affiliate I was serving or the national organization of which it was a part.

This was the genesis of my decision to describe my experience to AHJA members and to propose that AJHA establish a public history committee that would investigate the status of historical preservation and organizational history within today’s communications industry. With that information, it could propose, evaluate, and implement solutions if it found a problem existed. Since AJHA consists primarily of faculty of college and university media programs—many of whom had significant experience as working journalists—we have credibility commonly lacking among other historians who could be dismissed as intruders seeking to impose their own values upon the members of a discipline they do not understand. AJHA members are in a better position to determine the extent of the problem, and to discern whether AJHA is, indeed, the best organization to remedy the problem. Could this be better handled by the archival community? I will deal with some of these issues in Part II.

About the Organization

The affiliate for which I volunteered was established in 1949. Early in its history, it established the position of “historian” and included this position within its by-laws. These historians’ efforts produced a file cabinet full of print records, scrapbooks, and periodicals stored at the office of the state’s press association, whose staff participated in the creation of the affiliate. Included were an abundant set of records about the organization’s founding left by its two principal organizers.

When I began my service as the organization’s historian, the affiliate’s president asked that I organize the files and find an archive to accept them. I indicated my desire to scan them prior to donating the documents to the state archive, an enthusiastic potential host. This request arose from my experience throughout my career with the high costs in time and money of undertaking research in physical archives.

The Fruits of Digitization, 2021 and 2022—Getting to Know the Organization

In 2021 and 2022, I focused on scanning the records, a task that put no demands on the busy board members. The affiliate had volunteered to host the national organization’s meeting in 2021, and when that meeting was cancelled for COVID-19-related reasons, they continued planning for a 2022 meeting. This was a huge effort undertaken by a small group within the board, and I chose to stay in the background.

During this period, I scanned the organization’s 1949-1959 records. The information derived from scanning these documents convinced me of their value for state and U.S. women’s and communications history—something I had not taken for granted when I first volunteered. On their own, the activities of the organization were mildly interesting, with details of arranging officer and board elections; assembling speakers, agendas, and places for quarterly membership meetings; developing categories and rules for communications contests (the most popular activity); and participating in state programs advocating for freedom of information.

These activities became more significant when combined with the names and backgrounds of the members undertaking them. The backgrounds were available in the major dailies and smaller weeklies within the state, many included in commercially available digitized collections. These publications devoted substantial attention to the activities and staff of the state’s media and media organizations, including women and advocacy groups. Equally valuable, the magazine of the state press association (published continuously since the late 1920s and available in print and microfilm formats) proved to be a treasure trove for this type of information.

I concluded that, aside from revealing the evolving means by which the affiliate sought to empower women communicator over 75 years, its records served as the single best source for identifying women within the state who had served as publishers, editors-in-chief, managing editors, reporters, photographers, and similar positions in broadcasting and public relations from WWI through the 1980s. Few popular books and articles covered them, and they were largely absent from communication history scholarship. There is no doubt that the availability of the affiliate’s records would facilitate the “institutional history of women journalists” and the “enlargement of biographical studies” called for in 2001 by Maurine Beasley in “Recent Directions for the Study of Women’s History in American Journalism.”

Emerging Conflicts Between Favored Digital Distribution Formats and Preservation of Information in Distributed Documents

After the national conference had been held in the summer of 2022—thus freeing the board to consider my ideas—I broadened the scope of my activities. The 75th anniversary of our founding in June 2024 was approaching. I assumed that the board would allow me to add content to the existing history on our website and publish pieces in the quarterly digital newsletter. The newsletter editor expressed enthusiasm for this idea and encouraged me as I wrote a two-part article about the organization’s founder.

At this point, I was alerted to potential conflicts between newer digital formats adopted by the affiliate and the ability to preserve the information they disseminated. The problem was the choice of MailChimp to design and distribute newsletters. MailChimp is a free platform that offers a layered approach to the presentation of information in digital newsletters—emphasizing the visual appeal of short articles at the top layer, and the continuation of these articles via hyperlinks at subsequent levels. The newsletters are emailed to members, and metrics are produced on the number of members who open the emails and the time they spend reading them.

The organization’s newsletter could only be viewed while looking at the email. It could not be downloaded as a document, a feature that discouraged the inclusion of longer articles dealing with more complex topics. Affiliates wishing to encourage readers to learn of past activities could create a portal of these older email versions of the newsletters on their web page. These links would offer these readers the newsletter in the same non-downloadable format, denying them the ability to read the documents without going online to the website. The format also made it difficult to extract articles of interest and organize them by topic—features of prime importance to historians and others seeking to obtain a comprehensive view of the organization’s activities over time. I had put off consideration of how to preserve the affiliate’s digitally created documents, but the incompatibility of my history essays with the technology used to compose the newsletters brought the issue to my attention—and the affiliate’s response to my concerns widened the gap between us.

A subset of the board—whom I had contacted about these concerns—told me that these email newsletters were today’s standard for designing and distributing newsletters. I countered by noting that the national organization offered a compromise that preserved the favored email format without sacrificing the long-term preservation and use of the newsletters. It created a PDF version that email newsletter recipients could download if they did not wish to read the entire newsletter while viewing email. It also placed the PDF versions of newsletters back to 2016 on a “members only” portion of its website.

The group was not satisfied with this solution. It characterized the national organization’s inclusion of downloadable PDFs in the emails distributing newsletters as “old-fashioned.” PDFs were “out” and, they believed, adopting the national organization’s example would discredit them in communication circles. One member indicated that if it came down to a choice between design and preservation, preservation would have to go. Eventually, the group agreed to allow me to create PDF versions of the newsletters to put on the website but failed to follow through on this promise.

Strengthening Organizational Identity Through Organizational History– Or Not

The resistance to providing easy access to past newsletters, a reflection of the “presentist” orientation of the website’s content, also disturbed me because of the value of these newsletters in creating organizational identity. To my mind, there was a pressing need for this heritage-oriented material on our website. Our organization’s membership had plummeted from about 200 in the 1970s to about 40 in recent years, mirroring the experience of the other affiliates and the national organization. These membership declines led to a lack of turnover within the board and signs of burnout among its members. The number of organizational activities and events declined, reducing the appeal of the organization even more—at a time when rising membership fees and the multiplication of membership organizations created new competition for members.

I saw the 75th anniversary as an opportunity to turn members’ and potential members’ attention to the organization’s record of accomplishments over time, enhancing organizational identity at a time when the breadth of activities was shrinking. I believed that the reputations of legendary organizations such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the League of Women Voters, and the American Civil Liberties Union added to their appeal, allowing members to share the prestige accrued from past efforts. This could help the organization maintain and increase membership and morale during times of organizational fatigue, provide the spark that would encourage members to volunteer for leadership positions, and create new stores of energy to expand organizational activities

The board disagreed. One board member expressed skepticism that organizational history mattered to members. The rest of the board demonstrated agreement with her belief by continuing to ignore my call to add several illustrated essays highlighting the organization’s history to the website.

In late 2023, I decided to design, print, and distribute a historical 2024 anniversary calendar to the organization’s members. I submitted it to the board for review on December 1. The board members initially ignored it but rallied when I said I was close to resigning. They not only improved the calendar with their factual corrections and design edits, but praised its quality, even reimbursing me for the costs.

This affirmation and the election of a new president led me to believe that I would finally be able to add historical materials to the web. However, nothing changed. Failing to explain the board’s opposition to this request, the president offered me an opportunity to give a brief unrecorded talk about the organization’s history at an October 2024 membership meeting attended by, at most, 45 people. The president also criticized me for creating the calendar without obtaining prior permission and insisted that I cease all attempts to discuss history in the board correspondence.

I submitted my resignation as the organization’s historian, effective March 31, 2024.

Our 75th anniversary was celebrated in May 2024, at our annual awards luncheon, with a trivia contest on our history serving as the main recognition of our anniversary.

Part II will address the likelihood that, to a greater or lesser extent, the attitudes of this board are shared by a large proportion of those working in the communications industry; the various causes (many structural) of these attitudes; and proposed solutions to be considered by an AJHA Public History committee to the resulting threats to valuable sources and failure to acknowledge the benefits of history, including its use as a tool for organizational health.

Wendy Plotkin is a retired historian who is writing a biography of Dorothy Stuck, a respected editor of a southern weekly newspaper from 1950-1969, and an active contributor to a state association advocating equal treatment of women journalists. Plotkin taught upper level undergraduate U.S. history and history methods at Arizona State University from 2003 to 2009. In 1999, she received a Ph.D. in history from the University of Illinois at Chicago, focusing on racial discrimination in housing in her dissertation and in articles and encyclopedia entries.

Member Spotlight: Julie Hedgepeth Williams

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 16:06:10 GMT

How did you become involved with AJHA?

I was David Sloan's student at University of Alabama starting way back in 1989. I went into grad school without a clue what grad school was. But I saw a media history course on the schedule and JUMPED on it. I had been a history (and English) major at Principia College and had spent the 1980s as a journalist, so it was obvious that Media History was meant for me! David was my media history professor, and what a fortunate, fortunate situation for me—and for all of David's students.

He had a vision for bringing students along and furthering their careers in academia. Most notably, he didn't make us rewrite our papers in his voice; he exercised a light hand as an editor. He insisted on us submitting to conferences, and he showed us how to do it—he really guided us through the process. In some cases, he asked students to write book chapters. He even asked me to co-write a book, and then in another class, our entire class wrote a book.

I came out of my master's degree and subsequent PhD as a veteran, almost, and of course by then I was part of AJHA, having completely dived into the deep end there. David made sure we students submitted to AJHA, as he was one of the co-founders of our organization.

You have a regular speaking schedule and put on PowerPoint shows. How do those events differ from traditional research presentations? How have those shifted the way you present research in other settings?

I've written four popular history books, which is a childhood dream come true. These are the ones I present to audiences via PowerPoint—but not just PowerPoint. One format is a sort of interactive storytelling, where I recruit members of the audience to act out stories; another is a scripted one-woman show; three others are PowerPoint shows, although I take great pains to make them entertaining. In one PowerPoint show, for example, I trick the audience into failing a quiz about the Wright Brothers, and by the time the show is over, they pass the quiz when asked again. Don't I wish it would be that easy with my students!

These presentations differ from research presentations by length—I generally speak 45 minutes to 55 minutes as the entertainment for the group who asked me to speak. I get bent out of shape when a group that meets over lunch wants a shorter speech... that's very hard for me. These presentations also differ by audience—I speak mostly to non-academic audiences at public libraries, garden clubs, historical societies, and the like.... I do also like making academic presentations a little entertaining, maybe drawing a laugh or a sort of gasp, maybe.

Of course, those little sparks have to match the topic. For example, I was presenting an academic presentation on the settlement literature that brought colonists to America to start with. One of the prime writers of this over-the-top PR was John Smith, the one associated with Pocahontas. So when I quoted John Smith's work in my AJHA presentation, I whipped out an action figure of John Smith from the movie Pocahontas and quipped, "...and we think of him as just a movie star." I remember he fit nicely into the empty microphone holder on the podium.

You’ve described your writing style as having “the breezy storytelling quality of fiction, of course while staying true to history,” how did you settle on using that style?

I think I can call back the answer from my days as a general assignment reporter on The Sampson Independent, a small daily newspaper in the farm country of North Carolina. The Independent is based in the happenin' town of Clinton, which in my day had about 7,000 residents—yet it was a big city and had a daily newspaper. That tells you something about the rural nature of the area.

I decided early on that my writing shouldn't be done in a dry and "just-the-facts" Dragnet style; it should be interesting to read. My thought was that many of my readers probably read only the paper, so they should be reading something fun to read. Fortunately, I had lots of chances to write in an entertaining way, as I was given a column once a week (always fun to write!) and often wrote the Sunday Feature Page on more lighthearted topics. Then there were the usual features. Of course, we had some hard news, and I did write that seriously.

In every case, these things were written based on facts—OK, sometimes the column got fanciful. But otherwise, I was writing the facts—but interestingly. To me, truth is more interesting than fiction anyway; I get quite impatient with most novels because they aren't true. So writing the truth in a readable way became my goal. I easily transferred that goal to historical research and writing, since I have always read history for fun, anyway. Since journalism and history are definitely related, I think both should be entertaining and readable, while also being true.

What is one piece of advice or lesson you have from your recent research or teaching?

My advice is pedagogical for any of us who feel like they're losing the battle of educating our students. Every year about this time (I'm writing this at the end of the fall semester), I quote Miss Shields from the movie A Christmas Story as she (and I) grade papers: "F! F! My life's work down the drain!"

Sometimes I get very discouraged that "no one" among my students (as it seems momentarily) applied their lessons. This year the issue was naturalness—my freshman English students are actually writing short media history papers, and I know their findings and analysis should be interesting... but this year they seemed to fall down before attaining that natural sound that everyone wants to read. They tended to sound stilted and panicky to fit into a mold. I told my husband that my lesson learned this year was to retire! ... But NO!

I've come to realize that we professors and teachers are the nerds who followed the rules when we were students, got brave enough to apply the spirit as well as the rules, who stayed up late researching and writing and worrying about grades. My students who made me become Miss Shields this semester are, simply, the ones destined for careers other than mine.

An example: During our final exam this year, three of my students who happen to be nursing majors took charge when a fellow student had a medical emergency. One of those take-charge nurses was a real struggler in my class. But wow, what a great nurse that student will make! That's part of it—we're all heading to where we need to be. I remind myself that I can only launch them into their sophomore year with my fingers crossed that they'll get their feet under them and come to the realization that writing isn't a series of rules, but a natural telling of what you know. And I admit a good number of my students did break through this semester (despite Miss Shields' lament) and wrote some readable research that was fun to hear about.

So my advice is: Don't be discouraged. We all feel like Miss Shields sometimes, but when you pull out of that nosedive, you'll see that some of the students' work is very interesting indeed.

What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of academia?

Gosh, is there any time outside of academia? Actually, I swim all summer and have just taken up swimming in the school year, too, when I can. I love traveling to see our grown sons, one in Chicago and one in Los Angeles (I'm in Birmingham, Alabama)—and I love traveling to the ocean and swimming in it. It's also a great and relaxing challenge for me to shop with a laser focus for bargains, my goal being to be able to get gifts for my large childhood family on the cheap. My husband accuses me and my sisters of bragging about how little we spent whenever we give a gift, and I think he's right! But it's so much fun to find those bargains!

Julie Hedgepeth Williams teaches part-time at Samford University, where she's delighted that her freshman English class can be taught as media history. She's also a part-time writer of popular history books which all started as AJHA papers. She won AJHA's Sidney Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism History in 2021.

Author Tips: My Experience Updating 'Assault on the Media'

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 18:15:54 GMT

By: Tom Mascaro

Editor's note: In the November 2024 issue, Tom Mascaro reflected on the research, writing, and publishing process he undertook while updating and reframing William Porter's 1976 monograph, Assault on the Media: The Nixon Years. Below, Mascaro offers additional lessons he learned throughout the process with a focus on the final editing and publishing process.

Don’t be afraid to push back to ensure the cover design reflects the book’s thesis. The Press initially designed cover art that featured a photograph of Nixon holding a press conference. Although apropos, it omitted the shadowy, threatening nature of the Nixon era captured so well by Porter’s original. I wanted to emphasize the theme of the book—the ominous nature of government attacks on a free press. I was delighted when the Press produced a new layout.
Block Quotes. Ask the editor/typesetter to use the same spacing as the regular text, to avoid the appearance of an impenetrable slug. Some style editors insist on a block quote based on a number of lines, but others avoid them (because no one reads block quotes, they contend). Weave in what you can to protect the narrative flow, but ask for more space to invite the reader to engage a blocked passage.

Snag URLs Now! Some online sources permit a single view of an article and then require a subscription. If an essay seems important, Export the article as a PDF to your research files when you first encounter it. Copy the URL and paste it with the date accessed directly into your PDF.

Photo Rights and Text Licensing. Find out the class of rights/licensing the publisher desires before you engage the rights holder, to avoid having to undo an agreement and re-sign for worldwide rights.

Tom Mascaro is professor emeritus in the School of Media & Communications at Bowling Green State University and a documentary historian.

Member Spotlight: Theresa Russell-Loretz

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 18:04:19 GMT

How did you become involved with AJHA?

One could say I’ve been a “lurker,” trolling work conducted by AJHA members for some time. I’ve worked for years to frame archival material gifted to me by a family member (my grandmother), a lifetime journalist, editor and linotype operator. As someone with limited background in journalism history, AJHA seemed a great place to connect with some of the scholars who provided insights into this academic area (and this proved to be accurate). Though I taught Intro to Journalism for a few years prior to a focus on communication/public relations, AJHA—and its conference—the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference—provided a place for me to gain insight on academic work in journalism history, particularly on women journalists.

What drew you to studying crisis and risk communication? How do you see those interests connecting to journalism history?

My doctorate at Purdue focused on public affairs and issue management under Dick Crable and Steve Vibbert, two early scholars in the field. My work in crisis and risk communication has focused on the connections between public relations and emergency managers from a more pragmatic perspective, as students and I have worked to understand how emergency managers might foster improved risk and crisis messages using public relations principles. Besides this, I’m fascinated by work my thesis adviser, Dr. Denise Bostdorff, at Wooster College, has long conducted on Presidential crisis rhetoric. One goal of mine is future work grounded in crisis and risk communication history at a more local level.

How have you seen the field change since you started your career?

The biggest and most obvious change in the field of crisis/risk communication has been social media, which has been both a blessing and the bane of emergency managers, as it requires another level of focus and expertise to convey emergency/risk/crisis messages via social media channels, but to monitor and respond to mis- and dis-information. Clearly, social media has changed the practice of crisis, emergency and risk communication, as authorities and practitioners face the complications of “unvetted” reports when striving to provide accurate information in real time so community members and others at risk can make informed decisions.

What tips or advice do you have for others exploring similar topics, archives, or questions that you examine in your research?

Attend the conferences, read the journals, listen to the podcasts, and network with other scholars in the areas in which you want to learn more. I also encourage “newbies” to volunteer, always an excellent way to meet other members, learn about their research, gain insights about the research process. AJHA members are generous in sharing their insights and tips around archival research, framing questions, and providing resources.

What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of academia?

Travel, cooking, reading, classical music, good theatre, engaging series (“Slow Horses,” “Inspector Ricciardi,” and “Where’s Wanda” have been recent favorites). Over break, my husband and I look forward to making sure we’ve seen all the Oscar-nominated films from 2024.

Theresa Russell-Loretz is an associate professor and former chair of the Department of Communication and Theatre at Millersville University. Russell-Loretz is also a former chair of the NCA Public Relations Division and currently serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Public Relations Research.

AJHA's Greenville conference set for November 2026

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 23:54:34 GMT

A statue of Joel Poinsett -- the South Carolina statesman who first brought poinsettias to the United States -- sits next to his namesake hotel. (Photo courtesy of Aimee Edmondson)

During a special Zoom meeting on Nov. 11, the AJHA Board of Directors voted to approve a contract to have the 45^th annual conference at the Westin Poinsett Hotel in Greenville, South Carolina. The conference dates will be Nov. 5-7, 2026.

The Board consented at its regular meeting during the Pittsburgh convention last month for the Convention Sites Committee to pursue hotels in Greenville for the 2026 conference. Convention Coordinator Aimee Edmondson reported that securing an ideal hotel in Greenville around the typical late September/early October conference time proved difficult because mid-September to mid-October is high season for conferences.

Edmondson said that five of the seven bids on the request for proposals were not viable because they did not at all align with the AJHA’s needs, as stated in recent surveys of organization members. The two remaining options were the Westin Poinsett ($229/night) and AC Hotel Greenville, a Marriott property ($219/night). For reference, Edmondson noted that hotels for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication conferences will be $279 in the coming years.

Although the AC Hotel contract would be during the regular AJHA conference time frame, Edmondson reported that the hotel was not ideal. Among the issues was the hotel layout, which would require break-out sessions (panels and presentations) to be scheduled on different floors in the hotel and cause attendees to travel between floors all day. Edmondson added that the hotel does not have escalators, so attendees would need to ride elevators to two different floors for sessions. Board members were concerned that the disjointed layout would be inconvenient at best and could be difficult for attendees with mobility challenges.

Edmondson said that the Convention Sites Committee felt the Westin Poinsett would be much better for AJHA members. It is in a prime location and has an ideal layout. Additionally, the Westin is a 100-year-old building that Edmondson described as “restored to perfection,” while the AC Hotel is a newer property that Edmondson described as “cold.” See https://www.historichotels.org/us/hotels-resorts/the-westin-poinsett/ for more about the Westin.

Board members wondered how important an historic hotel was to AJHA members. Edmondson stated that an historic property is pretty important, but the most important thing to members is being somewhere they could just walk out of the hotel and go to restaurants. She reported that the Westin Poinsett is in the middle of a charming and robust downtown with more than 20 blocks of shops and almost 100 restaurants (80 percent of which are local).

“It looks like a huge hallmark movie set,” she said.

Board members expressed concern that moving the date to November would put the conference too close to other fall conferences. The Symposium on the 19^th Century Press, Civil War, and Free Expression – which typically would be that same weekend in November – was a particular concern because many AJHA members attend that event.

AJHA President Debra van Tuyll also is involved in planning for the Symposium, which takes place in Augusta, Georgia. She indicated that the dates for the 2026 Symposium have not been set yet, and they may be able to move it for one year. Another option would be for the two conferences to have some joint programming.

Van Tuyll also said that the weather would be nicer and the scenery more fall-like in November than in early October.

Ultimately, the eight board members present for the special meeting voted unanimously to accept the Convention Sites Committee’s recommendation to move the AJHA conference to November, emphasizing that the shift would apply to 2026 only. Edmondson stated that she and the local host committee would begin working to secure donations to keep registration fees as low as possible.

The local host committee for the Greenville conference consists of Nathaniel Frederick (Winthrop), Kenneth Campbell (University of South Carolina), and Dante Mozie (South Carolina State).

As previously announced, the 44^th annual AJHA conference will be Sept. 25-27, 2025, at the Hilton Long Beach in California.

Member Spotlight: Noah Arceneaux

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 18:10:48 GMT

How did you become involved with AJHA?

Janice Hume got me involved with the organization almost twenty years ago. I was finishing my PhD at University of Georgia, and she thought I’d fit in with this particular network of scholars. She was absolutely correct. I haven’t been to the conference in several years for a variety of reasons, but I plan to start going again. I’ve got fall 2025 in Long Beach on my agenda.

How does your industry experience inform your teaching and/or research?

Most of my professional media experience was producing online content for TV networks, including American Idol, but this was many years ago. The web was much more primitive. I remember doing a Price is Right game, for the CBS website, and we had to make sure it would work on AOL dial-up access. That was quite limiting.

In terms of research, my professional experience made me realize that any kind of big “innovation” is the result of many minds and many factors. My overall research focus is on the history of technology, so I’m always looking at technological changes, and I try to present a comprehensive, accurate picture. Historians and journalists tend to focus on singular moments of innovation, as if one person invented something. I try to avoid this tendency in my own research

In terms of teaching, my professional experience taught me that every single thing you do needs to be done with full accuracy and precision. For a time in the mid 90s, one of my tasks as an ABC News desk assistant was to write page numbers on a news script in big numbers, using a marker. The regular font wasn’t big enough to be read in a dark studio for middle-aged folks with fading vision. I learned the critical nature of that task the one time I put a “one” on page seven. That threw off a morning newscast for several minutes. So, I try to instill in students this kind of dedication. Even the most seemingly minute task needs to be done correctly, because you don’t know how your job fits into some larger work routine.

What topics or questions are you pursuing in your current research?

I did some serious archival research on wireless telegraphy for a few years. I remain fascinated by the twenty years of wireless communication before “radio” as we now use that term became a mainstream technology. Since 2020, I have been focusing on the history of radio in southwest Louisiana, or what I am calling “Cajun radio.” There used to be approximately twenty stations that broadcast in the local dialect of French, and there are still a handful that persist today. I am looking at the way this form of radio has continued, even though everyone in that region has spoken English for a few decades. You can still hear the rosary in French, for example, on a few stations.

A related goal with this project is an examination of the way Cajun culture has been celebrated and promoted via radio. There’s a tradition in that area to listen to Cajun music on Saturday mornings, for example. So even for folks who don’t speak French, including myself, at the very least, you will hear it on Saturdays with the traditional Cajun music. My own research is very specific to one ethnic group, Cajuns, but I see this project as relevant to any kind of under-represented or marginalized group. How do we maintain these identities in the midst of an increasingly commercialized, homogenized world, where algorithms dictate the programming?

What makes you most excited about teaching or research?

For research, I love the thrill of the hunt. Digging through old archival material and finding some incredible “smoking gun” document or interviewing someone and they casually drop a nugget of pure gold near the end of the recording. I live for those moments.

For teaching, I have to admit that I enjoy the spotlight. In front of a class, I adopt a performance mindset and weave humorous commentary into more serious thoughts on the topic at hand. I have taught some very large classes at San Diego State, over a hundred students for example, and when the lecture goes well, it’s a very positive feeling. It took me a few years to find the right tone, so that I am in fact educating and not just entertaining, but I think I have the balance now. I started recording lectures on video, during COVID-19, and have kept it up. Several students have told me that they show my lectures to roommates or boyfriends, for example, as they find them so engaging.

What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of academia?

My hobbies are so closely aligned to my research that it’s hard to see the difference. I collect old radios, for example, which is clearly related to studying radio history. I’ve also amassed dozens of Cajun and zydeco 45s, the more obscure and unknown, the better. This relates to my Cajun radio research, and some of my interview subjects are impressed at how well this “California professor” actually knows Cajun music. My other hobby is collecting old comic books, preferably pre-1980 genre comics (science fiction, horror, war, Westerns) and anything based on a TV show or film. When I go online or into a comic shop, to seek out some specific issue, this feels exactly like digging through a library or database trying to find some crucial information for my latest research project.

Noah Arceneaux is a professor in the School of Journalism and Media Studies at San Diego State University.

Updating 'Assault on the Media: The Nixon Years' to Contend with 21st Century Threats to Democracy

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 17:58:01 GMT

By: Tom Mascaro

When Donald Trump called journalists "the enemy of the people" in 2017, I contacted University of Michigan Press and urged them to reissue William Porter’s 1976 monograph, Assault on the Media: The Nixon Years. The press generously invited me to take on the project. I anticipated appending an introduction and adding some analysis. But as I re-engaged the original, it became obvious I would have to blend entirely new content, in light of the half century of new scholarship and availability of primary source documents, with Porter’s classic. I also realized I would have to venture outside my comfort zone.

Porter’s original Assault on the Media documented Nixon-era threats to journalism and democracy. Porter explicated a year-by-year review of the most prominent attacks on journalism and journalists and reinforced his work with a collection of primary “Documents of Significance,” memos and excerpts of speeches and court rulings dealing with the press.

Initially I tiptoed around Porter’s work, not wanting to do violence to the original. I settled into writing a brief introduction to each chapter and then a longer analysis, based on research published since the Nixon era.

Other factors changed my course—and forced my hand. Based on my own research into network documentary journalism history, I wrote about how 1968 altered network news. Working from Reuven Frank’s memoir, Out of Thin Air, and Daniel Walker’s Rights in Conflict, an assessment of the police riot in Chicago at the ’68 Democratic National Convention, including assaults on reporters and their equipment, I wrote a new chapter about the “Prelude to the Assault.” This bridged Porter’s opening chapter, “Background on the Nixon Attitude,” with “Year 1969.”

The major hurdle in completing the project, though, emerged from Porter’s final chapter, “Effects of the Assault.” Porter published Assault on the Media less than two years after Nixon’s resignation—too soon to assess the lasting damage of the Nixon-era assault. But he listed four areas of concern going forward: 1) the impact of the Pentagon Papers decision on press freedom; 2), prior restraint workarounds; 3), confidentiality as a currency of power; and 4), antitrust as a threat to journalism.

I was faced with the reality that you can’t reissue a classic book some fifty years after publication without addressing the aftermath. In particular, I had to come to terms with what had changed. Much of that content revolves around media law and First Amendment questions. Two conditions helped me tackle Porter’s “assignment.” The first was the body of literature published by our colleagues in media law and professional journalism observers who blend contemporary reporting with historical analyses. The second was the availability of online documents among Nixon administration papers at his presidential library. In particular, Nixon’s chief of staff H.R. Haldeman’s diaries are available online through the Nixon Library.

I then curated excerpts of Haldeman’s diaries that focused on media policy, journalists, and administration efforts at gatekeeping, agenda setting, and framing—as a counterpoint to academic studies of these theories about the press. I coupled that analysis with a collection of White House memos from Patrick Buchanan, Nixon’s media adviser, curated by Dr. Lori Cox Han at Chapman University. These troves of primary documents revealed baseline attitudes about journalists as “others,” attempts to court ethnic Whites, challenges to academia, plans to plant stories in sympathetic outlets, and inconsistencies in Nixon-era policies regarding “the media.” Trump’s assault on journalism also triggered a number of contemporary studies that reference the Nixon and other administrations’ era, as did recent academic books on the presidency and the press.

Eventually I was able to interpret Assault on the Media: The Nixon Years from my own perspective, while also honoring Prof. Porter’s original work. I very much appreciate the support of University of Michigan Press in helping me reissue the pages of Porter’s first edition with my interstitial analysis, plus new chapters based on my own and colleagues’ half century of research on the Nixon era. My analysis resulted in a proof of concept proffered by Porter, who saw the Nixon-era assault on journalism unfolding in threatening ways. Our new, co-authored book—Updated with Analysis of 21^st Century Threats to Democracy—documents and warns that attacks on journalists and democracy have worsened in the twenty-first century.

Tom Mascaro is professor emeritus in the School of Media & Communications at Bowling Green State University and a documentary historian.

Mckerns Research Grant: Impacts of the 1918 "Work or Fight" Ordinance on Black Americans

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 17:40:51 GMT

By: Natascha Toft Roelsgaard

With immense gratitude, I am writing this status update on my recent research trip to the Library of Congress, made possible by the AJHA and the Joseph McKerns Research Grant. During the balmy days of early October, I spent a weekend reviewing records at the NAACP archive, specifically looking for newspaper clippings and correspondence related to the “work or fight” ordinance enacted in the U.S. during World War I.

This project came about when I stumbled upon a news article written by Walter F. White, an investigator with the NAACP. White had been tasked with providing a report on the status of Black life in the South after the U.S. had entered the war in Europe. During his travels in Alabama and Georgia in early 1918, White observed that the War Department’s “work or fight” ordinance—which expanded on the 1917 Selective Service Act to compel draft-age men to war work or military service—was used by local Southern governments to control the labor of Black men and force Black women into domestic roles for white families. A practice, White noted, “which bordered virtually on peonage.” His findings were summarized in an exposé published by The New Republic on March 1, 1918.

A further search revealed that several white Southern newspapers rationalized and encouraged the exploitation of the wartime order, as a means to control Black labor and preserve the status quo. In contrast, Black newspapers in Alabama and Georgia denounced the practice, calling on the federal government to step in, and undertook what appeared to be an extensive collaboration with the NAACP on an anti-work or fight order campaign. While this campaign was mentioned sporadically in newspaper clippings, I discovered that several folders on these efforts were located at the NAACP archive, yet to be digitized. With the support of AJHA, I spent the weekend browsing through old leaflets, news articles, and letters in the Manuscript Reading Room in the James Madison Memorial Building.

The trip proved critical to my research project, revealing the NAACP’s myriad attempts to expose and put a halt to the South’s abuse of the wartime ordinance, as well as the federal government’s lack of response. News articles and letters between NAACP investigators also stipulated ties between the Ku Klux Klan and several of the white newspapers and local governments that encouraged the exploitation of the “work or fight” ordinance.

I left the archives with a full notebook and too many scanned pages to count. This winter, I plan to organize the acquired documents and categorize my findings. The goal is to include these findings as a book chapter in my book project on the historical misuse of the law to control Black labor in the U.S., the white press’ involvement in upholding and promoting these efforts and the combined efforts of the Black press and the NAACP in exposing the unconstitutionality of such practices.

I am grateful to AJHA for its continued support of junior faculty and the growing network of inquisitive and passionate scholars it has gifted me with.

Natascha Toft Roelsgaard is an assistant professor of journalism at Muskingum University. She received a McKerns grant in 2023 to support her research.

AJHA 2024 Convention Recap: Journalism History in the City of Bridges

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Sun, 20 Oct 2024 15:59:21 GMT

The 43rd American Journalism Historians Association annual convention running October 3-5, featured an expanded program that introduced a high density session to the conference and celebrated exemplary members with 13 different awards.

Returning to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the convention kicked off in the Kimpton Hotel Monaco in downtown with a welcome message from AJHA president Tracy Lucht who recounted attending her first AJHA convention. Lucht highlighted important steps the organization has taken over the last year to create a balanced budget while reiterating a commitment to fund research microgrants for graduate students, early career members, and under-researched topics. Lucht also spotlighted the important role AJHA holds in supporting all members who face external challenges to the topics they teach or research, especially related to race in journalism history.

Attendees gathered throughout the convection to honor dissertation, life-time achievement, and book of the year award winners. The 2024 Margaret A. Blanchard Dissertation Prize session featured Christopher Schaefer’s award-winning dissertation “Covering the World with the International Herald Tribune” chronicling the transnational history of the publication over the last two centuries. Honorable mentions for the award went to Anna E. Linder’s research on news coverage of rebellions in Spanish colonial Cuba, Karen D. Russell’s project uncovering the identities of popular Nashville radio DJs in the mid-twentieth century, and Carey Kelley’s examination of pioneers of gender equality in broadcast newsrooms starting in the 1960s.

In remarks accepting the 2024 Sidney Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement, Joe Campbell referred to the friendships and acquaintances he forged among AJHA members over the years, recalled having attended his first AJHA convention in London, Ontario, in 1996, and thanked the organization and its awards committee for granting him an “exceptional honor.”

Campbell, a professor emeritus at American University in Washington, DC, also offered the following seven recommendations for “enhancing high-quality research in journalism history”:

keep in mind the critical importance of addressing the “so what?” question in scholarly research;
know there is no shame in gentle if persistent self-promotion.
strive to share your research with popular audiences;
inject even-handed rigor in your work, and avoid the temptation to treat research papers as polemics;
embrace and encourage viewpoint diversity in research and in the classroom;
impose, or self-impose, a limit of 150 words in writing negative reviews about convention research papers; and,
support the AJHA endowment, as a way to help ensure the organization’s longer-term financial health and stability.

The AJHA Book of the Year Award session featured a talk from 2024 winner Aniko Bodroghkozy for “Making #Charlottesville: Media from Civil Rights to Unite the Right” which examined the resurgence of White supremacy amid the 2017 “Summer of Hate” in Charlottesville, Virginia, by comparing events to key moments in the Civil Rights movement. Katherine Rye Jewell, Josh Shepperd, and Ken Ward all received honorable mentions for their newly published monographs.

Amidst those award sessions, the program offered nine panels and 11 paper sessions including a new high density paper session. Key panels included the president’s panel on “Effective Leadership in Times of Turmoil” exploring best practices for faculty and administrators during difficult cultural or political times. A second panel on current issues facing academia discussed the opportunities and challenges artificial intelligence poses to accurate and ethical scholarship, especially when working in digital archives.

Two panels highlighted the role of Pittsburgh journalists in shaping modern news coverage in the twentieth century and The Pittsburgh Courier’s reporting on Black activism in the city and beyond. The Donna Allen Roundtable Luncheon featuring a conversation with Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter Paula Reed Ward and the Local Journalist Award Reception honoring Rod Doss, publisher of the New Pittsburgh Courier, and Pittsburgh sports broadcaster Bill Hillgrove introduced attendees to contemporary Pittsburgh journalists. The reception also included a live auction facilitated by auctioneer David Davies supporting the Mike Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend which raised over $1,600 across the live and silent auction.

Between sessions, attendees explored Pittsburgh during a tour of the Heinz History Center, a walk through and dinner in the Strip District, and mini-tours from many of the local convention goers and former Pittsburgh residents.

In closing remarks during the annual business meeting, Lucht thanked outgoing board members Erin Coyle, Matthew Pressman, and Yong Volz along with outgoing American Journalism editor Pamela Walck. She thanked new convention sites manager Aimee Edmondson and new research chair Jennifer Moore for their work organizing the convention alongside local hosts Walck and Katrina Jesick Quinn. Walck and Lucht celebrated incoming American Journalism editor Amber Roessner. Lucht led a video message on behalf of all attendees welcoming incoming AJHA president Debra van Tuyll.

After recent conventions in the midwest and on the east coast, the event is headed to the west coast next year with Long Beach, California playing host to the convention starting September 25, 2025.

Research Grant Recap: Television News Coverage of School Shootings

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Sun, 20 Oct 2024 15:52:49 GMT

By: Peter Joseph Gloviczki

I am honored and delighted to share an update about ongoing research toward a third scholarly book. My research program considers news narratives and representation during and immediately following major media events, with a particular emphasis on the aftermath of school shootings.

The research is supported in part by a Joseph McKerns Research Grant, generously provided by the American Journalism Historians Association in 2021. Because of the COVID-19 public health pandemic, my research trip was delayed until 2024. Specifically, I visited the Vanderbilt Television News Archive (VTNA) at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. I first came to the VTNA in 2015 and I knew I wanted to return. The McKerns Research Grant made that return possible.

During my visit to the VTNA, I watched a host of long- and short- news narratives spanning the 1990s through the present-day, beginning with the Columbine School Shooting in Littleton, Colorado (1999), and continuing through the Robb Elementary School Shooting in Uvalde, Texas (2022). My work at the archive helped reveal similarities and differences in media coverage of school shootings across the last three decades. I am interested in legacy construction of and for victims of school shootings.

Methodologically, I use interpretive, reflexive qualitative research methods. Data guide research questions in an inductive, ground-up approach. I diligently listen to news narratives. My chosen research methods include the case study research strategy, popularized by Robert K. Yin and Robert E. Stake, and autoethnography, as popularized by Norman K. Denzin, Carolyn Ellis and Art Bochner, and textual analysis, as popularized by Earl Babbie. In theoretical terms, I have been inspired by uses and gratifications theory, as well as changing conceptions of the media audience during our more mobile and social digital era.

The VTNA provided a treasure trove of news and information spanning 1968 to the present day. The opportunity to sit with these narratives and think deeply lets me consider how and why events are (or are not) braided together in major media coverage. What themes are repeated across time, space and place? When certain themes do not endure, for what kinds of reasons might those themes fade? Archives like this are valuable for researchers who care deeply about media culture. Here, the stories of the past truly come alive.

My first book is Journalism and Memorialization in the Age of Social Media (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). My second book is Mediated Narration in the Digital Age (Nebraska, 2021). I expect to submit my third book for consideration to University of Nebraska Press, when it is ready. This research trip to the VTNA helped me make significant strides toward that goal. Where my first two books considered the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting and the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, respectively, I expect that my third book will consider the 2018 Parkland, Florida, shooting and the 2022 Uvalde, Texas, shooting.

I went to the VTNA with the desire to spend time listening closely to as many stories of victims’ families as possible, to listen for how families remember their loved ones. Over time, I am noticing how individuals who lost loved ones sometimes publicly speak about horrendous and seemingly unimaginable losses. What I heard when I listened was deeply moving, especially hearing the presence of deep and understandable anger in the voices of victims’ famil

ies. These testimonies also give voice to profound loss and trauma. I feel grateful for the opportunity to engage in this research, helping understand reportage about tragedies in American media culture.

Peter Joseph Gloviczki (Ph.D. Mass Communication, University of Minnesota, 2012) is a tenured professor at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois. From July 2022 through June 2024, he chaired the Department of Broadcasting and Journalism. He is past president of the Carolinas Communication Association and past head of the Cultural and Critical Studies Division in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Member Spotlight: Reed Smith

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Sun, 20 Oct 2024 15:46:39 GMT

1. How did you become involved with AJHA?

I learned about AJHA from Dr. Patrick Washburn at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University while I was a graduate student there in the early 1990s.

I attended my first conference in Pittsburgh in 2000, and I was hooked because of the the camaraderie and the excellence of the research presentations.

2. How did your industry experience inform your teaching and/or research?

I was a disc jockey, news reporter and NPR station developer before entering the academy. These experiences allowed me to understand and relate to students what they would face in the field and helped focus my research.

Even before I went to graduate school and learned how to do historical research, I loved reading and learning about history of all kinds. Thus, pursuing historical media research was a natural. When I began my Ph.D., I switched from doing solely broadcast to journalism history. This greatly broadened my perspective on the media. So, my research has encompassed both broadcast and print-related projects in the years since.

3. How have you seen your field change since you started?

It has changed greatly in multiple ways. I lived through the evolution of media technology from analog to digital-based equipment. This required reeducation on my part as both a practitioner and as an instructor. Later on, I witnessed the evolution of journalism delivery systems from those that are broadcast and print-based to ones that are largely online. That also required reeducation as I taught students how to navigate and flourish in the new environment.

4. How has being a professor emeritus changed your research agenda or interests?

It has not changed them significantly, but I now have time to read more broadly as I consider new topics to research and develop a broader perspective. Most importantly, it has opened a world of Voice Overwork for me. I record newspapers and have narrated a book for the Georgia Radio Reading Service (for the vision-impaired) and have recorded books for a Christian book publisher. This work allows me to utilize my announcing skills as well as my journalism knowledge and faith to volunteer with organizations that contribute to the greater good.

5. What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of academia?

I enjoy doing anything that involves physical activity, including hiking, biking, playing racquetball, and lifting weights. And although I have retired, I continue to serve as the leader of the Faculty Commons (Christian) group at Georgia Southern. I also enjoy reading about or viewing history-based documentaries or films and traveling to history sites.

Reed Smith is a professor emeritus of communication arts at Georgia Southern University. His research focuses on the history of media, oral histories, and the development of educational media.

Member Spotlight: Carolina Velloso

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 15:12:57 GMT

1. How did you become involved with AJHA?

I became a member of AJHA because of my interest in media history and in joining a community of like-minded scholars. I am excited to be presenting at my first AJHA conference in October!

2. How did you develop your interest in journalism or media history?

My interest in media history stems from my scholarly background: my bachelor's degree is in history, and I have carried over that interest to my work in the journalism field, looking particularly at early women journalists and media coverage of women and minorities. I have published two articles that I am particularly proud of: "'A True Newspaper Woman': The Career of Sadie Kneller Miller," published in Journalism History, is the first article-length analysis of the career of a trailblazing journalist from the turn of the twentieth century; and "Race Films and the Black Press: Representation and Resistance," published in American Journalism, which examines Black press coverage of 'race films' in the early twentieth century. I am excited to continue producing media history scholarship—at the upcoming AJHA conference, I will be presenting a co-authored paper on Black press coverage of the pioneering Black figure skater Mabel Fairbanks.

3. How has your current position as a president’s postdoctoral fellow at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota supported your research and/or teaching goals?

I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to be a President's Postdoctoral Fellow, which provides scholars two years of protected research time before transitioning into faculty positions. I have been able to advance my research agenda during this time, presenting several papers at conferences and entering them into the publication pipeline. The Hubbard School has been extremely supportive, providing both mentorship and financial assistance in supporting my research goals.

4. What question(s) do you wish fellow researchers or colleagues would ask about your work?

I always appreciate being able to discuss the practical implications of my work. Whether it's historical scholarship or another kind of qualitative analysis, I think it's very important to examine how my scholarly contributions connect to, and provide insight about, journalism and media in contemporary contexts, and what real-world problems they address. Talking this through with colleagues helps me articulate the "so what" of my research.

5. What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of academia?

I am an avid sports fan and love attending baseball games and tennis tournaments. I'm also a film buff and often go to the movies to watch the latest releases. Finally, I have just started learning to play the guitar and am enjoying it so far!

Carolina Velloso is the President's Postdoctoral Fellow at the Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. Her research interests include the professional experiences of women and minority journalists and the representation of women and minorities in media.

Research Grant Report: Can You Copyright a 'Mood'?

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 14:43:03 GMT

By: Jason Lee Guthrie

My research project explores the intriguing case of Leigh v. Warner Bros., Inc. (1997). This case is centered around photographer Jack Leigh’s iconic image “Midnight,” which features the “Bird Girl” statue in a Savannah cemetery. Commissioned for John Berendt’s book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, this photograph became the subject of a significant copyright dispute when Warner Bros. produced a film based on the book. The question at issue in the case is whether copyright law can protect something as intangible as a “mood.” This issue is particularly relevant in today’s entertainment industries, where the boundaries of copyright are continually tested by new technologies and creative expressions.

My interest in this case comes from my primary research agenda on the history of copyright law. I discovered Leigh v. Warner Bros., Inc. (1997) while researching the well-known Williams v. Bridgeport Music, Inc. (2015) case, commonly referred to as the “Blurred Lines” case. In that instance, Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke were found liable for infringing Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give it Up.” The outcome of the Williams case was unprecedented in copyright law and had the potential to disrupt established practices within the entertainment industry. Although the subsequent Gray v. Perry (2018) case somewhat mitigated its chilling effect, it has nonetheless introduced further ambiguity and potential litigation concerning the copyrightability of a creative work’s intangible qualities, such as its aesthetic, vibe, or “mood.”

My favorite aspect of this project so far has been the chance to work with University of Georgia doctoral student Lexie Little. The funds from the McKerns grant were primarily to hire her as a research assistant. Anyone acquainted with her work will not be surprised at all to learn that she has been fabulous to collaborate with. Her meticulous attention to detail and insightful analysis have been invaluable. To date, we have completed extensive primary source research, focusing on the legal history of the case and the comprehensive collection of Jack Leigh’s papers housed at the University of Georgia’s Special Collections Libraries. This collection includes 200 linear feet of material, providing a rich source of information on Leigh’s work and the legal battle that ensued.

Our research also examines how the case was covered in contemporary news media and the entertainment industry trade press. This dual approach helps to contextualize the legal proceedings within the broader cultural and technological shifts of the late 1990s. By analyzing articles, editorials, and industry reports, we gain a multifaceted understanding of the case’s impact and the public discourse it generated.

Some key findings thus far are that Leigh’s lawsuit against Warner Bros. was only partially successful, highlighting the complexities that copyright law encounters when it seeks to address rapid technological change. The case occurred during the early days of the internet, a period marked by significant changes in how creative works were produced, distributed, and consumed. Our research explores how these technological advancements influenced the court’s handling of the case and the evolving legislative logic surrounding copyright. By examining cases that have cited Leigh v. Warner Bros. in the past 25 years, we hope to shed light on its lasting impact on copyright law. This historical perspective is crucial for understanding current debates about the copyrightability of increasingly ephemeral, digital works.

Lexie and I look forward to presenting our findings at a conference and ultimately submitting an article to an academic journal. The case of Leigh v. Warner Bros., Inc. offers a fascinating lens through which to explore the boundaries of copyright law. By examining the legal, cultural, and technological contexts of this case, our research could contributes to a deeper understanding of how copyright can—and cannot—protect the intangible qualities of creative works. This historical perspective is essential for navigating the complexities of copyright in the Digital Age.

Jason Lee Guthrie is an assistant professor of communication and media studies at Clayton State University. Within media history, he studies creative industries and intellectual property law. He received a Joseph McKerns Research Grant in 2023.

Last Call for Donations to Sweeney Travel Stipend Auction

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 14:36:07 GMT

By: Natascha Toft Roelsgaard

The American Journalism Historians Association 2024 conference in Pittsburgh is fast approaching, and so is the chance to participate in our annual auction event to support graduate student travel. Maybe you are finally ready to part ways with an old bottle of whiskey collecting dust in the dark corners of your office, or you want to donate a signed copy of your latest book.

Every year, AJHA members near and far donate treasured items to the cause, from books, magazines, and newspapers to antique cameras, newspaper totes, and original artwork. The money raised will help fund student travel to our annual conferences through the Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend.

Academic conferences present rich opportunities for networking and sharing research, both essential to graduate students as they advance in their academic careers. At the 2023 conference, six students received a travel stipend. One of them was Claire Rounkles, a doctoral candidate at the University of Missouri and assistant professor at the University of Memphis.

“The opportunity the conference provides students to engage with scholars and to learn how to present is invaluable. While receiving the travel stipend, I presented papers, work in progress, and served on a panel,” Rounkles wrote in an email. “Besides the opportunity to advance my research, I have also fostered connections that have helped me in the job hunt.”

Over 60 items were donated last year, and the auction raised $2,358. The committee hopes to surpass $3000 this year to help even more students attend the conference. If you want to donate an item, please fill out the form before Sept. 20. Uploading a photo and description of your item only takes a few minutes. Items will be up for bids during the week of the conference. Donated items must be brought to the conference in Pittsburgh, Pa.

The travel student stipend, named after the late Professor Michael S. Sweeney, ensures the inclusivity of graduate students at future conferences. “Any effort to continue the Sweeney Travel stipend will help future scholars and advance the legacy Mike Sweeney held of promoting students to be the best they can be,” Rounkles wrote in an email.

The auction website opens the week of Sept. 23 and will accept bids until just before the annual business meeting on Saturday, Oct. 5.

Proposed Amendment to the Constitution and By-Laws

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 20:23:58 GMT

The AJHA Board of Directors is proposing an amendment to the constitution and by-laws officially assigning the awarding of the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Grant to the Education Committee.

As explained in this 2022 announcement, then-president Aimee Edmondson tasked an ad-hoc committee with determining the parameters of a grant to be named after benefactor Hazel Dicken-Garcia. At the AJHA Board's 2022 meeting, the Education Committee was tasked with deciding the grant's annual winner. However, that charge had not been codified.

At the 2023 annual meeting, the Board voted to add the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Award to the Constitution and By-Laws.

Addendum B, comprising the last two pages of the document, outlines which AJHA committee is responsible for deciding each AJHA Award, divided according to whether the award is for Service, Teaching, or Research.

This amendment proposes that the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Grant be added as item E under part III (Research Awards) in Addendum B. The wording would be consistent with other items in the addendum, as follows:

E. Education Committee - Hazel Dicken-Garcia Grant: The research grant is intended to provide financial assistance to graduate students and junior faculty conducting research in media history, with preference given to scholars researching 19th- and 20th-century journalism standards, equity issues and the media, gender, identity and the media, media and journalism ethics, international communication, Civil War journalism, and/or free expression/First Amendment issues.

This amendment will appear on the annual election ballot, to be distributed to AJHA members via email in September.

Research Grant Report: Profiling Newspaper Chain Publisher John S. Knight

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 00:18:31 GMT

By: Philip M. Glende

I worked as an editor at Knight Ridder newspapers for nearly a decade, concluding with three-plus years at the Akron Beacon Journal, just steps from the office occupied by the late John S. Knight. For more than a decade after getting my doctorate at the University of Wisconsin, I had been thinking that I would like to a do a full-scale biography of Knight, who was active from the 1930s to the 1970s and built Knight Ridder from the little Akron paper to what was once the largest newspaper company in the nation.

Knight left an extensive collection of personal and business papers at the University of Akron. I started working with the online portion of the Knight collection several years ago. The Joseph McKerns Research Grant allowed me to travel to Akron last fall to begin working with parts of the collection not available online, including correspondence with Basil L. Walters, his top editor while he owned the Chicago Daily News from 1944 to 1959. The collection also includes many photographs of Knight’s professional life, such as those documenting the unscheduled visit of President Lyndon Johnson to the Beacon Journal after the paper endorsed Johnson over Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964. (Knight, a Republican who was a consistent critic of U.S. policy in Vietnam, thought Johnson was “best qualified by experience and temperament” to deal with the problems facing the nation.) The collection also includes scrapbooks containing the more than two thousand columns Knight wrote under the heading “The Editor’s Notebook,” which established Knight’s credentials as a working journalist in addition to a newspaper chain builder. Though one could go through the Beacon Journal for forty years to read his columns, the scrapbooks provided a convenient opportunity to skim the entirety of his work.

Knight was active during a period of dramatic change in the newspaper industry in the twentieth century. He built Knight Newspapers into a vast chain that included prize-winning papers such as the Philadelphia Inquirer, Miami Herald, Detroit Free Press, Charlotte Observer, San Jose Mercury News, and the Beacon Journal. Knight believed in good newspapers as a business model, and he was an early advocate of readability, visual appeal, lively writing, human interest stories, and interpretive reporting. He also believed newspapers had a civic responsibility, and he repeatedly warned against treating newspapers as little more than cash registers. Knight was an industry leader as the business evolved from independently owned local newspapers to vast publicly owned corporations. When Knight retired in the mid-1970s, newspapers, especially those in the Knight Ridder chain and other respected groups, were better in many ways than in earlier years, but the industry was already on the way to its demise. Newspaper groups went public in the 1960s and 1970s, in part for greater access to capital, but that committed newspapers to prioritize investors over readers or long-term sustainability, it gave analysts and profit-focused institutional investors a role in newspaper management, and it set the stage for the gutting of the industry when advertising and circulation revenue declined in the twenty-first century.

My trip to the Archives and Special Collections at the University Libraries in Akron was a great opportunity to immerse myself in Knight’s professional life. I want to thank the American Journalism Historians Association, former research chair Gerry Lanosga, and the research committee for approving my application. The grant was a significant boost as I was in the early stages of this project. I hope to be able to share this research with other scholars soon.

Philip M. Glende previously served as the director of student media at Indiana State University and worked as a journalist and newsroom manager.

“School Supplies” Needed for Sweeney Fund Auction

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 19:13:00 GMT

By: Karlin Andersen Tuttle

Walking through Target last month, I was surprised to see aisles jammed packed with binders in a variety of sizes, locker organizers, and rainbow packs of crayons spilling out from the seasonal section and encroaching on the laundry detergent and electronics department. While I was enjoying a few calm days in the midst of summer travel and endless sunny days, small groups of parents and children were debating the strengths of pencil brands and if they really needed six glue sticks for a single school year. I felt thankful that I was many years past searching for the elusive package of highlighters in the correct quantity and colors my school list required, but I was also reminded of another group of students who spent their summer piecing together resources for the year ahead.

I belong to a group chat of fifteen current and former mass communications graduate students who spent much of the summer months strategizing and planning how they could attend national and international conferences. Many of them are impressive scholars who regularly present top papers, win prizes often given to more seasoned researchers, and bring new ideas or interdisciplinary approaches to established areas. Yet those accolades do not solve their biggest hurdle: affording the registration, travel, and board expenses associated with conferences.

On average, attending a single conference cost members of that group chat $850. While some of their institutions and programs paid for at least part of that cost, they mentioned that their yearly conference funding rarely covered two conferences. That reality often pushes graduate students to attend fewer specialty conferences and skip conventions in which they are not presenting.

As a recent PhD graduate I faced those same challenges but, due to receiving a Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend, attending the AJHA convention was never in question. The money raised during the auction helped bridge the gap between travel funding from Penn State and the full convention costs. Presenting at least year’s convention gave me an opportunity to receive feedback on my dissertation research, network as I entered my first year on the job market, and witness a level of scholarly comradery I had not experienced in other spaces.

For many of us, purchasing scratch and sniff markers or TI-84 graphing calculators never factors into our syllabi prep and finalizing lectures or class activities. However, most of us can remember the difficult years spent balancing limited financial resources with departmental expectations and personal desire to attend conferences. Donating to the Sweeney fund or bidding during the auction lessens those concerns for all graduate students attending the annual AJHA convention.

Anyone interested in donating an item to the 2024 auction should submit information about their donation before September 20 and bring their item to the conference in Pittsburgh. Bidding begins the week of the convention and winners must bring their items home after the conference.

Karlin Andersen Tuttle recently earned a dual-title doctorate in mass communications and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies from Penn State. She also received a stipend from the Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Fund which helped her attend last year’s AJHA convention and present her early dissertation research. She currently teaches at Penn State and serves as the editorial liaison for Mass Communication & Society.

Member Spotlight: Patrick Cox

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 18:37:00 GMT

How did you become involved with AJHA?

Following my graduation from the University of Texas in Austin, I received an appointment as Assistant Director of the Center for American History where I served as the Director of the American Media History Archives. The following year I received an appointment to the Journalism Program where I taught American news media history at the graduate and undergraduate level. I joined AJHA and attended my first conference in 2020 in Pittsburgh. I was elected to the Board of Directors and in 2005 became Chair of the AJHA Conference Committee in 2005. I served as the Chair until 2015 and directed our annual meetings in San Antonio, Richmond, Seattle, Birmingham, Tucson, Kansas City, Raleigh, New Orleans, St. Paul, and Oklahoma City. I have presented many papers, participated in programs and presentations at our AJHA meetings over the years and received two President’s Awards for Distinguished Service.

How did you develop your interest in journalism or media history?

In 1976, I was the editor of the Wimberley View, a weekly newspaper founded that year by my family. We named our paper the View as a metaphor for the majestic hills, wildlife, and scenery in the Wimberley area and the divergent perspectives we wished our newspaper to provide. We covered many significant and controversial stories on political corruption, corporate and utility abuse, damaging actions to our environment and racial tensions and discrimination through in-depth news, analysis, features and provocative opinions. I am proud to say that within a few years the Wimberley View became a profitable and award-winning newspaper. This included many news, feature, and editorial awards, which culminated with the 1980 Texas Press Association Award for Best Weekly Newspaper in Texas.

At the Wimberley View we adhered to the longstanding newspaper tradition of supporting local businesses through news and advertisements. From our first publication forward, our policy was to provide all new businesses with a story and photo of their grand opening. One of these new enterprises we covered was the Feed Bag Restaurant. Their motto was: “Country-fied Country-fried chicken.” A typo on the photo caption to the Feed Bag debut in the View read: “Country-fied Country-fried children.” Of course, I was highly embarrassed and decided to go to the Feed Bag owner and offer my apologies. When I arrived, he said that they were expecting me and started laughing about my mistake. The owner thanked us for increasing his business. Curious, I inquired how that could happen. He replied that since the story came out many people stopped by and offered to drop off their unruly children for the Feed Bag menu. This was an important lesson for me to learn. Honest mistakes are acknowledged and forgivable, but conscious misinformation and errors should be promptly addressed and corrected. These memorable events and many other remarkable journalistic experiences prepared me for the challenges I would face in pursuing my Ph.D. in history and becoming an historian of the media, politics and culture.

What would you like others to know about your work with the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) and the connections with AJHA?

I served on the TSHA Board of Directors from 2019 to 2023 and as President from 2022-23. I am also a TSHA Fellow. Although it may seem as difficult as untangling barbed wire, our challenge as historians in all fields of history is to study and analyze people, events, values, and patterns in society from many perspectives. If we choose otherwise, then we will diminish and ultimately silence these alternative and noteworthy voices from our history.

As historians, we must remove the blindfolds and rise to the challenge of effectively and accurately communicating our history to present and future generations. History should not be written or communicated as a preordained and self-justifying myth or as an historical narrative written from the viewpoint of a single group of people. We must ask the difficult questions and seek the ignored, overlooked, and discounted voices and experiences from our past. As we enact our mission at TSHA and AJHA, our responsibility is to recognize, include, and preserve the histories of all peoples and cultures, whose stories are an essential part of our history. We must endeavor to provide the histories of all underrepresented and overlooked groups along with those whose stories are newly emerging.

Historians do recognize the value and influence that myth and memory play in history. There is an important difference in how historians shine a light into the darkness as we work to reinterpret the popular mythologies that are inaccurate or undeveloped. In addition, as historians and as an historical association, our duty is to provide leadership and support publications, educational materials, and scholarship that follow the principles and practices advocated by the professional historical community as we search for a more accurate past that is useful to all people. Separating the real from the imagined landscape of our past is our duty and our mission. In doing so, our history will provide everyone with a path of understanding and love for our state and nation.

How does your industry experience inform your teaching and research?

The role of the media is in all my ten published works and the many articles I have written over the years. In my book The First Texas News Barons (University of Texas Press, 2005), In this volume I wrote about how twentieth-century newspapers and newsmakers were prominent in our modern historical process. At times, Texas newspapers aggressively published articles and opinions on the importance of a more tolerant approach to society and culture and to embrace modernization. They were often in the forefront in promoting business expansion. Sometimes they took courageous stands and opposed the most extreme of the mythmakers, such as the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. However, all too often they silently acquiesced and supported those who wanted no change to the status quo. This was most evident in the ongoing struggles for civil rights, safer working conditions, providing equal access and opportunity, and preventing exploitation of people and the environment. Prior to the 1960s, very few mainstream publications challenged these assumptions, and one’s chances for advancement at any level depended on one’s race, gender, or class. Texas newsmakers remained comfortable as advocates for growth and economic expansion, and their voices perpetuated many of the myths and memories of our history.

One prime illustration of this phenomenon was the 1936 Texas Centennial. Journalism and history played a pivotal role in the Texas Centennial celebration that blended promotion, commerce, and chauvinism. The state’s newspaper publishers were a driving force in the creation and the campaign for the Centennial events and its legacy. In doing so, these publishers popularized the new western image of Texas. This legacy was based partly on history and on mythology, as the press promoted the rawhide-tough, independent cowboy. This new imagery for Texas did not replace the adherence to the South and the Lost Cause mythology that perpetuated the story that slavery was not a cause for the Civil War. The new idea of “Texanism” as an Anglo-centric historical narrative became popular during the difficult times of the Great Depression and the promotional opportunities presented by the Texas Centennial.

Journalists played a pivotal role popularizing this new image of Texas. Recognizing an opportunity for marketing and business expansion, the Texas Press Association (TPA) served as a booster and created an organization to aggressively promote the Centennial. In 1924, TPA selected Lowry Martin, the advertising manager for the Corsicana Daily Sun, to lead the Centennial charge. Martin’s committee included Houston’s Jesse H. Jones and other newspapermen. They developed a strategy and launched a campaign for the 1936 Centennial. They successfully drew support from the Texas newspaper industry that followed with the endorsement of the state’s business and political leadership.

Themes for the Centennial celebrations largely focused on individualism and the frontier spirit of nineteenth-century Anglo Texans. The publishers’ efforts to mark the 1936 Centennial were wildly successful. Millions of dollars in federal and state funds supported the events that attracted people from across Texas and the nation. Many businesses and local governments enthusiastically jumped on the bandwagon as they viewed this as a unique opportunity to receive the Texas Centennial brand to promote their own products and services.

What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of academia?

A sixth generation Texan, I am an historian, author, and ardent environmentalist. Brenda and I live in scenic arts community of Wimberley, Texas where our land is in a wildlife management and natural area. I am very grateful to family, friends, our teachers and all who provided inspiration, wisdom, and lessons from life over the years.

I received my Ph.D. and a B.A. in History from the University of Texas at Austin and my M.A. in History from Texas State University. My first book was a biography of Ralph W. Yarborough, the People’s Senator (University of Texas Press, 2001) which garnered many regional, state, and national awards. I have authored and edited ten books and hundreds of articles on U.S. and Texas history, biographies, oral histories, conservation, and sustainability. I am retired from the University of Texas at Austin and President of Patrick Cox Consultants LLC, a historical and nonprofit consulting firm.

I was honored to receive the 2014 Distinguished Alumni Award from Texas State University. I am a Fellow of the Texas State Historical Association, TSHA President from 2020 to 2021. I am a Distinguished Alumni of the Texas State University College of Liberal Arts and serve as Chair of the Council of Liberal Arts. I am Fellow and past board member of the East Texas Historical Association and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, the Philosophical Society of Texas, and the Organization of American Historians.

I am a former President of the Wimberley Lions Club and the Wimberley Valley Watershed Association. I currently am an elected trustee of the Wimberley Village Library Board of Directors and the Trinity Edwards Springs Protection Association (TESPA)Board of Directors.

Nominees for 2nd VP, Board of Directors 2024

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Sat, 17 Aug 2024 20:40:44 GMT

by Cathy Jackson, Norfolk State
Nominations and Elections Chair

It’s that time of the year when AJHA members learn about the candidates for open leadership slots. One AJHA member was nominated to serve as second vice president, and three members are were nominated for three board of directors seats.

A nominee to the Board of Directors or to any officer position must have been a member of the AJHA for at least one calendar year immediately preceding the date of the election. No more than one person from an institution can serve on the Board at one time.

The election will be conducted via online survey, distributed in early September. A write-in option will be available for each position.

Below are brief bios for each nominee.

Second Vice-President Candidate

Pam Parry is a professor at Southeast Missouri State University, where she teaches media history. Her research focuses on public relations, diversity, and presidential communications. She’s the author of Eisenhower: The Public Relations President and co-editor of the Women in American Political History book series, which has published seven books to date with more on the way. She has co-edited two books on campus diversity titled Coping with Gender Inequities: Critical Conversations of Women Faculty and Exploring Campus Diversity: Case Studies and Exercises. She just completed her three-year term as editor of Journalism History. The AEJMC History Division recently gave her the 2024 Exceptional Service Award for her contributions to the publication. She received a Ph.D. from the University of Southern Mississippi.

A lifetime member of AJHA, joining in 2009, she served as a member of the AJHA Board of Directors from 2015-2018. She was also a judge for the AJHA Book Award in Spring 2016 and Summer 2019; chair of the Education Committee, 2015-2017; and a member of the Public Relations Committee, 2010-2013.

Parry said, "As a 15-year member of AJHA, I want to give back to the organization that advances the discipline to which I devoted my life. My professional goal involves progressing media history as a discipline, and that goal aligns with the mission of AJHA. In the six years since I was on the AJHA board, I served in other leadership capacities and on other historical boards that equipped me to serve as the Second Vice President. I spent the past three years advancing media history for the AEJMC History Division, and now, I would like to do the same for AJHA. My love of this organization drives me to want to lead it."

Board of Directors’ Candidates

Julie Lane, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Boise State University. She has been a member of AJHA since 2016 and has served on the Public Relations Committee for the past four years. As the Public Relations Chair for the past two years, she has worked with her fellow committee members to design and implement a social media strategy to facilitate member engagement and to raise AJHA’s public profile. Lane appreciates the supportive environment AJHA provides to graduate students and to faculty at all levels and would like to bring her experience to the AJHA board as the organization continues to fulfill its mission of advancing mass communication history education and research.

Julie’s research focuses on the construction of narratives by and about journalists and news institutions, including the efforts of conservative media to cultivate the idea of liberal media bias. Her work has been published in Journalism History, American Journalism, The Blue Review, and Communication & Sport. She earned her Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Marquita Smith, Ed.D., is associate dean for graduate programs and research at the University of Mississippi. She is a former Fulbright Scholar, who lived and worked in Ghana and Liberia. As a Knight International Journalism Fellow, Smith created a judicial and justice reporting network in Liberia which continues to operate. She has more than 14 years of experience in higher education, and more than 15 years as an award-winning journalist. Smith earned her Ed.D. at the University of Arkansas.

Smith attended her first AJHA in 2017 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Since that first conference, she published on HBCU radio history and radio history in West Africa, specifically Ghana. As a former head of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s Commission on the Status of Minorities, Smith’s research interests include health communities and ways media impact and inform underrepresented communities. Her research interests also focus on media development, public health communications, and topics on diversity, equity and inclusion.

As an AJHA board member, Smith will advocate for the importance of journalism history and its relevance to contemporary media practices. Smith would also work to promote the preservation of historical records and the integration of journalism history into educational curricula and memorialization projects. She says it would be an honor to contribute to the direction and priorities of AJHA and, by extension, the field of journalism history. "Serving on the national board of AJHA, would also provide great opportunities for professional growth and leadership development and for me to give back to the journalism history community and support the work of scholars and practitioners in the field," Smith said.

Pamela E. Walck, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Multiplatform Journalism in the Media department of McAnulty College of Liberal Arts at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. Walck's research explores how news routines and story frames in the mainstream and Black press influenced audience understanding of race and race relations, with a particular focus on World War II. She received her Ph.D. in Journalism History and Mass Communication from the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University

Since Walck’s first AJHA conference in New Orleans in 2013 (as a second-year doctoral student), the organization has been her academic home. Among its membership, she found mentors, colleagues, and friends. These amazing people encouraged her in academic research pursuits, first as a doctoral candidate, then as a tenure-track professor, and now as a tenured scholar.

Walck is a dedicated member of AJHA. She served on the Oral History Committee, then chaired that group, and she assisted on the elections committee. Four years ago, Walck successfully applied to be the editor of American Journalism. As she steps down from that role, AJHA’s academic community would benefit from having her join the AJHA board. Her expertise as editor, in addition to being a long-term member, would provide invaluable insights.

“Over the last few years, it has been my greatest pleasure to serve AJHA in this capacity," Walck said. "It allowed me to support other scholars at every level in their academic journeys. It has helped me share AJHA with a wider audience. And it has made me see I have more to give to an organization that has given so much to me. It would be my honor to serve as a board member -- and hopefully support a whole new generation of media historians.”

Research Grant Report: Debunking Civil War Reporting

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 14:29:12 GMT

By: W. Joseph Campbell

The 2022-23 Joseph McKerns grant of $1,250 helped me gain momentum on an emergent research project that examines the aftermath of the battle of Gettysburg from varying perspectives, including that of erroneous and exaggerated news reporting. My papers delivered at AJHA conferences in 2022 and 2023, respectively, addressed elements of this research. I was deeply honored that both received the David Sloan award for best faculty paper.

More specifically, the McKerns grant helped finance research trips from my home in suburban Washington, DC, to Columbia University in New York, where I examined a collection of papers of Peter Wellington Alexander, a leading Confederate reporter. Alexander's dispatches after the Battle of Gettysburg figure prominently in the emergent project. In fact, my 2022 AJHA paper, “Proto-pack Journalism in Gettysburg’s Aftermath: Parsing the Extravagant Claims of the Confederacy’s ‘Greatest’ War Correspondent,” focused on Alexander's erroneous reporting. The paper also won the AJHA Eberhard award.

In addition, the McKerns grant helped cover expenses related to my separate trip to Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Historical Society, which has an extensive collection of the papers of George Gordon Meade, commander of the Federal Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg and afterward. The image below shows a letter that Meade wrote in 1864. The Meade papers were useful, primary-source material for my 2023 AJHA paper, which debunked the notion that Northern war correspondents organized and pursued a news boycott of Meade after he ordered the humiliation and expulsion of a Philadelphia Inquirer journalist who reporting angered the general. The paper, “Interrogating A Conspiracy: About That Civil War Press Boycott of General Meade,” also won the Eberhard award.

Additionally, the grant was helpful in covering local transportation costs related to a visit to the Library of Congress, where I examined microfilm holdings of Civil War era newspapers, some content of which was incorporated in the “Interrogating A Conspiracy" paper.

Member Spotlight: Kate Dunsmore

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 14:13:08 GMT

Kate Dunsmore is professor emeritus in the Department of Communication at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Her current research examines American Revolutionary era newspaper production with a focus on what timeliness meant to eighteenth century readers.

How did you become involved with AJHA?

I think I learned about AJHA first at the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference, about 12 years ago. I really enjoy the AJHA conferences; people are nice and always have interesting things to talk about.

How did you develop your interest in journalism or media history?

It started with my dissertation, which analyzed the role of the press in the US-Canada alliance in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. I noticed some frames being taken up with great vigor, more than seemed justifiable by the current event. An example was the “terror haven” framing of Canada following the 9/11 terror attack. That got me thinking about how deeply engrained was the framing of Canada as a suspect haven. Before long, I was back to the era of the American Revolution. So, I am starting there.

What makes you most excited about teaching or research?

I’m now Professor Emeritus, so not really teaching anymore. What I found most exciting was seeing students who might be struggling—perhaps because they were first in their families to attend college—then find their footing.

I’m very excited to have the time for research now. My teaching and service load was quite heavy, but I retain full library privileges and am burning up the online databases and interlibrary loan. I take an inductive approach to research, so it's exciting not to know how things will transpire. For example, currently I am looking at references to timeliness in Revolutionary era newspapers. But, then, I felt the need to know about conceptions of time in the prior century or two. Reading about the early modern personal letters sent, copied and distributed, I realized that expectations of timeliness of newsletters shifted with respect to newspapers and possibly shift again in America in the Revolutionary era.

What question(s) do you wish fellow researchers or colleagues would ask about your work?

I’ve never worried about that! The communication and journalism history community has been very welcoming. I’m glad to see the conversation about interdisciplinary approaches to communication and journalism history. Social phenomena are complex. I’m confident that tools such as discourse analysis are helpful in accurately analyzing the past.

What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of academia?

I’m converting what was suburban lawn into native perennial gardens. So far, so good! I also now have time to attempt more challenging work in textile arts, including garment design.

AJHA Auction Supports Graduate Student Travel to Annual Convention

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Sun, 14 Jul 2024 17:52:46 GMT

By: Erin Coyle

I fondly recall Professor Michael S. Sweeney auctioning off items during the first American Journalism Historians Association Convention that I attended. He kindly coaxed friends to bid on books, memorabilia, and an AJHA hoodie to support graduate student travel to the conference.

The tradition of providing this financial assistance exemplifies AJHA goals to foster the advancement of research and to build connections among journalism historians. The organization briefly shifted to collecting monetary donations to raise travel funding for students. After receiving a monetary donation from the Sweeney family as a seedling for Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipends, the organization resumed holding auctions to support student participation in annual conferences and build connections among members in 2022.

For the past two years, members have donated books, art, and other items. Proceeds have paid for Sweeney stipends. Students who have presented at an annual convention, attended most convention sessions, and volunteered during the convention have received these awards.

“As a broke graduate student, receiving financial aid to attend the annual conference has helped me in more ways than I can mention,” Claire Rounkles wrote in an email.

Rounkles, a doctoral candidate at the University of Missouri and an assistant professor at The University of Memphis, has participated in coordinating auctions since 2022. These efforts provided valuable opportunities for her to interact with students and faculty during annual conventions.

Eric Boll, an Ohio University graduate student who received Sweeney stipends in 2022 and 2023, described AJHA conventions as welcoming and accessible. Receiving support to attend the 2022 convention meant so much to Boll that he asked Bob Woodward to autograph a book that Boll and Ohio University Professor Aimee Edmondson donated for the 2023 American Journalism Historians Association auction.

“I could not have gone to any of the AJHAs without the assistance of the Sweeney fund,” Boll said.

Raja Das, an Ohio University graduate student who received a 2023 Sweeney Travel Stipend, indicated that such funding is important for international students to be able to attend conferences.

“I am glad that the Sweeney Fund Award also ensures that we can be among diverse communities and secure us a home away from home," Das wrote.

The 2023 auction raised $2,758, and six students received Sweeney stipends. The auction committee hopes to raise $3,000 in 2024 to provide more support for graduate students.

Seventeen members donated 66 items for the 2023 auction. Members wishing to donate items for the 2024 auction should submit information about each item before September 20. You can bid on items during the week of the conference. Donated items must be brought to the conference hotel in Pittsburgh, Pa. Recipients of items must bring their items home from the conference.

“The auction is an important way that AJHA can support and encourage our new generation of brilliant media history scholars,” said Jon Marshall, who chairs the auction committee. “It’s also a fun way for people to interact during the conference and win some cool things.”

Erin Coyle is an associate Professor and the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Temple University Lew Klein College of Media and Communication, an affiliate Professor of Law in the Temple University Beasley School of Law, and member of the AJHA Board of Directors and the AJHA Auction Committee.

Research Grant Report: Elevating Native Voices of the Past

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Sun, 14 Jul 2024 17:29:12 GMT

By: Melissa Greene-Blye

It is with pleasure and gratitude that I share an update on a research project made possible by support from the American Journalism Historians Association via a Joseph McKerns Research Grant awarded in July of 2022.

The grant funding made it possible for me to visit the Sequoyah National Research Center (SNRC) housed at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock. During my three-day visit, I had the privilege of talking with SNRC Director Daniel Littlefield, Ph.D. and Erin Fehr, Assistant Director and Archivist, both of whom were generous in sharing their time, expertise, and knowledge of the materials housed in the archive.

For those not familiar with SNRC, its self-stated mission, paraphrased here, is to acquire and preserve the writings and ideas of Native North Americans, through collecting the written word and art of Native Americans and creating a research atmosphere that invites Indigenous peoples to make SRNC an archival home for their creative work. SNRC’s collection includes artistic expression, literature, photography, as well as historical and contemporary Indigenous newspapers and journalistic work product.

For my purposes, I went with the intent of finding copies of student-produced newsletters and newspapers from residential boarding schools, places where Native children were forced to give up their traditional languages, cultures and beliefs and, instead, adopt non-Native ways of speaking and behaving. I wanted to find out what, specifically, these publications contained in the way of student-generated content. What were these students talking about and, perhaps more importantly, what weren’t they talking about?

My interest in this topic began with the mention of a single newsletter produced by young Cherokee women who attended a church-sponsored residential school in the territory where that tribe, like so many others, had been forcibly relocated. So, it was with great excitement that I learned SNRC had some copies of this newsletter in the archives, and it was that information that prompted my plans to visit.

It truly was a journey into the past as I had to rely on microfilm to view the archival materials I sought to examine, but thanks to today’s technology, I had scanned copies of those newsletters in my email inbox before I left at the end of my first day. Sadly, there were only two copies of the Cherokee student newsletter in the archives, likely other copies were destroyed in a fire at the seminary school in 1887. This gave me pause to rethink the focus of my intended research, particularly as this research was taking place only months after the discovery of mass graves on the sites of several of these schools was making international headlines alongside calls for justice for those children, their descendants, and the tribal communities those children came from. I am now broadening the scope of this research to re-examine “captivity narratives” using Indigenous Standpoint Theory to go beyond the words on the page, to provide a broader context for how these students’ words were controlled and edited to support the assimilationist mission of these schools.

Traditional captivity narratives tell the stories of the experiences of White persons who were taken captive by Native tribes, often in ways intended to reinforce negative images of those tribes. The words of these Native students, contained in residential school newsletters and newspapers, flip that narrative, making the Native student the captive; this research project seeks to examine that role reversal and cast new light on how we define “captivity” narratives.

The funds provided through this grant were crucial in taking the first step to elevate the voices and experiences of these students while also supporting a project that will serve to educate non-Native readers and scholars about a watershed moment in our history as Indigenous people, while simultaneously telling an important, and overlooked, part of our media history.

Melissa Greene-Blye is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and an affiliate faculty in Indigenous Studies at the University of Kansas. She is also a citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. Her research explores representations of American Indian identity in journalism.

Bookshelf: Wayne Dawkins' Biography of Two Sports Journalists and Desegregationists

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 18:33:02 GMT

Wayne Dawkins' latest project covers the lives of two sports journalists, Sam Lacy and Wendell Smith, and how their reporting in Baltimore's Afro-American and the Pittsburgh Courier, respectively, pushed for desegregation in baseball in the 1930s and 1940s. Sam Lacy and Wendell Smith: The Dynamic Duo That Desegregated American Sports, the latest entry in Routledge's Historical Americans series, is available on July 17 and can be purchased directly from Routledge for a 20 percent discount using code AFLY02.

Wayne Dawkins is a professor of practice in multimedia journalism at Morgan State University. Before joining academia, Dawkins worked at newspapers throughout the Northeast and Midwest.

Committee Update: Supporting AJHA on Social Media

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 14:56:59 GMT

By: Julie Lane

The Public Relations Committee has developed a social media plan to facilitate member engagement and to raise AJHA’s public profile. Help us share with the world what you and your fellow journalism historians do. Here are a few ways you can do that:

Follow AJHA on our new Instagram account (AJHAsocial) and our X/Twitter account (@AJHAsocial) if you are on either platform. Encourage colleagues and other interested people to follow us as well.

Tag us on relevant Instagram posts and tweets you make from your personal accounts.

Respond to prompts we post on Instagram and X/Twitter about your memories of AJHA conventions, recent journalism history articles you’ve read, your work in archives, etc.

Suggest journalists, museums, libraries, and other related organizations for us to follow. Email your suggestions to julielane@boisestate.edu.

Thank you for your help as we work to enhance the AJHA public profile.

Member Spotlight: Meg Heckman

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 12:48:32 GMT

Meg Heckman is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Media Innovation at Northeastern University. Her most recent book is a biography of newspaper publisher and leader in the twentieth century Republican party, Nackey Scripps Loeb (Political Godmother: Nackey Scripps Loeb and the Newspaper That Shook the Republican Party, University of Nebraska Press, 2020). Heckman's current work examines health journalism written by women in the mid-twentieth century.

How did you become involved with AJHA?

I first learned about AJHA nearly a decade ago but didn’t get involved until the pandemic when I presented some research in progress at an excellent virtual conference. It was such a great way to connect with new colleagues during an otherwise difficult time.

How does your professional experience as a journalist inform your teaching and/or research?

I spent roughly a dozen years as a reporter and, later, the digital editor at the Concord Monitor, New Hampshire’s capital city newspaper. That experience helps me teach core skills such as interviewing, newswriting and editing, but my time in the newsroom also taught me how to lead teams, manage projects and communicate expectations—all things that are crucial to successful teaching!

What topics or questions are you pursuing in your current research?

I have a few projects in the works right now, but the big one involves documenting how women journalists in the 1940s and 1950s shaped the evolution health/medical journalism. Outside of media history, I’m also involved in various efforts to encourage institutions of higher education to do more to help rebuild the local news ecosystem.

What question(s) do you wish fellow researchers or colleagues would ask about your work and/or interests?

My fellow media historians tend to ask great questions and share great advice, but I would love more opportunities to discuss how digital tools are reshaping the research process and our understanding of media history.

What hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of academia?

Staying active and getting outside as much as possible are key to my mental health. I also enjoy cooking and spending time with my family.

AJHA Auction: Supporting First-Generation Students and Scholars

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 14:19:01 GMT

By: Natascha Toft Roelsgaard

The benefits of academic conferences are vast and many. They offer opportunities to build valuable connections with other scholars, discover emerging trends and topics in the field, and serve as a safe space to share and receive feedback on research projects—and who doesn’t love a chance to explore a new city?

Attending academic conferences is also an important stepping stone for graduate students, expanding their professional network, fine-tuning research ideas, and improving presentation skills. But attending can be costly. That’s why the AJHA auction, our annual fundraiser to support student travel, is so important. Last year, the auction, led by Jon Marshall, raised more than $2,700; this year, the committee hopes to raise $3,000.

All money raised helps fund the Michael S. Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend, which supports students whose papers have been accepted by reducing the cost of attending the conference.

Claire Rounkles, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Missouri and past stipend recipient, said that such financial support is vital for first-generation students like herself to attend. With the Sweeney Travel Stipend, Rounkles has attended several AJHA conferences, presented research papers and works in progress, and served on a panel.

“As a broke graduate student, receiving financial aid to attend the annual conference has helped me in more ways than I can mention. The opportunity the conference provides students to engage with scholars and to learn how to present is invaluable,” Rounkles said. “Besides the opportunity to advance my research, I have also fostered connections that have helped me in the job hunt. Any effort to continue the Sweeney Travel Stipend will help future scholars and advance the legacy Mike Sweeney held of promoting students to be the best they can be.”

To support student conference travel, you can donate an item or bid on one—or do both. Use this form to donate items or packages. It will ask you to briefly describe your item, upload a photo, and suggest a starting bid. Not sure what to donate? We are looking for historical books, magazines, newspapers, journalism history-related trinkets and tokens, such as coffee mugs, t-shirts, cameras, messenger bags, and glasses. Maybe you have a package of local goods or university merch you are willing to part ways with, and our members always get excited when wine and spirits are in the mix.

All donated items will be uploaded to Give Butter, which is the same app we used last year. While some items will be live auctioned during the conference, most bidding will happen on the app. So, keep your eyes peeled and bid early and often!

Natascha Toft Roelsgaard is an assistant professor of journalism at Muskingum University in Ohio. She serves on the AJHA Auction committee.

Serving as Peer Reviewer: Supporting Colleagues and Your Own Research

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 14:11:57 GMT

By: Earnest Perry

In the 50^th anniversary edition of Journalism History, I discussed the importance of scholars participating in the peer review process. In the time since that article posted online, I have been asked to review two submitted articles and various conference papers. I must admit that I turned down a few. My administrative job and family obligations keep getting in the way. When former Intelligencer editor, Autumn Linford, asked me to address the issue in an issue of the newsletter, I said yes, but immediately thought, “what more could I say that would convince my fellow scholars to participate in the peer review process?”

I cannot stress enough how reviewing has helped me keep up with the latest research. I get excited when I read newly discovered material from archives that have not been explored or comments from oral histories that provide a unique perspective to historical events. I get the opportunity to engage with research that moves the scholarship forward, but also keeps me grounded in the present.

As a civil rights scholar, my goal has been to connect the complex history of the Black Press to the communities it served and the relationship it fostered with others fighting the long struggle. The more recent manuscripts I have reviewed challenged many of the conclusions I and other “seasoned” scholars have espoused in our careers. This is a good thing. It has provided me with ideas for future research and materials to be used in the classroom. This is not a benefit I saw coming from the peer review process, but I will gladly take it.

In the current environment where history is being challenged and, in some cases, restricted, it is comforting to see that the research continues. As a reviewer, I see the first drafts of scholarship that connects the past to the present. It also provides a glimpse into possible futures based on evidence, something that practitioners desperately need. Journalism educators spend a lot of time teaching the Who, What, When, Where and How, but the Why gets little attention. I see a lot of the Why in the manuscripts I review. It reminds me of the importance of what we do as history scholars and educators. As reviewers, we help strengthen the scholarship. It is another reason to participate in the peer review process.

Participating in the review process not only provides access to the latest research, but it can also lead to knowledge of the editorial process. I had the privilege of co-editing a special issue of Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly. That opportunity came about because of the relationship I forged with the journal editor and my co-editor as a manuscript reviewer and author. I learned a lot about the editorial process after the reviews are in. The experience has helped me to be a better reviewer and appreciate the work it takes to actually publish the research we produce.

As a young scholar, I initially focused more on why my work was not good enough “as is” than the advice provided to make it better. Conversations with the journal editors changed my perspective. It also led to me becoming a reviewer, serving on editorial boards, being elected to and serving as chair of both the research and publications committees of AEJMC. Being a reviewer has made me a better scholar, teacher and mentor. It has been one of the most beneficial service roles of my career.

Earnest L. Perry Jr., Ph.D. is Professor and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research at the Missouri School of Journalism.

New Book Reprints and Updates a Classic of Journalism History and Raises Concerns about 21st Century Democracy

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 13:58:30 GMT

By: Tom Mascaro

When Donald Trump supercharged his campaign against journalism, I immediately thought of Bill Porter’s class, Assault on the Media: The Nixon Years (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1976). Porter was my professor at Michigan in the mid-1980s. I wrote to the press and suggested they reissue and update the book to address 21^st century threats to democracy.

I am happy to report that book is coming out this month (June 2024), and I’m honored to appear as Porter’s co-author. Porter, who died in 1999, was an old hand at covering the “awkward dance” of presidents and reporters. But he was adamant in his defense of journalism as an institution of democracy. Using that thesis, I revisited his book, analyzed his findings and concerns from a half century ago, added new history, and expanded the original “Documents of Significance” to include memos of Patrick Buchanan and H. R. Haldeman, primary sources revealing Nixon’s illegal mission to scuttle LBJ’s peace initiative in October 1968, the GOP’s plan to create a television network in the White House, and excerpts from academic papers and court cases. I curated Haldeman’s diary entries to reveal the gatekeeping, framing, and agenda setting practices of the Nixon administration, hoping to prod some new scholarship that pairs media studies with presidential/government studies employing the same theories.

Assault on the Media can be purchased from the University of Michigan Press website and the publisher is offering a 30% discount when code UMS24 is used at checkout. Exam copies or copies for media reviews are also available.

Tom Mascaro is professor emeritus in the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. He currently serves on the board of directors for the AJHA.

Summer Report: Intelligencer Seeks Articles for Upcoming Issues

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 13:55:45 GMT

We have reached some of the best months of the academic calendar—summer break. This May to September stretch is full of vacations, family events, and getting back to that book you started reading last fall. It is also chocked full of study abroad courses, conferences, research trips, and completing the final edits on your latest manuscript—all of which your fellow AJHA members want to hear about.

Has your research led to an exciting revelation or brought you new challenges? Do you have fascinating stories from a recent archive trip or tips on navigating research? Maybe you just published a book or have one upcoming that you would like to promote. Or, are you retooling a syllabus for a class this fall or tried a new lesson in the classroom this year that helped students understand media history in a new way (or was not as successful as you hoped)? The Intelligencer wants to publish your research essays, book announcements, and reflections on teaching. Have another idea? Send your pitches, completed essays, or questions to the publication’s editor, Karlin Andersen Tuttle, at kja30@psu.edu.

Conference Announcement: International Colloquium on Forgotten Journalists

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 13:53:32 GMT

An upcoming conference in Ghent, Belgium will examine the lives and work of lesser-known journalists whose careers shaped the industry and reported on some of the world’s biggest news stories. Liberas, an archive organization based in Belgium and dedicated to the history of liberalism, will host “Forgotten Journalists: Lived experiences and professional identities in the past” on June 6 and 7, 2025, in conjunction with Ghent University, the Laboratory of Journalistic Practices and Identities, and the Center for Archives on Media and Information. The conference aims to “make visible those whose work has been underestimated, or whose journalistic (or partly journalistic) careers have been neglected.” The two-day event will also include keynote presentations from scholars including Noah Amir Arjomand (University of California), Marie-Eve Thérenty (Université de Montpellier III), and AJHA member Will Mari (Louisiana State University). Abstracts are due on August 30, 2024, and travel grants will be provided to two early career researchers attending the conference from outside of Europe. More information about the conference is available on the Liberas website.

AJHA Seeks Nominations for 2nd VP, Board

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 18:10:40 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association is seeking nominations for three board positions and second vice president.

To make nominations and to vote in an election, an individual must be a member of AJHA.

Please confirm the candidate's willingness to be nominated before sending the name to Cathy.

You should send a brief bio and photo of the nominee along with a statement of why the person wants to serve.

The deadline for nominations is 5 p.m. ET, August 1, 2024.

This year, voting will occur electronically, which means members do not have to come to the convention to vote. A write-in option will be available.

Officer Column: Pittsburgh Prep, Auction Committee Sets Goal of $3,000

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Mon, 27 May 2024 13:54:24 GMT

By Tracy Lucht, AJHA President

Grades are posted. Graduates have walked. Gowns have been hung. That can only mean one thing: It’s time to gear up for AJHA’s annual conference. I am eager to see the papers, panel proposals, and research in progress everyone submits by June 1. Don’t forget about grants and awards. The local committee is on their game, and Dave Davies is doing vocal warmups.

Last year’s auction, led by Jon Marshall, was a smashing success and raised a record $2,758 for the Mike Sweeney Travel Stipend. This year, Jon and committee have set a fundraising goal of $3,000. Can we do it? I think we can.

The first step is to donate items or packages. Use this form, which will ask you to describe your item, upload a photo, and suggest a starting bid. You may use your name or remain anonymous. Help us promote the item by telling us what is special about it or why people should bid.

As you start thinking about what to donate, consider packaging smaller items together around a common theme. The hope is the sum will be greater than the parts. The idea is not to spring-clean our shelves or closets but to think about what will excite bidders. I haven’t finalized my package yet, but I have a theme in mind. For larger items, consider how you will get the item to Pittsburgh and how a winning bidder will get it home. AJHA does not ship items (although you could offer to do so as part of your donation). Larger items should be distinctive enough to stand alone.

Over the summer, the auction committee will upload items to Give Butter, the same app we used last year. You’ll be hearing about auction items in the weeks before the conference. The final step is to download the app, if it’s not already on your phone, and bid away. Like last year, a couple of the items will be live-auctioned, but all other bidding will happen on the app.

Bid early, bid often, have fun.

When I am asked about this organization, one thing I always mention is our mentoring and support of emerging scholars. Most of us can personally attest to the value this group has added to our careers. The convention is where the magic happens, and we certainly don’t want graduate students to miss out. Let’s hit that $3,000 goal and show our support.

On other matters:

I want to thank the board and committee chairs who have worked hard this year to move forward with some important messages and initiatives. AJHA issued a statement opposing state legislation that censors the teaching and learning of history. Many of us work at public institutions in states where DEI programs, scholarship, and concepts are under attack. Please know AJHA sees, supports, and values you.

In addition, we hosted a webinar for graduate students on turning a class project or thesis into a conference paper submission, and the public relations committee launched a new social media strategy to increase our visibility. Thanks to all who made these things happen—and to all of you who make this organization so vibrant.

Member Spotlight: Will Mari

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Mon, 27 May 2024 13:49:27 GMT

How did you become involved in AJHA?

My advisor, Richard Kielbowicz, now retired from the University of Washington, encouraged me to get involved, along with AEJMC’s History Division and ICA’s Communication History Division—now I try to encourage all of my students, in turn, to get involved with these and other organizations. You’re stronger together and that goes with the weird twists and turns of any academic career—better to do it with friends and colleagues along the way. And it’s easier to pass good stuff onto the next generation when you’re part of an institution such as AJHA, AEJMC or ICA.

What’s with this interest in the “materiality” of media history? And transitions? And why books?

I’m really interested in the “things” of media history, as explored by the work of scholars such as Brian Creech, Susan Keith, Florence Le Cam, Juliette De Maeyer, Rachel Plotnick, Michael Stamm, Perry Parks, and others. As part of that, I’m interested in the messy nitty-gritty of analog-to-digital transitions and their impact on news workers, and the related fate of technology tools, from software to hardware. I’ve written A Short History of Disruptive Journalism Technologies, which is about the computerization of the newsroom in the 1960s through the 1990s, The American Newsroom: A History, 1920-1960, which is a social history of that space, along with very early analog-to-digital precursor technologies, as well as Newsrooms and the Disruption of the Internet, which is about, well, the internetization of the newsroom from the 1990s through the 2010s. I’m happy to email anyone a PDF copy of my books, I feel that books can help researchers tell more nuanced (and think thus more true) stories and I suspect that this is a reason why so many media historians write them. But articles are important, too, as they can be where single incidents, people, processes or particular technologies can be explored in depth.

How do you fund your research? Where would you point grad students or early-career scholars toward, resource-wise?

I try to keep a close eye on H-Net and its various announcements, as there are archival grants advertised there. I try to look at a particular library and its collection and see if there’s a fund for outside researchers to visit—you’d be surprised how many of the latter are out there and how easy it is to apply to them (from places that are private like BYU and Duke to public like the NYPL and here at LSU). It’s good, too, to apply to institutional opportunities like AJHA’s McKern or the Cokie Roberts Research Fund for Women’s History—the only way not to get something is not to apply! I’d try to not let a letter get in the way of an application, either—I’m happy to write one for anyone wanting to come down to LSU.

What’s one thing you wish your fellow scholars knew about media history?

I really want the actual, and positive, reality that media history is a growing, healthy field to be front of mind. It’s easy to get discouraged in the academy, with the fate of one’s discipline, but as the former chair of the Media History Division at AEJMC and someone who’s been active in both AJHA and ICA, along with other organizations, such as the Radio Preservation Task Force, this is a great time to be studying, teaching, and publishing about media history—take heart, people!

What hobbies/interests do you have outside of academia?

My family and I love to go hiking, camping and Ruth and I love to go dancing with friends; Ruth’s field work brings us to fun places, and so we also enjoy traveling as a family (and whenever possible, we bring our dog, Roux, along—and you may have seen him with us from time to time).

Research Essay: The Importance of High Publication Standards that Apply to Everyone

Karlin Andersen Tuttle — Mon, 27 May 2024 13:44:43 GMT

By Mark Bernhardt

As academics we have an obligation through our roles as authors, peer reviewers, and editors to ensure that only quality work gets published. That includes an obligation not to lower the bar for prestigious scholars in the field because of who they are. The consequences of not upholding our standards go beyond just publishing bad scholarship; it can result in serious offense and harm.

During the first-year research methods course in my PhD program, a fellow student told the professor that he had found a partially plagiarized sentence in a book and asked to whom he should report it. The professor, a late-career academic, responded that in such a scenario it should be reported to the book’s publisher. However, he cautioned, if the author was a major scholar, it was best not to report a minor plagiarism incident because doing so could result in professional blackballing. And so, I learned that the research and scholarship rules that I was being taught to follow meticulously did not apply to eminent late-career academics (and I include retired professors in this classification) because others would protect them.

It was many years before I directly witnessed what a renowned late-career academic could get away with. I serve on a committee that reviews the articles published in a prestigious journal and selects the winner of the sponsoring organization’s best article award. One year I read an article that analyzed the styles of three film directors who were blind in one eye, with the author asserting that their vision impacted the films they produced. Reading about the first director, the author revealed that, according to medical professionals, there are relatively minor difference in the way people with vision in only one eye and people with vision in both are able to see and it would not affect one’s view through a camera lens. What support was there then for the author’s thesis? Not finding it in the discussion of the first director, I moved on to the second. Nothing there either. And then came the third, who the author divulged was not even blind in one eye but only wore an eyepatch as part of the persona he created for himself, with photographic evidence showing that he switched between wearing the patch over his right and left eyes! I was dumbfounded. How did such a poor piece of scholarship get published in such a prestigious journal? Did the editor have the misfortune of selecting the world’s worst reviewers to evaluate the manuscript for the double-blind peer review process? Then I looked at the author’s bio. Not only was she an accomplished late-career academic, she was also a former editor of the journal and former president of its sponsoring organization. I strongly suspected I had found the answer to my question.

I do believe that these incidents are not common in academia, though I may be naïve, and that the vast majority of late-career academics are not willing to aid fellow late-career academics in publishing subpar work as a favor. That it happens at all, however, creates a bad perception for early- and mid-career academics who are held to higher standards. They may also feel that they cannot be too outspoken about the problem because late-career faculty could derail a tenure and promotion application and often run the journals and discipline-specific organizations, which puts them in positions of power through which they can hinder someone’s career advancement.

Recently, an essay published in a journal that is clear about not being peer reviewed but that does aspire to be scholarly, got me thinking about the ways publishing poor quality work can cause serious harm. The author, a late-career White man, mischaracterized the work done in the subdiscipline of social history, made false claims about how historians are using postmodernism, and included a misogynistic and racist assessment of multiculturalism’s detrimental impact on history as a discipline and how Black and women historians behave as colleagues. It is a problem when a late-career scholar is ignorant of how a field has developed, and it becomes a bigger problem when a journal disseminates that ignorance to others. Additionally, under no circumstances should a scholar make claims for which there is no supporting evidence. Peer reviewers and editors have an obligation to reject such manuscripts.

I found the author’s discussion of multiculturalism the most disheartening component of the essay. He begins by saying that most multiculturalists reject unity in American national identity, articulating his preference for a single national narrative that encourages pride in the nation. The author then expresses concern that multiculturalism may fracture the “common culture” that has prevailed on campuses. Regardless of whether that happens, he claims to have noticed a difference in the “colleagueship” of Black and women historians, which he attributes to multiculturalism’s influence.

As a history professor at Jackson State University, Mississippi’s largest HBCU, I can attest that my students would scoff at the notion that multiculturalism is detrimental. It is only because of multiculturalism that the history of women, people of color, those who identify as queer, and other underrepresented groups in academia have gotten to have their stories told. They were not part of the single national narrative pushed by the discipline until the late twentieth century. Scholars had to fight hard for change, often at great personal cost. While a truly inclusive single national narrative might be nice, it is only through multiculturalism that we have any chance of constructing one, and the likelihood for success is hardly apparent. At the moment, it is conservative politicians who are working hardest to develop a single national historical narrative—specifically one that rejects multiculturalism and downplays or disregards past bad acts. Recently, the AJHA took a strong oppositional stance to such censoring of history and placing restrictions on those who teach in the discipline. Regarding his concern about multiculturalism fracturing the common culture that previously prevailed, my students would advocate smashing it because they know well that the university they attend exists because they were never intended to be part of that common culture.

As troubling as his views are—and some of his claims are obviously incorrect—it is far more troubling that his views were published. I understand that disagreement is a driving force within academia as we all put forth arguments supported by evidence that others critique and challenge. Wrestling with controversial ideas is a component of this. In the case of history, it is essential that such dialogue be published to further our understanding of the past. Outdated understandings of the discipline, misinformation, misogyny, and racism provide nothing to advance that dialogue—they hurt it—and no scholarly journal should provide a platform for those views.

Finally, as for any difficulty he finds in his working relationships with Black and women colleagues, I guarantee that multiculturalism is not the root cause. Unfortunately, not only do women and people of color in the academy have to deal with such ugliness, some editors prove no help by giving their prejudiced peers a forum through which to be heard.

We all must be vigilant about maintaining high standards regarding everything that is published in scholarly journals. Those standards must apply to everyone. When a different standard exists for late-career academics, as it sometimes does, it hurts us all, and can do so far more severely than just by granting individuals undeserved publications. Yes, we should be wary about censorship and silencing voices. However, in some cases it is clear that what is being said is harmful. Scholarly journals should not be a forum for harming anyone.

Andersen Tuttle Named New Intelligencer Editor

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 12:53:48 GMT

The American Journalism Historian Association announced Karlin Andersen Tuttle as the incoming editor of the Intelligencer, the organization’s electronic newsletter. Andersen Tuttle, an AJHA member since 2019, recently earned a dual-title PhD in mass communications and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies from Penn State.

“I am excited to take on editing The Intelligencer and continue its work highlighting members’ achievements, research, and pedagogy,” Andersen Tuttle said. “The annual AJHA convention created such a supportive space for me as a graduate student to present my research and learn more about the field. I plan to use my position to continue to grow that community and encourage future scholars.”

Before pursuing a PhD, Andersen Tuttle wrote for a daily newspaper in Washington state, The Spokesman-Review, and worked in marketing for a regional library system. After moving to Pennsylvania, she worked in public relations and marketing at Penn State where she wrote and edited a twenty-eight page quarterly magazine covering faculty and graduate student research. She currently serves as the editorial liaison for the journal Mass Communication & Society.

Her dissertation, “Your Trusted Friend: Untold Histories of Five Christian Women’s Magazines, 1974-2023,” included reviewing over six-hundred magazine issues, archival material, and oral history interviews with the magazines’ editors and staff members.

Andersen Tuttle also holds an MA from Penn State in Media Studies and a BA in English with minors in journalism and editing, publishing, and design from Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington.

Member Spotlight: A.J. Bauer

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 12:27:24 GMT

How did you become involved in AJHA?

I earned my PhD in American Studies from NYU. While I was researching conservative media activism, I was unfamiliar with AJHA or journalism history as a field. In 2016 I attended the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference because it was hosted by the NYU Journalism, which just so happened to be located in the same building as my department. That’s where I first learned about AJHA, and where I first met Anthony Nadler (with whom I’d later edited the book News on the Right).

Why are you a journalism historian?

Much of what I study wouldn’t be considered “journalism” to many, perhaps most, in our field. I’m primarily concerned with right-wing media, and how the modern conservative movement in the United States cultivated a critical disposition toward the press. The book I’m currently writing for Columbia University Press, Making the Liberal Media, is less about the press than about the long history of right-wing antipathy towards it. Over the course of my research, I realized that what counts as journalism is often in the eye of the beholder. While many may (rightly) consider right-wing media as propaganda, its audiences often experience it as news. As I’ve written in American Journalism, I see journalism history as a study of what Raymond Williams once called “structures of feeling,” or the dialectic between how people experience reality and more formal or systematic notions of what’s true. In short: I’m interested in how people, particularly conservatives, have experienced the news of the day throughout history. This focus allows me to see an ongoing battle for credibility over who has the authority to tell the “true” story of public life, a battle often overlooked by scholars operating under traditional normative understandings of what counts as “journalism.”

Why should we care?

Our field is dwindling. History departments are being defunded, and journalism department lines for historians are few and far between. Declining funding and accelerated time-to-degree expectations are making it difficult for graduate students to justify dissertations that involved time consuming (and often costly) archival research projects. The long-term survival of journalism history requires adopting a capacious definition of terms and a welcoming disposition. If a weirdo with a PhD in American Studies and a bizarre fixation with right-wing propaganda can find a home in “journalism history,” anybody can.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve found in the archives?

Phone sex transcripts at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. I was in Simi Valley researching the Reagan administration’s repeal of the Fairness Doctrine. I stumbled across a folder marked “Pornography,” and couldn’t resist taking a peek. Apparently, some anti-porn crusaders had documented their 900-number calls in an attempt to get the Reagan administration to shut them down. My favorite transcript begins “Hello you miserable worm. This is Mistress Sharon from page 34 of High Society. I knew you would call. You just can’t get enough, can you…”

What hobbies/interests do you have outside of academia?

I’ve never had a hobby. When given the opportunity, I enjoy: travel, hiking, making people laugh, conspiring (non-criminal), organizing (political), performing high-concept punk rock (hype-man), washing dishes, and Werner Herzog.

A.J. Bauer is an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and Creative Media at the University of Alabama.

Officer Column: How AJHA Helped Me

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 12:20:25 GMT

By Michael Fuhlhage

It’s not an overstatement that I owe my success as a scholar to the American Journalism Historians Association. I want to use this column as second vice president to talk to everybody in the organization, but especially to those of you who joined recently as graduate students and junior faculty, about what getting involved has meant for me and how you can get the most out of being an active member.

The 2005 AJHA convention in San Antonio was my first time presenting research. I was a master’s student at the University of Missouri School of Journalism trying to figure out my way from the newsroom into the academic world, and I joined a crop of AJHA rookies that included scholars I now count as friends, including Gwyneth Mellinger, Jennifer Moore, and Keith Greenwood. I’m sure I knew far less about the way academe worked than anybody at that convention, and “wide-eyed” would be a charitable way to describe the nervous wreck that was me at my first academic convention. There was, as it turned out, no need for worry. The senior scholars took me in immediately, offered pointers, asked intriguing questions to help me deepen my thinking, and of course encouraged me to keep coming back. It’s a friendly, open, and welcoming group that I found immediately endearing and adopted as my scholarly home. I’ve been to all but one AJHA convention since then.

There are so many opportunities for members to push themselves in new directions, I came to learn. And I’ve benefited as a scholar from taking part in them. Here’s my progression and how taking part in AJHA committee service has helped me to grow.

After getting papers accepted for presentation a couple of times, my mentors in my doctoral program at UNC suggested I try organizing panels. Once I got the hang of that, I began submitting research in progress in my quest for feedback on emerging projects. Each of these outlets for sharing ideas is an opportunity to learn to be better at finding evidence and writing historical research.

After getting a couple of panels accepted, I was invited to join the Research Committee as panels competition coordinator.

Linda Lumsden told me when she recruited me to succeed her as research chair that overseeing the research papers competition would teach me more than I could imagine about what made excellent research in the form of accomplished scholars’ judgments about what made a successful paper and what elevated nominees for awards above the rest.

As research chair I also oversaw the Joseph McKerns Research Grant competition, a role that gave me and reviewers the opportunity to see how other scholars define excellence in research. Reading the files of grant winners was like taking a master class in how to construct proposals that ensure funders that their money will be well spent. Their example has given me ideas for how to formulate my own successful research funding requests.

The research chair also works with key members of the committee, the panels and research in progress coordinators, to make sure submission, reviewing, and acceptances went smoothly. It’s a role that puts you in the position to have positive contact with every author of an accepted research paper and funded grant proposal and to connect with scholars who serve as paper reviewers. It’s a role that helps build relationships with professors who are among the most likely academics to be invited to review your tenure file.

Those experiences as research chair gave me the confidence to run for and serve twice on the AJHA Board of Directors, joining in decision-making and advising about the direction of the organization. It was that service that led me to believe that I could handle entering the rotation from second vice president this year to first vice president next year to president after that—as long as I have my fellow members and leaders to show me the ropes and keep me pointed toward true north.

I’m serving for the reasons I laid out in my candidate bio last fall, namely these: As my scholarly home for 19 years, the AJHA has been a source of inspiration, instruction, direction, and friendship since San Antonio. Without it, I wouldn’t have made the connections that helped me achieve tenure, found an audience for my research, and found my scholarly purpose. It’s my goal to use my position in the AJHA’s leadership to encourage an expansive definition of diversity in scholarship, help junior scholars, and defend history against those who seek to undermine it.

The journey has been nourishing and fulfilling so far. It started with taking a small step by joining a committee and pitching in. The AJHA has done so much for me, and I am honored that I have the chance as second vice president to pull together the program for our next convention. See you in Pittsburgh!

Michael Fuhlhage is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Wayne State University and currently serves as AJHA Second Vice President.

Member Spotlight: Andie Tucher

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 17:16:05 GMT

How did you become involved in AJHA?

I’ve been a member of AJHA for so long I don’t even remember exactly when I joined—though I know it was in the Dark Ages of Microfilm, when I was a graduate student constantly explaining to classmates and professors how the intellectual rewards of reading old newspapers could ever outweigh the miseries of spending hours with my head inside a microfilm reader. So I was thrilled to discover an association full of scholars who just got it—just got both the value and the pleasure of studying the many and changing ways societies have told themselves stories they recognize as consequential and are willing to accept as true.

Later on a Joseph McKerns research grant sent me to Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, where the rich collections of 19th-century journalists’ papers got me thinking about the many different ideas of what journalistic “truth” could mean. That laid the foundation for my latest book, Not Exactly Lying: Fake News and Fake Journalism in American History.

Since you’ve written a whole book focusing on fakes, frauds, propaganda, and humbug, do you think journalism is irredeemable?

No, no, no! Journalism has a lot to answer for, but I had, and have, no intention of catastrophizing it. Part of what I wanted to do was explore on their own terms the ever-evolving and surprisingly diverse expectations of what newspapers were for and what “truth” meant. But I also make the argument that the twentieth-century turn toward objectivity, for all the rightful concerns that ideal has always raised, was also a genuine effort by journalists of good will to stamp out the fakes and the humbugs–and that we still have something to learn from how that worked.

How has the way you do newspaper research changed since those Dark Ages of Microfilm?

Obviously digital search engines have radically altered some of the ways we do research. Having essentially eliminated the tedium of page-by-page scrolling and scanning, they now allow us to zoom in on, say, rival papers’ accounts of obscure events, or the evolving uses of a word, or the journey of a rumor or story from paper to paper, or how often particular reporters got bylines.

But using search engines can also tempt us to stick to only those questions we already know how to ask and whose answers we can already envision. And as someone who has always loved historical newspapers for their intimate connection to communities long gone and the stories they told about what mattered to them, I still enjoy diving at random into the higgledy-piggledy columns of some local paper (whether digitized, filmed, or in hard copy) and imagining myself among those who read and discussed it back when its ink still smeared. Decades after I first happened upon the column of telegraphic news in the Vincennes (Indiana) Western Sun for March 21, 1868, for instance, I am still wondering what its readers made of the squib that read, in its entirety, “Rats cannot live in Alaska, because their holes freeze up, nor in St. Thomas, because their holes are turned wrong side out by earthquakes.” What did “truth” mean to those readers? How did that story fit into their vision of their world?

What hobbies and interests do you have outside of academia?

I’m not a bad photographer—I do street photography with an SLR camera—and I am a terrible pianist. (Cheerfully terrible. Also terribly merciful; I have an electronic keyboard and a set of headphones, so no one hears me but me.)

Andie Tucher is the H. Gordon Garbedian Professor of Journalism and Director of the Communications Ph.D. Program at Columbia Journalism School. Her latest book is Not Exactly Lying: Fake News and Fake Journalism in American History (Columbia UP, 2022).

The Elusive Ed Kennedy

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 17:13:34 GMT

By Richard Fine

On May 7, 1945, veteran Associated Press journalist Edward Kennedy bypassed military censorship to break the news of the German surrender he had just witnessed. He did so after authorities had prohibited release of the story for at least another day at the behest of their Russian allies. No action by an American correspondent during the entire war proved more controversial. His fellow reporters in Paris denounced him for what they termed “a deliberate, disgraceful and unethical double-cross.” The military stripped him of his credentials and ordered him back to New York. For weeks, commentators in the States either lauded him for reporting facts the public had every right to know or condemned him for a breach in ethics and for threatening military security. The Price of Truth details the surrender story controversy, then uses the episode to challenge the accepted view that the press’s relations with the military were amicable during World War II and only ran off the rails during the Vietnam War. When shorn of “Good War” nostalgia, media-military relations in World War II resemble those in Vietnam far more than most accounts would have it.

There is another more historiographic reason why this episode might speak to journalism historians even beyond those interested in how the press interacts with the military. While Ed Kennedy’s motivations and journalism ethics are central to the story, getting a sure sense of Kennedy’s character proved a challenge, one familiar to historians of all stripes. To begin with, there was little to go on—what documentary evidence exists largely centers on his thirteen years at the Associated Press. Beyond that, Kennedy was an intensely private person who did not much talk or write about himself, so private that his daughter only learned from an obscure document in the AP files uncovered decades after he died that Kennedy had been married at least once before he married her mother.

Moreover, there is conflicting testimony from those who knew him. Many journalists, including a number who worked with him, respected Kennedy’s professionalism and especially admired his steadfast opposition to excessive censorship. Others, notably some at other agencies, described him as tightly-wound and unscrupulous. While some colleagues noted Kennedy’s ability to function well under intense pressure, others thought Kennedy erratic.

While in Cairo, for example, Don Whitehead, then a young AP reporter, was shocked when Kennedy confided that he was in love with the wife of a correspondent then stationed in Teheran and that he was plotting to kidnap here and bring her to Egypt as his secretary. (I suspect that Kennedy was pulling the inexperienced Whitehead’s leg.) For another, one friend, Melvin Whiteleather, found him a “nervous wreck” at the end of the war, exhausted after supervising all AP operations in northwestern Europe. Others, though, considered him still to be functioning well despite his fatigue. There are also hints, but only hints, that Kennedy’s drinking was a problem, but if excessive drinking were a hanging offense, then the gallows would be crowded with war correspondents.

All of this to say that while Kennedy’s character remains opaque, what evidence exists very much leans toward Kennedy acting on principle in 1945. He sent the surrender story knowing full well what its personal cost would be. For the committee of journalists who campaigned a decade ago for Kennedy to receive a posthumous Pulitzer Prize, there was no question that Kennedy had done his professional duty in 1945 courageously. Kennedy proved an enigmatic subject, and brought home to me the truism that all history is conjecture, however well informed.

Richard Fine is a Professor Emeritus of the Department of English at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Intelligencer Seeks New Editor

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 17:06:12 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association is seeking an editor for the Intelligencer, the organization's electronic newsletter. The editor solicits essays, edits copy, and posts to a monthly blog distributed to members. The editor works with officers, committee chairs and members to generate content, including teaching essays, research essays, and other material on topics relevant to AJHA's mission. The editor also serves as an ex-officio board member and attends AJHA Board meetings.

If interested, please submit a resume and a letter explaining why you would make an effective editor to Ford Risley, Publications Committee Chair, at jfr4@psu.edu by March 30.

AJHA 2024 Southeast Symposium

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 15:30:04 GMT

By Natalie Bonner, Alex Boothe, and Caleb Aguayo

University students from institutions in the Southeastern U.S. gathered to present their research at the American Journalism Historians Association’s 2024 Southeast Symposium on Feb. 3.

The Symposium aims to foster a welcoming environment for undergraduate and graduate students to present their research and to promote scholarly conversation among the students and their peers.

This year’s research topics ranged from comic book history to the media coverage of historic events, including World Wars I and II, the 1903 Iroquois Theatre fire and Native American newspaper opposition to Alaskan fish canneries.

Makenzi Azeman, an undergraduate student from the University of Florida who researched the comparisons between Nazi propaganda and Israel-Palestine focused political cartoons, said she enjoyed the wide range of topics presented.

“It was very enlightening to hear about so many different great topics,” Azeman said. “I’m really glad I came because I’m a big fan of history and it was all really interesting to learn about.”

Faculty from the participating institutions recommended the students to present their research, and they then reviewed the students’ research to select the most comprehensive undergraduate and graduate papers for awards.

Tressie Nuñez, a psychology major from Samford University, focused on the changing images of Batman’s archnemesis, the Joker, in the history of DC comic books. While unrelated to her major, she said she enjoyed researching a topic that was of personal interest to her.

“I just thought it was really cool to talk about it and that people were receptive and actually enjoyed it,” Nuñez said. “I really enjoyed the conference, and hearing that everyone else’s topics and ideas were broader than I had even thought about was really awesome.”

Justin Gray, an undergraduate student from Augusta University, worked alongside his professor, David Bulla, on a paper that examined the The National and its failed business model as a daily sports paper.

“It was a great experience. I liked the location and getting away for a few days.” Gray said. “I enjoyed everyone’s presentation and being able to present my work.”

More information about AJHA and its Southeast Symposium can be found here.

Natalie Bonner, Alex Boothe, and Caleb Aguayo are graduate students earning their master's degrees at the University of Alabama. They each presented at the Southeast Symposium this year. They are pictured above.

Member Spotlight: Lisa D. Lenoir

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 17:57:09 GMT

How did you become involved in AJHA?

I learned about AJHA through my colleagues, Drs. Mike Conway and Gerry Lanosga in the Media School at Indiana University Bloomington and Dr. Rachel Grant at University of Florida-Gainesville. They each shared how the network fortified them professionally and personally. I learned more about the group after receiving the inaugural microgrant to support my research on the late journalist Mattie Smith Colin of The Chicago Defender. Colin covered not only food and fashion but also the tragic Emmett Till lynching in 1955. Colin’s riveting coverage of Till’s death and the return of his body from Mississippi to Chicago centered the experience of the young child’s mother, Mamie Till Bradley. The event marked a critical moment in the long Black freedom struggle.

My career and Colin’s overlapped in Chicago during the early 2000s. I had no idea of the depth of her work and life in Chicago. I appreciate greatly AJHA’s belief in the project, allowing me to further explore a Black woman’s career in American journalism history.

How do you define political and everyday life journalism? How do you conduct research on the connection between these two genres?

I define political and everyday life journalism through interdisciplinary lenses, which includes journalism studies, history, and sociology. For the political, I’m guided in my inquiry by Michael Schudson’s perspectives on journalism as a democratic tool to evoke empathy and inform citizens about policies informing their decisions. Historian Robin D.G. Kelley’s insights into the Black freedom struggle and its emancipatory possibilities help me to see the political through a different paradigm. An everyday life definition comes from several scholars, including sociologist Erving Goffman. He views everydayness as a series of interactions and experiences people engage in daily—either significant or simple.

During my daily journalism career in news and features, I observed the values placed on each within the newsroom. Based on my experiences, semi-structured interviews, and archives, I look to enlighten scholars and audiences about the connection between the two genres. Analyzing text or transcripts allows me to see how themes about race, class, gender, culture, and politics appear within one or more articles or images. Working at the intersection of both the political and everyday has uncovered nuances about journalism content, production, and its producers.

What excites you about archival work?

I’ve been exploring Black and mainstream newspapers for my Mattie Smith Colin project. I love it! I am transported back in time observing “woke culture” and Black people’s lives, filled with discussions about race, voting rights, international affairs, and fancy social affairs. The status quo stories about a historically marginalized group seen in mainstream papers are debunked. I grew up reading The Indianapolis Recorder to my grandmother and my father carried the Chicago Defender in his hometown of rural West Point, Mississippi. He said he had a pen pal through the Defender’s Bud Billiken Club. We always had Ebony and Essence magazines in the house.

Also, when I conduct archival work, I like to see the connections between people, places, and events researched. In the future, I plan to learn more about network analysis to further illustrate these relationships. Visuals tell stories.

What hobbies/interests do you have outside of academia?

I have been working on life/work balance. I love to cultivate plants, take nature walks, knit, travel, spend time with family and friends, and practice my calligraphy. My hobbies rejuvenate me and inspire my writing. My new interest is genealogy. I get excited finding and verifying facts, and then, weaving together a more comprehensive narrative of my maternal and paternal family’s American experience.

Dr. Lisa D. Lenoir is an Assistant Professor at Indiana University Bloomington.

Research Essay: Historical coverage of unaccompanied immigrant children

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 17:17:56 GMT

By Molly Thacker

In recent years, the arrival of unaccompanied immigrant children to the United States has galvanized public opinion, confounded elected officials, and generated media coverage both heartfelt and hysterical. As Americans grapple with how to best address these young people, the long and unexamined history of unaccompanied child migration to the United States often remains overlooked. In my dissertation, I sought to understand how the nation’s first attempts at regulating this unique form of migration at the turn of the twentieth century influenced modern laws and perceptions. After conducting research in 1,300 immigration casefiles of unaccompanied children stored in the National Archives and over 4,000 clippings from 193 different newspapers and periodicals, I realized that the news media played a pivotal role in shaping public opinion and government actions regarding these most vulnerable of immigrants.

Journalism history was not an initial focus of my dissertation, but as I perused the archived casefiles, I understood how this story could not be told without analyzing media influence. I found numerous instances of clippings sent to immigration officials by the public, urging action for detained children based on stories that pulled at their heartstrings, in addition to interoffice memos referencing that morning’s Washington Post or bureaucrats fretting about how editorials would spin their decisions. American newspapers were not just a window into how the public viewed this form of migration—journalists were active participants in shaping the discourse, legislation, and lived experiences of unaccompanied immigrant children.

I argue that sensational newspaper coverage regarding the arrival of Greek and Italian boys contributed to the pathologizing of unaccompanied child migration and led to the first federal laws regulating this practice. In contrast to earlier portrayals of Irish and German unaccompanied children, praised in the media for their plucky spirit and apparent desire to become Americans, newspapers painted these newcomers from southern Europe as unloved, neglected spawn from broken homes who would undoubtedly become future criminals or dependents on state coffers. Media coverage can shape the contours of debate, and the hysteria and moral panics generated by such stories manufactured consent for new restrictions on unaccompanied child immigrants.

However, some children used the media to their own advantage, and newspapers became a platform of protest and agitation for unaccompanied immigrants and their advocates. One such instance was Shlomi Kleinman, a 12-year-old stowaway detained by officials at Ellis Island in 1907. After escaping an abusive father in Warsaw and evading Russian imperial soldiers, he arrived in New York seeking his mother who had immigrated years before; however, he had no address, only the names of two uncles with whom he believed she was living. Before Shlomi could be deported, aid societies placed advertisements in the city’s Yiddish press searching for his uncles in the Lower East Side, and major New York papers printed his pitiful yarn. Once the Associated Press newswire circulated his story, Ellis Island and immigration officials in Washington became inundated with letters from across the country, pledging support for the boy if his mother could not be found. But against all odds, the uncles heard the news, and indeed, Shlomi’s mom was there. The boy was duly admitted, and census records confirm they made a home together in Manhattan—a reunion made possible thanks to the power of the press.

While modern sensibilities may be shocked by the thought of children embarking on treacherous migrations alone, Americans have welcomed such children before. My research demonstrates the weighty position that news media held in influencing which unaccompanied children were met with succor or with scorn, a role it still occupies today.

Molly Thacker is a doctoral student at Georgetown University.

Sidney Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement: Jack Hamilton

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 19:14:05 GMT

By Jack Hamilton

It’s awkward to write an article like this. I cringe when reading Ernest Hemmingway’s writing about writing, which he did often and irritatingly. As in: “When I had to write it, then it would be the only thing to do and there would be no choice.”

I am an accidental professor. I acquired a doctorate (while I was a low-level political appointee in the State Department) to prepare to write a book. As far as other books go, one idea led to another. Sometimes the connection from one to the other was unexpected. I have just finished a short book on a cocktail, which to my surprise turned out to be the product of World War I propaganda, the subject of my previous book.

At heart I am a journalist. I like to ask questions. I once wrote a book about books – Casanova Was a Book Lover – because I wondered why certain books are stolen from libraries and others (such as poetry) are not.

For what it is worth, I will offer three thoughts on lessons I have acquired.

1. I have learned from working with co-authors. Some know a lot about theory, which I do not. Others have had specialties that help answer questions. I am thinking, for instance, of working with my LSU colleague Jinx Broussard on African-American foreign correspondents. One of my current collaborators, Heidi Tworek, has far ranging knowledge that enriches our collective work; she will be one of the giant media historians of her generation.

2. Related to this, I have acquired respect for quantitative methods. I am not well schooled, but co-authors like my friend Regina Lawrence are. I remember a comment from Jorge Luis Borges. He said, as I recall, that he sometimes considered which language was the best to tell one of his short stories, French, English, or Spanish. The same may be said of methods. Which one gets the best answer? Often it is both. Unfortunately, reviewers of scholarly publications often rule out methods that are not theirs. Quantitative scholars dislike qualitative research, and vice versa for historians. This is a loss to all fields.

3. Finally, I embrace the idea that Robert A. Caro articulated in the New Yorker. The title of his article tells it all, “Turn Every Page.” It is a joy to work in archives but also tempting to go too fast through papers. I remind myself to slow down and be patient. I take as many photos of documents as possible. I’ve had many insights, sitting in my study, by looking at a letter or diary entry for the third or fourth time. “I am constantly being asked why it takes me so long to finish my books,” Caro wrote. “Well, it is the research that takes time.”

I will close with a comment given by my agent years ago. I had received a very bad review. I called him.

“Well,” I said, “anyway, I had a lot of sales last week.”

Peter replied, “Forget it, keep writing.”

How comforting to know there are so many questions out there for us to answer.

John Maxwell Hamilton is the Hopkins P. Breazeale Foundation Professor in the Manship School of Mass Communication, Louisiana State University, and a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.

Member Spotlight: Willie Tubbs

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 19:10:13 GMT

How did you become involved in AJHA?

Doctors Vanessa Murphree and David R. Davies, AJHA members with whom I worked closely during my graduate studies at The University of Southern Mississippi, encouraged me to submit a paper to the 2014 national convention. My paper was accepted and I attended the convention in St. Paul. I had such an incredible experience at that convention that I became a member. I was awed to meet so many of the scholars whose work I cited in the paper or read in one of my media history courses - William David Sloan, John Coward, Tom Mascaro, Carolyn Kitch, and Mike Sweeney were just a few of the people who stood out - and humbled to learn that they were all amazingly kind people.

What part of historical research do you enjoy most?

For me, the most rewarding part of history is helping my students to discover a passion for the field. I am one of those AJHA members who does not teach a history course. However, I find ways to work historical inquiry into my courses and, more importantly, work with the University of West Florida's Office of Undergraduate Research to find young people I can either guide or, in some cases, employ as co-authors. To date, I have produced two peer-reviewed journal articles and a pair of AJHA Convention-accepted conference articles with undergraduate co-authors.

What scholarly work have you done outside of history?

I wrote a humble textbook in 2020 that has proven moderately popular with undergraduate students - it's a concise journey through writing for the communication professions - but my pride is the work I've done with the Department of State's International Visitors Leadership Program. Over the last half-decade, I have done presentations and workshops about modern journalism for media professionals and community leaders from such nations as Azerbaijan, Niger, Tajikistan, India, Vietnam, Latvia, and more. In a nod to AJHA, I always include a sizable historical section in these presentations.

What do you do in academia outside of your AJHA activity?

Perhaps I am odd, but I love the service element of our profession. I am most proud of my work as UWFs Faculty Athletics Representative - a role which allows me to represent UWF at the NCAA and Gulf South Conference levels, among numerous functions on campus - and my association with our campus Title IX office, but I have been thrilled to be allowed to work in numerous capacities on and off campus.

What hobbies/interests do you have outside of academia?

I don't know if parenting counts as a hobby, but my wife and I are raising two great little boys. The older, who is 5, attended an AJHA convention when he was about 90 days old back in 2018. When I am not working as either a faculty member or parent, I have a real passion for working out. Right now, I put in a solid five days per week at my local gym.

Active Learning Deepens Student Understanding

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 19:00:43 GMT

By Erin Coyle

I have encouraged students to engage in active learning to deepen their understanding of journalism, history, law, and ethics for more than a decade. I have followed examples set by two mentors who showed care for students when encouraging students to move beyond their comfort zones. Their examples inspire me to encourage students to engage with historical records, explore areas they might not have previously imagined, reflect upon what they have learned, and create high-quality work.

During high school, I discovered that requiring students to learn by reading texts might not work for every student. At times, vertigo prevented me from reading. Some people suggested I should wait to be educated when my health was better. Instead, I requested audio recordings from The Tri-State Independent Blind Society. When assigned books, plays, or poems were not available in audio format, a retired English teacher provided other options. When it came time to read Shakespeare’s plays, she brought records from a local library so we could experience the plays together. I gained a deeper understanding and appreciation of the material, especially as I heard performances of plays and discussed what I heard with a person who showed she cared about my learning.

When I was an undergraduate student studying journalism history at Emory University, Loren Ghiglione inquired about each student’s interests. He ensured our interests fit with the topic of our most substantial assignment. Each student was required to interview a Black journalist or leader from the Civil Rights Movement and write a book chapter about the person we interviewed. I interviewed and wrote about an octogenarian Black journalist who covered KKK rallies in Stone Mountain, Georgia. He recalled snapping photographs. After the camera flash alerted KKK members to his presence, he ran for his life.

Loren later drove my classmates and me from Atlanta, Georgia, to Angola Prison in Louisiana. Angola was the country’s largest maximum-security prison. Wilbert Rideau, a director of an award-winning documentary and editor of an award-winning prison publication, was our tour guide. Rideau became a journalist after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his original conviction in 1963. The Court held Rideau’s due process rights were denied in 1961 when he was not allowed to have his trial held outside the parish where a television station broadcast a sheriff’s interview of Rideau before his first trial. He subsequently was tried and convicted. He was still appealing his conviction while serving a life sentence when he showed my class around the prison. As we rode through the grounds, Black prisoners were working in fields under the watch of white guards, I felt as if I was traveling through time.

Those experiences shaped how I teach undergraduate and graduate-level journalism and mass communication courses . My journalism law, ethics, and history students have listened to the Journalism History podcast to learn historical context about journalism, the Civil Rights Movement, and threats to free expression rights. To help students gain greater understanding of research, I have shared some of the documents I have analyzed for my research on journalism history and free press and fair trial rights. Together, students and I have reviewed primary and secondary historical records during class meetings. We have analyzed and discussed news coverage of Rideau’s case, then we have reflected on the significance of the messages those reports convey. Such activities have fostered understanding of journalism history and culture while preparing students to complete research-based projects on topics they select.

Erin Coyle is an associate professor in journalism at the Temple University Klein College of Media and Communication.

Submission Reminder: Jan. 19 for Joint Conference in New York City

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 13:20:48 GMT

The submission deadline for papers, panels, and research-in-progress proposals for this year’s Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference is Jan.19, 2024. The proposal call can be accessed here.

The one-day, in-person conference is set for Friday, March 15, at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. The event is sponsored by AEJMC’s History Division and the American Journalism Historian’s Association.

More details and registration information are available here.

Direct questions to one of the conference co-chairs:
· Ray Begovich, University of Indianapolis, begovichr@uindy.edu
· Theresa Russell-Loretz, Millersville University, Theresa.russell-loretz@millersville.edu
· Rob Wells, University of Maryland, robwells@umd.edu

Auction Volunteers Needed

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 11 Dec 2023 16:08:41 GMT

By Jon Marshall

Thanks to the incredible generosity of AJHA members, we were able to raise more than $2,500 for graduate students at our auction during our Columbus conference.

Let’s top that at our 2024 conference in Pittsburgh.

To help make the auction an even bigger success, we’re forming a committee of volunteers. Committee members are needed who can help brainstorm ideas, promote the auction, load donated items onto the website, or help out at the conference. If you’re only able to assist with one of these things, that’s fine. If you’re able to assist with more than one, that’s even better.

The time commitment will be light – no more than five to ten hours over the next year. It’s a great way to get involved in AJHA if you’re a new member or stay involved if you’re a not-so-new member. And yes, you can put it on your c.v.

All of the money raised by the auction will once again go to the Michael Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend to help the new generation of journalism historians be able to afford to travel to our conferences.

Are you able to help? Please let me know at j-marshall@northwestern.edu by the end of January.

Member Spotlight: Maurine H. Beasley

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 16:26:12 GMT

How did you become involved in AJHA?

I was delighted to be one of the first members of this organization. I thought any group specifically dedicated to the study of journalism history would be a great asset to me as a junior faculty member attempting to gain tenure. The fact that it had a publication, American Journalism, made it particularly useful because it provided an additional venue for publication besides Journalism History. I thought the field needed them both so scholars would have sufficient exposure for their research to join tenured ranks.
What do you see ahead for the field of journalism history?

I am afraid for the future of the field. Universities are cutting back on liberal arts classes including history in general. Along with professional coursework, AJHA members used to be able to teach stand-along journalism history classes. Unfortunately, these classes often have been squeezed out as the professional curriculum has extended to cover multi-platform and digital communication. The emphasis now is on sellable skills for graduates, not necessarily on expanding their minds by study of the past to chart the future. The drama of history is being exorcised.

What should journalism historians do to preserve their field?

Apparently, communication classes so far have escaped the chopping block. Journalism historians must make every effort to ensure these classes include an historical perspective. Also, journalism historians must broaden their interests to cover all types of media, encouraging students to understand how and why various forms of communication arise in response to technical innovations.

How do your research interests fit into this gloomy picture?

I have always been interested in studying how women and minorities have been submerged in the public communication process. Due to current political pressures, the future of courses in gender and ethnic studies looks uncertain. Those of us concerned with the inclusion of marginalized groups in scholarly research must make sure that communications coursework does not neglect this area. Personally, I am planning to study the publicity campaigns of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, certainly not anyone’s hot topic. To me, however, such research may yield understanding of the role of conservative women in today’s rise of what is called Christian nationalism. I became interested in this subject because my grandmother, one of the first women graduates of the University of Missouri, was far more involved in the WCTU than in the suffrage movement in Sedalia, Missouri, the town where I grew up. Today, Sedalia, like almost all of Missouri outside urban areas, is totally Trump territory. To help fathom why, I thought it would be fruitful to study concepts of women’s roles conveyed through journalism and other media forms for several generations in a small-town setting.

What hobbies/interests do I have outside of academia?

For years I have insisted on trying to play the violin. I would be thrilled to be considered half-way as good as a mediocre violinist. I am not. I also belong to several book clubs and naturally prefer historical novels.

Maurine Beasley is professor emerita of Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park.

The view of journalism history from a History Department

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 16:18:21 GMT

By Mark Bernhardt

As is true of everyone in the American Journalism Historians Association, I teach journalism history. I developed my university’s U.S. Media History course, which focuses on the history of United States journalism, but also includes other facets of media, such as advertising, movies, comics, and television entertainment. What is different from most members regarding my position, though, is that I am a historian in a history department, and so every course that I teach is a history course. They include courses on specific time periods of U.S. history, topical courses on the American West, sexuality, and World War II, and courses on film history regarding how films have dealt with the historical issues of intersectionality, remembering wartime experiences, and debates over controversial political matters. While journalism history is not a primary focus in most classes that I teach, I do find ways to work it in to my curriculum.

Discussion and analysis of photojournalism is the primary way in which I incorporate journalism history. My own research on journalism has analyzed the use of images in newspapers, from illustration in the early nineteenth century to reproductions of photographs in the late nineteenth century to photojournalism in the early twentieth century. I include photographs in my lecture presentations to help give students a sense of what the period looked like and how historical issues were framed. For example, I have students look at photos when discussing labor strikes from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Dust Bowl and migration to California in the 1930s, the Vietnam War, and postindustrial urban decline in the late twentieth century.

Another way in which I incorporate journalism into my classes is through discussion of how advocacy for civil rights has been presented in the press. Whether early twentieth century suffragists, mid-twentieth century African American activists, or late twentieth century gay rights activists, the press has served an important role in defining civil rights activism for the American public, whether in a positive or negative way. I also discuss the existence of the alternative press and how it offered comparative viewpoints to what the mainstream press had to say, and strategies civil rights organizations used to gain positive coverage by the mainstream press.

Reflecting my broader work in the field of media history, in which I have written about how movie and television messaging have been influenced by and shaped public understanding of events, I use movies as primary sources in my classes. For example, my students analyze how the 1927 film It, starring Clara Bow, speaks to the place of young women in 1920s American society. When discussing African American civil rights, I will have my students watch the 1973 film The Spook who sat by the Door and consider what it has to say about the Black Power movement. I also use films in the U.S. Media History class to help my students engage with the various topics that I cover. Network is one that I assign when delving into the commercialization of the news. The Joneses, though hardly a cinematic masterpiece, affords an intriguing look at the lengths to which companies might go to advertise. Bamboozled is a fantastic portrayal of how television entertainment fails to adequately address racial representation. Finally, Wag the Dog provides a comedic look at how news media can be manipulated into pushing war propaganda.

Embracing the adage that journalism is the first draft of history, as a history professor I make it a point to have my students take a look at that first draft in various ways in the different courses that I teach.

Mark Bernhardt is a Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy at Jackson State University.

Membership Survey: Convention survey recommendations will produce action

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 16:10:51 GMT

By Lisa Parcell and Aimee Edmondson

AJHA members overwhelmingly agree we should protect funding for graduate students and junior scholars. Members also believe the most valuable feature of AJHA is the conference itself and the opportunity for feedback on research, networking, and mentoring.

These were two strong positive take aways from the AJHA membership survey deployed in August, a month before our Columbus convention.

If this survey showed one thing, it’s that our membership cares deeply about AJHA and wants to do what is necessary to protect it for future generations. We had 137 completes out of 235 surveys sent out. That’s an impressive 58 percent return rate, when the more standard return rate for member surveys is 30-40 percent. This response alone is a strong indication that our membership takes seriously our budget challenges and wants to be part of the solution.

As one member advocated, “Make cuts for grad students last as they are our only hope of growing in the future.”

President Mike Conway tasked the Long-Range Planning Committee with surveying the membership as we work to reduce costs and while still providing members with the convention experience they have come to expect.

Clearly we have built up a supportive organization that nurtures young scholars and continues to support our senior scholars. But we recognized that we must cut funding for things we all agree are important.

AJHA membership features

When we asked members to rank in importance commonly mentioned features of AJHA membership, items associated with the conference were clearly the most important (in-person conference, feedback on research, and networking and mentoring opportunities). In the middle of the rankings, we had a mix of things including printed copies of AJ, research grants and book awards, leadership and service opportunities, and support for graduate students. At the bottom of the rankings was printed copies of the Southeastern Review of Journalism History.

AJHA features	Mean (lowest=most important)
In-person conference	3.02
Feedback on research	3.28
Networking and mentoring opportunities	3.66

Printed copies of AJ	5.25
Research grants	5.45
Research and book awards	5.50
Leadership and service opportunities	5.52
Support for graduate students	5.71

Printed copies of the Southeastern Review of Journalism History journal	7.61

AJHA funded items

When asked to rank order 11 items that AJHA currently funds in terms of personal value, items related to research were the top three (Blanchard Dissertation Prize, Joseph McKerns Research Grant, and the Book Award) closely followed by Sweeney graduate student travel stipend, the Rising Scholar Award, and the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference. Next followed the teaching award and ACEJMC membership. Coming in as least important was the Distinguished Service Award, the Southeastern Symposium, and the Southeastern Review of Journalism History journal.

AJHA funded items	Mean (lowest=most important)
Blanchard Dissertation Prize	3.97
Joseph McKerns Research Grant	4.38
Book Award	4.90
Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend	4.98
Rising Scholar Award	5.33
Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference	5.37

National Award for Excellence in Teaching	6.08
ACEJMC membership	6.37

Distinguished Service Award	7.18
Southeastern Symposium	8.09
Southeastern Review of Journalism History journal	9.33

With the Blanchard Dissertation Award, research grants, the Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend, and the Rising Scholar Award all in the top tier of choices for the qualitative rankings, concern for graduate students and young scholars is clear. Other suggestions with more than one comment included suggestions for cutting costs, particularly raising annual dues and considering hybrid or virtual conferences.

Endowment questions

Only 2 of our members responded to the question about starting an endowment to say that they had already made a bequest to AJHA in their estate. However, 24 other members said they have considered making such a bequest.

Of the respondents who said they had not left a bequest to AJHA, most cited other priorities—usually family—or a lack of adequate income as a reason they have not considered donating. However, 14 people said the idea had simply not occurred to them and an additional 7 indicated that they would consider it now that they were asked. Not surprisingly, 9 people said they were too early in their career to consider it.

Conference questions

When members were asked to indicate how important or unimportant different aspects of the conference were, the most important aspect was clearly funding for graduate students. This was followed by low hotel room rates and registration fees, the Blanchard Dissertation Prize winners session, the historic tour, the awards luncheon, and a free night for exploring the city. At the bottom was the Outstanding Local Journalist Award and reception, the Saturday night gala, the Donna Allen luncheon, breakfast every morning, and being in an historic hotel.

Conference items	Mean (highest=most important)
Funding for graduate students	4.17

Low hotel room rates	3.79
Low registration fee	3.57
Blanchard Dissertation Prize winners’ session	3.54
Historic tour	3.46
Awards luncheon (includes Kobre & teaching award)	3.21
Free night for exploring the city	3.17

Local journalist award/reception	2.91
Saturday night gala	2.80
Donna Allen luncheon	2.65
Breakfast every morning	2.43
Being in an historic hotel	2.39

The conference is the jewel of our organization, giving members the chance to network, get feedback and advice on research, and generally be a collegial and supportive group of scholars with a shared interest. Not surprisingly, the funded items our members found the most important (Blanchard Dissertation Prize, McKerns Research Grants, Book Award, Sweeney graduate student travel funding, Rising Scholar Award, and the Joint Journalism and Communication History conference) are also all tied to research, networking, and mentoring. We have a strong mission, and we are staunch defenders of that mission.

Members did offer some ideas for bringing in more revenue including raising membership dues, asking for donations, starting an endowment, and, in the interest of helping our members continue to come to the conference, reducing conference costs by not being in an historic hotel and lowering the price of some of the add-on meals.

Our membership also was extremely positive about the work of the board and leadership, thanking them for asking for membership feedback, doing good work, and making tough decisions. In the two open-ended questions asking members to share their thoughts with the leadership and board, the most frequent comments were simple thank you’s and words of support to the board.

One member wrote, “I have full confidence in your decision-making. This is my all-time favorite organization and my admiration for the membership and leadership knows no bounds.”

Another wrote, “Thanks for making these hard choices. This organization is very important and must endure.”

Survey demographics

Of the 137 members who completed the survey, 93 were regular members (67.9%), 16 were lifetime members (11.7%), 5 were students (3.6%), and 23 were retired members (16.8%). The majority of these had been members for over 20 years (41 people) with only 1 person saying it was their first year in the organization. The rest were roughly evenly divided among the other three categories with 24 being members for 2-5 years, 37 being members for 6-10 years, and 34 being members for 11-20 years. Not surprisingly, roughly half (53%) were full-time tenured educators, followed by retired members (19%), full-time non-tenured educators (15%), other (6%), independent scholars (5%), and part-time educators (2%).

Members reported that their institutional support for research expenses, membership dues, and conference registration and travel—a question only asked of those who identified as full or part-time educators—ranged from 0% funding to 100% funding for each category. Conference registration and travel was the most well-funded with a mean of 55.7, followed by research expenses with a mean of 43.4, and membership dues with a mean of 34.2.

In the interest of bringing in more members, a handful of people suggested that AJHA should broaden its scope in terms of how it defines journalism/media history both at the conference and in the journal. One member explained, “We need to continue to broaden the scope of what we do; media history is more than journalism.”

We as an organization have a lot of work ahead of us, but members seem to agree that it is an organization well worth the effort. As one member said, “Thanks for taking this on. It is a terrible job, but thank you for doing the hard work to protect our organization.”

Lisa Parcell and Aimee Edmondson are both Ex-Officio Board Members. Parcell serves as a finance officer and Edmondson is a former president of AJHA.

Member Spotlight: Jason Lee Guthrie

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 16:08:17 GMT

How did you become involved in AJHA?

My doctoral advisor, Dr. Janice Hume at The University of Georgia, is a long-time AJHA member and encouraged me to get involved early in my program. My first AJHA conference was in 2014 in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was my first academic conference ever. I feel very fortunate to have lucked into such an incredible community that has been supporting me from the very beginning of my career.

What drew you to the field of journalism and media history?

I was somewhat atypical of students in my cohort at UGA, and I think of most graduate students at large J-schools. My background was in entertainment, not journalism, and my masters degree was in education, not communication. I had a good bit of teaching experience before pursuing my doctorate but really had no idea what kind of research I was interested in doing. In my first semester we had a Research Methods class where we had to telephone surveys of registered voters and I quickly realized that kind of research was not for me. I was drawn to history for a few reasons. I liked the idea of storytelling and narrative playing an important role in the work. I also liked the detective work we get to do in the archives. But I have to say that a lot of the draw was getting to work with Dr. Hume and other fabulous media historians like Karen Russell and Jay Hamilton at UGA.

Talk some more about your research and how it has evolved.

I truly had no idea what I wanted to do for my dissertation when I started my doctoral work. Once I landed on history as a methodology, I went through many (many many) rounds of topic ideas. I ended up deciding to focus on copyright because I had always wanted to understand that side of the entertainment industry. In the digital age, independent artists can handle so many aspects of their careers on their own. You can design your own t-shirts and posters, build your own website, sell your own merch. But the legal piece is still really nebulous for most creative people to navigate. So much of the way that copyright law works in practice is by the fear of getting sued and the tediousness of its minutia. So I wanted to see if there was a way to put a human face on the history of copyright and make that history more accessible to the average creative person.

As for how its evolved, I think the methodological skills we have as historians are much more transferable than we often give ourselves credit for. My own interest in copyright history is pretty niche, but I’ve had opportunities to collaborate with people working on larger projects that intersect with copyright. I don’t know everything about their topic, but they wouldn’t have time to learn all the copyright minutia either. We can work together to produce something with more depth and richness than either of us would be able to do on our own. I’ve also really enjoyed working on different digital humanities projects that synergize my teaching and creative interests in media production with my research skills in history.

What hobbies/interests do you have outside of academia?

Music is my first love, and I still enjoy playing guitar and singing, though I don’t get to do it nearly as much as I used to. I am really into podcasts, both as a listener and a producer. My latest project was a podcast on President Jimmy Carter that has been well received. Its available at RecollectingCarter.com.

Jason Lee Guthrie is a media historian at Clayton State University interested in the intersections of creativity and economics. He has specific interests in the creative industries and intellectual property law.

Ditching the Research Paper: A Teaching Essay

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 15:50:19 GMT

By Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen

When I took media history as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin, three components determined my grade: a midterm (blue book), final (also a blue book) and 10-page research paper. It was a lot of writing – my hand still cramps when I think of those blue book exams – and followed a rigid structure. As a teaching assistant, the courses I taught followed a similar set up. It was only natural that, when it was time for me to start prepping my first classes as an assistant professor, I found myself following the class grading structure that was familiar.

But as the semester unfolded, I realized that this structure was not working. The exams weren’t the problem – it was the research paper. Students weren’t excited about the paper because they were intimidated by the structure, by the topic and by how much of their grade depended on one assignment. They spent their time trying to write less about what interested them and more about what they thought the instructor wanted to read. It wasn’t that the students couldn’t do the work of historical research, it was that they weren’t inspired to. In defaulting to what I knew – and what made me comfortable – I had neglected to create an environment for students to take (calculated) risks and get their hands dirty doing history.

My challenge was to create an assignment that was structured enough to give students the confidence to analyze historical primary sources, but also provided students with enough flexibility to pursue a topic of interest to them and present their findings in a format that was a better match for their skillset. On the hunt for a research paper alternative, I attended an active learning symposium hosted by the University of Idaho’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. As I listened to case studies from my colleagues, I realized there were a wide variety of assignment strategies I could employ in my classes that would allow me to achieve my learning objectives without using the traditional research paper. I settled Ignite-style presentations – short, five-minute, TED-talk-like presentations about a topic students would select themselves and deliver with only a slide deck and sparse notes.

For my class, these presentations proved ideal. Students would use the same skills as writing a traditional research paper, but the end result was different. Synthesizing their secondary research findings and primary source analysis into a five-minute presentation required them to master a topic and explain complicated and complex material quickly. Creating a slide deck to accompany their presentations added a visual requirement that enhanced their written work (it also made the presentations more entertaining and engaging). This flexibility in format was especially appealing to the wide variety of majors in my course, several who had last written a formal essay in high school.

As an educator, I find it important to think critically about how my assignments are serving my students – an extension of the student-centered care that Bailey Dick discussed in her recent (and excellent) Intelligencer column. What worked for me may not work for my students, and what works for my students now may not work in several years. Re-thinking this assignment forced me to articulate the learning outcomes for my class and really think through exactly what I wanted students to get out of these assignments. I realized that I needed to better understand the students’ apprehensions and fears, and their interests and strengths.

I have yet to inspire a student to look through microfilm rolls (some things about historical research remain too intimidating). But I have seen student enthusiasm for this project increase and with it the quality of the work being done. Students have engaged with the big questions facing media history – whose history is preserved and what does that mean for our understanding of history – without too much nudging from me. They’ve used this project to explore questions about diversity, media narratives and institutional power structures.They’ve taken this as a chance to research topics we don’t get to cover in detail in my class (or ones mentioned in passing in other courses). And at the end of every semester, I get to listen to 30 presentations that showcase the breadth of media history. By stepping out of my comfort zone, I allowed my students to step into theirs.

Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen is an Assistant Professor at the University of Idaho and the recent winner of AEJMC's Jinx C. Broussard Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Media History.

Sharing What’s New About What’s Old: American Journalism Historian Association’s 42nd Annual Convention Highlights

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 15:44:00 GMT

By Caryl Cooper

Once again, AJHA lived up to its reputation as the destination conference for scholars dedicated to exploring the people and events that have built the mass communication industry and influenced society. This year, more that 90 scholars converged at the historic Westin Great Southern Columbus Hotel. Most of our members realized that Columbus would be a memorable conference when they walked into the hotel lobby. To say that the hotel is beautiful is an understatement. The looks of wonder, smiles on everyone’s faces and the thanks for finding such a gem were priceless! Presenting historical knowledge in an historic hotel is truly a unique experience.

Awards

Scholars receive awards throughout the conference. On Friday, Molly Thacker received the Margaret A. Blanchard Dissertation Award. In addition to Tracy Lucht’s installation an AJHA president for 2023-2024, research and service awards were given during Saturday’s General Business Meeting.

Panel Highlights

Giving scholars the opportunity to present their research to other scholars is the mission for most academic conventions. For AJHA, panel sessions devoted to discussions that make the connection between our past and our present are equally important and memorable. Felicia Ross’ local panel, Ohio: a Haven for Presidential Beginnings, focused on Ohio’s influence on our presidents (eight were born or lived in the state) featured local historians. Also notable was AJHA President Mike Conway’s panel that addressed the future of inclusive history and the challenges some of our members are experiencing. Earnest Perry’s panel explored the evolution of political and racial consciousness in the black press and how those newspapers bridged the gap between mainstream and advocacy media.

Awards

In addition to focusing on historical research, AJHA’s convention is known for its focus on recognizing members for their research and teaching achievements.

Thursday’s Awards Luncheon featured LSU’s John Maxwell Hamilton, this year’s winner of the Sidney Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement and Temple University’s Erin Coyle, winner of the National Award for Excellence in Teaching. Coyle’s address about her commitment to students, teaching philosophy and aspirations was moving and memorable.

Making Community Connections

Each year, AJHA builds ties with the local journalist community by presenting the Local Journalist Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Public Interest to a local journalist in the host community during the Thursday evening reception. The convention’s Local Host Committee is tasked with identifying candidates that fit the description and selecting a winner. This year, the committee, comprised of Aimee Edmondson (Ohio University), Felicia Ross (Ohio State University) and LoWanda James (Conference Assistant and hometown resident), selected Jerry Revish for the honor. Revish is an award-winning journalist who reported news throughout the region for more than four decades. His reporting helped exonerate a man wrongfully convicted of rape. He received numerous awards for his commitment to truth: 13 Emmys and four regional Edward R Murrow Awards, and he was inducted into the Ohio Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2005.

In addition to identifying local journalists, AJHA uses the Donna Allen Luncheon to feature female journalists that are recognized in the community as having made a difference. This year the Local Host Committee identified two women worthy of this honor: Angela Pace, a 40-year television journalist and director of community affairs for WBNS-TV, and Edwina Blackwell Clark, executive editor of the Columbus Dispatch. For this luncheon, the Local Host Committee went back to the future and had a roundtable discussion moderated by Caryl Cooper, emerita, University of Alabama. The roundtable attracted many of the hotel staff that knew and respected Angela Pace.

Gala and more

More than 50 members gathered at Sidebar Tapas Bar and Grill, a local restaurant known for authentic South American cuisine. The Gala is a special time for conversation, networking and fun. Everyone gave the restaurant a five-star review.

Caryl Cooper is AJHA Conference Coordinator and an Emerita Professor from the University of Alabama.

Book Essay: How the News Feels

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 18 Sep 2023 21:56:54 GMT

By Jonathan D. Fitzgerald

Historically, when women’s stories were told by the so-called objective press, they were often constrained to preconceived notions of stereotypical gender roles, marked as “fallen,” sensationalized as cold-blooded killers or hapless victims, flattened into archetypes to conform to cultural narratives, or stereotyped as microcosmic representations of a larger demographic. But media is not monolith, and the objectified press is not the last word. In my book, How the News Feels: The Empathic Power of Literary Journalists (University of Massachusetts Press, 2023) I argue that from the early nineteenth century to today, women literary journalists have proven particularly effective at creating space for empathy in their writing—a much needed contrast to sensational reporting and objectified journalism. Some of the best and most persuasive—as well as woefully underrepresented—examples of literary journalism were written by women who worked against reductive, objectified representations of their subjects to tell stories imbued with empathy.

Beginning in the nineteenth century, women journalists went to and reported from places that their readers had never visited themselves. Enabling readers to see those who are locked away in unseen places like asylums and prisons through descriptions that were unabashedly subjective and sentimental was an alternative kind of news.

Neither literature nor journalism was telling the story that they wanted to tell in the way they wanted to tell it, so many women journalists forged their own way, which proved to be revolutionary both in terms of subject matter and style. Simultaneously, through the very act of expanding the sentimental beyond the domestic sphere and into the decidedly public arena of the urban daily newspaper, these early literary journalists moved from the private to the public sphere and brought a perceived moral mastery with them.

Even as literature moved away from sentimentalism and as journalism moved toward an “ideal of objectivity,” literary journalists continued to utilize a sentimental ethos against objectified journalism to write about those whose stories had gone untold or had been otherwise caricatured. Indeed, this hybridization of genres proved productive for women writers in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century.

When Catharine Williams writes of Sarah Maria Cornell, a murdered factory worker, in her book Fall River, or when Margaret Fuller appeals to her readers to see the women she encountered in an asylum, they tell true stories in a sentimental mode with the cumulative effect of evoking empathy for their subjects. In this way, women writers in the nineteenth century were pivotal in the development of the genre that would become literary journalism, and their sentimental ethos—what I call their empathic power—has been carried on by generations of literary journalists through to today.

Jonathan D. Fitzgerald is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities at Regis College in Weston, Massachusetts.

Bid Early and Generously: AJHA Auction

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 18 Sep 2023 14:07:21 GMT

By Jon Marshall

Interested in original newspapers from the 1800s? Historic magazines? Rare sports memorabilia? A Mike Sweeney painting? Autographed books by famous journalists and AJHA award winners? A bottle of whiskey?

Now’s your chance to own these items and much more as bidding for the AJHA silent auction begins September 19 and continues through September 29, the Friday night of the Columbus conference.

In addition to the silent auction, we’re bringing back a live auction to this year’s conference. It will be led by auctioneer extraordinaire David Davies and will take place at the end of the Thursday evening reception. All money from both auctions will go to the Michael Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend to help the new generation of media historians afford to attend our conference.

To browse the auction items and start bidding, go to this link: https://givebutter.com/c/AJHA23 or use the QR code above to get to our GiveButter auction site, then click on the auction tab at the top. There’s also a button where you can donate directly to AJHA if you don’t feel like bidding on anything but still want to help our grad students.

You’ll be able to see the actual items in person starting Thursday, September 28 at our Westin Great Southern conference hotel in Columbus. The bidding will end just before midnight Friday, September 29. You’ll get a notice if you won something and then need to pay for your items by the end of the AJHA business meeting on Saturday, September 30, when you can pick up your winnings.

Bid early, bid often and bid generously. You’ll find great deals on fun and historic items at the AJHA auction, but keep in mind that the purpose of the auction is to help grad students attend our conferences. If you can afford to bid (donate) higher, please do. You might ask the colleagues in your department if they’d like you to bid on something for you. Or seek out a graduate student at the conference and see if they have their eye on any auction items and then bid on it for them.

Even though the bidding is online, you must be in Columbus to pick up your auction items at the end of Saturday’s business meeting. We will not be shipping any auction items. If you can’t be there but really want a specific auction object, you can talk to one of us going to Columbus to see if we’d be willing to get it to you in exchange for a generous bid/donation.

If you’re donating items for the auction, don’t forget to bring them to Columbus. We will have instructions at the AJHA registration table for where you can drop off your items when you arrive.

If you have questions or ideas about the auction, please let me know at j-marshall@northwestern.edu.

Member Spotlight: Gerry Lanosga

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 18 Sep 2023 13:58:35 GMT

How did you become involved in AJHA?

My first AJHA conference was in New Orleans 2013. That was a year after I started working at IU and became colleagues with my former professor Mike Conway, who encouraged me to submit a paper. The only conference I’ve missed since then was Oklahoma City in 2015. Among the many things I love about the conferences are the civilized (read: not too early) breakfasts and the fact that the sessions are usually done by around 5.

Your do both historical work and social science research. How do you reconcile those?

The most important thing I learned in graduate school is to pick the research method that helps you answer your questions. In my long career as a reporter, I became increasingly interested in the workings of journalism as a practice and an institution, and my questions didn’t stop with current affairs. I’m interested in journalism’s role in contemporary democratic society, for instance, but I also wanted to know why that relationship developed the way it did. So I’ve spent my academic career so far straddling the fence between history and social science, and I think that has helped me have a more holistic view of journalism in society than I otherwise would.

What research would you be doing if you weren’t studying journalism?

Although I’ve been in Indiana since 1988 and thus must acknowledge I’ve become a Hoosier, I still think of myself as a Westerner because I was born and raised in Colorado and did most of my undergraduate work in California. Consequently I have always been fascinated by the history of the western U.S. and would like to indulge that interest at some point – maybe bringing the streams together. And maybe I could even work a little cryptozoology into the mix (see below).

What hobbies/interests do you have outside academia?

My happy times growing up involved big mountains, and so I try to get out of the flatlands at least once a year to hike them. So far I’ve summited eight of the 54 peaks in Colorado that are higher than 14,000 feet. Somewhat related to that, I have a weird side interest in the myth and lore of Bigfoot, having spent many nights camping and terrified of what was out there in the deep, dark woods.

Gerry Lanosga is the Director of Journalism and Associate Professor at the Media School at Indiana University Bloomington.

Member Spotlight: Carol Sue Humphrey

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 20:48:28 GMT

How did you become involved in AJHA?

My dissertation was about the role of the New England press in the American Revolution and I was looking for somewhere to make a presentation. I saw an advertisement for the AJHA Convention in St. Louis in 1986. I assumed that a group devoted to journalism history would be interesting and enjoyable and I was right. I have been involved ever since.
How did you become interested in the American Revolution?

I think I became intrigued about the American Revolution in order to snub my 2 brothers who were big Civil War buffs. When I went to grad school, I knew that I wanted to do something about the American Revolution, so I talked to Dr. Don Higginbotham, the University of North Carolina Revolution historian. He had a stack of index cards in his desk with possible research topics that he did not want to do himself. One was the role of the press during the American Revolution. That idea fascinated me and things took off from there.
What impact did the press have on the American Revolution?

Many people who have read my work are fascinated by the impact of the press on the American Revolution. For many, it was something they had never really thought about and they were a bit surprised at how big the impact was (particularly when they think about how long it took for stories to travel from one place to another – we are so used to hearing news stories quickly and almost immediately that many people don’t imagine how news in the past could still have a huge impact even though it could take weeks to arrive).
What are your hobbies and other interests outside of academia?
My hobbies and interests outside of academia are still somewhat history-related. I enjoy doing counted cross-stitched pieces and many that I do are replicas of historic pieces or related to history in some other way. I have retired from teaching so I looked for something else to do and I found something fun. I currently work at the local history museum in Shawnee and really enjoy working with artifacts that have been donated to the museum.

Carol Sue Humphrey is a professor of history at Oklahoma Baptist University and the author of numerous books on American history and journalism.

Brewing "Stone Soup:" A Call for American Journalism Editor

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 20:32:02 GMT

By Paulette D. Kilmer

Sometimes, I tell my students the folktale, “Stone Soup”:

Two hungry strangers notice the people in a prosperous village like to barter, and so they realize nobody will give them food without something in exchange. They dump debris out of a huge pot nearly lost under the weeds in a neighboring lot, wash it out, and build a fire with the pot full of water resting on the crisscrossed branches in the center of the hamlet. Soon the villagers gather around the two cooks.

“What are you doing?”

“Making stone soup—more delicious than words can say. To get a bowl, all you have to do is add one item—a potato, carrot, chunk of meat, onion, whatever to the pot.”

Within fifteen minutes, the pot was full of everybody’s leftovers all cooking in that boiling water. By sunset, the aroma wafted through the streets, and everybody—including the strangers—assembled in the park by the pot to eat soup and bread or cookies that good-hearted souls donated.

They told stories as the sun dipped out of sight and the moon rose amid the sparkling stars. Soon a fiddler and a concertina player emerged, and so they danced too.

That simple gesture of making a pot of soup together connected the strangers and villagers via generosity and imagination. Later, folks said the strangers who had nothing material beyond a stone to contribute gave the most because they reminded everybody of the power in two or more gathered in the name of sharing and caring.

The Publication Committee functions like a village making stone soup, only our brew involves ideas. Each person contributes wisdom, practical information, and encouragement. We all benefit from this communal sharing, and through our deliberations, we get to know one another better. We need everyone to do our best.

The next ingredient we need in AJHA's soup may be one you can throw in! Do you know anyone who would make a good editor of American Journalism? Please toss the name our way!

Over the years, we have worked with the board to appoint the editor positions of American Journalism and The Intelligencer. We offered advice during the discussions about joining Taylor and Francis. We participated in the process of going from paper to cyber formatting for The Intelligencer. Several times, we have worked together to fill both editorial positions in the same year. Our strength arises from the conversations via email that result in diverse views and fresh insights impossible to attain without robust exchanges.

In off years, when our services are not necessary for helping the board find candidates to edit our publications, we serve in advisory capacity. We may not meet very often if the board does not need our help with a task involving the scope, future, or efficacy of our publications. We are always on stand-by in case the board needs our input.

Unlike many AJHA committees, most members do not rotate off the Publication Committee because past editors of American Journalism and The Intelligencer understand the challenges of keeping these vital resources alive and healthy. We enlist as many prior editors as possible. We also benefit when AJHA members who have not edited our publications but take an interest in our tasks join our committee. We welcome new members and need them to help us make sound decisions.

For us, an idea provides the stone that inspires everybody to donate thoughts, concerns, or information to our savory broth of understanding that as a band of merry advisors to the board we shape into comments and reports. We enjoy serving AJHA and appreciate the board’s due diligence in helping us keep that vital water boiling so our organization continues to thrive.

Anyone wishing to join the AJHA Publications Committee should send an email to paulette.kilmer@utoledo.edu. We gain wisdom from new members.

Paulette Kilmer is the Publication Committee Chair of AJHA. She is also a Professor at the University of Toledo.

Auction Donations Due September

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 20:18:44 GMT

By Jon Marshall

As the deadline for donating items to the AJHA auction draws near, the generosity of our members is warming my heart. We are going to have some fun and fascinating things to bid on at our Columbus conference.

The deadline for donations to the auction is September 15. All funds raised will go to the Michael Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend to help our newest scholars afford to attend our conference.

The more items we can auction, the more money we can raise for our graduate students. Do you have an historical artifact you’d be willing to donate? Or memorabilia about journalism? Or something that represents your city or school? Or something that’s just plain fun?

If so, just take a photo of the item and write a brief description of it to submit on this form: https://forms.gle/C2MfDHoeCdtGtzZ79 Then bring it to Columbus with you (or send it with a friend) for the live auction Thursday evening and the silent auction that will conclude at Saturday’s business meeting. To make the bidding and logistics easier, try to think of items that can work together as a package.

We have received a great mix of donations so far:

From Ross Collins, a signed copy of his book “Children, War & Propaganda”
From Aimee Edmondson, an original Mike Sweeney painting
From Carol Sue Humphrey, a framed cross-stitch with a quote from Thomas Jefferson about his love of books
From Brooke Kroeger, a signed copy of her book "Undaunted: How Women Changed American Journalism"
From Jane Marcellus, a great collection of books:
- Edward Bernays’ 1928 “Propaganda”
- Cathryn Halverson’s “Faraway Women and The Atlantic Monthly”
- Landon R.Y. Storrs’ “Civilizing Capitalism”
- Sari Edelstein’s “Between the Novel and the News”
- Karen Roggenkamp’s “Narrating the News”
- Mary S. Mander’s “Pen and Sword”
From Kathryn McGarr, a signed copy of her award-winning book, “City of Newsmen”
From David Nord, original newspaper pages from the 1800s
From Pamela Walck, an investigative journalism basket featuring American Journalism's special Fall 2022 Watergate anniversary issue on investigative reporting along with four of the original media reviewed in the issue, including “The New Journalism” by Tom Wolfe & E.W. Johnson, “Forty Million Dollar Slaves” by William Rhoden, “16 Shots” directed by Richard Rowley, and “Spotlight” directed by Tom McCarthy
Also from Pamela Walck, a “Welcome to Pittsburgh!” sampling of Wigle Whiskey's offerings, including City of Champions Bourbon Whiskey (375 ml ) and 412 The Moon, Wigle's version of Fireball Whiskey (375 ml), plus a recycled highball-sized glass to enjoy your imbibing
From Julie Williams, a reproduction of the front page of the first issue of the Cherokee Phoenix and a reproduction of the entire March 13, 1928, issue
Also from Julie Williams, 1954 and 1964 issues of Life magazine
From Tracy Lucht, a “Nevertheless, She Persisted” package that includes:
A used copy of "Lady Editor: Careers for Women in Publishing" (1941)
A hand-painted, undated planner and a homemade candle from Warm Wishes in Jefferson, Iowa
A blank "Nevertheless, She Persisted" notebook
Two cans of craft beer and two cans of homemade root beer from Peace Tree, the first woman-owned brewery in Iowa
A $25 one-time subscription in the winner's name to Black Iowa News, an independent local news platform that highlights Black perspectives
A $25 donation in the winner's name to The 19th News, an independent, nonprofit newsroom that focuses on gender and policy
A paperback copy of "Mad Men and Working Women" by Erika Engstrom, Tracy Lucht, Jane Marcellus and Kimberly Wilmot Voss
A water bottle from Velorosa, which sells gear and supports women in cycling
Reusable tote

I’ve decided to donate a Chicago journalism package featuring an Ida B. Wells coffee mug, a “Dewey Defeats Truman” trivet, a Jet magazine T-shirt, and a Joseph Medill bobblehead. I’m also donating a signed copy of my book “Clash: Presidents and the Press in Times of Crisis.”

Do you have questions or ideas for the auction? Please email j-arshall@northwestern.edu.

Nominees for 2nd VP, Board of Directors

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 21:09:28 GMT

by Cathy Jackson, Norfolk State
Nominations and Elections Chair

The election will be conducted via online survey, distributed in early September. A write-in option will be available for each position.

Below are brief bios for each nominee.

Second Vice President

Michael Fuhlhage is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Wayne State University, in Detroit. He is a past winner of the National Award for Excellence in Teaching from the American Journalism Historians Association. An AJHA member for 18 years, he has served in many capacities, including chair of the Research Committee, panels coordinator, member of the Board of Directors, and a juror in the Book Awards competition, the Margaret Blanchard Dissertation Awards competition, and the AJHA McKerns Research Grant competition. Fuhlhage is the author of Yankee Reporters and Southern Secrets: Journalism, Open Source Intelligence, and the Coming of the Civil War (2019), co-editor of the Routledge Companion to American Journalism History (in press), and co-author of Newspapers’ Apologies for Complicity in Systemic Racism (forthcoming). His research interests include the development of stereotypes about Mexicans in U.S. mass media, the mid-nineteenth-century press, and the history of the book in American culture. Fuhlhage, noting the debt he owes AJHA for his successful academic career, said it has been a source of inspiration, instruction, direction, friendship, and networking. A role in AJHA leadership will allow him to encourage an expansive definition of diversity in scholarship, help junior scholars, and defend history against those who seek to undermine it.

Board of Directors

Mark Bernhardt is a history professor at Jackson State University. He has been a member of the American Journalism Historians Association for seven years and currently serves as chair of the History in the Curriculum Committee and on the editorial board of Historiography in Mass Communication. He is the recipient of the 2020 Joseph McKerns Research Grant and has published in both American Journalism and Journalism History. His research interests include how newspapers, films, and television engage in public discourse about social and cultural issues connected to imperialism and its legacy in the transnational North American West, U.S. involvement in wars, and intersectionality in U.S. society. He values AJHA because it serves as a home for interdisciplinary scholars in a variety of fields who share the common interest of studying history. His desire is to strengthen AJHA, help it grow, support ongoing advocacy to include media history as a requirement in the Mass Communications curriculum, and build connections with history departments.

Christina Littlefield is an associate professor in journalism and religion at Pepperdine University. Her first book, Chosen Nations, investigated the late nineteenth-century social gospel in Great Britain and the United States, and she conducts ongoing research into muckraking work in those countries. Littlefield is updating a book with Richard Hughes for University of Illinois Press looking at Christian nationalism today, including its usage of right-wing media. As a higher education and religion reporter at the Las Vegas Sun, Littlefield’s investigative work led to jail time for a corrupt community college official. Littlefield is currently the AJHA web editor. She fell in love with the AJHA conference format in Little Rock in 2017, after she won the Rising Scholar research funding. She volunteered to serve because she deeply appreciates how the AJHA national conference supports members’ research, honors local journalists, provides extensive opportunities for networking, and includes a historical field trip.

Lori Amber Roessner, a professor in the University of Tennessee's School of Journalism & Electronic Media, teaches and studies media history and its relationship to cultural phenomena and practices. She is the author of Inventing Baseball Heroes: Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson and the Sporting Press in America (2014) and Jimmy Carter and the Birth of the Marathon Media Campaign (2020), and she co-edited Political Pioneer of the Press: Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Her Transnational Crusade for Social Justice (2018). Her research articles have appeared in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly and Journalism History, contributing to her receiving the American Journalism’s inaugural Rising Scholar award in 2014. Her 2020 Journalism History manuscript, “The Voices of Public Opinion: Lingering Structures of Feeling about Women’s Suffrage in 1917 U.S. Newspaper Letters to the Editor,” won the 2021 AEJMC History Division’s Covert Award, an annual award for the best mass communication history article in the previous year. Roessner was honored with the AJHA's 2017 Award for Excellence in Teaching and earned recognition from AEJMC History Division’s Inaugural Transformative Teaching of Media and Journalism History. Roessner, an AJHA member since 2006, regularly presents at AJHA and remains deeply committed to her service within the organization. She was a member of the AJHA Book Award Committee, a judge on AJHA’s Blanchard Dissertation Prize committee, a member of AJHA’s Board of Directors, the Chair of AJHA’s Election & Nominations Committee, president of AJHA’s Graduate Student Committee, and a regular reviewer for the conference and American Journalism.

Member Spotlight: David Dowling

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 22:26:37 GMT

How did you become involved in AJHA?

I first became involved in the AJHA in 2014. After finalizing the revisions for my article in American Journalism titled “Reporting the Revolution: Margaret Fuller, Herman Melville, and the Italian Risorgimento,” my editor at the time suggested that I consider submitting my next project for presentation at the upcoming AJHA meeting. I followed this advice, presented at the next conference, and since have remained affiliated with AJHA.

How does media history factor into your research on digital media?

History frames every chapter in Immersive Longform Storytelling: Media, Technology, Audience (Routledge, 2019) and Podcast Journalism: The Promise and Perils of Audio Media (Columbia University Press, forthcoming in 2024). The brief yet fierce evolution of digital media forms of journalistic storytelling are best understood as emerging from cultural discourses and production practices within publishing industries and creative networks that thrived long before the digital revolution. For example, one study (with Subin Paul) published in a special issue of Digital Journalism dedicated to journalism history examines the role of digital archiving as a form of social protest among India’s lowest caste, which endures chronic oppression and marginalization. In another example, my study on right-wing podcasting’s impact on the January 6 insurrection is historically framed with discussion of how the current discourse of incendiary hosts such as Dan Bongino modeled their approach after 1990s talk radio firebrand Rush Limbaugh.

What areas of nineteenth-century journalism history do you think deserve more attention?

Scholars have only begun to fully comprehend the profound impact of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s philosophy on the antebellum periodical press. In Emerson’s Newspaperman: Horace Greeley and Radical Intellectual Culture, 1836-1872 (Journalism and Communication Monographs, 2017), I explore these issues with respect to Emerson’s impact on the thinking and editorial policy of Horace Greeley, the iconic editor of the New York Daily Tribune. I am hoping to pursue future work connecting Emerson’s thought to the importance of local journalism, tentatively in collaboration with Jonathan D. (“Fitz”) Fitzgerald. Fitz, by the way, published a wonderful book in 2023 titled How the New Feels: The Empathic Power of Literary Journalists on antebellum and Progressive Era women writers’ influence on the rise of literary journalism, a movement with a long history prior to Tom Wolfe and the New Journalists of the mid twentieth century.

What do you think is the best title of all time among books dedicated to journalism history?

That’s easy—Froth and Scum: Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and the Ax Murder in America’s First Mass Medium, by Andie Tucher. My echo of the stylistics of this title can be heard in the title of my 2019 book, A Delicate Aggression: Savagery and Survival in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop (Yale University Press), but it’s nowhere close to Andie’s boldness, verve, and precision.

What hobbies/interests do you have outside of academia?

My wife, daughters, and son spend each summer in Boulder, CO where we enjoy hiking, biking, and running the Front Range. As a former competitive distance runner, I have trained and raced at a variety of distances, from 5K to the marathon. My fondest memories, however, are of completing three triathlons with my oldest daughter Jackie (who just earned her PhD from Caltech in chemistry) and a half marathon with her younger sister Eveline, who is working on a PhD in Political Science at UC Davis.

David Dowling is a Professor in the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication. His work in digital media and journalism studies centers on developments in publishing industries that drive markets and cultural production.

AJHA Auction

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 15:20:48 GMT

By Mike Conway

One of my lasting memories of AJHA happened at my first conference in Billings, Montana, 20 years ago. Somebody walked up to me on the last night of the conference and nonchalantly handed me an envelope with my name on it. I opened it up and it was a check.

All these years later, I don’t remember the amount of that check. But as a graduate student stressing over mounting student loan debt, any amount was helpful, and the money wasn’t as important to me as the gesture.

So much of the academic structure seems designed to remind graduate students of their place in the hierarchy. But in this case, these people were handing me money and making sure I had it before I left for home.

As I’m writing this, acceptance emails are going out for our Columbus conference in September. I’ve had a sneak peek at who will be on the program, but I need to keep that quiet for now. I will just say that several graduate students will be receiving that check (or some more modern monetary transaction) when we meet in Columbus in September.

I want to remind you that we have two ways of raising money for the Michael Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend. First, you can donate directly on our website. The more festive option though is our AJHA auction. The auction was revived by popular demand last year, and Jon Marshall volunteered to organize this fundraiser and is waiting for your media history items for the auction.

All you have to do is find something interesting or cool that people will want to bid on. Then you take a picture of it and fill out this form. You will bring the item to Columbus, and we’ll put it out on display so people can see the item both online and in-person. The bidding will end on the Friday night of the conference, and we’ll give you your winning goodies at the Saturday business meeting. The catch is you need to be attending the conference to donate or bid on auction items. (Unless you can bribe someone to bring or retrieve auction items for you.)

What to donate? Traditionally, we have focused on cool media history items. Old newspapers, magazines, books, coffee cups, glasses, and other promotional material. Right above my desk are a couple of 1940s-era Erie Dispatch newspaper calendars I bought at a previous auction to remind me of my time working in that city.

You can also donate non-media related items that you think people would like, such as a unique product from your part of the country. Carolyn Sweeney, widow of Mike Sweeney, has once again donated a few of Mike’s original paintings for the auction.

We have found that the most successful donations tend to be very rare publications or a collection of items under a specific theme. AJHA First Vice President Tracy Lucht has set a high bar this year with her “Nevertheless, She Persisted” auction package. That has me scrambling through bins and boxes in my basement to come up with my own interesting collection.

The size of next year’s Sweeney Stipend check depends on how many items we have in the auction this year and how much we all bid on those items.

If you have any questions, contact Jon Marshall at j-marshall@northwestern.edu.

A Newspaper is Like a Feast: Julie Hedgepeth Williams on Teaching

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 15:15:46 GMT

By Julie Hedgepeth Williams

Samford University recently decided professors should teach freshman English based on their own field of research. Therefore I get to teach freshman English as media history. Huzzah! I take students to the archives, where they study media of various eras, then write and speak about their findings.

I started the semester with a poem from 1770 :

A Newspaper is like a feast,

Some dish there is for every guest;

Some large, some small, some strong, some tender,

For every stomach, stout or slender;

Those who roast beef and ale delight in,

Are pleased with trumpets, drums and fighting;

For those who are more puny made,

Are arts and sciences, and trade;

For fanciful and amorous blood,

We have soft poetic food;

For witty and satiric folks,

High-seasoned, acid, bitter jokes;

And when we strive to please the mob,

A jest, a quarrel, or a job.

If any gentleman wants a wife,

(A partner, as ‘tis termed, for life)

An advertisement does the thing,

And quickly brings the pretty thing.

If you want health, consult our pages,

You shall be well, and live for ages….

Our services you can’t express,

The good we do you hardly guess;

There’s not a want of human kind,

But we a remedy can find.

At semester’s end, I asked students how the poem had come true over the semester. Following is a sample of answers:

Newspapers are foreign to me and my generation! It was a cool experience that allowed me to look through another form of media that is not social.”
Who knew food could be compared to newspapers in such a way that it works? Cars and car advertisements are my “dish,” but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t learn to enjoy other “dishes” as well. One topic that I found fascinating was horses in the colonial era. The more “missing horse” ads I read, the more I understood horses were not just livestock, they were also transportation and a financial investment.
I felt like I was live on the battle scene during a British takeover of an American settlement during the Revolution. I felt the wrath of Britain and the fear and hatred that America had for them. There is definitely something to be said about reading original accounts of events.
It was sad to see how black people were sold for certain amount of money, as if they were animals. I remember one ad mentioned that if you found a missing pocketbook, they would give you in return a horse, along with a Black slave.
“For witty and satiric folks” reminded me of a humorous article I saw on Woodrow Wilson’s grandchild. The article was about astrology and how, given his zodiac chart, this baby was going to be the new president.
To my surprise there were numerous women on the 1950s covers of Sports Illustrated. However, authors wanted to conserve their femininity as much as possible. “An advertisement does the thing, And quickly brings the pretty thing” reflected the way Sports Illustrated always made it a point to describe women athletes as pretty and beguiling.
Medicines were presented in newspapers throughout various eras. “If you want health, consult our pages” – or maybe don’t, considering that in early time periods, many of the medicines advertised contained mercury.
After listening to all my classmates' speeches, I realized that newspapers contain so much information that we only see half of it.
When someone says, “A Newspaper is like a feast,” they’re not entirely wrong. A newspaper includes something for everyone, ranging from political news, cartoons, advertisements, jokes, and even importantly boring articles. Everything I have read this semester has broadened my perspective of not only how news used to be communicated, but how much fake news is an issue today. This pandemic of fake news via the internet is concerning.
Overall this class brought a new source to my writing arsenal. The next time I’m writing a paper, instead of clicking on just another internet article, I’m going to find a newspaper article that will give me an even better understanding of what I’m writing about.

Teaching Essay: Teaching with Care

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Thu, 22 Jun 2023 22:12:14 GMT

By Bailey Dick

My AP Lit teacher was so prone to one-liners that someone created a booklet full of them. When someone would make a point in a class discussion, she’d exclaim, “Alas! The very day!” When one of us would steer us off topic, she’d crawl on the floor, assume the fetal position, and croak out, “I’ve lost the will to live.” Her one-liners were iconic, but the one she was most famous for was: “May your weekend be filled with decaffeinated tea and chastity.” She was my favorite teacher I’ve ever had.

At the time, I was delighted by her Brit Lit-infused vocab and the general exasperation that comes with teaching 17-year-old girls for decades. But now, after seven years of teaching myself, I understand she was really manifesting, hoping beyond hope that we’d be safe while we weren’t discussing Hamlet or Wuthering Heights in her classroom.

Toward the end of this spring semester, one of my students pointed out that I’d been inadvertently doing the same thing my AP Lit teacher did: Squawking a handful of the same phrases at my own students as they left the classroom. I don’t know if my students are as delighted by my fervent pleas for their protection to God, the universe, karma, whomever would listen, as I was at the same pleas my own teacher made. But I do know my students have heard directly from me that I care about them.

I was asked to write this column because of a teaching award I won recently. And over the last year, I was asked to be part of a teaching panel at last year’s AJHA, presented at my school’s colloquium series and to a graduate class about my teaching and research, and have been taking a year-long course for faculty that shares best practices for the classroom. In each of these settings where I’ve been asked to share a bit about how I teach, someone has been totally thrown off-kilter whenever I’ve brought up the care work I do in the classroom, whether it’s stocking my office with snacks and personal hygiene items, not having an attendance policy, or occasionally bringing a treat for my students. Years ago in grad school, I had a course supervisor storm through the halls of our building, flinging open doors looking for me, furious that I was trying to “rig” my student evaluations via cookies, when really, I just knew my students were stressed out, away from home for the first time in their lives, and hadn’t eaten any non-cafeteria food in a while.

I’ve been wondering for years why some professors seem to blanch at any mention of care, and the more I think about it, the more I’ve come to believe that it’s because so many academics have been shaped by an education where genuine care is unheard of in the classroom. Whether the hyper-competitivity of graduate school or the golden calf of objectivity in journalism that keeps compassion at arms’ length, those of us who have worked in, research, and now teach journalism may feel deeply uncomfortable with the prospect of integrating more care work into our teaching. But bell hooks, whose work is the foundation of not only my own teaching but much of my research, argues that love and care not only belong in the classroom, but that we as educators need to model that love and care for ourselves, too:

“Realizing that my students were uncertain about expressions of care and love in the classroom, I found it necessary to teach on the subject. I asked students once: ‘Why do you feel that the regard I extend to a particular student cannot also be extended to each of you? Why do you think there is not enough love or care to go around?’ To answer these questions they had to think deeply about the society we live in, how we are taught to compete with one another. They had to think about capitalism and how it informs the way we think about love and care, the way we live in our bodies, the way we try to separate mind from body. There is not much passionate teaching or learning taking place in higher education today. Even when students are desperately yearning to be touched by knowledge, professors still fear the challenge, allow their worries about losing control to override their desires to teach. Concurrently, those of us who teach the same old subjects in the same old ways are often inwardly bored-unable to rekindle passions we may have once felt. If, as Thomas Merton suggests in his essay on pedagogy ‘Learning to Live,’ the purpose of education is to show students how to define themselves ‘authentically and spontaneously in relation’ to the world, then professors can best teach if we are self-actualized.” (Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, 198-199)

Care and love can be scary. And for both our students and us educators, it might feel like we’re breaking some unwritten rule.

To which I say, “Good.”

Caring for and loving our students shouldn’t be seen as wrong, extraordinary, or even something deserving of an award. Rather, it should be the baseline, the norm, the prerequisite for being entrusted to learn with and from one’s students–and this is true now more than ever..

The majority of undergraduate students meet the diagnostic criteria for at least one mental health problems, nearly half have symptoms of depression, more than a third experience anxiety, and 15% of our students have “seriously considered suicide,” which is the second leading cause of death among college students. The students in our classrooms are increasingly faced with food insecurity, crippling debt, learning loss, and the responsibility of caring for a family member. Many members of the professoriate may not be able to directly relate to many of the experiences their students face given their own socioeconomic privilege. And still many professors feel the need to maintain rigid classroom norms, practices, grading and attendance policies, or expectations of our students that fail to consider their realities. Just because something was difficult for us, why should it be made even more difficult for our students, given their current situations? Our students have many more things to be stressed about besides our classes and self-created policies. In addition to reassuring our students that we’re aware our classes aren’t the most important thing happening in their lives, we can be flexible in how we assess student learning, allowing them to demonstrate learning in a way that works best for them, and asking “Why not?” rather than “Why should I allow that?” in response to student questions about learning.

So many of us in the academy are exhausted, overworked, and underpaid. And the prospect of having to pour even more into our students at times seems like a herculean task. This is doubly true for women and people of color who shoulder the majority of the unpaid care labor burden both at work and at home.

I’ve found my own teaching is more fulfilling and energizing when I’ve oriented it in a framework of care, respect, and reciprocity, in seeing my students as not “kids,” but fellow adults from whom I have the opportunity to learn, and as people who are (blessedly) far better and brighter than I was at their age.

There are so many incredible teaching resources out there for both journalism educators and for media historians–resources folks like you have created and shared, and that I’ve been lucky enough to use. I don’t have anything to add to that canon in this column.

Instead, I’ll leave you with the one-liners I repeatedly holler at my students:

We live on a floating rock in space. There is nothing worth being stressed over in this class.
Stay hydrated and please drink some water.
Make good life choices.
I’m so proud of you.

Our students need to be loved–aggressively. I hope you’ll start yelling (at least in this particular way) at your students, too.

Bailey Dick is an Assistant Professor in the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University.

Maximizing Impact with the AJHA Auction

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Thu, 22 Jun 2023 19:30:13 GMT

By Tracy Lucht

It started with a book on my shelf, a gem from 1941 once held in Iowa State’s journalism library. Titled Lady Editor, this “how-to” for women would make a rich primary source for the right project. I had always intended to do something with it but never did. Might this be a good item for the AJHA auction, our annual fundraiser to support travel for graduate students who come to the convention? I could think of several scholars who might scoop it up.

Then I began to wonder: What else could I bundle with this book? I thought about some creative packages I’d seen at previous auctions and decided it would be fun to have a theme. It also occurred to me that if I put some of my own money into this, I could maximize my impact by supporting not only AJHA, but also local businesses, causes and other organizations I respect.

Thus, the idea for a “Nevertheless, She Persisted” auction package was born. Every item in this package will be woman-authored and/or will support a woman-owned organization. So far, my bundle is likely to include:

The aforementioned Lady Editor: Careers for Women in Publishing (1941).
Brooke Kroeger’s new book Undaunted, purchased from Page & Palette in Fairhope, Alabama, along with a stick-on signature plate from the author.
A hand-painted planner and candle from Warm Wishes in Jefferson, Iowa, a town that has been energetic in its support of women entrepreneurs.
Craft beer and/or root beer from Peace Tree, the first woman-owned brewery in Iowa.
A $25 one-time subscription to Black Iowa News, an independent local news platform that highlights Black perspectives.
A $25 donation in the winning bidder’s name to The 19^th News, an independent, nonprofit newsroom that focuses on gender and policy.
Mad Men and Working Women, a book I co-authored with Erika Engstrom, Jane Marcellus and Kimberly Wilmot Voss.
A water bottle from Velorosa, which sells gear and supports women in cycling.
Donated stickers and other merch.

The book that launched this idea is dedicated to “the lady editor of tomorrow.” My labor of love is dedicated to media historians of the future and women who are committed to making a difference. Assembling it has led me to imagine what other themes we might see at the auction this year. Perhaps something sports-related? That seems to be a crowd pleaser. A bundle focused on a particular year or historical period? Or maybe folks from rival schools will put together competing packages and see who can draw the higher bid?

We are a creative bunch. Let’s have some fun and support our emerging scholars. My bundle is still a work in progress, but I plan to submit it as soon as possible. You should, too. Many thanks to Jon Marshall and everyone who has worked to help keep this AJHA tradition alive.

Committee considerations

Speaking of volunteers, my work as 1^st vice president has focused on AJHA’s committees. My job is to ensure they have what they need and are functioning as intended. At this point in the year, I collect annual reports from the committee chairs. As a reminder, these reports are due to me by Aug. 1. I will use them to come up with a list of budget priorities and other proposals for the board to consider in September. I also use these reports to see which committees need members or new chairs. If you are interested in taking on a leadership role, please let me know.

Finally, as President Mike Conway recently communicated, the board will be looking for ways to rein in spending as AJHA incrementally raises membership dues. As part of that process, please watch for a survey from the Long-Range Planning Committee on which AJHA activities and amenities you find the most valuable and important – and don’t hesitate to offer your own ideas. For example, one committee chair recently suggested we offer special-topic webinars throughout the year. Another suggested we more aggressively reach out to scholars doing historical research in related disciplines. We want your feedback, so keep it coming.

Serving as your 1^st VP has filled me with admiration and gratitude for this special organization and its members. I look forward to seeing you in Columbus!

Member Spotlight: Pam Parry

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Thu, 22 Jun 2023 19:26:47 GMT

How did you become involved in AJHA?

In 2009, Dr. Dave Davies introduced me to AJHA when I was a doctoral student at the University of Southern Mississippi. He told my class that the organization would change our lives, and he was right. We were required to write a research paper and submit it to AJHA as part of a class assignment. My paper on Anne Williams Wheaton was accepted, so I attended my first AJHA convention in fall 2009. The paper received two honorable mention awards, and the scholars who attended my presentation were generous, kind, and insightful. I was hooked by meeting these kindred spirits, and I’ve never looked back. I am now a Lifetime Member.

Why does media history matter to you?

Media history is a reflection of American history, because freedom of the press is necessary for democracy to flourish. Thomas Jefferson and other founders understood that citizens needed to have information in order to govern, so they safeguarded both free speech and a free press. Media history is American history, and vice versa. So, I think that media history is foundational to any credible mass media program.

How does your research impact your teaching?

I taught journalism and public relations courses many years before I earned my doctor of philosophy degree. I was told (erroneously) that my PhD would not make me a better teacher—while the degree gave me entry into an elite club, it would not enhance my classroom. I have found that to be false. Yes, many great teachers do not have doctorates, but my research complements my teaching, and it makes a difference in my classroom. For example, when I am discussing the historical pursuit of truth, it helps that I can explain to them some of my successes and some of my failures as a practicing historian. Finding historical truth is hard, and real-world examples make that clearer. My research informs my teaching, and it has made a big difference in my students’ education. Additionally, when historians make discoveries or shed new light on historiography, I am aware of these new findings and can share that with my students.

What hobbies/interests do you have outside of academia?

I love spending time with my family, particularly my eight nieces and nephews, as well as my three grandnieces and nephew. They are simply wonderful. I enjoy giving back to my community through my church, Fruitland Community Church, where we have an active food distribution ministry and other opportunities to help people. An athletic person some four decades ago, I try to stay active through pickleball, golf, walking, and wiffleball. I like to play cards with friends, visit museums, read books, and watch movies. I simply love the movies.

Dr. Pam Parry is professor of public relations at Southeast Missouri State University. She is the author of Eisenhower: The Public Relations President, co-editor of the Women in American Political History book series, and editor of Journalism History. This past year, Honor Students asked Parry to be the Keynote Speaker at the annual Student Research Conference at SEMO. In 2016, she received the Applegate Award for Excellence in Research from the Kentucky Communication Association. She also received the Teacher of the Year award from the Small Programs Interest Group of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in 2009, and she received the Presidential Faculty Achievement Award from Belmont University for distinguished service to students outside the classroom in May 2008.

AJHA seeks editor for American Journalism

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 16:14:08 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA) seeks nominations and applications for editor of American Journalism, the organization’s quarterly refereed journal of media history established in 1983 and published by Routledge, Taylor & Francis. The position begins January 1, 2025, with a transfer of some editorial duties in Summer 2024. The AJHA Board of Directors appoints the editor of American Journalism to a four-year term, subject to annual review and reconfirmation by the Board.

Deadline for applications: Oct. 14, 2023. Consecutive terms may be held. The editor will receive an honorarium.

The editor’s responsibilities include the timely processing of manuscripts submitted to American Journalism, whether on speculation or by solicitation; working with authors to prepare manuscripts for publication; coordinating with the staff of Routledge, Taylor & Francis to publish four or more issues per year, including selection of content, editing, and proofreading. The editor works with a book review editor, digital media editor and, if desired, an associate editor. The editor may recruit and appoint editorial staff members. In addition, the editor works with the Editorial Advisory Board, whose duties include continuous development of the journal and selection of the annual “Best American Journalism Article.” The editor organizes and presides over a meeting of the Editorial Advisory Board at the annual AJHA conference. The editor works with the treasurer and finance officer on budget matters, handles all journal correspondence and prepares an annual report for the AJHA Board and membership.

Applicants and nominees must be current members of AJHA. They should be able to write and edit clearly and concisely, and have an understanding and appreciation of the broad range of literature and methods of the media history field. Preference will be given to tenured applicants who have established reputations as journalism/media history scholars and are affiliated with an institution that can provide support to the editor with consideration to office space, travel, use of equipment, provision of student/staff assistance and/or course release.

Applications should include a statement indicating a willingness to serve, a curriculum vitae, and a letter of institutional support. Applications or nominations should be e-mailed by October 14, 2023, to the AJHA Publications Committee Chair, Paulette D. Kilmer, at pkilmer@utnet.utoledo.edu.

AJHA Seeks Nominations for 2nd VP, Board

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 15:18:19 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association is seeking nominations for three board positions and second vice president.

To make nominations and to vote in an election, an individual must be a member of AJHA.

Please confirm the candidate's willingness to be nominated before sending the name to Cathy.

You should send a brief bio and photo of the nominee along with a statement of why the person wants to serve.

The deadline for nominations is 5 p.m., August 1, 2023.

This year, voting will occur electronically, which means members do not have to come to the convention to vote. A write-in option will be available.

President's Message: Membership and Convention Fees Changes

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Wed, 17 May 2023 13:35:41 GMT

By Mike Conway

AJHA is very generous with its resources. Now it’s time to bring the resources in line with the generosity. For the past few years, AJHA has been spending much more than it is bringing in. This includes both operating expenses and the convention costs. The AJHA Board just voted unanimously to double our regular membership dues over the next three years and also to raise the convention registration fee to bring us closer to breaking even on convention expenses.

These increases alone will not bring our current expenses in line with revenue. This is the first of three steps we believe AJHA needs to take to ensure the long-term viability of the organization.

Membership Dues

The annual dues will increase incrementally annually starting in August 2023. Regular membership will increase to $60 for regular members, $35 for student and retired members, and $1,000 for a lifetime membership. If you renew your membership before August, you can pay the lower rate.

In June 2024, regular membership will increase to $75, student and retired memberships to $45, and lifetime memberships will cost $1250.

In June 2025, regular membership will increase to $90, student and retired membership will be $50, and lifetime memberships will rise to $1,500.

It is important to remember that AJHA doesn’t have wasteful spending. As an all-volunteer organization, AJHA is financially lean. Quite frankly, the overspending is a yearly effort to find ways to encourage and reward scholars for their work in journalism and media history.

After the Memphis conference, Finance Officer Lisa Parcell, Treasurer Ken Ward and I started digging into the numbers. We found that over the past three years, AJHA spent roughly 25% of the money it had in reserve. We are spending roughly $12,000 more than we bring in each year. If that trend continues, the organization could have run out of money in 5-7 years.

Once again, there isn’t anything nefarious about this spending. We had a cushion of money in reserve and a non-profit organization is not supposed to hoard its money. After researching our budget issues, we chose to not make any changes to American Journalism. Because of our contract with Taylor and Francis, our journal pays for itself and the extra money is used to cover some of our other expenses.

Even by doubling our membership dues to $90 for regular members, AJHA dues are by far the lowest of any national academic organization of which we are aware, especially one that produces academic journals. That rate brings in roughly $8,000 a year. Since we are spending roughly $12,000 more a year than we receive, you can start to see the serious nature of our situation.

For comparison, here are rough numbers for annual dues for other organizations: AEJMC + History Division-depending on your salary is likely close to $200; ICA-roughly $200; Broadcast Education Association - $130; Oral History Association-$100; Association of Moving Image Archivists-$185.

Convention Registration

Many years ago, the AJHA Board locked in our convention registration fee at $245 for early registration and $270 closer to the date. Unfortunately, that amount no longer comes close to the AJHA goal of breaking even on our annual conference. It is definitely harder to find sponsors that used to cover some of the features of our conference. We spent around $9,000 more than we received from registration and sponsorships in Memphis in 2022.

The Board has voted unanimously to allow the AJHA Conference Coordinator and Treasurer to set the registration fee depending on the expected costs of running the conference. They are working on those numbers now and the registration fee for our September conference in Columbus, OH will be decided by the time we open registration this summer. This will probably also include increases to our add-on events including the Historic Tour and the Gala.

We were very relieved to find last year in Memphis after two years of online conferences that AJHA members were ready to get back in person. We had 119 people register, which is roughly the number of people who attended our conferences in the years leading up to the pandemic.

Membership Survey

As mentioned above, these financial changes will not bring AJHA’s spending back in line with revenue, but they will provide more time to consider what we need to do in the future.

The second step is to have a better idea of what you value as a member of AJHA.

As part of that discussion, we will be conducting a membership survey this summer to get your opinions on how we should be spending our money, both for the convention and for the general organization. We will be asking what parts of the organization are most important for us to continue and which ones might be costing more than we can afford. We will also ask those questions about specific parts of the convention in case we need to find ways to bring down the costs.

Please be sure to fill out that survey when we send it your way. The AJHA Board can use your feedback when it needs to make hard choices on future budgets, and the Conference Coordinator will have insight into what parts of our annual conference are most valuable to you.

AJHA Endowment Fund

The American Journalism Historians Association has been an important part of journalism history research for more than 40 years, through the organization itself, the American Journalism journal, and the annual convention. We believe it is critical that journalism historians continue to have AJHA into the future to provide guidance and at the very least, another journal to showcase our work. For many of us, we would not have had the success in our research and teaching if not for AJHA.

To ensure that today’s journalism historians and those in the future also have this organization and its resources, the third step to address our finances includes creating an endowment fund to hopefully ease our money issues. Lisa, Ken, Joe Campbell, and I have already had a few meetings on this idea and have a general idea of how we’d like to proceed. We set it aside this year to concentrate on the immediate budget issues, but we do see it as an important third step in AJHA’s financial future.

If you’d like to help AJHA with an endowment fundraising effort, let us know.

Raising dues and other costs hasn’t been my favorite task as AJHA President, but I think we all feel it is our duty to make sure this organization can do for current and future journalism historians what it has done for us.

Book Essay: Mark Bernhardt

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Wed, 17 May 2023 09:42:42 GMT

By Mark Bernhardt

My book project American Opportunity, American Hospitality: Marginalized Peoples’ Access to the Middle Class in 1950s Sitcoms as Cold War Propaganda explores how during the 1950s television executives and corporate sponsors used situation comedies to address Cold War critiques of capitalism through portrayals of those outside the white, Anglo-Saxon, married middle-class norm. They constructed a narrative that rebuffed claims that prosperity was not available to all in the ways they dealt with class, gender, race, and ethnicity, attempting to alleviate lingering concerns from the Great Depression about individuals’ susceptibility to poverty and oppose Soviet attribution of economic inequality to oppression of specific social groups. In looking at sitcoms from this perspective, I document the ways they offered messages that served to reassure viewers capitalism was fair and Soviet assertions erroneous by offering palatable explanations for why some did not attain middle-class status in that the poor had only themselves to blame for their state and dismissing systemic causes for why poverty persisted, such as failed political policy, gender inequality, or racism.

Originally, I intended to conduct my research in 2021 at the UCLA Film and Television archive to view rare episodes only available on film from the series Beulah, The Jack Benny Show, The Goldbergs, and Mr. Peepers. However, because of COVID restrictions, which remained in place through summer 2022, I had to change my plans. Instead, I went to the Library of Congress in May 2022, where I viewed 23 episodes of The Gale Storm Show and 38 episodes of My Little Margie in the library’s special collections that are only available on film.

The episodes of The Gale Storm Show and My Little Margie provide material for my discussion of gender. For women in the 1950s, the societal ideal was that they marry young and become housewives who care for their children. Some sitcoms did portray single young women in the period before marriage who held jobs to support themselves. These women typically did not make much money though, making it clear that joining the middle class required finding a husband who could provide a more financially stable life. Such television messages glossed over women’s limited job prospects and pay inequality by normalizing their financial struggles as a brief stage women went through before finding a husband. Such messaging also stands in contrast to series with lead male characters who are bachelor that benefit from male economic privilege.

The Gale Storm Show addresses this employment situation. Gale, however, benefits from not having to pay for housing because she works on a cruise ship. As such, her income allows her to easily support herself. Still, marriage is the goal, and she has relationships with various men on the ship throughout the series.

My Little Margie offers a different take on how single women in sitcoms bided their time until marriage in that Margie lives with her wealthy father. Receiving an allowance from him, Margie is not obligated to work. A point of contention between Margie and her father though is that Margie’s regular boyfriend is not particularly bright and cannot keep a job, spending more time in the unemployment office than working. Periodically she does date more economically successful men, but her father fears she will make a bad marriage decision and end up poor if he does not continue to support her.

What I was able to glean from the episodes available at the Library of Congress helps complete my viewing of these two series. I have also looked at many other series that depict the economic status of women in the 1950s: Bachelor Father, Beulah, The Great Gildersleeve, Hey Jeannie, It’s Always Jan, Our Miss Brooks, Ann Sothern Show, Betty Hutton Show, Eve Arden Show, Meet Millie, My Friend Irma, and Private Secretary. Together, these series paint a complex picture of social expectations for single women, how single women support themselves (or are supported), and the importance of marrying the right man.

Dr. Mark Bernhardt is a professor in the History Department at Jackson State University. He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Riverside. His research examines how media engage in public discourse about imperialism and its legacy in the transnational North American West, U.S. involvement in wars, social and cultural issues surrounding crime, and representations of marginalized peoples.

AJHA Auction: A Tradition With Purpose

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Tue, 16 May 2023 18:51:26 GMT

By Jon Marshall

Have you ever been a struggling graduate student? Do you like graduate students? Do you care about the future of journalism history scholarship? Are you a kind and generous person who likes helping others? Or do you just have a general fondness for AJHA?

Surely, your answer is “yes” to at least one of these questions. If that’s the case (or even if you’re a grumpy person who doesn’t like students but wants a chance to redeem your soul), now is your opportunity to do some good by donating items to the AJHA silent auction for the benefit of our graduate students.

Yes, all of the thrills and fun of the auction will be back again this year at our annual conference in Columbus. All money raised goes directly to graduate student conference travel, a major part of the revenue needed for our Michael S. Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend. For many students, the conference will be impossible to attend without the stipend. Last year we raised more than $1,700 in Memphis, and as a result we can guarantee that graduate students who are on the Columbus conference program will receive at least $100 from the Sweeney Stipend. With your help, we can continue to increase that amount.

What to donate for the auction? Perhaps a package of special goodies from your hometown or university. Or historic books, newspapers, magazines, broadsheets or journalism and history ephemera such as coffee cups, glasses, calendars and T-shirts. Maybe someone you know has extra airline miles or a week at a vacation home that they’d be willing to donate. And, of course, wine and spirits are always popular with the AJHA crowd. If you have several items that would go well together as a package, that’s even better and will make the bidding process easier.

We’ll list the auction items on an online bidding platform before and during the conference. The items will be on display in Columbus, and we’ll give them over to the winning bidders before the end of the conference. Once you are in Columbus, you can see the actual items and keep track of the bidding, paying online if you win and receiving your prize at the AJHA business meeting on Saturday.

Donating an auction item is easy. Just fill out this short form and then bring the item to Columbus with you.

If you have questions about the auction or want to volunteer to help, please contact me at j-marshall@northwestern.edu.

Member Spotlight: Amber Roessner

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Tue, 16 May 2023 11:01:41 GMT

How were you first introduced to AJHA?

University of Georgia professor Janice Hume first introduced me to the American Journalism Historians Association and encouraged me to attend my first conference in Wichita, Kansas, in 2006. I vividly remember watching Hume, Mike Sweeney and company karaoke at this particular conference, and I knew that this might be the most entertaining group of historians that I had ever encountered. Nearly twenty years later, AJHA remains one of my favorite academic associations because of the warm and supportive people associated with it and the amazing memories I’ve made while attending conferences.

What’s your most memorable moment associated with AJHA?

Well, that’s a tough question. I have been honored a couple of times by AJHA, and while I am certainly grateful for those two awards (the rising scholar award and the national award for excellence in teaching), I would have to say that the memories that most stick out to me (aside of that first one I noted) is watching mentors and friends who have meant so much to me, personally—folks like Janice Hume, Earnest Perry, Mike Sweeney, Dianne Bragg, Kathy Roberts Forde, and so many others, be honored at this conference. I honestly am so grateful for this community and for the memories associated with AJHA. I’ve always said that AJHA is much more like academic family than any group I’ve ever known.

What’s the most important lesson that this academic community has taught you?

I’m not certain that I could narrow it to just one lesson, but I’ll try. I certainly think that this academic community taught me the value of supporting and collaborating with each other. I have had the chance to collaborate with many community members associated with this conference over the years—by sharing advice and encouragement, by offering feedback on individual and collaborative projects, by developing special panels and essays about the importance of integrating theory and women’s history into media history, on an edited volume about Ida B. Wells-Barnett, on a presidential podcast, and that only scratches the surface.

What hobbies do you have outside academia?

One of my favorite pastimes is hiking. Since arriving on Rocky Top back in 2010, I’ve hiked more than half the 900 miles of trails in the Great Smoky Mountains, and despite suffering a broken ankle last summer, I still hope to hike the entire Appalachian Trail one day. Aside of that main hobby, I absolutely love cheering on and supporting my almost eight-year-old son Joseph and when I get the chance, watching movies, listening to live music and reading a good book.

Lori Amber Roessner, a professor in the University of Tennessee's School of Journalism & Electronic Media, teaches and studies media history and its relationship to cultural phenomena and practices, including the operation of politics, the negotiation of public images and collective memories, and the construction of race, gender, and class. Since 2014, she has published two books, including Inventing Baseball Heroes: Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, and the Sporting Press in America (LSU Press, 2014) and Jimmy Carter and the Birth of the Marathon Media Campaign (LSU Press, 2020), and co-edited Political Pioneer of the Press: Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Her Transnational Crusade for Social Justice (Lexington Books, 2018). Her earlier journal-length cultural histories appeared in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly and Journalism History, among others.

Putting Together the Jigsaw Puzzle: Prepping for Columbus

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Tue, 16 May 2023 10:58:33 GMT

By Debbie van Tuyll

We’re still about a month out from the deadline for paper submissions, but the work of organizing the program has already begun.

First Vice President Tracy Lucht and I had a Zoom meeting a week ago to talk about what my role as second vice president (and thus conference program organizer) involves. She is so efficient and well organized, that she provided examples of all the different kinds of emails that go out to all the different constituencies, and then she walked me through everything in our meeting.

What struck me as Tracy and I talked was all the moving parts that are involved in bringing the annual conference to fruition. I’ll be collaborating with Gerry Lanosga and members of the research committee that he chairs to receive the list of accepted papers and panels. Then, I’ll use that list to put together and schedule sessions and panels, collaborate with Executive Director Erika Pribanic-Smith and Convention Committee Chair Caryl Cooper insure all the special events and activities have a place on the program. They will be the first to receive my proposed program. Next, I’ll be in contact with our membership around mid-summer to recruit session moderators and obtain advertisements for the program. I think before my summer is over, I’ll have a chance to touch base with most, if not all, of our membership.

I’m a bit intimidated but also a bit intrigued.

Looking from the outside (since I’ve never done this before the way AJHA does it), it seems to me that I’ll essentially be putting together a jigsaw puzzle and then collaborating with colleagues to glue it down and shellac it so that it can get “framed” as the final program booklet that will be distributed at the convention. But I’m looking forward to all that. The AJHA annual conference has long been one of my favorites, and I’m happy to do whatever I can to make sure it happens and that it’s a great experience for those who attend.

One of the things I always tell younger colleagues who are presenting at the AJHA conference for the first time is that our approach as an organization and as members of that organization is to offer affirming, formative advice rather than trying to tear other researchers down and make them feel small. This is a friendly conference, and everyone in any audience is there to cheer presenters on.

I hope you all will be submitting papers and panels and willing to help out as paper judges and moderators. I’ve been coming to the AJHA conference since the late 1990s. It’s been one of the cornerstones of my career. The smaller size of the conference makes it much more comfortable than one of those mega-conventions that attract thousands of attendees and make it impossible, really, to build relationships with other researchers. Reviewer comments on conference papers always helped me revise my work into a strong journal article or book chapter, and, of course, there are always new and old colleagues to catch up with and to build collaborations with.

Debbie van Tuyll is a Professor Emerita at the Department of Communications at Augusta University and the Second Vice President of AJHA.

Book Essay: Undaunted: How Women Changed American Journalism by Brooke Kroeger

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 17 Apr 2023 18:29:29 GMT

By Brooke Kroeger

Undaunted makes no claim to being all-inclusive. Rather, it seeks to share in a representative way how women have fared in American journalism, a profession that men have dominated in the 180 years since mass media began.

To arrive at the best way to tell the story, I began with two search terms, “women” and “journalism,” applied together, decade by decade, to every relevant database from 1840 to the present. The approach was hardly scientific but provided consistency. It also gave me a good sense of the conditions that governed the presence and place of women as journalists, the ideas about them that prevailed in each period, and how those ideas changed, or did not change, over time. It became possible to identify the individuals whose achievements received the most attention. I considered how and why some women attracted publicity and if and how their stories fit into the wider context of women’s advancement. Then came the winnowing.

The telling is chronological. It gives precedence to the episodes that dealt with or dovetailed with the most significant news events and trends of each period. That meant leaving out many stories and people I would have liked to include.

Twelve questions guided me. Which stories best illustrated what women were up against in their professional lives? How or why did the most successful women first get in the door? Who were the true trailblazers and pioneers? Assuming talent and hard work, how much did background, privilege, strategy, charisma, style, looks, advocacy, or luck figure in their ascent? How well did women manage their successes and failures, their celebrity and censure? Were they “womanly” or “manly” in their reporting and writing or in their editorial vision? What impact did they have on the nation’s news diet and on the profession? Whom among women has the wider journalism community chosen to honor? Which qualities and characteristics fairly or unfairly attributed to women brought condemnation? Which brought respect? How did newsroom politics figure? Have women made a difference?

I could not resist including some related anecdotes that were too good to omit, but in the interest of a reasonable page count I removed many names, including bylines that deserved to be in the text. If readers find themselves asking, “But what about ____?” the notes section contains many of those answers.

I found value in tracing the way some outstanding careers were built over decades and endeavored to fairly praise men who gave deserving women an opportunity when it was not fashionable or usual to do so. Some of them might well have met a #MeToo-like fate had such a movement existed in their day. Others, because of the timing, did. The epilogue briefly details the social and cultural currents roiling in the early 2020s as my work on this book came to an end. It surprised me that the intertwining of gender and race would be such an unbroken through line and that the industry’s economic crises and manpower shortages at various points have proved as effective as, if not more effective than, changes in the law for creating opportunity for woman journalists, especially in the most coveted jobs.

In trying to understand the chances women seized on and the impediments they overcame, I have at times used a twenty-first-century lens to reflect on attitudes, impressions, and policies that stood unquestioned in their own day. Although the all-too-recurring theme right up to the present is progress followed by setback, it does make the triumphs seem all the sweeter.

In writing the biographies of Nellie Bly and Fannie Hurst and the history of undercover reporting, I engaged with many of the memoirs, biographies, archives, articles, oral histories, and studies [so many the work of AJHA stalwarts] that anchor this book. (Bly lived from 1864 to 1922; Hurst, from 1885 to 1968.) Journalism has been the world I’ve lived in, worked in, studied, written about, and taught for more than fifty years. Yet only for Undaunted did I find myself considering the place of journalism’s most successful women as one long continuum. I hope that comes through in the pages that follow.

Against daunting odds, women have always found chairs at the most important tables of this vital profession, seats that often proved hard to keep. Very few of the woman journalists in these pages, alas, have legacies that endured or will endure much beyond their own moment. This is as expected. It is worth pointing out that this is just as true for a great proportion of the profession’s outstanding men.

The stories of the remarkable women included here provide a trove of still-sound career advice and some cautionary tales. Beyond that, we know now that it takes an ample mix of ages, races, genders, ethnicities, and political and cultural views to do American journalism’s essential tasks most effectively. We also know that journalism’s propensity to exclude—addressed repeatedly over the years, but never vanquished—has made us all the poorer. Within that context, our primary focus here is the impact women have had on journalism and journalism’s impact on them.

See a trailer for Undaunted here.

Brooke Kroeger is a journalist, professor emerita at NYU, and the author of six books. Undaunted will be available May 16, 2023.

President's Message: Join us in Columbus!

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 17 Apr 2023 15:15:49 GMT

By Mike Conway

I had the privilege earlier this year to help judge the applications for the American Journalism/Journalism History microgrant competition. The six winners of the microgrants definitely are pursuing important media history projects. But what struck me was just how interesting all of the projects were. I wish we had money to help all these scholars get their ideas off the ground.

That got me thinking about how many of us have media history projects buried in files somewhere on our computer, or maybe even in old-school manila folders, just waiting for the time, money, and/or energy to get them started or move them along.

Could I suggest June 1, 2023 as a possible deadline for you to bring one of your projects across the finish line? That is the research deadline for the AJHA Annual Conference, which will be held in Columbus, Ohio September 28-30, 2023. You can start to pull together your notes over the next few weeks and when your semester is over and grades are posted, you can dig in.

J. Jessee, Scioto Mile aerial from north, CC BY-SA 2.0

Maybe you have a media history research project that was unfairly maligned by Reviewer 2 for another conference. Track down those painful reviews and see if any of the changes would make it a stronger project. I’m not too proud to admit that over the years, I’ve used the late spring AJHA deadline to give papers rejected from other conferences another chance.

If you don’t think you can get a full paper completed, you could also consider entering our Research in Progress (RIP) section. Another idea is to come up with an important topic in media history research, find some experts in that area, and submit a panel proposal.

It’s no secret that research paper submissions have been down across the academy for the past few years because of pandemic fatigue and heavy non-research workloads. On the bright side, after two years of virtual conferences, attendance at last year’s AJHA conference in Memphis was right at the same level as our pre-pandemic conferences. So we definitely all want to be back together and celebrate strong media history scholarship. Let’s make this be the year that you get your research back on the conference agenda.

If you know other scholars that work in media history, please let them know about our conference. We always want to remind historians that even though we have American in our title, we encourage research from around the world, and even though we have Journalism in our name, we welcome historical scholarship from a wide range of media sources.

If you need a few more enticements for putting the June 1 deadline on your calendar, I can tell you that Caryl Cooper, LoWanda James and local hosts Felecia Ross and Aimee Edmondson are hard at work on creating a memorable experience while we’re in Columbus. They will be telling us more in the next few months, but they have great ideas for our historic tour, Gala dinner, and honoring local journalists. It’s been decades since I visited the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus occasionally when I was a reporter over in Dayton, so I’m excited to see the city again.

Take a few moments and see if you’ve got an idea or a set of documents that would make an interesting research project for our conference. We’d love to see you in Columbus.

Mike Conway is currently serving as President of AJHA. He is also Director of the Indiana Broadcast History Archive (IBHA) and a Professor of Journalism at
Indiana University Media School.

Book Essay: A Century of Repression: The Espionage Act and Freedom of the Press by Ralph Engelman and Carey Shenkman

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 16:41:02 GMT

By Ralph Engelman

A Century of Repression: The Espionage Act and Freedom of the Press (U. of Illinois Press, 2022) represents a kind of professional synthesis. Researching and writing the book spanned the transition from three decades as a professor of journalism at LIU Brooklyn to emeritus status. Moreover, the concern about threats to freedom of the press that animated this study was influenced by a number of professional and scholarly undertakings over the years.

My awareness of the importance of freedom of expression was heightened in the 1970s by my association as a board member with the Pacifica Foundation, which operates a network of five iconoclastic listener-sponsored radio stations. This entailed the resolution of cases involving protection of news sources as well as the landmark indecency case FCC v. Pacifica (1976), for which I attended oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court. My experience with Pacifica piqued my interest in writing what became my first book, Public Radio and Television in America: A Political History (Sage, 1996).

Concern about the impact of the Espionage Act was also influenced by my experience as Faculty Coordinator of the George Polk Awards, conferred by LIU, which reflect the importance of freedom of the press in enabling impactful investigative journalism. Take the example of four-time Polk winner Seymour Hersh for his coverage of the CIA and the wars in Vietnam and Iraq; his intrepid reporting relied on the cultivation of confidential government sources, a practice that recent administrations have sought to criminalize through the Espionage Act. Writing a biography of Fred Friendly—Friendlyvision (Columbia University Press, 2009)—was yet another impetus. Friendly’s Seminars on Media and Society were launched upon the premise that greater scrutiny was needed of the relationship between the judiciary and the press. Indeed, one of the moderators of the seminars, the eminent law professor Benno C. Schmidt, had written about the threat that the Espionage Act posed to the press in a scathing law review article.

Every fall semester I taught the Communications Law course in LIU Brooklyn’s undergraduate journalism program, but realized that I needed a constitutional lawyer as co-author of an intended in-depth examination of the evolution and application of the Espionage Act in myriad political and legal contexts. Enter Carey Shenkman, constitutional lawyer, graduate of NYU Law School and member of the panel of experts of Columbia University’s Global Freedom of Expression Program. He is a former associate of the late human rights lawyer Michael Ratner, the former president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and American lawyer for Julian Assange in his Espionage Act case.

Carey and I broke our book down into three distinct periods: (1) Targeting the Opposition: WW I and WW II, (2) Criminalizing Leaks: The Cold War, and (3) Policing Digital Journalism: The War on Terror. Some key points: We describe how from the outset the Espionage Act was deployed against publications and organizations opposed to U.S. entry into WW I rather than against spies. We establish how the use of the Espionage Act during WW I helped spark the divergent careers of both Roger Baldwin and J. Edgar Hoover, shaping the subsequent trajectory of the ACLU and of the FBI.

The Espionage Act serves as a lens through which to view major developments in US journalism and political history. It was employed as a cudgel to intimidate the Black press during WW II, as a vehicle for the rise of McCarthyism, as punishment for release of the Pentagon Papers, and as a weapon against a plethora of whistleblowers during the Obama and Trump administrations. At the same time, our study reveals the ambivalence of key attorneys general in applying the act against journalistic sources, from John Lord O’Brian to Francis Biddle and Eric Holder—as well as important initiatives for reform of the act to foster a proper balance between the requirements for a free press and national security.

Ralph Engelman is a Professor Emeritus of Journalism & Communication Studies, LIU Brooklyn.

Member Spotlight: Mike Murray

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 16:30:42 GMT

How did you get involved in AJHA?

I learned about the formation of AJHA from its founder, David Sloan, attending the organization's first meeting at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and meeting some outstanding scholars who became life-long friends, including David, Maurine Beasley and Sidney Kobre.

Since my primary interest was in the history of broadcast news, I thought that I might be able to learn more about the print side of things from this organization and its people. In a "second wave" of development other outstanding scholars emerged in that specialty: Mike Conway, Dale Cressman, Tom Mascaro, Maddie Liseblad and Jon Marshall -- just to name a few. They have been extremely helpful to me and one another. Over the years, we've formed a professional family of scholars.

How did you contribute to AJHA's early development?

Serving on the inaugural Board of Directors, as a "cheerleader" in establishing our journal, "American Journalism," and hosting an early meeting in St. Louis, I met many early contributors. After serving a term as president, I also hosted a board meeting when we decided to revise the organization's very early by-laws.

Who are some people from AJHA who had the biggest impact on you -- including your research?

Sid Kobre, whose extensive work I reviewed and discussed with him, and David Sloan, who recruited me to the organization and asked me to contribute to one of his many history projects. Of course, this is what David did for many of the organization's early contributors as well as his former Ph.D. students. I've thanked him and even his wife Joanne many times for involving me in all this. The first draft of a chapter I put together for David turned into an early book of mine, "The Political Performers." This book was followed by several more with contributions from members like Don Godfrey, Mary Beadle, Roy Moore, Maurine Beasley, Bernell Tripp, Peggy Blanchard, Fred Blevens, Kathy Bradshaw, David Copeland, Erika Engstrom, Elliott King and Kim Voss. All are AJHA devotees and friends.

Who were some of the other early members who worked with you in areas beyond research?

AJHA has always been blessed with very talented and dedicated leaders. I'm thinking now of people like Carol Sue Humphrey, Wally Eberhardt, Therese Lueck, Erika Pribanic-Smith and David Vergobbi. I’ve worked on a large number of collaborative projects with many AJHA members. Interaction with AJHA members helped me to remain active in writing and publishing. They also, on occasion, provided some sorely needed perspective. Jim Startt had been years in the academy before we met and he helped me navigate some tricky waters in advancing various academic initiatives and new degree programs. Barbara Cloud was also a major influence in that regard. Barbara hosted an early AJHA meeting held in Las Vegas and introduced me to Hank Greenspun, the Nevada publisher who became a key benefactor and namesake of University of Nevada-Las Vegas' Journalism School. I followed Barbara in office as AJHA president.

I was able to join Barbara, Greg Borchard, Tony Ferri and Larry Mullen, plus the rest of UNLV's journalism faculty in getting that new school started and well-underway before returning back to our home base in Missouri. In the years following that assignment, professors from my previous schools, including the late Sam Riley of Virginia Tech and John Ferre, now retired from University of Louisville, were making solid contributions to the organization—and our field—and so I was grateful when they would sometimes credit me for having involved them. I don't get to attend many national meetings these days but I do get a genuine kick out of it when I look over an on-line conference schedule for AJHA and notice some current names like Stephen Bates of UNLV or Cayce Myers from Virginia Tech.

Betty Winfield was also a great help to me -- and on many occasions. Some of our more senior members might remember that AJHA worked on the initiative to get a U.S. Postage Stamp established to honor Edward R. Murrow. We hosted a "First Day of Issue" ceremony in St. Louis and Betty was kind enough to drive in from Columbia to give a talk about Ed's radio broadcasts. She also helped me out when I was honored with a Goldsmith Award for a book I mentioned earlier, "The Political Performers." Betty even took a photo of me with Mrs. Murrow on that occasion and whenever anyone asked me if I ever met Ed Murrow, I could stop responding: "No, he passed away when I was in high school," to now boast instead: "But I did have dinner and screen some broadcasts with his wife Janet -- at Harvard."

What are your interests outside of academia?

I am now in "Governor Emeritus" mode with the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences here in the Midwest, so I stay in-touch by assuming some EMMY judging chores. We also support a major bicycle race here thru an organization called "Forest Park Forever." But my one guilty pleasure is being a total basketball nut. During that season, I become obsessed. In fact, my family likes to say that all the teaching assignments I have held were based on college basketball rankings. That's not TOTALLY true—in spite of some administrative positions I held in Kentucky and UNLV.

Louisville men's basketball has fallen on hard times lately but the last thing I heard from that University was an inquiry from John Ferre and the President's Office there when the University was responding to media inquiries regarding the confirmation of the CIA Director, Gina Haspel. It turned out that when I got U of L's academic program established and its bachelor's degree approved back in 1976, Gina was one of many students who transferred from the University of Kentucky to the University of Louisville. She attended UK for a few years and was able to transfer and graduate from U of L in 1978. Louisville's development office wanted to know if I remembered Gina when she was still a student there? I said something like: "Recalling that it's been over forty years—unless she played basketball or appeared on the cover of 'Sports Illustrated,' probably not." What can you say? Right, I'm a hopeless case.

Michael D. Murray is a Board of Curator’s Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Missouri--St. Louis. He served as national president the American Journalism Historian’s Association and received the organization’s highest honor, its Lifetime Achievement (the Sidney Kobre Award), as well as the highest recognition by the Broadcast Education Association, the Distinguished Service to Education Award. He was inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ honorary society, Silver Circle.

Working at the Hoover Archives: Using the AJHA McKerns Grant for Propaganda Research

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 12:53:39 GMT

By Elisabeth Fondren

As soon as I entered the Stanford University campus, got off the free Marguerite shuttle bus, and walked towards the iconic Hoover Tower, which is the home of the Hoover Archives, I felt energized. And a sense of relief that my trip from New York City to Palo Alto had been so smooth.

With a bit of delay (the archives closed during the pandemic), I was fortunate to use the 2020 AJHA Joseph McKerns Grant in August 2022 to spend a week at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution Archives and Library to collect primary sources for my ongoing research on propaganda-press history during World War I and II.

I had not been back to Stanford since 2017, when I had had the opportunity to work at the Hoover Archives for my dissertation on World War I international propaganda. These archives are famous for their large collections on international propaganda, counterpropaganda, war, and conflict.

Researching Propaganda, Fascist Publicity and Psychological Warfare

Specifically, I worked with the collections on propaganda posters 1914-1945, the Paris Peace Conference delegation propaganda, American fascist and Nazi groups in the interwar period, and World War II propaganda and psychological warfare in the European Theatre.

One study that I am currently writing explores how propaganda ideas and techniques from the Great War—the first modern mass propaganda war—informed states’ campaigns during the ParisPeace Conference, as well as the press’ growing skepticism and discourse around the expectations (and limitations) of what propaganda and mass publicity could do. I am interested to investigate the tepid interactions between post-World War I propagandists and journalists.

At Stanford I also studied the German American Bund records to see how press covered the U.S. home-grown Nazi movement leading up to World War II. By accessing these records, specifically, the minutes of the Executive Committee, translations of Führer commands, financial records, propaganda, and photographs, relating to activities of the Bund, I was able to read about the fascist roots and ideas of this organization, which tried to rally support for its pro-Nazi, antisemitic, and U.S. isolationist agenda during 1936-1941. I am immensely grateful to AJHA for funding this research trip.

On a personal note, that trip also was the first time for me to leave my 1.5-year-old toddler at home with my husband and embark on a solo research trip. The prospect of studying wartimepropaganda, and to spend a full week reading primary documents 3,000 miles from home, was exciting for all of us. The Stanford University campus was quiet since I visited during the summer break, but most cafés and eateries, and the large bookstore were open. Face-time video calls on the campus lawn, and seeing my little one eat strawberry smoothies, while saying ‘da, da, da” is a very happy memory.

Logistics:

Planning your research: The Hoover Archives reading room is located in the Herbert Hoover Memorial Building and open Monday-Friday. The archives are internationally renowned, and reservation is required, at least several weeks in advance. As with most archives, materials need to be requested in advance. In my experience, the excellent staff is happy to add to requests on site and is very thorough in working with researchers on site.

Reading Room Reservations:

The Hoover Archives are open Monday through Friday, 8:30 am - 4:30 pm and by reservation only. Reservations can be made via the online portal: https://www.hoover.org/library-archives/research-services/plan-a-research-visit

How to get to Stanford University: Fly to San Francisco or San Jose airport, take BART subway and CalTrain to Palo Alto, or use Taxi/Uber. There are many accommodation options (hotels, AirBnB) close by in Palo Alto or Menlo Park. The Marguerite shuttle is free and open to the public.

Elisabeth Fondren is an assistant professor of journalism at St. John’s University in New York.

Treasurer's Note

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Wed, 22 Feb 2023 16:30:33 GMT

By Ken Ward

While struggling with how to write this column, I realized that I was approaching it as the new guy. “Hi, you probably don’t know me, but …,” as if I’m that new grad student in the organization. I was that guy in New Orleans, ten years ago. Columbus will be my tenth consecutive conference.

I like you folks. And I guess time flies when you’re with friends. A decade is a long time, but I like journalism history, and you’re the people with whom I like talking about it.

Each year has brought me further into the organization—first as grad committee chair, then registrar, then board member, and now as treasurer. I’ve learned more about what we do each step along the way. As treasurer, I’m learning about things AJHA does that I never understood before.

We’re a much more complex organization than it appears at first glance. We directly publish one academic journal and aid in the publication of another, throw one big conference and support two others, maintain multiple websites, administer thousands of dollars in awards and grants, publish a newsletter, and do a bunch of other cool stuff I’m forgetting about. Each of those activities relies on the support of your donations, memberships and conference fees.

My job as treasurer is two-fold. First, I have to manage the day-to-day flow of financial resources through our organization. When you give the organization money, I’m the person on the other side of the screen (or envelope), making sure our expenses are paid and awards funded. It’s a serious job, and I’m grateful to you all for trusting me with it. I spent a year shadowing our capable past treasurer, Carolyn Edy, before taking the reins myself. I’m thankful for her guidance and for the work done by all past treasurers in helping keep the lights on.

My second job is to make sure this organization can keep doing all this great work not just this year or next but long into the future. I know this is something we all want, but I’m grateful it has the immediate attention of our president, Mike Conway, who in Memphis formed an ad hoc committee to ensure the ongoing financial health of AJHA. He was kind enough to put me on that committee, and we’re well into the process of researching the current situation of our finances and developing a plan to keep this organization hosting conferences, publishing journals, and administering grants and awards well into the future.

In the next few months, our committee will recommend to the board steps for securing the lasting financial health of AJHA. As Mike said in his column last fall, we’ll have to take a hard look at how what we’re doing now impacts what we are able to do in the future. But the outcome—the knowledge that we can continue working and learning together through this great organization long into the future—is worth the hassle.

Again, thanks for letting me serve you, and if you ever have anything I might be able to help with, don’t hesitate to reach out at kjward@pittstate.edu.

Spotlight: Jon Bekken

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Wed, 22 Feb 2023 15:48:26 GMT

How did you become involved in AJHA?

I don't remember how I learned about AJHA. I attended my first conference in 1988, in Charleston. I had done a collective biography of labor press editors for a social history seminar as part of my Ph.D. program at Illinois, and presented the paper there (and later published it in American Journalism). I felt welcome, and experienced a welcome break from the pretentiousness I saw at some other conferences. I've attended several times since then, reviewed for the journal, and such. It's been harder to make the conferences recently; they hit at a fairly awkward time in our academic calendar and it's not as easy to skip town for a few days as it used to be.

What drew you to the labor press?

I entered Illinois thinking I would do a dissertation on the American labor press, grounding it in social movement theory and exploring the ways the labor movement sought to construct a democratic, accountable communications system. But it quickly became obvious that this was a far more complex task than I had imagined. On the one hand, I had not given nearly enough thought to the role of immigrant workers and the vast array of working class newspapers they created and sustained. While there was some excellent work on a few of these papers, overall there was very little.

The situation has improved a bit in recent years, especially as regards the Yiddish-language press. There was also a lot of work to be done on the English-language labor press, and especially on local labor papers -- most weeklies, but also including daily newspapers in Chicago, Milwaukee, New York and Seattle. It became clear that I was going to have to do a lot of basic research, and so I shifted to studying the working class press in Chicago. Chicago had several dailies published by and for working class communities, in Czech, English, German, Lithuanian, Polish, Slovenian and other languages, as well as scores of weekly and monthly publications issued by local and national unions, mutual aid societies and political organizations. And these existed in a particular ecological context, negotiating the relationship between ethnicity and class within their communities as well as their place in the broader media and political environment.

As I was exploring the Chicago Daily Socialist's rise from an undercapitalized small-circulation political daily to the city's largest circulation daily newspaper (which inevitably led to its bankruptcy, given its inability to attract the advertising dollars that subsidized its capitalist competitors), this quickly led me to turn to the archival records of the Chicago Federation of Labor and Chicago Daily News publisher (and head of the Newspaper Publishers Association) Victor Lawson, which contained a wealth of material about collusion between the publishers to manage competition, control labor, and ensure a business-friendly political environment. The hiring of gangsters by rival publishers to control newsboys was documented in Lawson's papers, as were squabbles over publishers refusing to share the costs of gunmen to shoot up news wagons delivering rival papers. This led to studies of the Chicago Newspaper Trust, Chicago newsboys, and book chapters on the economic role newsboys played in the U.S. and on newsboy strikes. The newsboys themselves left few records, but there is quite a bit of material in the archives of publishers and other labor organizations, and also in the records of social reformers and organizations battling child labor. These materials need to be read critically, of course, filtered as they are by economic interest and middle class sensibilities, but we can learn quite a bit from them about newsboys and the central role they played in newspaper distribution for over a century.

What are you working on now?

Recently I've returned to work I was doing in grad school on the political economy of the media. I had published some articles on the retail book industry, on radio regulatory policy, and on collusion between newspaper publishers at the turn of the century. A few years ago I became intrigued by the debate over news deserts, a problem that to me involves much more than the decline in the daily press. Even before papers began closing and news departments were transformed into Potemkin Villages of prognosticating pundits, the lives and concerns of ordinary people had disappeared from the news columns. Several years ago I developed a first year seminar on the intertwined crises in democracy and the media, and three years ago began offering a political economy of communications course that meets our college's general education junior seminar synthesis requirement. I've been revisiting Bagdikian's Media Monopoly books, trying to better document the extent of a problem he wrote about quite convincingly, but largely anecdotally, and to explore how these trends have continued in the two decades since his last volume was published. I'm also looking back to concerns over concentration in book publishing and newspapers dating back to the 19th century. I have a fairly heavy teaching schedule, but there's certainly a book in this if I can carve out some time for it.

As I've poked around in archives over the years, I've gathered quite a bit of material that I need to develop more fully. I have some papers on labor struggles in Chicago newspapers that I'd like to get into publishable shape. I had been holding off on these for a larger book on Chicago newspaper ecology, but I have several hundred pages written on different aspects of that and it's probably time to start letting them out into the world. A couple of years ago I published a chapter on Cultura Obrera, a Spanish-language anarchist labor paper published in New York City under different auspices from 1910 into the 1950s. This was an explicitly transnational publication, distributed by seamen from Buenos Aires to Boston, and in its first two decades played a central role in efforts to build an international maritime workers union. The Spanish immigrant marine firemen who sustained the paper into the 1920s (when they were displaced by diesel engines) were one of the anchors for the Industrial Workers of the World's strong presence in the industry (the other was its control of the Philadelphia docks and its strong appeal particularly to African-American dockworkers across the country), resulting in Congressional hearings, deportations, and other repressive measures.

What hobbies (outside of academia) do you have?

I don't know that I have hobbies as such. Years ago I used to play trumpet and go to jazz clubs. But between work and my wife not much caring for jazz and my daughter's homework, I don't get out that often. We have a community bookstore that takes a fair bit of time, and publish a labor magazine and a labor history calendar. And I read, not as much as I'd like to, but certainly more than most.

Jon Bekken is a Professor of Communication at Albright College in Pennsylvania.

Member Spotlight: Janice Hume

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 15:36:37 GMT

When and how did you become involved in AJHA?

I attended my first AJHA conference as a master’s student at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. I took a media history seminar with Dr. Betty Houchin Winfield that focused on press coverage of historic American heroes, considering what scholars had written about the concept of heroism. For my paper, I wanted to write about a woman, a “heroine,” but I had a hard time finding one. I flipped the assignment and focused on how the popular women’s magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book wrote regularly about female heroism in the 19^th century, despite the fact that women weren’t supposed to be either heroic or well known. Betty proposed an AJHA panel that included several studies from that seminar, and the panel was accepted. We presented at the 13^th AJHA convention in Roanoke, Va., in October of 1994, and it was a blast.

I fell in love with AJHA. It was remarkable to me how welcoming the association was to graduate students. Senior researchers whose books and articles I read for class were there! They didn’t put themselves on a pedestal. They attended sessions, listened and encouraged emerging scholars. I have been involved in AJHA in one way or another ever since. I love attending research presentations, and the conversations about history in-between sessions. I always leave an AJHA conference fired up to do more or better research.

What drew you to studying memory?

That first heroism study was really about how the press reflects and reinforces mainstream values, for better or worse. We venerate heroes (and heroines) based on our own needs and ideas about what’s important. As those ideas change, so do our heroes. I find this fascinating. My next big project looked at newspaper obituaries, which also mirror cultural values. As America evolved culturally, who we remembered in death and how we remembered them changed dramatically.

I study memory because I believe that it matters. People care deeply about the past. Consider the recent controversies over the removal of Confederate monuments or the nation’s reaction to The 1619 Project in The New York Times. Consider the importance of the “founders” and the American Revolution, or the icons of the Civil Rights Movement. Consider the damage done by the “lost cause myth” following the Civil War. Journalism and pubic memory are connected in complicated ways, and I believe that relationship is worthy of study.

Why is memory important to the study of journalism history?

The cliché insists that journalists write the first draft of history. Perhaps. Journalists produce subsequent drafts, too. They use history as a storytelling tool. Consciously or not, they sometimes misuse, distort and “forget” history, and those narratives also enter the public consciousness.

What are you working on now?

I’m still interested in how the press reflects values, but in this period of media disruption, I’m narrowing my focus to journalism values specifically. I’m starting with obituaries of journalists from the American Revolution to the establishment of journalistic codes of ethics in the early 20^th century.

I also spend a lot of my time on my duties as associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Journalism and Mass Communication at UGA.

What are some of your interests and hobbies outside of academia?

I am a fan of murder mysteries and read them like crazy. My dog is actually named for a famous fictional British detective’s sidekick, Inspector Lewis. I live near a park with excellent trails, and walk every day with MY sidekick, Lewis, who likes to inspect/sniff out anything he can. I like sports (as a spectator), mainly football and women’s gymnastics. Go Dawgs! I love attending classical concerts at UGA’s performing arts center.

Looking Forward to the Past: AJHA Southeast Symposium

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 15:26:37 GMT

By Dianne Bragg

On the first weekend in February 2023, a small band of AJHA journalism teachers and their students will descend upon Panama City Beach, Florida, for the AJHA Southeast Symposium. It will be the first such gathering since 2020, as COVID prevented the group from meeting the last two years, and the excitement over being together and showcasing students’ work is palpable. I am fortunate to be a part of this group, a tradition that began for me with my first Symposium in 2007.

The Southeast Symposium began in 1992 with Dr. David Sloan from the University of Alabama and his idea to have a small weekend retreat for a small group of journalism historians from various institutions. Sloan recalled that they initially met in the mountains for a couple of years, but an intervening snowstorm put the skids on that. Afterward, the Symposium moved around to various locations, but eventually settled on Panama City, where the chance of snow was pretty remote. More importantly, it evolved to having faculty attendees choose up to six graduate students to participate and present their original historical research.

The Symposium was one of the first places I presented my historical research. I remember feeling instantly at ease, as people like Vanessa Murphree, Dave Davies, and Bernell Tripp, along with many others, seemed interested in my work and offered critiques and words of encouragement. I already enjoyed the research I was doing, but the Symposium and the faculty there sealed the deal for me and my decision to pursue journalism history as my focus.

We often hear the phrase “Pay it Forward” used in various situations, usually referring to monetary aid or acts of kindness. But it most certainly also applies to the teaching profession, both in and out of the classroom. The AJHA Southeast Symposium does just that. Several of us who first attended as students are now bringing our own fledgling historians to the Symposium. I remember meeting Willie Tubbs there when he was a graduate student under the tutelage of Dave Davies. He is now teaching at the University of West Florida with some of his own students attending.

I share this story in the hopes that maybe AJHA members in other regions of the country might consider starting their own annual regional gathering. Without question, the faculty at the Southeast Symposium have developed a special connection over our years of meeting together. Many of my students who have attended consider it to be a highlight of their graduate school experience.

Part of the Symposium’s success lies in the opportunity for the faculty members, now scattered across several states, to reconvene, reconnect, and revitalize our research and our teaching. We share ideas, see what’s happening in history courses in other classrooms, and come away feeling inspired by new ideas and treasured friends. Often when we “pay it forward,” we are not able to see the results of doing so. Since its small start forty years ago, the AJHA Southeast Symposium has become one place where we can.

If anyone is interested in starting their own similar event, please reach out to me, and we can share how ours is organized. Meanwhile, it looks as though we will need a warm coat for a walk on the beach this year!

Celebrating the 35th Year of the National Women and Media Collection

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 20:10:15 GMT

By Kimberly Voss

More than three decades ago, there were few archives that documented the work of women journalists. Today, much has changed. In 2022, the State Historical Society of Missouri celebrated its 35th anniversary with an elaborate exhibit exploring over a decade’s worth of women in journalism. In Their Own Words: Celebrating the National Women and Media Collection features diaries, photos, letters, and interviews from the Collection.

The collection includes documents of media organizations and professional and personal papers of more than 120 notable women from across the country who worked as reporters, editors, publishers, press spokespersons, and other positions in mass communication. They addressed the changing roles for women in the media industry, trends for the future, and how they were able to navigate careers in a typically male-dominated industry.

Established in 1987, the National Women and Media Collection is housed at the State Historical Society of Missouri. The papers and other materials document the roles women played in various media fields, both as employees and the coverage of women. It includes how those roles have changed over time.
“By drawing attention to the anniversary with a large-scale display, we hope the collection will grow and be supported by the voices of additional women in the media today and in the future,” said archivist Elizabeth Engel, who oversees the collection.
The National Women and Media Collection includes materials from the NWMC, including correspondence, diaries, and interview clips. Many of the items have been digitized. The National Women and Media Collection documents the many roles that women have played and are playing in the field of mass communication, both as media representatives and as objects of coverage. The collection offers opportunities to study how those roles have been altered over time and how attitudes toward women have changed. The primary sources are valuable to researchers and the press.
There were podcasts about the anniversary available through “Our Missouri” on Apple Podcasts during June and July. The episodes examine the history of the Collection and how its documents had been used by historians.
There was also a panel in honor of the exhibit and the Collection’s anniversary. The panelists included Betsey Bruce who spent 46 years covering St. Louis area news. She was the first woman assigned to daily hard news TV reporting in the area when KMOX-TV (now KMOV) hired her in 1971.
Sheila Gibbons is a communications executive with extensive experience in journalism and public relations. She is the longtime editor of the quarterly publication Media Report to Women about the relationship between women and media.
Andrea Stone spent 24 years at USA Today where she covered national news, presidential and congressional politics and foreign affairs. In 2009, she became Washington bureau chief for AOL News and, in 2011, The Huffington Post hired Stone as senior national correspondent in politics. In 2013, she launched the website of Al Jazeera America as a senior online executive producer.
Elizabeth Engel is a senior archivist for the State Historical Society of Missouri and manages the National Women in Media Collection. Engel was instrumental in helping to put together the current exhibit for the collection. Engel, an Iowa native and a University of Iowa graduate, holds a master’s degree in library and information science. She has been with the State Historical Society since 2006.
As the NWMC moves into its 36th year, the Collection continues to collect papers – including working with JAWS. The Journalism And Women Symposium (JAWS) works to advance the empowerment of women in the field of journalism, as well as advocating for more inclusive coverage of diversity. According to Jean Gaddy Wilson, a founding member of JAWS and the National Women & Media Collection: “As all communications’ structures shift their shapes, the mission of the National Women and Media Collection to gather the insights and materials of media women, and stand strong as a witness to our shared worlds of information and news, becomes even more important.”
Many of the organization’s members are JAWS members and can help with that mission. NWMC seeks to document more about JAWS’ women’s careers and careers of women of color whose work is not being preserved in other archives. For those interested in donating, here are a few tips to donate materials:

Do not throw away any materials. After all, rough drafts can be as important as the published article. The NWMC archive will help with the organization.
Browse through the current holdings by clicking on the “finding aid” by each woman or organization’s name.
Contact Elizabeth Engel (engelel@shsmo.org) to discuss your donation.

Kimberly Voss is a Professor of Journalism at the University of Central Florida.

How Should AJHA Respond to Challenges Facing Our Field?

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 19:29:20 GMT

By Tracy Lucht

We are a few months past our conference in Memphis, and I have been reflecting on some conversations that took place there. As I hope it did for you, the 2022 conference energized me and renewed my confidence in the relationships this group nurtures. The state of our organization is strong. However, it is clear we must pay attention to external headwinds as we chart a sustainable course forward.

Looking at the landscape of higher education, I see some immediate challenges for our field, namely:

Budget cuts in higher education, particularly in the liberal arts. At my own institution, Iowa State’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has instituted a multiyear effort to “reimagine” each of its departments. While the journalism school received a midrange reduction of about 10% on top of previous cuts, the history department faces a cumulative 34% cut, effectively ending its graduate program. The American Historical Association wrote a letter to the university denouncing the action: “To decimate a history department is a lose-lose proposition: it deprives students of essential learning and skills, even as it strips a university of the essential perspectives and intellectual resources so necessary to confront the present and shape the future,” the group’s president and executive director wrote.

Budget cuts mean less money for research and travel, along with higher course loads and curricular constraints. Budget models like Iowa State’s that reward student credit hours incentivize service courses with high enrollments over smaller, skills-based courses, which poses a challenge for professionally based, ACEJMC-accredited programs.

AJHA will need to advocate for our members, as we always have, while looking for ways to reinforce the importance of history in the curriculum. One area we might consider is news and media literacy, which is gaining traction among administrators who see it as part of a well-rounded education. Building on the efforts of former AJHA president Donna Lampkin Stephens as well as a board discussion in Memphis, the History in the Curriculum Committee will consider ways to leverage our expertise to meet a need and demonstrate value to administrators.

Opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Sadly, my home state again serves as an example. Last year, the Iowa Legislature passed a “divisive concepts law” that prohibits K-12 schools and public universities from teaching certain ideas related to sexism and racism in required trainings and courses. Similar legislation has been passed in more than 20 other states, leading to a statement from the AHA and other scholarly groups about the infringement on academic freedom and the need for accuracy in history. “Educators owe students a clear-eyed, nuanced, and frank delivery of history, so that they can learn, grow, and confront the issues of the day, not hew to some state-ordered ideology,” the statement reads.

While these laws represent a challenge to academic freedom broadly, the topics targeted for censorship are quite specific. Alongside efforts to ban certain books from schools and public libraries, proponents are clearly and directly challenging perspectives from historically marginalized groups, including LGBTQ+ people and people of color. Coupled with a rise in antisemitism and violent rhetoric, the danger to individuals and institutions is clear.

What can AJHA do? We can promote scholarship in underrepresented areas, as a recent call for microgrant proposals from Journalism History and American Journalism aims to do. This year’s effort focuses on the intersection of media history with “race/ethnicity, gender/sexuality, class, religion, disability, mental health, and/or rural populations.” Not only does this initiative support members conducting research in these areas, but it also helps to correct and complete the historical narrative at a critical juncture.

We can also be mindful of our organization’s practices and positions. Should we be more vocal about legislation and policy decisions we view as harmful to our field and our organization’s members? How can we as an organization work toward greater inclusivity and belonging?

I welcome your thoughts and feedback.

Tracy Lucht is is First Vice President of AJHA and a professor at the Greenlee School of Journalism/Communication at Iowa State University. Reach her at: tlucht@iastate.edu.

McKerns Research Grant: Essay by Gerry Lanosga

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 19:17:31 GMT

By Gerry Lanosga

How many times have you started pulling on a thread in an archive only to realize that if you want to find where it started, you’re going to have to visit yet another archive? That’s what happened to me when I began researching what I thought might be the first competition to offer awards to journalists exclusively at the local level in the U.S. The timeline for when awards began to diffuse more broadly into the field – branching out from journalism’s first award, the Pulitzer Prizes – is an important piece of my book project exploring the history of prizes as a cultural and institutional force in the development of journalism as a profession.

My search for the first local prize had taken me a few years ago to the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, home to the records of the Cleveland Newspaper Guild Local 1. The Cleveland guild awarded prizes for the first time in 1940, recognizing work done in 1939; organizers billed the prizes as “Ohio’s Pulitzer.” The prizes were plaster-cast statuettes of newsboys called Heywoods, named in honor of ANG leader Heywood Broun. Western Reserve’s collection of correspondence and other materials was filled with rich detail about battles over the contest’s rules, criticism of the judging, and complaints about inequities toward women, among other things.

What I didn’t find was clear evidence that Cleveland was truly the site of the first journalism awards at the local level. I wondered: What if the idea came from another guild? To follow the thread, my next stop was Detroit, home to Wayne State University’s Walter P. Reuther library and its massive labor archives, including the American Newspaper Guild collection. Thanks to a McKerns research grant from AJHA (and after a considerable delay owing to the pandemic), I was able to visit the Reuther library this past August.

The American Newspaper Guild (ANG) was founded in 1933, with Cleveland as its first local. The collection at Reuther includes records from local chapters all around the country, and I was particularly interested in 19 boxes of early correspondence between ANG and these locals. As I looked through folder after folder, I found lots of references to local contests, but nothing to dispel the notion that Cleveland had the first.

Feeling relieved that the chase was over (spoiler alert: it wasn’t!), I was able to glean a great deal of important context for my broader interest in how awards competitions continued to spread in the middle of the twentieth century and how they helped define the contours of contemporary journalistic practice.

Prizes are as much a marker of professionalization as trade associations, codes of ethics, and journalism education, but they have received much less attention from historians and other scholars. Yet professional prizes can provide both economic and cultural capital to those who win them, and Guild leaders clearly were keen to create a source of such capital at the local level. For instance, the Detroit local announced its annual competition in 1949 this way: “No, we’re not exactly trying to run the Pulitzer Prize people out of business. This is something local. It gives the local guy or gal a chance to gain recognition right here – from fellow newspapermen.” By 1952, according to an ANG survey, at least nine Guild chapters were running local journalism awards programs.

And, I thought, it all started with Cleveland’s Heywoods. Upon further review and research, it turns out that the Cleveland contest wasn’t the very first local prize. Since making my trip to the Reuther Library, I’ve learned about a little-known Guild rival called the American Press Association, which offered a local prize in Pittsburgh – awarded in 1940, the same year Cleveland’s contest began. And I also found a quirky, short-lived local prize in Indiana founded all the way back in 1928 by a wealthy widow whose only apparent connection to journalism was a romance with the first winner of her contest. You’ll have to wait for the book to read more about that!

Ultimately, I probably won’t ever be to say definitively where the first local journalism prize was. However, I am quite sure that the Newspaper Guild played a seminal role in the expansion of journalism’s prize culture in the twentieth century – and that Cleveland was almost certainly the first chapter to have a local prize. I plan to keep pulling this thread, although I really do need to finish the book! I look forward to sharing the whole story with you when it’s done, and in the meantime, I am most grateful to AJHA for supporting my research.

Gerry Lanosga is an Associate Professor at the Media School of Indiana University Bloomington. He was the 2019 AJHA McKerns Research Grant award recipient.

Member Spotlight: Max Fuller

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 11:38:27 GMT

When and how did you first become involved in AJHA?

I first became involved in AJHA during this year's Memphis conference. My paper, "Wielding the Blade: J. Anthony Josey, the Wisconsin-Enterprise Blade and the Construction of a Contemporary Black Political Identity", won the Robert Lance Memorial Award for Best Student Paper at this year's conference. And I'm hoping to be involved for years to come.

How did you become interested in Milwaukee’s English-language ethnic press during the New Deal era?

I became interested in Milwaukee's English-language ethnic press during the New Deal era by way of Wisconsin's labor movement history. Milwaukee has had such a diverse population throughout the 20^th century and its connection to organized labor is well-documented. However, less has been discussed relating to the city's ethnic populations (aside from its significant German influence). By the 1930s, many within these ethnic populations were 2^nd and 3^rd generation members of the community. They were not only predominantly speaking English and reading English-language newspapers, they were occupied significant positions within the labor force and, significantly, could now vote. And alongside the popularization of many elements of the New Deal as a means to counter the influence of the Great Depression, Milwaukee experienced sweeping support for the New Deal, throwing its political support behind President Franklin Roosevelt in large numbers. Understanding this shift and the role of the city's English-language ethnic press in its realization tells us so much about the significance of the New Deal in Milwaukee.

How did these newspapers help construct identity?

Typical of communities throughout the United States, many of Milwaukee's ethnic communities were hit particularly hard by the Great Depression. And FDR's New Deal promised much-needed economic rejuvenation. Significantly, these communities' newspapers typically viewed the New Deal in positive terms, highlighting its significant elements and framing them in relation to their reading audiences. Aside from outright praise for FDR and the New Deal Democrats' legislative efforts, even in cases where the newspaper publisher favored Republican politics, evidence shows a construction of identity orienting a sense of self cohered around labor and financial interests. Members of these papers' audiences frequently began to embrace a brand of 'New Deal liberalism' that reshaped the city's electorate for much of the 1930s, leading to widespread support for FDR and the New Deal program.

How did those identities intersect with the social movements of the era, such as the Labor Movement?

Labor issues were paramount for ethnic communities throughout Milwaukee during the period. Members of these communities often worked in blue-collar positions and many found representation within trade unions. The labor movement itself was immensely popular within Milwaukee during the period. Coupled with a 'sewer socialist' disposition sympathetic to the labor cause, New Deal-era legislation like the National Industrial Recovery Act and later the Wagner Act codified labor rights to organize. And Milwaukee's ethnic communities, particularly those of German-American and Jewish descent, with strong ties to organized labor, found themselves within union organizations, better positioned than ever to strike and bargain for better working conditions, increased wages and few work hours.

What are some of your interests and hobbies outside of academia?

Outside the academic world, I love playing music, going to concerts, enjoying nights out playing pool in Madison, WI with friends and watching the Philadelphia Eagles.

President's Message: Memphis Thoughts

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 10:31:50 GMT

By Mike Conway

At some point during the AJHA conference I heard someone say they didn’t realize how much they needed the in-person experience until they got to Memphis. I couldn’t agree more. As much as I enjoyed our online conferences during the past two years and our ability to keep AJHA active during the pandemic, getting together with my fellow AJHA historians is what has kept me coming back to AJHA conferences for twenty straight years.

I have to admit that the past three years had me worried. I had already witnessed and heard about steep declines in academic conference submissions and attendance in the past year. We were sweating out reaching the hotel room minimum numbers to fulfill our contract.

But when we got together Thursday morning for President Aimee Edmondson’s welcoming address, there they were: the people that make AJHA such a special organization. In fact, attendance in Memphis matched our numbers at our last in-person conference in Dallas in 2019 and most in-person conferences in recent memory.

Those of you who joined us in Memphis and those who were only kept away because of circumstances or schedules made it another memorable conference. The reason we could restart our in-person experience so smoothly is because of our great AJHA volunteers. When the pandemic hit in 2020, Caryl Cooper and LoWanda James quickly reached out to the hotels in Memphis and Columbus, OH and pushed back our hotel contracts by two years without penalty. When we made the decision to go back in-person earlier this year, Executive Director Erika Pribanic-Smith and AJHA President Aimee Edmondson worked with the Memphis site team to pull together the logistics while 2^nd Vice-President Tracy Lucht built and adjusted the conference schedule throughout the summer. It reminded me of re-starting an engine that had been idle for a few years. It took some extra effort, but once we got it running, it was just like the AJHA conferences we remembered.

The Future: Columbus and Beyond

It’s customary at this point for AJHA presidents to put forth a vision for their year leading the organization. Mine is quite simple. I want to do whatever I can to continue AJHA’s mission to help media historians dig into important issues and provide an encouraging and safe venue for the presentation and publication of that scholarship. I want all media historians to view AJHA as I have for the past two decades, as a welcoming organization that does its best to provide resources to encourage research and an organization filled with members willing to share their time and expertise to lift up those who are building their careers. I was drawn to AJHA over other academic organizations because the top scholars were welcoming and supportive, not lording over graduate students and assistant professors as if they held the keys to an exclusive club.

If AJHA does not have that reputation for all of us, then what can we do to make it more inclusive and welcoming? The pandemic and the current political and cultural climate have made some existing issues quite clear. Universities are cutting back on research and travel funding, make it more expensive for us to visit archives and attend conferences. In some less enlightened cases, scholars are being told to stay away from historical research in favor of quantitative methods to increase the number of publications. At the same time, some states are passing laws to limit what history can be taught. These efforts show us the power and necessity of our work. AJHA should be our advocate to keep us pushing forward in our area of media history. I’d love to hear your thoughts on these issues.

Finally, a less exciting, but just as important topic: money. We need to give serious thought to how we keep AJHA working for media historians into the future. Our Board of Directors is very generous every year, budgeting roughly $15,000 a year more than we bring in. There’s nothing nefarious about this. As AJHA Finance Guru Lisa Parcell always tells us, the money we spend fits directly into the mission of AJHA, providing grants, travel stipends and other financial incentives to conduct, present, and publish our research. We also have a bit of a financial cushion. But at this rate, we will run out of money in about 13 years. We have to look at our annual membership dues, fundraising, and establishing an endowment to provide stable funding for our next generation of scholars. We’ve put together an ad-hoc committee to look into the endowment idea. AJHA Finance Director Lisa Parcell, Treasurer Ken Ward, Joe Campbell, and I hope to present a plan to our Board in the next several months. Aimee Edmondson and the Long Range Planning Committee will be surveying AJHA members about the future, especially what we’d like to see as our conference experience in the coming years. As always, ideas and comments welcome at mtconway@indiana.edu.

Book Essay: Kim Todd's Sensational

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 10:27:01 GMT

By Kim Todd

My recent book, Sensational: The Hidden History of America’s “Girl Stunt Reporters,” started with curiosity about a particular woman that expanded into curiosity about a whole genre. In Leslie Reagan’s When Abortion was a Crime, I had read about the Chicago Times journalist who, with a male companion pretending to be her brother, approached Chicago physicians in 1888. Hinting that she was pregnant, she asked for an abortion, a procedure that was illegal at the time. Throughout December of that year, the Times ran story after story by the woman who signed herself “Girl Reporter,” detailing her revealing conversations with doctors and midwives.

Her reporting made fascinating reading, offering a look into the reality of abortion (it was completely available in many forms and was sought out by women of all classes) at a time when, thanks to Comstock laws, even discussing the operation could be forbidden. But neither Reagan’s book nor any other source I could find indicated who the “Girl Reporter” actually was. With a free afternoon on a trip Chicago, I went to the microfilm room at the Harold Washington Library Center, to scroll through back Chicago Times issues to see if I could find out her identity.

That didn’t lead to a name, but the search took hold of me, and I found myself returning to Chicago to look up libel suits against the Chicago Times that might have named the “Girl Reporter” in the archives of the Cook County Circuit Court, to pore over articles by named journalists in the region to look for textual similarities, to read the minutes of the Chicago Medical Society meeting where doctors discussed the “Girl Reporter’s” exposé. As I encountered more responses to her work, I became increasingly aware that, as unique as her project seemed, she was only one of many women going undercover during 1888, a number that would only increase in successive years.

The abortion exposé appeared one year after Nellie Bly feigned insanity to get committed to Blackwell’s Insane Asylum for Women in fall of 1887. Though Bly’s expose for Joseph Pulitzer’s World is famous, what is less well known is that the popularity of her story opened up a decade of opportunity for female journalists to escape the women’s page and report on topics of great societal significance. They uncovered abusive labor conditions in factories, poor treatment of female patients at public hospitals, children locked up in adult jails. At times their reporting was sneered at as “stunt reporting” and “sensations,” but it resulted in new laws and high pay for those willing to attempt it.

Looking beyond the “Girl Reporter,” led me to Eva McDonald, who would interview the president about the New Bedford textile strike; Winifred Sweet, who was first reporter on the scene of the Galveston hurricane; Kate Swan, who recorded the only interview with Lizzie Borden; and Victoria Earle Matthews, who uncovered exploitative employment agencies. And they were only a few of the many women all over the country doing this kind of work.

I found that the questions I had about the “Girl Reporter” extended to the genre over all. What made this brand of journalism possible in this window of time? How does their first-person narrative nonfiction relate to immersion journalism and creative nonfiction of today? This kind of reporting endangered both body and reputation: were these women exploited by unscrupulous editors, or taking control of their professional lives by embracing meaningful jobs? Why was their writing condemned and then forgotten?

The final book interweaves both strands—the search for the woman behind the “Girl Reporter” and the exploration of this overlooked period of innovative reporting. I didn’t find all the answers but deepened my understanding of journalism history in general and investigative reporting specifically, well beyond the “muckrakers” who get much of the credit.

Should We Continue the “Reborn” AJHA Auction?

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 10:14:32 GMT

By Mike Conway

It hit me during the Memphis conference when I was taking a group picture of the graduate students with their AJHA coffee mugs and Sweeney Stipend checks. I was witnessing the result of one final selfless act from one of AJHA’s most selfless members.

Backing up a year, AJHA President Aimee Edmondson asked me to chair an ad-hoc committee to come up with ideas to bolster our commitment to graduate students. Many of us got hooked on AJHA as graduate students and we wanted to make sure the organization is doing all it can to encourage media history research for those working on their degrees.

Gerry Lanosga, Michael Fuhlhage, Graduate Student Committee Chair Claire Rounkles and I got to work. We were later joined by Jason Guthrie and Erin Coyle. One of the most popular ideas was bringing back the AJHA Auction, a long-time staple of the annual conferences that ended several years ago.

None of us were involved in the auction logistics so I reached out to Ford Risley, who ran the auction for several years, and Mike Sweeney, who was the unforgettable auctioneer that cajoled us into bidding on items to help fund graduate student conference travel. With their feedback, we decided to try the hybrid version of the auction that you witnessed in Memphis. The bidding was done on an online site but the actual auction items were on display at the conference. More on the auction in a bit. Back to the selfless act.

As we worked on various graduate student initiatives, Aimee Edmondson learned that her colleague, Sweeney, who had been living with cancer for years, did not have long to live. We decided that it would be appropriate to name our graduate student travel stipend after Dr. Sweeney, because of his role as mentor to so many graduate students as well as his memorable years at AJHA auctioneer. Carolyn and Mike Sweeney not only gave the idea their blessing in his final days, they also added the AJHA graduate student fund to Mike’s obituary.

Our committee also convinced the AJHA Board to make a statement about our commitment by offering graduate students $400 in travel funds for the Memphis conference, more than double what had ever been offered in the past. Leave it to Mike Sweeney. The money raised from his obituary notice covered the Sweeney Stipend for all graduate students in Memphis, ensuring AJHA would not have to dip into the general fund to cover the cost.

That is where the reborn auction comes in. We set up the Sweeney Stipend so the money raised in one year would be used for the next year’s conference, allowing us to let graduate students know exactly how much we could offer in advance. The Sweeney Stipend in Columbus next year depends on how much we raise this year.

Because of the generous donations of historical media items from so many AJHA members as well as the healthy bidding on those items, along with the hours spent by the ad-hoc committee putting together and running the auction, we were able to raise $1700 for next year’s Sweeney Stipend. This amount alone translates to about $115 per graduate student next year which will be added to any other donations we receive to the Sweeney Stipend by the end of the year. (Donations are always welcome at https://ajha.wildapricot.org/Donate !)

All of the above leads to the question in the headline. Should we continue the auction in Columbus in 2023? If so, we need volunteers to keep the auction going. Our ad-hoc committee was a one-year commitment and the members are all moving on to other obligations. I am certainly ready to help and pass along what we learned this year, but we need one AJHA volunteer who would be willing to take over the auction, and maybe a few others to help. Most of the work happens in the summer and through the conference itself. If you would be interested or have ideas about the auction, please let me know. mtconway@indiana.edu.

Journalism and Moral Courage: A Course Bridging Past and Present

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Sat, 15 Oct 2022 18:23:12 GMT

by Melita M. Garza, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

On May 29, 2020, CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez, producer Bill Kirkos, and photojournalist Leonel Mendez were arrested on live television by armed National Guardsmen while reporting on the police killing of an unarmed Black man—George Floyd. The CNN crew was held for one hour and later received an apology from Minnesota’s governor. However, as the New York Times media critic James Poniewozik noted, “the messages had already been sent. The arrest told all media that there are people within law enforcement who now feel empowered enough to shut down coverage of unrest — unrest resulting from police violence — flat out in the open.”

The anecdote was provocative—and at the time I wrote the first syllabus for my course, among the most timely and powerful exemplars of U.S. journalists’ truth-telling struggle. What follows in this teaching essay is an overview of how I developed the Journalism and Moral Courage course, which in 2022 won the Jinx Coleman Broussard Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Media History from the AEJMC History Division.

Clearly, the incident involving CNN’s Jimenez was neither the first threat to happen on U.S. soil, nor the last. It was nonetheless jarring since attacks, harassment, and murders of journalists are often popularly linked to repressive regimes in distant regions of the globe. The election of Donald Trump—a president who made journalists his prime bête noir—and his administration’s blatant bending of the truth with “alternative fact-making,” raised the stakes for journalists in this country. Of course, presidential disdain for the media was nothing new, but Trump was very far from Spiro Agnew’s “nattering nabobs of negativism” name-calling. In this contemporary culture of fourth-estate contempt, I asked: “How might students make connections between abolitionist editor Elijah Lovejoy’s 1837 murder and the 'Rope. Tree. Journalist' meme?” Or between 1892, when Ida B. Wells feared returning home after her press was attacked, and 2018, when in an attempt to shut down and discredit Yamiche Alcindor, Trump accused the then PBS NewsHour correspondent of asking “racist” questions at a White House news conference.

It was that year when my idea for this course began percolating. Time had trained a spotlight on the contemporary attacks on journalism in 2018 when it named the “‘Guardians of the Truth’” as its “Person of the Year.” Among the magazine’s honorees were slain Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi as well as the staff of the Annapolis Capital Gazette, five of whom were murdered in the newsroom by a disgruntled story subject. Time’s cover story rebutted Trump’s “enemies of the people” frame against another proposed by Berkeley linguist George Lakoff, who countered that journalists should be described as “protectors of the truth.” In fact, Time portrayed the journalists as “guardians” who were battling “the manipulation and the abuse of truth.” But what is truth?

These issues of today in the news struck me as an opportunity to get firmly present-minded students to explore connections between current events and journalism history. Moreover, it was a way to get students thinking theoretically about the concepts of truth and moral courage. In other words, one aim of the course is to enable students to move beyond the Kovach and Rosenstiel maxim that the purpose of journalism is to provide people the information they need to be free—and to ask at what cost? This course differs from typical war reporting or conflict journalism courses per se. It doesn’t focus on skills or safety training, and it doesn’t focus on international conflicts, but on challenges that journalists, both internationally and domestically, have faced, with a particular focus on the struggle to find and convey “the truth.”

The overarching objective for this course is to help students develop an understanding of the role of journalists in promoting democracy, justice, and equality, whether reporting domestically or in conflict zones abroad. The first part of the course focuses on defining “truth” and moral courage, while providing a grounding in key attributes of journalism. Readings for subsequent weeks relate to specific journalists and historical periods and are broken out by themes. I teach this course as a readings and research colloquium. Students lead class discussion for assigned weeks, interspersed with mini-lectures from the professor, visits from guest speakers, and in-class assignments with professor-developed worksheets and reflection prompts. Looking for another way to sneak journalism history into the curriculum? This course enabled me to teach historical methods in a way that let students see how researching the journalistic past can illuminate our understanding of the journalistic present.

Although I designed this course for undergraduates, most of whom were not journalism majors, the course could easily be adapted to the graduate level. For instance, in the first part of the course, one of the required readings is Lee McIntyre’s Post-Truth (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2018). McIntyre’s book is a pocket-guide to understanding theories of truth, including the impact of post-modernism. Graduate students might be asked to explore conceptions of truth from Aristotle, Plato, Milton, and others directly. Likewise, the final project for the course, which is a research paper exploring a specific journalist’s struggle with moral courage and truth, might also be developed as a graduate project and conference paper submission (as it might be for undergraduates also).

Meanwhile, new attacks on the nation’s journalists continue to grab headlines, including the brutal stabbing of Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative journalist Jeff German in September 2022. These current issues offer an unabated opportunity to encourage students to live in two dimensions, asking them to explore the dimension of the past to contextualize today’s lived experience.

AJHA Leadership for 2022-2023

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Sat, 15 Oct 2022 17:30:53 GMT

The AJHA presidency transferred to Mike Conway (left) from Aimee Edmondson on Oct. 1 at the AJHA convention in Memphis. (Photo courtesy of Erika Pribanic-Smith)

American Journalism Historians Association leadership is set for the 2022-2023 year, which will culminate in our 42nd annual convention in Columbus, Ohio, next September.

Mike Conway (Indiana) has taken the gavel as AJHA president. Tracy Lucht (Iowa State) has ascended to first vice-president. Ken Ward (Pittsburg State) has taken over as treasurer. Erika Pribanic-Smith (Texas Arlington) continues as executive director.

Members of the AJHA have elected Debra van Tuyll (Augusta State, emerita) as second vice-president for 2022-2023; van Tuyll will then serve as first vice-president in 2023-2024 and president in 2024-2025.

Newly-elected board members serving three-year terms (2022-2025) are Tom Mascaro (Bowling Green, emeritus), Elisabeth Fondren (St. Johns), and Ashley Walter (Utah State). See the board page for the full Board of Directors, including continuing elected and ex-officio board members.

Aimee Edmondson (Ohio) has completed her term as president and will serve as an ex-officio board member, leading the Long-Range Planning Committee. The board also has confirmed the following new committee chairs: Julie Lane (Boise State, Public Relations), Pete Smith (Mississippi State, Blanchard Prize), and Willie Tubbs (West Florida, Service Awards). See the committee page for the full list of committee chairs, including those who are continuing.

Autumn Linford (Auburn) is resuming her Intelligencer editor/ex-officio board member position after a year away to complete her PhD. Web Editor Christina Littlefield (Pepperdine) will be assisting with the email newsletter.

The AJHA thanks the following outgoing officers, board members, and committee chairs for their service:

Candi Carter Olson (Membership Chair, Utah State)
Dale Cressman (ACEJMC Representative, Brigham Young)
Carolyn Edy (Treasurer, Appalachian State)
Teri Finneman (Board, Kansas)
Michael Fuhlhage (Board, Wayne State)
Julien Gorbach (Public Relations Chair, Hawaiʻi Mānoa)
Gwyn Mellinger (Board, James Madison)
Tom Mascaro (Service Awards Chair; Bowling Green, emeritus)
Erika Pribanic-Smith (Interim Intelligencer Editor; Texas Arlington)
Rich Shumate (Web Editor, JJCHC Co-Coordinator; Central Arkansas)
Kimberly Wilmot Voss (History in the Curriculum Chair, Central Florida)
Dale Zacher (Blanchard Prize Chair, St. Cloud State)

The AJHA welcomes volunteers to assist with our committees and other initiatives. If you are interested in helping AJHA in the coming year, please contact First Vice-President Tracy Lucht.

Member Spotlight: Sid Bedingfield

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 21:58:17 GMT

Sid Bedingfield is an associate professor in the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. Bedingfield entered academia after spending more than two decades as a professional journalist covering political contests in the U.S. and abroad. He is the author of Newspaper Wars: Civil Rights and White Resistance in South Carolina, 1935-1965 (University of Illinois Press, 2017) and co-editor with Kathy Roberts Forde of Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America (University of Illinois Press, 2021).

When and how did you become involved in AJHA?

In 2008, a paper I wrote for Ken Campbell’s media history course at the University of South Carolina was accepted for presentation at AJHA’s conference in Seattle. I was allotted ten minutes on a panel moderated by Leonard Teel. At about the 12-minute mark, I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye. Leonard was wind-milling his right arm like a third-base coach waving the runner home. I was encouraged to do a better job timing my presentations.

Your co-edited book with Kathy Roberts Forde, Journalism and Jim Crow, has won multiple awards—including the AJHA Book of the Year. What do you believe is the importance of this topic?

The book takes a fresh look at the rise of Jim Crow in the South by focusing on newspapers as institutions of power within their communities. It documents the role of the white press in building white supremacist political economies and social orders in the New South—and the critical role of the Black press in resisting those efforts. The publishers and editors who ran major white newspapers used the soft power of public discourse, but they exerted hard power, too. They were political actors who worked closely with other institutions of power—the Democratic Party, the railroads, mining companies, and other industries eager to take advantage of cheap labor in the emerging New South.

How does the book fit into your overall research agenda?

I began my research on journalism and its role in the nation’s racial politics when I joined the faculty at the University of South Carolina in 2007. My first book, Newspaper Wars, showed how the white, mainstream press had collaborated with politicians and business leaders to resist Black equality in the mid-twentieth century. Kathy saw the same thing in her initial research on Henry Flagler and his control of newspapers in Florida. That research launched the Journalism and Jim Crow project, but you can trace its roots to our many long conversations about journalism, race, and democracy during our years at USC.

How does your professional journalism experience informed your approach to media history?

During my time at CNN, I watched Roger Ailes build Fox News into a ratings juggernaut, and I saw how he worked closely with political and business allies to wield the network as a political weapon—an extremely effective political weapon.

How does your historical knowledge influence your teaching?

My research on journalism and democracy infuses all my media history courses, including a new one this semester where I’m taking students into the university’s special collections archive to conduct research in the papers of Hedley Donovan, editor-in-chief of Time, Inc, during the 1960s and '70s. This week, they are scouring Donovan’s papers for material on coverage of the Vietnam War.

What are you working on now?

In the short term, I’m working on multiple articles, including one on contemporary Black advocacy journalism, the mainstream press, and the public sphere. I also have launched a book project on Journalism in the Jim Crow North. Early days on that one.

What are some of your interests and hobbies outside of academia?

My wife and I have three aging pets, and it sometimes feels like they dominate our spare time. But we spend most of our free time focusing on our grandkids—ages 8 and 5—and rooting on our daughter, who works in politics at this fraught moment in our nation’s history. Not for the faint of heart.

The Battle for the First Amendment Is Never Over

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 21:39:50 GMT

Lynn Hamer, professor in the UToledo Judith Herb College of Education, presents on Ohio HB 616 "Regarding Promoting and Teaching Divisive or Inherently Racist Concepts in Public Schools" at a 2022 UToledo Banned Books Week event.

By Paulette D. Kilmer, Professor and Coordinator of the UToledo Banned Books Week Vigil

For 25 years, we have joined the American Library Association in celebrating the right to read and think freely during Banned Books Week. We host an all-day program of 20-minute presentations to raise awareness of censorship. We give away door prizes, banned books, and light refreshments donated by sponsors. These gifts increase our web of involvement and make the Utoledo Banned Books Week Vigil a campus legacy event.

Sometimes, people ask us why it matters if books are banned since the Internet empowers people to buy whatever they want. Chilling incidents in 2021 threaten the future of our right to read freely. For example, in Virginia, a judge ended two lawsuits to force Barnes and Noble to require permission slips from parents and to remove forbidden books from the state.

Censorship episodes occurred all over the country. For example, in the spring of 2022, Idaho, Texas, and Oklahoma considered laws to fine, fire, or imprison librarians who did their job and refused to remove books some in the community considered offensive.

When my former student, Aya Khalil, found out that her award-winning picture book, The Arabic Quilt, a story about a Muslim girl, was banned in Pennsylvania, she wrote The Book-Banning Bake Sale, which will be released in 2023. The resistance she faced is part of an unfortunate national trend of restricting books about diverse groups and by people of color.

In another episode, two parents living near Cincinnati asked Milford Exemption Schools to remove Julia Alvarez’s book about two girls resisting a dictator in the Dominican Republic during the 1960s.

The American Library Association listed 1,597 individual book challenges or removals in the organization’s 2021 Field Guide, explaining that many challenged or banned books go unreported, and so the number of targeted books in 2021 was much greater. PEN America reported that 2 million students in 86 districts throughout the United States lost access to books through these restrictions. The percentage of challenges at public libraries rose to 37 percent.

In April of this year, The Washington Post reported that the principal at an elementary school north of Columbus, Ohio, told an author to read another book to students other than the popular It’s OK to Be a Unicorn. The unicorns and rainbow lettering on Jason Tharp’s book convinced one parent it would recruit students to be gay. Actually, the protagonist, Cornelius, hides his true self from his horse neighbors fearing rejection; however, when they find out he is a unicorn, they accept him because it’s okay to be different. The story does not mention LGBTQ+ issues.

Although the second graders at a school in Byram, Mississippi, thought Assistant Principal Toby Price’s Zoom reading of Dawn McMillan’s I Need a New Butt was hilarious, the administrative top brass fired him for inappropriate and unprofessional conduct. Many former students, parents, and even strangers have donated to his GoFundMe account to help him pay court costs for suing to get his job back.

As ultra conservative groups form in Ohio and elsewhere, the attack on books, schools, and libraries gains momentum. For example, Ohio’s HB322 and 327 if passed will punish teaching controversial subjects, like racism, with denying students credit for courses, not funding schools, and suspending teachers’ licenses. Last year state legislatures drafted bills making teaching banned books a crime or outlawing lessons about race, the civil rights movement, or diversity if the content might make white people feel bad.

We cannot repair the damage done by white privilege or learn from our mistakes if we do not discuss them and then change our ways in the future.

AJHA Auction Returns for the Memphis Conference

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 22:00:39 GMT

Own Your Own Piece of Journalism History

Gerry Lanosga and David Nord of Indiana University look at the rare 18^th & 19^th century publications that Nord is donating for the AJHA auction in Memphis.

by Mike Conway, 1st Vice President

What journalism or media historian would not like to have a framed front page of the Dallas Morning News from the John F. Kennedy assassination hanging on their wall? Or how about a Spiro Agnew watch? A World War II ration book? These are just three of dozens of items up for bid in the AJHA auction, which is part of our first in-person annual conference in three years, taking place in Memphis from Sept. 29 to Oct. 1.

This year’s auction has both an online and in-person presence. You can look at the items and start bidding now at our Galabid site. As of this writing, there are more than 40 items up for bid and more on the way.

You can also see the items in person starting Thursday, Sept. 29 at the Sheraton Memphis Downtown Hotel. The bidding will end just before midnight Friday, Sept. 30. You will need to pay for your items online Saturday morning, and winning bidders will receive their media history items during the AJHA business meeting on Saturday, Oct. 1.

“Overbid and Often.” You will often find great deals on historic items at the AJHA auction. But keep in mind that the purpose of this auction is to raise money for our Michael S. Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend. If you can afford to bid (donate) higher, please do. In the old days of the in-person auction, the late Mike Sweeney was a master at guilting us all into spending more money than we expected to help us fund student travel to our conference. Another option is to seek out a graduate student at the conference and see if they have their eye on any auction items and then bid on it for them.

Even though the bidding is online, you must be in Memphis to pick up your auction items. We will not be shipping any auction items. If you can’t be there but really want a specific auction object, you can talk to one of us going to Memphis to see if we’d be willing to get it to you in exchange for a healthy bid/donation.

Of course, we would also like to encourage everyone to donate directly to the Michael S. Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend. You can do that any time. A reminder that this year’s healthy $400 travel stipend was only possible because of Mike and Carolyn Sweeney’s generous decision to list this fund in his obituary earlier this year, bringing in more than $5500. We won’t have that money next year, so the stipend amount will depend on how much money we can raise from the auction and other donations to the Sweeney Stipend.

We will also be honoring all of the graduate students involved in this year’s conference during the AJHA business meeting on Saturday, Oct. 1 at 10:10am in Memphis.

For those of you who have donated items for the auction, don’t forget to bring those items to Memphis. We will have instructions on where you can drop off your items when you register.

The AJHA auction is returning this year because of AJHA President Aimee Edmondson’s decision to put together a special committee to look into ways to encourage and support graduate students who get involved in our organization. Special thanks to Jason Guthrie, Gerry Lanosga, Erin Coyle, Michael Fuhlhage, and Claire Rounkles for their work on this committee over the past year.

If you have any questions about the auction, please get in touch with me at mtconway@indiana.edu.

Caption for mug photo: A New York Times Obama victory front page coffee cup, sold by the newspaper in 2009, is one of the items in the AJHA Auction in Memphis.

We’d love to have you involved with AJHA: Volunteer opportunities

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 21:55:06 GMT

Former AJHA President David Vergobbi (center) recognizes outgoing committee chairs at the 2017 AJHA Conference.

by Mike Conway, 1st Vice President

As an all-volunteer organization, AJHA only succeeds because of the generous donation of time and expertise by its members. Right now, we have several opportunities for members to get involved in our group. If you have served on committees before and are looking for a new challenge, or if you haven’t been involved beyond membership and conferences, we’d like to hear from you.

In the current academic climate, we know there is added pressure to concentrate your service work on your home institutions. That is why we are very appreciative of everyone who gets involved in AJHA to keep the various committee efforts and the entire organization moving forward.

For those who are looking to guide one of our committees, we will soon (or now) have openings in Research, Membership, Graduate Students, and History in the Curriculum.

Committees that are looking for new members include Public Relations, Oral History, Membership, Education, and Service Awards.

If you don’t really know where to start, please let us know and we can find a position that matches your interests and time availability.

Let us know if are attending the conference in Memphis this month so we can talk to you in person about AJHA.

If you’d like to get involved, or have questions, you can contact me at mtconway@indiana.edu or AJHA 2^nd Vice President Tracy Lucht at tlucht@iastate.edu. You can also go to the AJHA Committee web page and contact the committee chairs directly.

As always, thanks to all of you who keep AJHA strong.

Making the most of your first AJHA

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 21:47:44 GMT

Ashley Walter with her Penn State advisor Ford Risley at the 2019 AJHA conference.

by Ashley Walter, Utah State University

My favorite AJHA conference, which was in Dallas in 2019, also happened to be my last in-person conference before COVID-19 struck. To be honest, I can’t tell you which presentation was my favorite, or even about my own presentation. I don’t recall what anyone wore, or if I was nervous before my presentation (although it’s safe to assume I was). Rather, I remember feeling immense support from other journalism historians. I fondly recollect lunching with a group of senior scholars who decided to treat a group of younger scholars to Mexican. We laughed, talked scholarship, and chatted about our families. Since 2019, I’ve spent the last couple of years emailing and Zooming with some of these senior scholars during an isolating pandemic.

This conference wasn’t unique. AJHA scholars are always welcoming and warm to graduate students. However, 2019 was the year I felt truly a part of the academic community. I hope you too can feel like a community member while you’re in Memphis, or at least start building the foundation. For those graduate students attending their first AJHA, I have tips and suggestions for you.

1. Be present: It’s a small conference, so it’s very easy to meet people. If you have work to finish, do it in the hotel lobby where you might run into other people. Don’t hide in your room. Attend the events. Volunteer. Working at the registration table is your opportunity to meet everyone, including other graduate students.

2. Don’t miss breakfast: There are two reasons you don’t want to miss breakfast. The first is obvious, as it’s included in the price of registration. I could stop there, but as it turns out, it’s also a great time to meet people. I don’t wait for people I know to begin eating. I just sit down and introduce myself. Conversation at 7 a.m. doesn’t come naturally to me, but I do it anyway. These conversations are casual, and you’ll get a feel for which panels you should go to throughout the day. It’s also nice to see friendly faces throughout the long day.

3. Go on the tour: Each year AJHA offers an afternoon away from panels to attend a historic tour. The tour very much feels like a high school field trip, except instead of bored teenagers, this trip is filled with like-minded history nerds. It’s a great time to meet people. It usually includes a bus ride to and from the location. Sit by people you don’t know. They will talk to you! I didn’t attend the tour during my first two AJHAs and I regretted it once I finally went.

4. Don’t be afraid to ask: One of the best parts about AJHA is that scholars love graduate students. If you can’t afford to go to an event, senior scholars often sponsor graduate students. I was able to attend tours, lunches, and dinners because of the kindness of other scholars. Don’t be afraid to ask if there are any sponsored tour tickets or lunch tickets floating around. No one wants you to miss out on anything.

5. Don’t be afraid to talk about yourself: It can be intimidating to be around scholars who publish books and are veterans of our craft. But don’t be afraid to talk about your research, even if it’s just budding. I cannot tell you the amount of fantastic advice I’ve been given in the halls of AJHA hotels. You’ll want to keep your Notes app open.

6. Presentations: Show up early for your presentations and have your visual aid on a USB. Never go over your presentation time. Most people’s PowerPoint presentations aren’t very text heavy and usually include just a few visual aids. Also, I find that most people skip over the literature review and just dig right into their findings. Each panel ends with a question-and-answer portion. Don’t be nervous about this part. Any horror stories you’ve heard about combative Q&A's don’t happen at AJHA. Scholars are there to build knowledge and support others. If you don’t know the answer to a question, feel free to use this line: “That’s a great question! That was outside the scope of this research, but I’ll be sure to look into it.”

7. Clothing: AJHA dress is business casual during the presentations, but casual otherwise. Don’t be afraid to wear comfortable shoes/clothing, especially during the tour. It’s usually a busy day and includes a lot of walking.

8. Be nice to yourself: My first two years I felt like a graduate student lurking on the sidelines. And I was. That’s not to say people weren’t friendly in 2017 and 2018—in fact, they very much were. While confidence surely played a role, 2019 was different because, after a few years of attending, I really put myself “out there” at the annual conference. I went to all the events and eventually, I saw more faces I recognized than didn’t. So, if you leave your first AJHA feeling like a lurking graduate student, that’s totally normal. You are!

9. One last thing: I am sure other AJHA members have even better tips. I suggest you ask them in Memphis this year.

Member Spotlight: Gwyneth Mellinger

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 21:31:18 GMT

Gwyneth Mellinger is a professor in the School of Media Arts & Design at James Madison University. She is serving her second term on the AJHA Board of Directors. Her research focuses on the southern press of the 1950s, the newsroom diversity movement, and journalism ethics. Mellinger is the author of Chasing Newsroom Diversity: From Jim Crow to Affirmative Action and co-editor, with John Ferré, of Journalism’s Ethical Progression: A Twentieth-Century Journey.

When and how did you first become involved in AJHA?

I was recruited by Carolyn Kitch. While working on my doctorate in American Studies, I presented a paper at the 2004 conference of the Middle-Atlantic American Studies Association in Lehigh, PA. This was my very first paper presentation, and I had the good fortune to draw Carolyn as the moderator and respondent. She suggested that AJHA would be an appropriate venue for the research I was doing on race and press history. In 2005 I attended my first AJHA conference in San Antonio and have missed only a few since then. Although American Studies influences my approach to scholarship, AJHA and the AEJMC History Division have been my primary academic homes.

You'll be receiving two awards for your paper at the upcoming AJHA convention. What inspired this research? How does it fit into your overall research agenda?

The paper examines criticism of the Pittsburg Courier’s Double V campaign that appeared in the white press during the early years of World War II. The paper is in conversation with the extensive research on the wartime Black press by Patrick Washburn and others, but my project asks why prominent whites like syndicated columnist Westbrook Pegler and newspaper editor Virginius Dabney, who wrote for magazines, used their national platforms to disparage the Black press in 1942. Given the existential threat posed by fascism, why was the Black press suddenly their priority? The historical context of the wartime civil rights movement is important, as is the oppositional relationship between the Black and white presses. Ultimately, I am concerned with how this discourse fed into the segregationist backlash during the 1950s.

What can you tell us about other research projects you're working on?

I am on leave from JMU this semester to work on a book I hope will be published in the Journalism and Democracy series at UMass Press. The AJHA paper has already been folded into a chapter in that manuscript, which explores the ways that the white press, particularly in the South, tried to use journalism standards like objectivity to control the news narrative as civil rights gains chipped away at the legal and social structure that supported white privilege and Black subjugation. I’ve been collecting research for this book for years; earlier AJHA papers on the Associated Press and the Southern Education Reporting Service also contribute to this historical narrative. This also underscores one of the benefits of the AJHA scholarly community, where a project like this can evolve over time.

How has your career as a professional journalist informed your historical research?

I love doing archival research, which feels like doing journalism except all my sources are dead. My methodological technique, specifically the way I focus the scope of an inquiry and triangulate information, is something I knew how to do before graduate school. The perspective of the journalist also has allowed me to see that nothing happens in isolation, that historical events or episodes (topics for conference papers) are part of an overarching narrative. Graduate seminars that teach this are useful, of course, but being a journalist is on-the-job training for work in the archive. In addition, my years as a journalist provide insight into newswork and the function of the press. These are not theoretical concepts for me, even if I am doing research on a period that preceded my own time in the newsroom.

How do you incorporate your historical knowledge into your teaching of non-historical subjects?

In the spring my teaching portfolio will be courses in media ethics and media literacy. I am this year transitioning from administrative duties to full-time teaching and research. In neither of my spring courses will it be possible to draw students through the content without placing it in historical context. Our conceptions of both media ethics and media literacy have evolved over time, and the fact of this change makes history relevant to how students perceive the subjects today. Nothing about media is static and that is one of my themes in the classroom.

What are some of your interests and hobbies outside of academia?

I’ve been fortunate to travel a fair amount and am looking forward to doing more now that we have vaccines for covid. I also have a semester-long teaching-abroad opportunity coming up in a few years. I was fortunate to spend a semester in the UK and to take numerous side trips then. My husband and I have a list of places we want to visit before we hang up our passports.

My relaxation is gardening. When I get writer’s block, I often head outside, where the act of pulling weeds or working the dirt gives me the space to reflect on my work. Even if I don’t return to the den with an insight, I’m in a different place mentally when I do resume my writing. This year I harvested 88 heads of garlic, along with tomatoes, squash, asparagus, peppers and melons.

President's Column: Some Appreciation

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Mon, 15 Aug 2022 21:51:29 GMT

Historian David McCullough personified curiosity, something we REALLY could use a lot more of right now

by Aimee Edmondson, President

Eulogies for two-time Pulitzer Prize winning author David McCullough laud his storytelling skills, his sonorous narration of Ken Burn’s “The Civil War,” and note his shock of white hair.

As America says goodbye to McCullough (1933-2022, funeral service scheduled for August 16 in West Tisbury, Mass.), we might contemplate another, perhaps unheralded, McCullough attribute: curiosity.

In this hyper-partisan era, where toxic divisions threaten the very survival of our democracy, I suggest that curiosity might help us figure out how to overcome the mentality of the raging online mob. Let me explain, but before I do, I’ll acknowledge that to some critics, McCullough might personify our tendency to overwrite about “great men.” Indeed, McCullough wrote about the Wright Brothers, Harry Truman and John Adams, all stories well told. But he also wrote about the Brooklyn Bridge, the Panama Canal, the Johnstown flood and more. Typically he started out knowing little about his subject. He was just curious about this person or that, this thing or that. And most importantly, perhaps, he brought his love of history to the masses. He helped millions understand the importance of history.

His curiosity attracted him to stories that might seem widely noted, yet were under told in some way and often relating to people who overcame long odds.

Asking questions, including tough questions, is a high calling. The life and achievements of McCullough show us that curiosity leads to actual discovery, coexists with courtesy, and it must be life-long, not just for children.

Consider the genesis of McCullough’s late-in-life book “The Pioneers,” published in 2019.

As McCullough prepared his 2004 commencement speech at Ohio University on its 200^th anniversary, he was intrigued by the name on the oldest building on campus here in Athens, Ohio: Cutler Hall, opened in 1819. It is also the oldest building in what was then called by white settlers the Northwest Territory of the United States. With its red brick federal architecture, Cutler Hall now houses our university president’s office and other administrative offices. It is a museum in its own right.

That curiosity — who was Cutler? — prompted McCullough to write “The Pioneers.”

Manasseh Cutler, a Massachusetts minister, established Ohio University in 1804. Adhering to terms of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, Cutler and other investors in the Ohio Company of Associates set aside land for a public university in the Appalachian foothills. Note that six native American tribes perhaps most noted in Ohio’s history were in this territory: the Shawnee, Delaware, Ottawa, Miami, Seneca-Cayuga and Wyandot, the last being forcibly removed to Oklahoma in 1843.

The early white pioneers chronicled in McCullough’s book traveled on foot from New England to Pittsburgh (where McCullough was born), and then in the Spring of 1788 built boats to navigate the Ohio River to start a riverfront settlement they called Marietta – about 50 miles upriver from where I live today in Athens.

Marietta College Special Collections Manager Linda Showalter helped McCullough with his research at the library there: "He is curious about everything. When David discovered a great story, his excitement was contagious. He was always cheerful and enthusiastic during his research, and at one time was inspired by a piece of sheet music to sing a little song for us."

McCullough was an octogenarian at that point.

In his research, McCullough learned that Manasseh Cutler was a Yale grad and schoolteacher who became a chaplain during the Revolutionary War. He later served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and took the lead in writing the Ordinance of the Northwest Territory, particularly noted for drafting prohibitions regarding slavery in the new territories that would become Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Curiosity is a strength, McCullough reminds us. Besides that life lesson, his curiosity about early “pioneers” yielded broader points about support for education and freedom of religion and opposition to slavery.

It was announced on August 8 that McCullough died at the age of 89. It’s also notable that President Richard Nixon announced his resignation on Aug. 8, 1974. And on Aug. 8, 2022, FBI agents raided former President Donald Trump’s Florida home in search of classified documents amid possible violations of the Espionage Act.

In an editorial last week in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, columnist John Rash noted the date. “However coincidental, the auspicious Aug. 8 timing is the type of symmetry America's eminent historian might wisely tie together in weighing the ways the presidency reflected — or led — the polarization that's only deepened over those 48 years.”

Unfortunately, Rash notes, the partisan raging on the internet did nothing to illuminate the history and the context of the unprecedented raid at Mar-a-Lago. But McCullough wouldn’t have partaken in the real-time discussion anyway. He took years with his meticulous research to bring his characters vividly back to life.

Rice University professor Douglas Brinkley pointed out that McCullough was “loved at the George W. Bush [Presidential] Library and was friends with Barack Obama. McCullough transcended party affiliation. And that was a conscious effort on his part, to unify our country by our shared history.”

Brinkley also lamented the loss of “referees in American life” such as Walter Cronkite. “There is not one trusted source anymore due to the balkanization of media.” Of course, members of the AJHA know this story all too well.

Cronkite, Brinkley said, advocated the teaching of media literacy. But “we're not teaching [that] in schools, so misinformation is running supreme.” And “until you can attack that cancer on the national soul and be able to have fact-based and trusted referees out there it’s a Wild-West environment out there and it doesn't do our democracy any good.”

Late in life, though, McCullough continued to connect history and vivid storytelling to the challenges of these modern times, quoting Cutler’s son, Ephraim: “If ignorance could be banished from our land, a real millennium would commence.”

Blessed are the curious.

I Remember: A Memoir, 1947-2022

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 22:32:52 GMT

by David Sloan, University of Alabama (emeritus)

One of my brothers died in April, and family members, including his wife of fifty years, were uncertain about such basic details as where he served in the Army and even where he was born.

When people die, think of all the knowledge that vanishes with them.

So it wasn’t a grandiose vision that led me to write my memoirs. It was a simple plan. I wrote my memoirs mainly for my two children and five grandchildren. If any of them should want to know something about me after I’m gone, maybe they can find it in my memoirs. If they’re not interested, perhaps years from now a descendent unknown will be.

Because the memoirs are primarily for my family, they tell of such things as how I spent my childhood, what I did in high school, how I decided as a college freshman that I wanted to be a professor, how I met my future wife by a singular coincidence, and what I did on my four newspaper jobs.

But since I spent much of my life in academia and history, a large part of my memoirs covers those areas.

Even though the largest portion of my time as a professor involved the study of history, it was not my original plan. I had intended to specialize in law in my doctoral program at the University of Texas. My decision to switch to history surprised even me.

I got hardly any guidance as I studied history. Yet my dissertation opened my eyes to some of the biggest problems that plagued the study of JMC history.

When I was trying to choose a dissertation topic, my committee gave me only the most meager idea about what to do. My advisor came to the rescue. He told me, “Choose something no one’s ever studied.”

That sounds simple enough. But consider: How can one be aware of something in history that no one has ever written about? It’s not easy. I went ahead and tried to come up with something. Later, it dawned on me that the reason no one has written about some topics is that no one’s interested in them. They’re unimportant or, worse, boring.

I suggested the party press from 1789 to 1816 as my topic. Hardly any historian had written about it in the 20th century. In fact, historians had disparaged it since long before I was born. They gave it the sobriquet “The Dark Ages of American Journalism.”

As I read through hundreds and hundreds of primary sources, something strange kept popping up. Historians said the newspapers were terrible. But people of the time thought they were important. They even praised the papers! Can you imagine that? How could they be so misinformed? Didn’t they realize that the papers weren’t doing the proper job of newspapers?

Then it struck me. Historians were the ones who got it wrong. They were judging the newspapers by journalistic standards that only appeared later. They were expecting editors of the party period to perform by criteria of the historians’ time.

The problem, present-mindedness, is well-known to historians, but journalism historians in 1980 were oblivious to the error.

Once I realized where the problem lay, I could see all of journalism history in a new light.

My dissertation planted the seed for much of the research and writing that I did in my academic career.

The greater portion of my efforts was aimed at trying to improve practices in our field and to elevate history’s importance in the broader field of mass communication education.

One of the biggest efforts was the AJHA. Gary Whitby and I started it in 1982, and Gary founded its journal, American Journalism. Ten years later, I started the AJHA Southeast Symposium, and even after retiring from teaching I created the online journal Historiography in Mass Communication. My memoirs detail each of those efforts.

They were of great importance for me, but I spent more time on writing and editing books. Several focused in some way or other on historiography.

The first one was American Journalism History: An Annotated Bibliography. I won’t waste words explaining why I did it, but will only say that it was mainly for my own benefit. I figured that, to be a historian, one needs to be familiar with the literature in the field. I began work on it the summer after completing my dissertation, and over the next eight years read more than 2,600 books and articles. It was the best education I ever got.

My original plan in compiling the bibliography was to identify the various schools of JMC historians and explain their interpretations of the major periods and topics in the field. That effort eventually led to the book Perspectives on Mass Communication History.

At the same time I was working on Perspectives, Jim Startt and I began Historical Methods in Mass Communication. Jim knows more about historical methodology than any other JMC historian ever has, and his expertise shows in that book. I estimate that around 2,000 students, as well as some professors, have learned how to do historical research from it.

Not all books were so esoteric. The first edition of The Media in America was published in 1990. With it, my goal was to provide an accurate and authoritative textbook that gave students a good historical grounding. It is now in its eleventh edition.

I worked as a professor for thirty-eight years. I had a privileged life.

When my two grandsons were small children, they were riding with me through downtown Tuscaloosa on a hot August day. A construction crew was hard at work on a new hotel. Matthew and Garrett knew I was a professor and had an office job.

Matthew, five years old, watched the workers. He declared, “Some people have to work like dogs.”

He paused and then added, “You know, Grandad, you’ve got the greatest job in the world. All you have to do is sit down all day — and do nothing.”

Member Spotlight: W. Joseph Campbell

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 22:10:47 GMT

W. Joseph Campbell is a full professor at the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C. He joined the faculty there 25 years ago this month, after completing his PhD in mass communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At American, Campbell has written seven solo-authored books, including Yellow Journalism: Puncturing the Myths, Defining the Legacies (Praeger, 2001) and, most recently, Lost in a Gallup: Polling Failure in U.S. Presidential Elections (University of California, 2020). His work also has appeared in numerous print and online outlets, including the Baltimore Sun, CNN, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Washington Post. He has appeared several times on C-SPAN to share his research, doing so of late on the cable network’s “Lectures in History” series. Before entering the academy, Campbell was a reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Hartford Courant and for the Associated Press in Switzerland, Poland, and West Africa.

When and how did you first become involved in AJHA?

I attended my first AJHA conference in October 1996, while I was working on my PhD at UNC-Chapel Hill. Peggy Blanchard was a UNC professor who encouraged her graduate students to consider submitting seminar papers for prospective presentation at AJHA. And so I did.

I wrote a paper about yellow journalism and the press of West Africa, which was accepted for presentation at the conference that year in London, Ontario. I remember it was a well-planned gathering — a great venue with wonderful meals. The local host, the late David Spencer, did it up right. It was a memorable introduction to AJHA.

You'll be receiving the Eberhard award for your paper on “proto-pack journalism” during the Civil War at the upcoming AJHA convention. What inspired this research? How does it fit into your overall research agenda?

The paper is drawn from an emergent research interest that considers the immediate aftermath of the battle of Gettysburg from differing perspectives, including confused, erroneous, and even bizarre newspaper reporting. One reason this emergent topic is so intriguing is that it differs markedly from my recent book projects, which were about media-driven myths, the lasting importance of the year 1995, and polling failure in U.S. presidential elections.

Until now, I haven’t done much research into aspects of the American Civil War, although during my childhood, I used to visit the Gettysburg battlefield fairly often, on trips to see cousins who lived nearby.

I’m honored to be a recipient — now a two-time recipient — of the Eberhard award. Its namesake, Wally Eberhard, was an AJHA stalwart, a wonderful guy with a twinkle in his eye. He had this enviable knack for offering criticism without making it seem deeply critical or harsh. I miss Wally.

You also are the recipient of a 2022 McKerns Grant. What can you tell us about the research you plan to do with those funds?

I am delighted to be a recipient of a McKerns grant and expect it to help provide dimension and momentum to my aftermath-of-Gettysburg research project that’s in its early stages. I expect to use the funds principally to travel to archival holdings at Columbia University, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the Library of Congress.

I received a McKerns grant in 2007, the year it was introduced, and the funds helped me complete research on my media-mythbusting book, Getting It Wrong (University of California Press, 2010, 2017).

How has your long career as a professional journalist informed your historical research?

I left the newsroom in 1995 to enter an accelerated PhD program in mass communication at Chapel Hill, which I loved. I never looked back.

Even so, some 20 years as a newspaper and wire service reporter implanted a strong measure of skepticism, especially about politicians of whatever stripe. And that skepticism has certainly informed my historical research, especially into media-driven myths. The exaggerated content of New York’s yellow press fomented armed conflict with Spain in 1898? Walter Cronkite swung public opinion with a single, on-air pronouncement in 1968 about the war in Vietnam? Woodward and Bernstein’s newspaper reporting brought down Richard Nixon’s presidency? I mean, really? Is that how it all happened?

Being suspicious about such well-known, media-centric narratives can be traced to having been a working journalist in the U.S. and abroad.

What are some of your interests and hobbies outside of academia?

I’ve worked portions of five summers out-of-doors with grounds crews in the arboretum that is the main campus of American University.

Closer to home, I like to split firewood and stack it for seasoning. I know that seems uncommonly woodsy for someone living in a close-in suburb of Washington. But there you have it.

The close-in suburb is a self-governing municipality in Maryland, and I sometimes take an outspoken role in local politics. My Dad was active in small-town politics in Pennsylvania when I was growing up, so I inherited that interest. I’m not going to run for local office, though.

I used to do a lot of blogging, mostly to support my books. I don’t have the time to post very often these days. Still, my Media Myth Alert blog is almost 13 years old.

Nominees for Second VP and Board of Directors

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 20:45:00 GMT

by Cathy Jackson, Nominations and Elections Chair

It’s that time of the year when AJHA members learn about the candidates for open leadership slots. Two AJHA members were nominated to serve as second vice-president, and four members are vying for three seats on the board of directors. The 2nd VP, under normal circumstances, rises to the presidency in two years, then serves on the Board as ex-officio for an additional two years. Board members serve for three years and are expected to attend board meetings at the annual convention.

Additional nominations can be made from the floor during the election that will take place at the annual member business meeting on Saturday, Oct. 1. The ballot also will include a proposed constitutional amendment.

After elections are held, current Second Vice-President Tracy Lucht (Iowa State University) will become first vice-president for 2022-2023, and First Vice-President Mike Conway (Indiana University) will become president.

Proxy Voting

Dues-paying AJHA members unable to attend the conference are eligible to vote by proxy. They should send their name, email address, and the name of the person who will cast their proxy vote at the conference to AJHA Nominations and Elections Committee Chair Cathy Jackson (cmjackson@nsu.edu) no later than midnight Friday, Sept. 23, 2022. PLEASE CONFIRM IN ADVANCE that the proxy voter will be at the business meeting on Oct. 1 and is willing to cast the proxy vote.

Nominees

Second Vice-President

Paulette Kilmer (University of Toledo) has been a member of AJHA for almost 30 years, joining as a graduate student in the mid-1980s. She received two President’s Awards: for leadership of the Donna Allen Luncheon and for filling both editor positions on the Intelligencer and American Journalism in the same year. Kilmer served on the Education and Curriculum committees and chaired the Publications Committee. Her research examines newspapers, magazines, and other forms of pop culture in the 19^th century as narrative and myth. Her major research theme is the power of factually based stories to shape the way readers see themselves and the world, thus reinforcing stereotypes, hidden privilege, and misinformation.

Debbie van Tuyll (professor emerita, Augusta University) has been a member for about 25 years. She has won the Kobre Award (2019), the Jean Palmegiano Award (2018), a couple of honorable mentions here and there, and the McKerns Award. She served on the Convention Committee when she was a new member and served as a board member twice. She has refereed papers for the convention and for American Journalism. Van Tuyll is an editor of the Southeastern Review of Journalism History, which is co-published by her university department and the Southeastern Symposium of AJHA. For more than 15 years, she helped organize and run the Symposium and supported it by bringing students to present papers. Her research interests are Civil War-era journalism, transnational journalism history, and the earliest Irish American press.

Board of Directors

Mark Bernhardt (professor, Jackson State University) has been a member of the AJHA for six years. He currently serves on the History in the Curriculum Committee and editorial board of Historiography in Mass Communication. In 2020, he was awarded the Joseph McKerns Research Grant and has published in both American Journalism and Journalism History. His research interests include how newspapers, films, and television engage in public discourse about social and cultural issues connected to imperialism and its legacy in the transnational North American West, U.S. involvement in wars, and intersectionality in U.S. society.

Elisabeth Fondren (assistant professor, St. John's University) has been a member of AJHA for six years. She received the Wally Eberhard Award for Outstanding Research in Media and War (2016), the Robert Lance Memorial Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper (2016), the Jean Palmegiano Award for Outstanding Paper on International/Transnational Journalism (2021 and 2017), honorable mention for the Blanchard Dissertation Prize (2019), the Joseph McKerns Research Grant (2020), and the Maurine Beasley Award for Outstanding Paper on Woman's History (2021). Her AJHA involvement includes serving on the AJHA Curriculum Committee and the Coordinating Committee for the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference (JJCHC). She continuously reviews for American Journalism and the AJHA conference. Her research interests focus on the history of international journalism, government propaganda, military-media relations, and freedom of speech during wartime.

Thomas A. Mascaro (professor emeritus, Bowling Green State University) has been a member for 17 years and is the recipient of an honorable mention for the AJHA Book of the Year Award (2013), American Journalism’s Best Article Award (2018), co-winner of the Wally Eberhard Award for Best Paper on Media and War, honorable mention for the William David Sloan Award for Top Faculty Paper (2020), and co-runner-up for the Maurine Beasley Award for Outstanding Paper on Women’s History (2022). Mascaro has served as the chair the Service Awards Committee, long-time reviewer for American Journalism, judge for the AJHA Book Award competition, and as a referee for the annual convention’s paper selection. He also is an editorial board member for Historiography of Mass Communication, a non-AJHA, online journal that is closely affiliated with AJHA members (since 2019). His research interests include Network News documentary research, broadcast journalism history, Vietnam-era media history, including Southeast Asia, First Amendment history related to broadcast journalism, presidential & media history, and media and culture history.

Ashley Walter (journalism post-doctoral fellow, Utah State University) has been a member of AJHA for six years. She was the recipient of the 2019 Robert Lance Memorial Award for Outstanding Student Paper and the 2022 Maurine Beasley Award for Outstanding Paper on Women’s History, and she has received honorable mentions for the Robert Lance Award (2022) and the Wally Eberhard Award for Outstanding Paper on Media and War (2017). She served for two years as editorial assistant for American Journalism and is a member of the Oral History Committee. Walter’s research interest is media history with a focus on women's labor and magazine research. Her work is published in Journalism History, American Journalism, and The Journal of Magazine Media.

Proposed Constitution and Bylaws Amendment

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 20:23:37 GMT

The AJHA Board of Directors is proposing an amendment to the Constitution and Bylaws that will allow for annual elections to be conducted online in a regular conference year.

President Aimee Edmondson brought the proposal to the board in July, and the board unanimously agreed to place the amendment on the upcoming AJHA election ballot.

Per the constitution's current language, members vote to fill officer and board seats at the member business meeting, held in person at the annual convention. For the past two years, we have conducted elections online on an emergency basis because we did not meet in person. Passage of the constitutional amendment would allow the organization to have online elections in the future even when the conference meets in person. However, because members will vote to approve the amendment at (and not before) this year's election, the 2022 election will be held in person per the constitution's current language.

When the constitution and bylaws were created, the AJHA was a smaller organization and most everyone came to the convention. Now we have more than 300 members, but our conference attendance rarely exceeds 150--many of whom are new to the organization. To be more democratic and allow all members the reasonable opportunity to vote, we aim to follow the lead of other learned societies and conduct our elections online.

Current language is as follows:

Section 3.02 ELECTIONS. In advance of the annual convention, the Nominations and Elections Committee will call for nominations to fill vacant Officer and Board seats, verify the willingness of prospective candidates to serve, and prepare a ballot for presentation to the membership at the business meeting of the annual convention. Nominations may also be made from the floor.

The proposed amendment would eliminate the highlighted language so that the constitution does not require an in-person election at the convention. Simply eliminating the business meeting specification and not prescribing a specific alternative means of conducting the election reduces the likelihood that further amendments will need to be made later as technology and the organization’s culture changes.

Per the Constitution and Bylaws, amendments must be advertised to the membership at least one month in advance of member voting, which will occur this year at the member business meeting on Oct. 1 in Memphis. [See bios of officer and board nominees.]

Dues-paying AJHA members unable to attend the conference are eligible to vote by proxy. They should send their name, email address, and the name of the person who will cast their proxy vote at the conference to AJHA Nominations and Elections Committee Chair Cathy Jackson (cmjackson@nsu.edu) no later than midnight Friday, September 23, 2022. PLEASE CONFIRM IN ADVANCE that the proxy voter will be at the business meeting on Oct. 1 and is willing to cast the proxy vote.

Digital Storytelling Offers a Bridge from Media's Past to Its Future

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Sat, 23 Jul 2022 20:54:44 GMT

by Julien Gorbach, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

The years of the pandemic drove home to me how much I love sharing an actual classroom with students, but as our society plunges inexorably deeper into the virtual, there are amazing new worlds of opportunity now opening up before us. As media historians, we bring a triple threat to digital storytelling: we are already skilled and experienced in multimedia reporting; we know—or should know—digital media collections better than any other category of scholars or professionals; and media studies is our wheelhouse. Our students choose to be journalism majors because they prefer to make stories and media, not just study them, and the same can be said for many of our mass communication majors in general.

When I signed on to teach our first iteration of a graduate-level class on digital storytelling last semester, I did so with trepidation. The course originally had been proposed and designed by a technically adept documentary filmmaker and transmedia storyteller, but he had left our faculty before actually teaching the class, so my colleagues reached out for a volunteer. I had taught historical methods for mass communication before, and I was excited by the remarkable developments with digital collections, as well as by the issues and debates around those. I envisioned a modified media historiography course that would focus on the burgeoning “digital humanities” aspects of our discipline, with online student projects as the deliverables. But I knew my prep time would be extremely limited, and I feared that I’d show up full of ideas but without the practical knowledge and plans to execute them. I was confident that our class would uncover great primary source material and grapple with important debates, but I worried that the software would prove frustrating for us all.

I was therefore surprised and delighted to discover that as dark as our current times may be in many respects, we are living through a period of extraordinary innovation for media history storytelling. Over the past ten years, a broad range of sophisticated and powerful digital tools for creating interactive maps, timelines, and storylines have become available that are not only easy to learn and powerful in themselves, but also become exponentially more powerful when combined. Some AJHA members may already be aware of all of these platforms, but it's worth taking stock to consider what opportunities they present for our courses and programs.

I’m not sure how it has eluded me for so long, but finding Northwestern University’s KnightLab suite of six Storytelling tools was a revelation. I also discovered that our university has the online version of Esri’s ArcGIS, which is far easier to learn and more powerful than the desktop version and could quickly be made available to students for free. This is not just mapping software; it’s also an elegant web builder, with a variety of storytelling capabilities and ways of integrating those tools together. And finally, I found Twine, a tool for interactive non-linear storytelling, the kind of thing many of us are familiar with from the old “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, or from the interactive film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, which appeared on Netflix in 2018. Again, I’d recommend the online version.

Once I found these tools and discovered how easy they are to learn, the rest of the course design was easy. The goal was for each student team to create a public-facing digital storytelling project by the end of term. We approached the course as a collaborative exercise from the start. We organized the groups by shared interests and by the multimedia skills and experience that each team member brought to the table. Originally, the date for the first project pitch was to be in early March, but within days of starting the semester, I shifted that deadline to early February, in order to provide more time for troubleshooting. That turned out to be a wise decision, for which I must credit the advice of fellow AJHA member Jennifer Moore of the University of Minnesota.

We devoted our first three weeks to the broader debates about media historiography and digitization. In addition to seminal readings by James Carey, David Paul Nord, and Michael Schudson, and chapters of Richard Evans’ indispensable book about historiography, In Defense of History, we covered discussions, for example, of what defines an “archive” and how that’s different from a “digital collection”; how skipping a visit to the physical locale of an archive often strips out crucial context; and how poor Optical Character Recognition, lack of images in a news story collection, or low-quality reproduction can affect what we think we know. Students also read chapters about copyright from Archival Storytelling by Sheila Curran Bernard and Kenn Rabin and took an online multiple-choice quiz that I created for it. But because everything we did was protected by the Fair Use doctrine, and because much of what they used was in the public domain anyway, I was not strict about policing their use of digital content.

We focused on “multimedia” for weeks four through seven—print (and historical newspaper collections); photo and video; and sound, with separate weeks on podcasting and oral history. (These last categories are two great examples of the fresh opportunities of digital storytelling: You combine sound with maps on a website or in a mobile app, and you’ve created a new kind of history.) We carried on scholarly readings and discussion, but also did readings, class presentations, and workshops on the respective skills sets. Weeks eight through twelve covered “digital tools”: timelines, interactive storytelling, mapping, data-oriented storytelling, and VR, AR, and XR. We also did a “field trip” to our university library archives and hosted guest speakers: Puakea Nogelmeier, a founder of the Hawaiian Language Newspaper Project, and Robert Hernandez, a professor of emerging media at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

I took away three lessons from the experience, two of which are technical, but important. The first is that with digital tools you have to be careful, at the outset, with integration: Many of the KnightLab tools did not embed well, or at all, in websites built with Wix, Canva, or other site-building platforms, and ArcGIS is itself a website platform. The second lesson is that while the tools may be easy to learn, finding the right assets—photo, text, video, etc.—and then getting those assets to work within the tools can be considerably time-consuming, even setting aside the time required for the basic historical research. Often links work, but students will also likely need to use software like 4K Video Downloader to capture video, or QuickTime to strip out the audio, and must keep in mind that some websites won’t allow them to grab the content. It is important to warn students about these challenges at the outset.

And finally, I discovered that digital storytelling may be a godsend for drawing students and expanding and enriching our programs. For projects in my undergraduate media history class this fall, I plan to partner with Gale and Readex, two major providers of online historic newspaper collections. Gale has a Digital Scholar Lab that will enable us to experiment with some of the most cutting-edge research tools, while Readex has some fascinating collections of Black and nineteenth century papers. Some mass communication students, I’ve found, love both reporting and archival storytelling, but others, who are fascinated by media past and present, much prefer the storytelling and design to shoeleather reporting.

For years, media history has been marginalized by faculty and administrators who have decided the past doesn’t matter much. Digital storytelling offers us an opportunity to not only keep history relevant, but also to present it as vital to the current and future growth of our departments.

The digital storytelling projects of COM 645:

DAVID FAGEN: AN AMERICAN REBEL

By Avión Plummer, David Massey-Torres, Dwayne Campos

“ALOHA” WAIKIKI

By Cindy Knapman and Ali Muhammad Ijaz

CRAWL: A BRIEF HISTORY OF HOTEL AND RESORT DEVELOPMENT IN WAIKIKI

By Reanna Salvador

OAHU'S CLASSIC RESTAURANTS: GOING BEYOND THE PLATE

By Justine Kuna Sison, Haider Hussain, Liza Marie Corotan and Payton Osborne

Member Spotlight: Anna Lindner

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Mon, 11 Jul 2022 22:35:05 GMT

Anna E. Lindner (MA, Media Culture, and Communication, New York University) is a doctoral candidate in the Communication Department at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. A critical/cultural media historian, her dissertation focuses on how mediated discourses represent and are influenced by white supremacy, national/colonial identity, slavery, and resistance enacted by African descendants in mid-nineteenth-century Cuba. Her other research interests include formations of cultural identity, racialized linguistics and education, intersectional feminisms and queer studies, critical whiteness studies, and racial justice activism.

Anna's paper "Race and Social Status: A Content Analysis of the Colonial Cuban Newspaper Gaceta de la Habana, 1849" is the top student paper in the History Division at this year's AEJMC conference.

When and how did you first become involved in AJHA?

In 2019, when I joined the Wayne State doctoral program, I started research with my advisor, Dr. Michael Fuhlhage, who has been an enthusiastic AJHA member for many years. After a year of looking at old Cuban newspapers, I presented our paper on William Walker’s filibustering campaign in Nicaragua at the 2020 AJHA convention, and I was able to meet several smart, supportive scholars who love what they do. In 2021, we presented our paper on representations of the Fugitive Slave Act in Detroit River borderlands newspapers, which won the Snorgrass minorities topic paper award and is currently under review for publication.

How did you become interested in historical research?

As a homeschooler, historical fiction was my favorite genre. This passion was solidified by the excellent history teachers I had in high school, especially when they encouraged civic engagement and framed history as a way to understand and pursue social justice, my other passion.

Tell us about your award-winning paper for AEJMC History Division. What drew you to the topic? How does it fit in with your overall dissertation research?

A history major in college who was involved in racial justice initiatives on campus, I focused on African diasporic and Latin American histories. My advisor, an Afro-Caribbeanist, encouraged me to study enslaved women in nineteenth-century Cuba—that was in 2015, and I’ve been studying African descendants in colonial diaspora ever since! I’m interested in how racial terms are deployed in colonial discourse, resulting in this project: a content analysis of 1849 issues of a Spanish colonial Cuban newspaper, Gaceta de la Habana. The paper feeds directly into my dissertation research on how the discourses of press stories, legal reports, and personal letters written by colonial authorities both construct the racialized “other” and reify institutional power and ideologies.

How does your historical knowledge inform your teaching of non-historical topics?

I constantly (often unconsciously) ground phenomena, observations, examples, etc. in historical events. This impulse to contextualize, buttressed by attention to detail and the importance of making holistic arguments that try to account for as many factors as possible, makes me a better instructor and scholar.

What are some of your interests and hobbies outside of academia?

I’m still trying to determine what “life outside of work” might mean for me because I don’t have good work/life boundaries, but the main non-academic thing I do is exercise—I’m a certified personal trainer on the side and love being outside. Because I’m such an introvert, my attempts to be involved in activism have been more successful since I’ve been able to attend webinars and other events online and volunteer for tasks I can do remotely (and alone). I’m also very passionate about sleep and food, and enjoy music, gaming, and watching movies/TV shows (I only critique them as media objects about half of the time).

Book Essay: What I Learned About Working with Trade Publications

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 20:50:22 GMT

by Will Mari, Louisiana State University

I wish I could say that I know what I’m doing when it comes to working with sources in media history. But that’s not entirely true—I’m still learning hard lessons about how to engage with challenging materials.

Case in point: trade publications—including Editor & Publisher (recently digitized by Archive.org), the Society of Professional Journalists’ Quill, and the UK-based Press Gazette—are rich and complex, sharing the values and beliefs of the journalism trade over the past century, but also its flaws and foibles. I’ve used them (among other sources, including memoirs, textbooks, correspondence, and archival material) to write two books for Routledge and one for the University of Missouri Press.

They are problematic. Editor & Publisher, especially, represented the voices of owners (who were often publishers, as the name implies), as well as senior editors and other “newsroom bosses.” Rare is the presence of lower-level editors, women, and people of color until comparatively recently. As the comprehensive trade journal for the U.S. and arguably most of Canada, however, it is an important resource for any media historian, especially now that its contents are text-searchable from c. 1901 to 2015. What is important is thus not whether or not to use it, but how to use it. By itself, it tends to represent triumphant, majoritarian, anti-union, sometimes classist perspectives. And yet, it’s not quite that simple.

Throughout the 1950s, for example, Editor & Publisher carried out a long crusade against government secrecy during the early Cold War and contained some of the first trenchant critiques of the handling of Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist obsessions. Later on, the magazine was also interested, often critically, in coverage of newsroom integration efforts and the adoption of computers and later the internet in newsrooms. It’d be lazy to dismiss it, though perhaps too easy to embrace its managerial advocacy. Instead, it’s a messy, contingent source—in other words, the kind of historical record that reflects the reality of its time.

This is true, too, of SPJ’s Quill, which retains a slightly scrappier, more rank-and-file orientation. Throughout the Great Depression, the publication was replete with how-to stories about how to leave journalism, and generally covered the unionization movement (led by the American Newspaper Guild) more fairly than Editor & Publisher. Many of its writers were college-educated, of course, but it was less worried about making powerful people happy and more interested in advocating for regular news workers.

While it has not been digitized (though it should be!), many public libraries, especially university libraries (such as the University of Oregon) contain complete, bound-volume runs. I would encourage my colleagues to incorporate it in their projects. An added bonus—the tables of contents are fairly comprehensive, meaning that it’s relatively easy to skim. And beginning in the mid-1990s, it is at least partially online for those with university library access.

Similarly, the UK Press Gazette, as well as the Columbia Journalism Review and the American Journalism Review, all have at least some online archives, especially from the 1990s and early 2000s onward, and often bound volumes can be found via interlibrary loan. I’d be happy to help you track down copies—please just reach out to me at my email address (members can find it in the AJHA directory).

No one source is perfect, again, but trade publications tend to showcase the then-current thinking or best practices in journalism at certain points in time, and they can act as important meso-level sources for analyzing particular moments in media or journalism history, checking other, more regional sources, and tracing, perhaps more broadly, big trends in the field over time.

I know from experience that they provide incomplete, or even clouded, pictures of journalism. However, for tracking the development of, for example, the use of radio cars in news coverage (something I talk about in my 2021 book), they are invaluable, and, in addition to stories, contain cartoons, photos, and illustrations. Editor & Publisher has been especially generous with allowing for re-publication of images in either books or articles—something that’s not always a guarantee.

So, in sum, I would encourage folks to use trade publications early and often in their research, almost regardless of topical focus—they are complicated but rewarding sources.

A former chair of the AEJMC History Division, Will Mari is an assistant professor of media history and media law at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University. His book The American Newsroom: A History, 1920-1960 (2021) was a runner-up for this year's AJHA Book of Year Award.

He also is the author of Newsrooms and the Disruption of the Internet: A Short History of Disruptive Technologies, 1990–2010 (2022) and A Short History of Disruptive Journalism Technologies (2019), covering the social-cultural history of the American newsroom during the interwar years and early Cold War.

Member Spotlight: Carolyn Kitch

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 20:32:03 GMT

Carolyn Kitch is the Laura H. Carnell Professor of Journalism in the Department of Journalism and the Media and Communication Doctoral Program of Temple University’s Klein College of Media and Communication. She is this year's recipient of the Donald L. Shaw Senior Scholar Award, presented by the AEJMC History Division to honor a scholar who has a long record of excellence in media history. She has authored, co-authored, or co-edited five books as well as more than 70 journal articles, book chapters, and reviews--many of them focusing on memory studies.

When and how did you first become involved with AJHA?

When I began graduate school, I was in an American Studies master’s program, and I submitted a paper about Willa Cather’s journalism, not knowing if it – or I – would fit into this organization. My first conference was in London, Ontario and hosted by David Spencer, and when I met him, I knew that this was a special group. For 25 years that has remained true. The people in this organization are very supportive of each other’s research and very fun to be with. I now realize how lucky I was to find this kind of community early in my academic career, and I’m grateful for the friends I’ve made through AJHA.

You are receiving AEJMC History's Shaw Senior Scholar award for your lengthy record of research excellence in the field. What drives you to remain active in media history research?

We tend to think of historical research as documentary work, but it’s also a process of imagination, and that’s what keeps me invested. To me, historical media are portals to a sense of what it might have been like to live and work during a particular era. I’m also interested in longer-term questions of what media survive or disappear, and which people are remembered or forgotten. These are huge questions we can never fully answer, but they’re compelling. Fortunately, when I was starting out, my doctoral advisor, Patricia Bradley, not only allowed but encouraged me to ask broad questions about cultural history and to take interdisciplinary approaches to exploring them. Her work has been a valuable model for me. Don Shaw’s scholarship also was an inspiring example of wide-ranging curiosity.

What do you believe is the importance of public memory as an area of historical inquiry?

Public memory is a process through which people use ideas about the past in order to make sense of the present. Because this occurs in the present, it also affects the narratives we create to explain the present itself, including judgments about what is “newsworthy” now and should be retained for the future. And this process has occurred in every era, not just our own. So, over time, there is a layered relationship between memory construction and what survives as being seen as historically significant. That is a central concern of memory studies, but also deserves theoretical and methodological consideration in media history scholarship.

How does your professional magazine background influence your research?

I worked on staff at two magazines, McCall’s and Good Housekeeping, that were more than a century old. Among the office artwork were covers created by these magazines’ two most famous cover artists, Neysa McMein and Jessie Willcox Smith, both from the early-twentieth century. I liked those pictures because I liked history, and whenever there was some special feature or anniversary issue “looking back” on earlier eras, I was the one who happily headed down the hall to the room where all the bound volumes were. Those experiences ultimately led me to the subjects of my first two books, one about early-twentieth-century magazine illustration and the other about how current magazines construct historical memory. More generally, of course, my magazine experience inclined me to study magazines, a medium still under-represented in journalism history scholarship.

How do you incorporate your historical knowledge into your teaching of non-historical subjects?

There are no non-historical subjects. Everything has a history, and we are in history. Whatever the subject, I try to ask “how” and “what if” and “why” questions to encourage students to think about how we ended up with the kinds of media we have, why certain people may have had more of a chance to shape those media, and what other options there might have been … and still could be. Usually those kinds of questions move the subject beyond media and into other aspects of life. With regard to recent events, we can’t help asking, “How could this have happened?” That question, seemingly about the pressing events of the present, opens the door for conversations about the past.

What are some of your interests and hobbies outside of academia?

Although this is no longer the case, for more than two decades I sang in choruses wherever I was living, and that experience shaped me in many ways. I also love theater, art, and travel, and after the past two years, I will never again take any of them for granted.

AJHA to Award Dicken-Garcia Student Grant Starting in 2023

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 20:22:42 GMT

by Aimee Edmondson, President

Noted media historian Hazel Dicken-Garcia mentored students in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis for 30 years.

Now her name is attached to a new prize that the AJHA plans to award in perpetuity.

This long-time AJHA member and friend bequeathed $22,664 to the organization upon her death in 2018, and the AJHA has been working to raise additional funds to get the total amount to at least $25,000 for the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Student Grant Award to be endowed and yield a fiduciary benefit of up to $1,000 annually. Donations toward the fund may be made here.

With this plan, Dicken-Garcia's generous spirit will live on for generations of media historians. This financial goal is just a start. The AJHA leadership is now researching options for housing and growing the endowment. As more funds are raised, the annual prize money – and number of recipients – would increase along with it.

The Long-term Planning Committee developed a recommendation for the use of her gift, and the board approved that plan earlier this year. I then appointed an ad hoc Dicken-Garcia Award Committee to create specific language for the award criteria. This committee includes Amy Mattson Lauters, Minnesota State University, Mankato; Jennifer E. Moore, University of Minnesota, Duluth; Kate Roberts Edenborg, University of Wisconsin-Stout; and Yong Volz, University of Missouri.

Lauters knew Dicken-Garcia well as a long-time mentor and friend.

“Hazel Dicken-Garcia mentored many graduate students in her career, and I think she would be happy to know the legacy she left to AJHA will assist young scholars with their research,” Lauters said. “She valued research that added to our understanding of media history, particularly as it relates to the wide variety of diverse cultures and people whose contributions to that history have been understudied. I’m thrilled that this grant will help support future research in her honor.”

The Dicken-Garcia Award Committee has generated a call that the AJHA leadership plans to release in 2023. Specifically, this research grant is intended to provide financial assistance to students whose work embodies Dicken-Garcia’s scholarly interests in media history. Preference will be given to scholars researching in the following areas: 19th and 20th century journalism standards, equity issues and the media, gender, identity and the media, media and journalism ethics, international communication, Civil War journalism, free expression/First Amendment.

To be eligible for the grant, awardees must be a current AJHA member upon submitting their applications, and they must continue their membership through the grant period. The funds may be used any time during the subsequent 12 months for travel or other research-related expenses, but not for salary.

Many thanks to the Long-Term Planning Committee and the Dicken-Garcia Award Committee for their work on this project.

Stay tuned to the Intelligencer for updates on this issue. Meanwhile please feel free to reach out to me at edmondso@ohio.edu with any feedback regarding the use of the Dicken-Garcia gift.

CFP: Telling Ghost Stories, Symposium on the 19th C. Press

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Sun, 15 May 2022 22:28:58 GMT

The steering committee of the Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression invites papers that specifically explore spiritualism and other supernatural themes as they appeared in the 19th century press. Following the 2022 Symposium, we will begin pulling together work for a book, Telling Ghost Stories: Spiritualism and the Supernatural in the 19th Century Press. Conference papers on this theme will be considered for inclusion.

Spiritualism, an important social and religious movement that saw great popularity between the 1840s and the 1920s, began after two young sisters in New York claimed spirits were trying to communicate with them. Their story caught on and so did spiritualism. A little more than decade later the Civil War and its eventual devastation and death increased spiritualism’s popularity among those seeking to reconnect with dead loved ones, including Mary Todd Lincoln. By the late 1890s, it had some 8 million followers between the U.S. and Europe, many of whom were wealthy women of a reform bent. The movement spawned specialty newspapers like The Light published by the London Spiritualist Alliance, the Banner of Light published in Boston, the Spiritualist of London, and others. It also spawned skeptical reactions from journalists and authors such as Arthur Conan Doyle and William T. Stead.

Papers may be any methodology and deal with any period within the 19th century. They must keep their focus on how newspapers, magazines or other periodicals covered the spiritualist movement, journalists who were involved in the movement, spiritualist or other religious media that dealt with the subject, or any other topic that focuses on the press and the supernatural.

This call is looking for 19th-century press research on spiritualism or any ghost stories found in the 19th century newspapers. As related topics, any press research on gothic themes where the setting is “desolate or remote” and where the macabre, mysterious, or violent” took place is welcome and encouraged.

Debbie van Tuyll
Professor Emerita
Augusta University

See the full call for the Symposium on the 19th Century Press below:

The steering committee of the thirtieth annual Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression solicits papers dealing with US mass media of the 19th century, the Civil War in fiction and history, freedom of expression in the 19th century, presidents and the 19th century press, images of race and gender, sensationalism and crime in 19th century newspapers, and the antebellum press and the causes of the Civil War. Selected papers will be presented during the conference Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, November 3–5, 2022. The top three papers and the top three student papers will be honored accordingly.

The Symposium will be conducted via ZOOM (for both speakers and participants). If possible, it will also be conducted in person.

The purpose of the November conference is to share current research and to develop a series of monographs. This year the steering committee will pay special attention to papers and panel presentations on the Civil War and the press, presidents and the 19th century press, news reports of 19th century epidemics, coverage of immigrants, African Americans, and Native Americans, and 19th century spiritualism and ghost stories. Since 2000, the Symposium has produced eight distinctly different books of readings: The Civil War and the Press (2000); Memory and Myth: The Civil War in Fiction and Film from Uncle Tom’s Cabin to Cold Mountain (2007); Words at War: The Civil War and American Journalism (2008); Seeking a Voice: Images of Race and Gender in the 19th Century Press (2009); Sensationalism: Murder, Mayhem, Mudslinging, Scandals, and Disasters in 19th-Century Reporting (2013); A Press Divided: Newspaper Coverage of the Civil War (2014); After the War: The Press in a Changing America, 1865–1900 (2017); and The Antebellum Press: Setting the Stage for Civil War (2019). The panel presentations from the 2020 Symposium were recorded and aired on C-SPAN.

The symposium is sponsored by the George R. West, Jr. Chair of Excellence in Communication and Public Affairs, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Communication Department, the Walter and Leona Schmitt Family Foundation Research Fund, and the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Fund for the Symposium, and because of this sponsorship, no registration fee will be charged.

Papers should be able to be presented within 20 minutes, at least 10–15 pages long. Please send your paper (including a 200–300 word abstract) as a Word attachment to west-chair-office@utc.edu by August 26, 2022.

For more information, please contact:

Dr. David Sachsman
George R. West, Jr. Chair of Excellence in Communication and Public Affairs, Dept. 3003
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
423-645-5330, david-sachsman@utc.edu
utc.edu/west-chair

McKerns Grant Funds Work on Finance Journalist

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Sun, 15 May 2022 21:09:57 GMT

by Rob Wells, University of Maryland

There are times when a research project finds you.

That sense of inevitability has been ever present in my work on journalist Willard Kiplinger, creator of the iconic personal finance magazine and political newsletter. It began as a request to write a short entry in American National Biography. I thought a Kiplinger article would complement my existing research on the trade press, and so I contacted the journalist’s grandson and an heir to the publishing enterprise, Knight Kiplinger, to verify a few basic details. That call lasted one and one-half hours.

Had anyone written a book about Willard Kiplinger’s career, I asked? Except for some internal histories, not really, Knight Kiplinger said.

“I have a copy of my grandfather’s unpublished memoirs and an unpublished company history,” Knight Kiplinger told me. “Would you like to see them?”

This story was ready to be told, and I was now in position to do it. Over the next few years, I obtained thousands of documents from the Kiplinger family files and supplemented that with research from the Hoover Institution at Stanford, the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and other assorted university archives.

I was the first outside historian to examine the inner workings of a publishing enterprise that set a standard for quality personal finance journalism and political reporting for business leaders. The Kiplinger business and personal archives, located in a 19^th century farmhouse outside of Washington, D.C., is a treasure trove of primary source material. I viewed and copied original correspondence between Kiplinger and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Joseph Kennedy, Henry Morgenthau and many others.

The results of this project, The Insider: How the Kiplinger Newsletter Bridged Washington and Wall Street, will be published this fall by the University of Massachusetts Press. The book argues that Kiplinger was an influential player in journalism and politics during the New Deal, a link between the worlds of Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt. The McKerns Research Grant gave me the resources to help pull this project together, especially during the pandemic.

Initially, I had planned to use the funds for research travel, but the Covid-19 pandemic made that difficult. The funds, however, provided me with the means to acquire documents from archives in other states. I soon realized my research problem was not one of document acquisition but instead one of document synthesis.

I used the funds to hire a talented graduate assistant, Matthew Moore at the University of Arkansas, who helped organize and categorize a significant corpus of material from competing publications, such as Business Week, Fortune, and the business section of The New York Times. Moore helped categorize a fat scrapbook of Kiplinger’s public appearances in the 1920s and 1930s so I could create a data visualization demonstrating the journalist’s influence in the public sphere. The funds allowed me to hire researcher Julie Schapiro, who manages the Kiplinger archives, to conduct a series of highly specialized document searches for business leader correspondence.

This process of synthesis, and discussions with my editor Kathy Roberts Forde, led to some important insights about the role business journalism can play in democracy. I found how Kiplinger helped advance democracy and the rise of modern capitalism by arguing that corporations needed new regulatory structures to curtail their power. Kiplinger’s influential commentary came during the depths of the Great Depression, when the very notion of free markets and the future of capitalism were being questioned. Rather than pander to his business audience, Kiplinger repeatedly told these senior corporate leaders that a new order was in place. Laissez-faire economics was dead, and regulation was necessary, he argued.

I believe this book makes an important contribution to the field of journalism history, and I am very grateful to the American Journalism Historians Association for supporting this work.

Images

Willard Kiplinger at typewriter, circa 1930. Photo courtesy Knight Kiplinger.
A 1931 letter from then-New York Gov. Franklin Roosevelt to Willard Kiplinger. The Kiplinger archives holds original correspondence with political and business leaders. Photo by Rob Wells.
Willard Kiplinger’s well-used Underwood typewriter. This is one of the many artifacts in the Kiplinger family archives. Photo by Rob Wells.

Rob Wells is a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Maryland. He received a Joseph McKerns Research Grant in 2020. Applications for 2022 McKerns Grants are due June 15; see the McKerns page for details.

AJHA Seeks Auction Items to Benefit Student Travel

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Sun, 15 May 2022 20:54:26 GMT

by Mike Conway, First Vice-President

Get ready to dig through your bookshelves and private archives because the AJHA Media History Auction is back! We are resurrecting one of the most popular parts of the AJHA experience for our Memphis conference this September. Just as before, all money raised from the auction goes directly to graduate student conference travel, a major part of the revenue needed for the new Michael S. Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend.

We are looking for your historic books, newspapers, magazines, and broadsheets. We want your newspaper, radio, television, online and political ephemera--including coffee cups, glasses, calendars, t-shirts, and whatever you are willing to donate to the AJHA auction. But let’s not stop there. What else do you think someone would bid on to help our graduate students? How about gear from your university? How about products from your town that you can’t get anywhere else? At least one person is thinking about donating a bottle of whiskey from their part of the world.

The new AJHA Auction will be a bit different from the old version, at least for the first year. We are going to list the auction items on an online bidding platform before and during the conference, much like a silent auction. We plan to have the items on display in Memphis (space permitting) and then turn them over to the winning bidders before the end of the conference. So instead of having the auction confined to a couple of hours at the conference, you will be able to look at the auction items online before you get to Memphis. Once you are at the conference, you can see the actual items and keep track of the bidding, finally paying online and receiving your prize at following the AJHA business meeting on Saturday.

Even though we are using an online bidding platform, you do need to physically drop off and pick up all auction items at the AJHA Conference in Memphis. We will not be shipping any auction items.

As soon as you have identified something for the AJHA auction, please take a photo of that item for the auction site. Go to the home page of the AJHA website and you will see a link for the auction. To fill out that form, you will need a photo of the item and a suggested starting bid. We will then create an entry on our online auction site.

Please note that each item will have its own listing on the auction site, so please take a separate photo of each item you plan to donate and fill out a separate form for each item. Forms must be submitted by Aug. 1.

To get you thinking about what you can donate for the AJHA auction, here are a few early entries. Jason Guthrie is offering up a 1976 New Times with Jimmy Carter and Gregg Allman on the cover. Gerry Lanosga is donating journalism media spanning four centuries, including a 1720 London Gazette (pictured), an 1858 Godey’s Lady Book, an 1877 Harper’s Weekly, a 1949 Quick News Weekly, and a 21^st Century page of stamps honoring American journalists including Martha Gelhorn and Eric Sevareid.

The AJHA Memphis Conference is Sept. 29 to Oct. 1, 2022. The deadline for paper and panel submissions is June 1, 2022. Looking for more reasons to join us in Memphis? Here are some of the highlights from AJHA President and former Memphis journalist Aimee Edmondson.

If you can’t make it to Memphis this year, you can always support our graduate students through a donation to the Michael S. Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend, which is located on the Donate page on the AJHA website.

This year, we are offering a $400 travel stipend for graduate students on the conference program for Memphis who plan to attend the duration of the conference and agree to work a set number of hours at the registration/auction table. This generous amount is possible because of the money raised from the donation suggestion in Dr. Sweeney’s obituary earlier this year. AJHA has agreed to make up whatever extra money may be needed for 2022. The amount of the travel stipend for 2023 will be dependent on how much money we raise through the auction and the Donate section of our website in Mike Sweeney’s name.

Doctoral student Claire Rounkles of the University of Missouri is our Graduate Student Committee Chairperson, and she is always looking for more graduate students to help out on her committee. You can reach Claire at cmr5xd@mail.missouri.edu.

For more information on the AJHA Auction online site, contact Jason Guthrie at JasonGuthrie@clayton.edu. Other committee members are Gerry Lanosga glanosga@indiana.edu, Michael Fuhlhage michael.fuhlhage@wayne.edu, Erin Coyle erin.coyle0001@temple.edu, and myself mtconway@indiana.edu.

Member Spotlight: Claire Rounkles

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Sun, 15 May 2022 20:27:14 GMT

AJHA Graduate Student Chair Claire Rounkles is a doctoral student studying media history at the Missouri School of Journalism, where she also earned her bachelor's degree. Rounkles received the AEJMC History Division's 2020 Hazel Dicken-Garcia Award for Outstanding Master's Thesis for her work completed at Ohio University under the direction of Aimee Edmondson and Mike Sweeney.

When and how did you first become involved with AJHA?

I became active with AJHA in 2017 at the national convention in Little Rock, Arkansas. As an undergrad at the time, it was my first academic conference. Earlier that year, I submitted my first research paper. It, unfortunately, was not accepted, but the conference was a great learning experience as a first-time scholar. At the conference, I was welcomed by the grad students and encouraged to volunteer at the conference where I met so many welcoming faculty, historians, and mentors. A couple of the grad students I met, Bailey Dick and Ken Ward, encouraged me to apply to Ohio University, which was the beginning of my academic journey.

Why do you think AJHA is a good organization for students?

As a young scholar, you often hear horror stories of entering academic spaces and not feeling welcomed. AJHA is exactly the opposite. I’ve attended many in-person and online conferences with AJHA and feel just as welcomed as I did as an undergraduate student during my first conference. Throughout my time in AJHA, I have also found many mentors and possible collaborators in research. There are also many opportunities to expand and grow with leadership opportunities.

What is the importance of studying topics such as lynching and racial bias in the media?

It is important to study hard topics such as lynching and racial bias in journalism because journalists are not objective bystanders but rather actors who are critical to the social voice regarding the coverage of these topics. Just as the profession of journalism has improved and grown, it’s crucial to address the wrongs of the past. By specifically focusing on the horrific nature of lynching coverage, I hope to restore the stories of these lynchings to our history and bring to light the faults of journalism's coverage of these murders. I also hope to shed light on the work of local Black journalists who actively worked in the anti-lynching movement.

How does your emphasis on photojournalism and visual communication intersect with your historical research?

Before I decided to have a career in academia and research, my original goal in life was to become a photojournalist. This background in photojournalism has encouraged me to expand my research to incorporate more visual components. Throughout my experience working as a photographer and photo editor, I learned about the disparities in covering minority communities and people of color. Because everything comes from a cultivated historical past, I wanted to know how these issues became so predominant in the practice of photojournalism.

What can you tell us about any projects you're working on now?

Currently, I am starting research for my dissertation. I have created a database of Black newspapers published in the American Midwest. There are around 702 Black newspapers found, and over 12,300 article hits were found concerning lynching. This database is the base of the data available for my dissertation research which will explore the timeline of the anti-lynching movement in the Midwest Black Press.

What are some of your interests and hobbies outside of academia?

Outside of academia, I still use my skills as a historian to help with community projects. In 2019 I started the groundwork for an initiative to restore two historically Black cemeteries in Chillicothe, Missouri. In the summer of 2020, this initiative took off with the Chillicothe high school and local volunteers. This passion project has led to a new project documenting Black veterans whose records have been lost. Besides working with community organizations, I enjoy gardening on my family’s farm and antiquing.

AJHA, AEJMC History Host Successful JJCHC on Zoom

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Sun, 15 May 2022 17:30:59 GMT

AJHA and the AEJMC History Division hosted a successful virtual Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference on Friday, May 13.

Twenty-two scholars from universities on three continents participated in four research panels on Zoom. (See the full program.) Among the presenters was Jodi McFarland Friedman, a doctoral student at the University of Maryland, whose paper "'Mystery People': Tri-Racial Isolate Newspaper Coverage and Conceptions of Race from 1880-1943" received the Elliot King Award for outstanding research presented at the conference.

Additionally, Kathy Roberts Forde (pictured) and Sid Bedingfield, editors of the book Journalism and Jim Crow, joined with two of the book's contributors on a keynote panel.

Seventy people registered for the conference. According to conference co-coordinator A.J. Bauer, most sessions had at least 30 attendees at their peak.

Bauer said that he and fellow coordinators Matthew Pressman and Rich Shumate appreciated moderators Forde, Erin Coyle, and Meg Heckman volunteering their time to help the event run smoothly.

"Although virtual, JJCHC this year gave me an opportunity to share space with folks I'd only ever communicated with via email," Bauer said. "While I can't wait to meet these colleagues in person, it was a treat to be able to share virtual space with them."

Pressman said it was terrific to see the high level of enthusiasm and high quality of work among the presenters and attendees.

"That shows me that JJCHC is still thriving, despite having been canceled in 2021 and switching to virtual at the last minute in 2020," Pressman said. "I am eager to see it return to an in-person conference in New York City in 2023."

Clarity, Historical Evidence Two Keys to a Successful Conference Paper

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Mon, 18 Apr 2022 21:29:56 GMT

AJHA Scholars Offer Advice to Graduate Students and Faculty on Media History Projects

by Mike Conway (First Vice-President), Indiana University

American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA) Research Chair Gerry Lanosga (Indiana University) said the project abstract is a good place to start to judge the clarity of your manuscript.

"If you have trouble distilling your idea into an abstract,” said Lanosga, “if your abstract is muddled, your paper is going to be muddled.”

Lanosga was one of the panelists for an online conference paper workshop AJHA offered to help graduate students and faculty who would like to submit manuscripts to the 41^st annual AJHA Conference, which will be in Memphis, TN, Sept. 27 to Oct. 1. The submission deadline is June 1.

Graduate Student Committee Chair Claire Rounkles (Missouri) produced and moderated the hour-long Zoom session on April 15.

Previous Research Chair Erin Coyle (Temple University) told the workshop participants that AJHA seeks research that goes beyond what the organization's name might imply. Even though American Journalism is in the name, AJHA encourages international research.

Coyle added, “We say AJHA defines journalism ‘broadly,’” meaning that your project could involve newspapers, magazines, broadcasting, cable, satellite and online platforms. AJHA also includes advertising and public relations under its overall attention to media.

Panelist Michael Fuhlhage (Wayne State University), past AJHA research chair, said you want to think about your historical evidence and arguments. Fuhlhage said, “It’s a combination of what you’ve gathered and the ways you interpret that evidence.”

He also said he tells his students that the purpose of a research project can easily get lost. “I’m not shy about telling them ‘I want you to hit the reviewer over the head with a statement of what your topic is.’”

For students looking for examples of great historical research writing, the panelists mentioned five journalism history scholars with different, but effective, writing styles: Jinx Broussard (LSU), Elisabeth Fondren (St. John’s), Patrick Washburn (Ohio), the late Michael S. Sweeney (Ohio), and Tom Mascaro (Bowling Green State University). They were encouraged to look for those scholars’ articles in American Journalism or Journalism History to see how they crafted their projects.

The panelists told the workshop participants to pay attention to the specific rules for any conference paper competition because you don’t want to have your work rejected on a technicality. AJHA is unique among conferences because it allows up to 25 manuscript pages, not counting the endnotes.

AJHA President Aimee Edmondson (Ohio) encouraged the students--and faculty--to submit research for our conference in Memphis, where she worked for almost a decade at the Memphis Commercial-Appeal. She said the workshop is “just one example of the spirit of AJHA that attracted me to it.” Edmondson recalled her first AJHA conference: “I really found my people because they were so kind and helpful.”

Edmondson listed many historical and culinary reasons to attend the AJHA Memphis Conference in a recent Intelligencer article.

This is the first year that students will be eligible for the Michael S. Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend if their work selected for the AJHA Conference. The Sweeney Stipend for 2022 is $400.

AJHA is also reviving the popular auction of media history items. We’ll have more details on that in the coming months.

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If you missed the AJHA Graduate Student Workshop, AJHA recorded the session.

If you have a question about the conference paper competition, contact Gerry Lanosga (glanosga@indiana.edu).

If you would like to get involved in the AJHA Graduate Student Committee, contact Claire Rounkles (cmr5xd@mail.missouri.edu).

Member Spotlight: Dana Dabek

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Mon, 18 Apr 2022 20:06:39 GMT

Dana Dabek is a doctoral student in the Department of Media & Communication at Temple University. She holds a BA in English and Women's and Gender Studies from The College of New Jersey and an MA in Liberal Arts from The University of Pennsylvania.

When and how did you first become involved with AJHA?

I attended my first conference in fall 2020, at the advice of my advisor Carolyn Kitch. Even though the conference was held virtually, I could still feel the sense of camaraderie among the attendees. AJHA members know how to use Zoom chat to pump up the presenters, which definitely took off the sting of isolation a bit. My research is not always historical in nature, but I look forward to keeping the annual conference on my calendar year after year.

What is the historical importance of studying social movements?

Ron Eyerman's work on collective memory and social movements has been very influential on my research and understanding of the interconnected space between a movement's past and its present. Movements are often linked with their past iterations by the media and the current members of the movement. I think this is sometimes to its detriment, as an implied continuity can often bring the past's blind spots with it. But a social movement often does not spring suddenly out of a singular event. It has been brewing and bubbling. Understanding how an issue was advocated for in the past gives important contextualization to what is happening now.

How does your previous professional experience in non-profit work influence your research?

I spent all my non-profit career at grassroots organizations and in the beginning worked with an activist mindset. Because I have a sense of organizational management and movement building from that work, I find I bring insight into how decisions were made in past movements. What motivated an action? (Nine times out of ten, it's funding.) Who seem to be the key stakeholders? What might have been behind this messaging? I have also been misquoted a decent amount in my non-profit career, so I try to keep that in mind when inferring from a quote in print media.

One of my previous jobs was as a program director for a youth leadership program. As a public history site, our mission used figures in women's history to help inspire our program participants to become leaders in positive social action. So quite literally using previous social movements to spurn future social movements.

Finally, I have always considered myself a feminist and approached my non-profit work from that perspective. Lately I personally have been grappling with what that identity really means and the influences that have shaped my sense of feminism and its legacy. My current project is rife with this grappling.

What can you tell us about any projects you're working on now?

Pending approval, I start my dissertation research this summer, so that project is very top of mind. I plan on examining how cultural notions of feminism from the Second Wave movement have impacted the interpretation at historic sites that place women at the center. So much historic preservation of women's sites occurred as a result of that movement's work. Specifically, I am looking at sites dedicated to women who may have proved problematic in our current cultural lens and how that has impacted (or not) the ways these sites do public history. I want to examine how current discourses of intersectionality have created a need for re-interpretation of historical events and figures and a re-examination of our collective memory of them.

This summer I will be hitting the road to meet with founders, current directors, and curators of at least ten different historic sites that have a focus on women's history to interview them and analyze their current exhibits and interpretative plans. I am hoping this research is not only interesting but can also bridge some gaps between academia and practitioners of public history.

What are some of your interests and hobbies outside of academia?

While starting the dissertation process, I took a pottery class and have been using open studio time one evening a week to throw on the wheel. I thought it would be helpful to have a weekly activity to pull myself out of my head and into my hands. So far, it has helped. I get some of my best ideas elbow-deep in clay. I am now a proud owner of an extensive wonky pot collection. My family is also big into board and card games. Now that my stepdaughter is 10, we have been loving getting into more complicated and involved games. Mysterium and Catan are at the top of the list.

Teaching Essay: Innovating with an App

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Mon, 18 Apr 2022 19:16:17 GMT

by Kimberley Mangun, University of Utah

Call me a glutton for punishment, but I continually reinvent my mass communication history course. The latest iteration was inspired by the pandemic and the knowledge that my large, required class would shift online in Fall 2020 — and remain an asynchronous course for the foreseeable future.

And so I spent summer 2020 rethinking Canvas, the web-based learning management system that we use at the University of Utah, and ways to streamline content delivery and navigation. I also reconsidered all of my lectures and pared down content to essential topics, such as the advent of the Black press, that could be conveyed in short video recordings illustrated with primary sources and PowerPoint slides.

An equally challenging task was re-imagining the hands-on research project that had previously entailed writing a multi-source article for publication in the Utah Communication History Encyclopedia.

A new idea began taking shape when I saw a teaching presentation about Adobe Spark, now called Adobe Creative Cloud Express. That application is free to many university students and can be used to design, create, and refine projects across devices and platforms — desktop computers, laptops and Chrome books, and mobile. (See the teaching essay by Ira Chinoy for another way to use the app in your communication history class.)

Another plus: the app can be learned quickly with brief tutorials and used to create visual stories for social media or the open web. It also is a marketable skill that students can list on LinkedIn and resumés.

I developed an initial, simple assignment — a social media post — to introduce my 60-plus students to the app. They were asked to select a quotation that was meaningful to them from one of the provided lists (topics included women’s history, LGBTQ+ activism, and Black History Month). They combined the quote and attribution with a copyright-free image or one they had taken. The students had fun expressing their individuality, and the quotations — by Cher, Eleanor Roosevelt, Muhammad Ali, and others — provided opportunities to connect with individuals despite the online platform of the course.

A second project, assigned in conjunction with a pared-down unit on publisher Henry Luce, helped students further develop their Adobe skills and also engage with a primary source. They explored the digitized collection of Life magazines and selected an issue published on or near their birthday. Students analyzed that issue’s cover and content, paying particular attention to the photographic essay and themes such as gender, race, and ethnicity. Required elements were assembled into an 11x14 poster.

The students’ final Adobe project entailed creating a web page using a variety of primary and secondary sources to illustrate similarities (or differences) between coverage of a historical epidemic, pandemic, or widespread outbreak and the current pandemic. The project amplified concepts I had been discussing throughout the semester in my recorded lectures, such as identifying, analyzing, and using primary and secondary sources; connecting the past to the present; and telling a compelling story that is based on media artifacts. It also built on an article we read and discussed in an online forum early in the semester: “‘A Receipt Against the Plague’: Medical Reporting in Colonial America” by David Copeland (American Journalism 11, no. 3).

To ensure successful completion of the multifaceted research project, students were asked to first submit a succinct overview of their historical topic and a bibliography listing the required minimum number of primary (12) and secondary (1) sources. Their wide-ranging, interesting ideas included the 1957 influenza pandemic; the polio vaccine; the yellow fever epidemics in Philadelphia in 1762 and 1793 and New Orleans in 1878; HIV/AIDS; and the 1918 pandemic. Students were given the green light or advised to make refinements to their sources or time frame.

The next part of the final project entailed locating at least six primary sources about the current pandemic in the same city or region to ensure an “apples-to-apples” comparison of moments in a narrative connecting all peoples to the past, present, and future. Students were surprised to discover similar themes across time, whether reactions of hatred or scapegoating; expressions of compassion or self-sacrifice; or conversations about culture, race and ethnicity, or science. For instance, one student found evidence of fear, anxiety, and personal responsibility in coverage of New York City resident Mary Mallon — Typhoid Mary — and New York Times stories about the coronavirus. Another student identified themes of racism, patriotism, and fear in coverage of the 1918 flu and current pandemic in Philadelphia.

Although the pandemic prompted the latest iteration of my mass communication history class, I learned valuable lessons about delivering content in more accessible ways and rethinking assignments and technology to help students engage with primary sources in meaningful ways. These lessons will be incorporated into future reinventions of this required course.

Kim Mangun was one of the recipients of the inaugural award for Transformative Teaching of Media and Journalism History, given by the AEJMC History Division in 2019. She also was the first communication historian to receive the American Historical Association’s Eugene Asher Distinguished Teaching Award. Mangun has been on the faculty at the University of Utah Department of Communication since 2006.

Localism, Journalism History and Media Literacy

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 14 Apr 2022 17:23:33 GMT

by Jennifer E. Moore, University of Minnesota Duluth

I recently spent a weekend attending two public events where I was immersed in history and photojournalism. The first featured the work of professional and community photographers who captured the uprising after the May 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Documenting a Reckoning: The Murder of George Floyd is a breathtaking visual record of events that changed the world and how we talk about race and the police. The second was a play at the Minnesota History Theater, Parks: Portrait of a Young Artist, about twentieth-century documentary photographer, filmmaker, and humanitarian Gordon Parks. The performance focused on Parks’s early years in St. Paul (Minneapolis’ twin city). Both events caused me to think about the importance of journalism history in public spaces and my role as AJHA’s first “media literacy czar.”

When AJHA President Dr. Aimee Edmondson asked me if I’d be interested in working on ways to engage our members with media literacy, I was delighted. I volunteered for the additional work as an AJHA board member because I am passionate about the various roles we can play as scholars in our communities. We have past president Donna Lampkin Stephens to thank for her efforts to establish a relationship with NAMLE (the National Association for Media Literacy Education). I’m excited to do what I can to continue building on that relationship, and more.

Taking on this role for AJHA has caused me to think more purposefully about what constitutes media literacy and how we can amplify our roles as teacher-scholars to help educate the public. If you consider how the Center for Media Literacy defines media literacy as creating “an understanding of the role of media in society as well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens of a democracy,” we as journalism historians are in the perfect position to lead conversations in our communities. How can we stress the importance of history in understanding news and mass media today? While few of us (if any!) are in a position to curate a photo exhibit or a theatrical performance, there are smaller things we can do as experts in journalism and mass media history to facilitate community conversations where we live. I will offer an example.

Earlier this year I was a speaker at the League of Women Voters of Duluth’s 24th annual “Citizens in Action'' meeting themed “Misinformation and Media Literacy.” The January 2022 event began with a recorded message from Minnesota U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar. You may know about the bi-partisan bill Klobuchar co-authored, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act. She spoke passionately about journalism and democracy, and that made my role all the more exciting. I was invited to speak about disinformation, misinformation and “fake news.” I provided historical context to contextualize the current state of mass media. I offered ways to be a savvy news consumer and how to spot misinformation. I shared tips on how to speak civilly with people who spread misinformation. A local television reporter talked about her role as a local journalist and shared her experiences with misinformation. The event was attended by area state and house representatives as well as school board and city council members. The Zoom chat function was full of enthusiastic comments from community members. Many wanted to know how the conversation could continue talking about media literacy education in our community. I’m now in the process of working with League organizers to figure out how.

I imagine many of you could share similar stories about the work you do as teacher-scholars in your communities. If not, perhaps you’d like to learn how. If you have thoughts, ideas, or questions, I’d love to hear from you before we gather in Memphis this fall. I’m committed to help drive this presidential initiative toward tangible goals and actionable outcomes. You can reach me at mooreje@d.umn.edu or find me on Twitter: @jem2998.

Looking Forward to AJHA 2022 in Memphis

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 16:20:33 GMT

by Aimee Edmondson, AJHA President

My countdown to Memphis has begun.

After two years of virtual meetings, the AJHA officers and conference personnel have made the decision to hold an in-person conference this year. Our 41^st annual convention will be held from Sept. 29 to Oct. 1 at the Sheraton Memphis Downtown.

The Memphis conference originally was scheduled for October 2020 but was moved online due to the pandemic, as you no doubt are aware. The AJHA did not incur a financial penalty when we agreed to move the in-person Memphis conference back two years in what we anticipated would be a post-pandemic environment. Like other scholarly associations, AJHA must plan conferences years in advance to secure enough hotel rooms and meeting spaces. The contract for the Memphis conference, of course, was signed long before anyone had heard of COVID-19. In 2022, vaccines, COVID testing, and COVID treatments are widely available, so hopefully infection numbers will remain low this fall as we fulfill this contractual obligation with the hotel.

A Memphis convention in person. What a treat. We are resuming our face-to-face interactions in a town with so much rich and relevant history. Whether you are interested in civil rights history or music history or both, conference attendees would do well to arrive in the Bluff City a day or two early or plan to stay late in order to take in the many historical attractions, and of course, barbecue, while you’re there.

I lived in Memphis for almost a decade in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and so much has changed about the city and the news landscape since my own newsroom days at The Commercial Appeal. There were 100 reporters in that sprawling, glassy, five-story news building that we called “495 Union,” between downtown and midtown. I can’t wait to return to some of my old haunts and discover a few new ones with my AJHA friends and colleagues.

Soul burgers at Earnestine and Hazel’s anyone?

As you ponder submitting papers, panel proposals and research-in-progress abstracts, let me tempt you a bit more with a few recommendations on sights, sounds and eats from a (former) Memphis local.

National Civil Rights Museum (Aimee Edmondson)

The National Civil Rights Museum is not to be missed, of course, even for locals. And while the conference’s organizers are still planning the Friday afternoon historic tour, the museum attached to the iconic Lorraine Motel will most certainly be on the itinerary. You can walk through the hotel room where Martin Luther King Jr. was staying on that fateful night, and even linger on the balcony where he spent his final moments. The newest section of the museum is across the street in the boarding house where James Earl Ray fired the shot that killed King on April 4, 1968. The museum complex, though, covers civil rights history from the 17^th century to present, so allow yourself plenty of time to take it all in.

Our hotel, the Sheraton, is in a fantastic location – right on the pedestrian-friendly Main Street with a trolley loop running down Main to a stop next to the trendy, revitalized South Main Arts District, which is chock full of galleries, shops and restaurants. South Main’s classic good looks were the draw for the filming of such Hollywood movies as Walk the Line, Hustle and Flow and Great Balls of Fire. But it was probably Jim Jarmusch’s 1989 Indy film Mystery Train that jumpstarted movie makers’ love affair with Memphis.

From Main Street, you can’t miss the screaming neon of historic Beale Street, which got its start in the 1840s as a vibrant Black commercial district that has since turned into a major landmark for blues aficionados. You can catch a show most any night of the week at one of the many venues with doors wide open to revelers. I once saw B.B. King and his guitar Lucille at his music club on Beale. Now that was a thrill.

Sun Studio (Shutterstock via Aimee Edmondson)

Memphis produced so many music greats, and you probably know most of them by heart: Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Isaac Hayes, Al Green, Roy Orbison, and, of course, Rufus Thomas. If this speaks to your soul, make time for a tour of the birthplace of rock ‘n’ roll, Sam Phillips’ Sun Studio on the edge of downtown. Two other fantastic music museums are the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and the Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum. The latter is a Smithsonian affiliate with permanent exhibits tracing the history of blues, rock and soul music from its roots in African-American folk songs to modern day. Stax pays tribute to the legendary musicians who first laid down that Memphis sound, and even includes Isaac Hayes’ custom 1972 Cadillac Eldorado.

If you haven’t seen Elvis’ Jungle Room, now’s your chance. The opulent, colonial-style Graceland is one of the most-visited homes in the country, second only to the White House. There are whole rooms of music memorabilia, and you can even walk through the Lisa Marie, the jet that Elvis bought from Delta Airlines in 1975, refurbished and named after his daughter.

Peabody ducks (Erika Pribanic-Smith)

The downtown skyline at night is always a favorite with the swirling, swift-running gravy that is the mighty Mississippi River. It serves as the foreground for a setting sun over Arkansas to the west. Catch that view with a cocktail from the famous Peabody Hotel with its equally famous ducks, whose fancy evening digs remain situated on the roof. If you like quirky, catch the duck parade from the rooftop, down the elevator and into the ornate fountain in the luxurious lobby, where those lucky ducks get to spend all of their days. Set your clocks on it, 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., and those ducks will march on a red carpet while tourists snap photos like paparazzi.

On the other side of downtown, you might take an elevator up the 32-story glass and steel Pyramid arena which opened, unbelievably, as a Bass Pro superstore, complete with an indoor, alligator-infested swamp. Hard to believe it, but the University of Memphis basketball team used to play in here when I was in school, as did the NBA team the Grizzlies before the FedEx Forum was built over by Beale Street. The Pyramid has been a distinctive part of the skyline since it was built in 1991, paying homage to the city’s namesake in Egypt, known for its ancient pyramids, of course. The sports arena was refurbished in 2015 and includes what seems like acres of sporting goods, a hotel, restaurants, an archery range and even an open-air bar and observation deck at the pyramid’s apex.

An uber ride to nearby Midtown will get you to the hip Cooper-Young area and nearby Overton Square. There are some great restaurants and shopping in this part of town (see some recommendations below). The recently revitalized Crosstown Building – which was a hulking ruin of a 1920s Sears building when I lived in Memphis – has been reopened as an arty “mixed use urban village.” Also in Midtown, big beautiful houses in Central Gardens are worth a swoon. And if you are into checking out cool residential areas, Mud Island is a great spot for a stroll along the river or through the pedestrian-friendly streets.

Memphis might be the home of Fred Smith’s FedEx, Kemmons Wilson’s Holiday Inn, and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, all on the world map. But, besides the history, I’m ready to talk food.

Here are some of my favorites:

Rendezvous ribs (Shelby L. Bell/CC BY 2.0)

Barbecue

I’m a sucker for the atmosphere and especially the dry rub at Charlie Vergos’ Rendezvous. This Memphis landmark opened in a downtown alley in 1948, and locals and tourists alike line up for sausage and cheese plates, slabs of those dry-rubbed ribs and ice cold beer. (I know some of you will argue with me on this – I’m looking forward to the barbecue debate!)

Jim Neely’s Interstate Bar-B-Q on Third Street south of downtown is my favorite spot for a pulled pork sandwich. The menu is huge and the service is friendly.

Payne’s Bar-B-Que on Lamar has been around forever, and like Interstate, it’s in a simple cinderblock building that’s all part of the authentic charm. Order everything on the menu.

The Bar-B-Q Shop on Madison. Oh, the ribs, and that sauce!

Cozy Corner on Parkway– We used to head to this famous eatery at lunch time during my newsroom days. Get the smoked Cornish hen. This is more smoked meat than barbecue, but there’s plenty of that too. The strip mall housing this family restaurant has seen better days, but it’s authentically Memphis. There was a fire at Cozy Corner, so hopefully they’ll be back up and running by fall.

Other good eats:

The Four Way is a meat-and-three restaurant on Mississippi Boulevard in South Memphis. Built in 1946, it has served up soul food to the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., Aretha Franklin and B.B. King.

Abyssinia is an Ethiopian restaurant on Poplar in Midtown. It was close to my house and one of my go-to eateries when I was too tired to make dinner after covering a marathon Memphis City School Board meeting.

Kwik Check on Madison near Overton Square. If you want an amazing sandwich, this convenience store is the place. The international menu inspired with Korean, Greek and other influences was a staple in my diet for many years. You can dine in, but Overton Park and the lovely area around the Memphis Zoo would make for a perfect picnic spot just down the street.

The Beauty Shop is my favorite spot in the Cooper Young area of Midtown. Chef Karen Carrier created this hip, funky spot in, you guessed it, and old beauty shop. The vintage hair-dryer chairs are still there, and it’s hard to beat the voodoo stew. I hope they still serve those roasted turkey legs with mole sauce. After dinner, head next door to Bar DKDC for cocktails and live music.

Sage is a chic upscale restaurant specializing in soul food fusion spot on South Main. Try the blackened catfish.

Global Café is an international food hall in the old Crosstown building that has a rotating menu from immigrant foodies who are proud to show off the cuisine of their home countries. While you are in this neighborhood, check out the Art Bar, which displays the work of different artists each month. It’s one of several galleries in this renovated and enormous space.

Earnestine & Hazel’s on Main is a dive bar with a great burger.

For breakfast, go with biscuits and gravy at Bryant’s on Summer Avenue or Sunrise Memphis on Jefferson. Another good brunch spot is The Liquor Store in the Broad Avenue Arts District in Midtown. Sounds weird, I know, but the restaurant is in what used to be a liquor store that’s now a cool retro diner with a full bar and vintage neon.

If you are looking for a beer tour, Memphis is your spot. Ghost River Brewing has a taproom on Main with a food truck scene and another bar on Beale. Wiseacre sprouted up in the Broad Avenue Arts District and was the first brewery in Tennessee to can its beer. There’s a newer taproom on downtown on B.B. Boulevard, and you can make reservations for a tour and tasting. Bosco’s Restaurant and Brewing Company was among the first brew-your-own establishments in Memphis back in my day, and there’s good pizza at this Overton Square eatery.

Other nonfood faves:

The National Ornamental Metals Museum was originally a hospital campus built to treat civil war patients that later served as a research center to work toward a yellow fever cure. The pastoral spot overlooking the river south of downtown now has working smithy and foundry (blacksmith shop) on site as well as more than 3,000 pieces of art in its permanent collection. There are artist metalsmiths on site, and the more than three-acre museum site includes a sculpture garden and lovely gazebo that has become popular for weddings.

The Center for Southern Folklore is part night club, museum, coffee shop and bar. Listen to live music and check out the photo exhibits and local folk art. The spot is just south of our hotel on Main. There’s not a regular music schedule and the bar is only open on weekends, but it’s worth checking out to see what’s going on.

Otherlands Coffee Bar on South Cooper has a cool hippie vibe, great coffee and gift shop.

After all this eating and drinking, consider heading to Shelby Farms for a walk or bike ride. There’s also a rails-to-trails project that connects Midtown to Shelby Farms park about 12 miles out to the bedroom community of Cordova.

Member Spotlight: Christina Littlefield

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 21:47:54 GMT

Christina Littlefield is an associate professor with a dual appointment in religion and journalism at Pepperdine University. She holds a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism (Religion minor) and an MA in Religion from Pepperdine, as well as a PhD in Divinity (Church History) from University of Cambridge. As a journalist, Littlefield primarily covered higher education and religion for the Las Vegas Sun. She recently was appointed Web Editor of AJHA.

When and how did you first become involved with AJHA?

I first started following AJHA in 2014. I got to attend my first conference in 2017, and I immediately loved the community I met in Little Rock that year.

How would you describe the intersections between journalism and religion?

They are best connected in the First Amendment, where freedom of the press and freedom of religion are enshrined together. I first started studying religion as an undergraduate with the goal of covering it as a journalist. If I hadn't been sucked into academia that is what I would love to be doing today. Religious belief or world views inform all aspects of culture, including media and politics, and I believe better understanding the how of that helps us understand so much else in our world today. I also think we cannot fully tell the stories of our communities if we do not cover how their worldview, be that religious or secular, frames their lives. I believe we need at least one religion reporter at every news organization.

How does your historical knowledge inform your teaching of journalism classes?

Funny, all of the history classes I teach are in the Religion and Philosophy Division or American Studies graduate program. In my introductory newswriting class, students receive a brief overview, but in my upper division investigative reporting class, we dive deep into the history and read Jon Marshall's brilliant "Watergate Legacy and the Press." But as we discuss news coverage in all classes, I am often helping students contextualize what is happening now with historical tidbits.

In 2017 you received the Rising Scholar Award to fund research on social gospel muckrakers. What can you tell us about that research?

I am slowly working toward a book on this topic, but I've presented on about half the thinkers, have an article in American Journalism on Josiah Strong, and have a book chapter published on Walter Rauschenbusch in a centennial celebration, In the Shadow of a Prophet: The Legacy of Walter Rauschenbusch, edited by William Brackney and David Gushee (Mercer University Press). That work has taken a back burner to some more pressing research into Christian nationalism today.

Can you elaborate on your Christian nationalism work?

Much of my religion research has focused on a sociological concept called civil religion, which looks at how sacred and secular ideas come together to form the beliefs of the nation, shaping who citizens are and who they want to be. In the United States, civil religion is particularly pronounced and a common myth centers on ideas of American chosenness or exceptionalism. My first book, Chosen Nations, looked at how the British and American social gospel leaders promoted their nations as ushering in the kingdom of God in very nationalistic ways. (That's where I first saw how they were all using journalism to promote reform work.) Their brand of Christian nationalism was very en vogue during the Progressive Era. Today, we're seeing a new, more radicalized Christian nationalism under former President Donald Trump. This exploded into violence in the Jan. 6 insurrection. I am currently updating a book of my mentor, Richard Hughes, called Christian America and the Kingdom of God. It explores the history of Christian nationalism and myths of a Christian America against what the Bible actually says about the Kingdom of God. I am updating this 2009 book to bring it up to date with present scholarship but also working to enrich its critique to show how pervasive Christian nationalism is among even moderate and progressive thinkers historically.

What are some of your hobbies and interests outside of academia?

There's time for hobbies and interests outside of academia? My favorite part of my job, and the most time consuming, is advising the Pepperdine student magazine, Currents. So that's a chief interest of mine. Truly outside of academia, my husband and I love to hike through the Santa Monica Mountains, and we watch way too much Marvel/DC shows and movies.

Uncovering Science Journalism’s Hidden Histories

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 21:19:31 GMT

by Susan E. Swanberg, University of Arizona

I recently wrote the following in my academic dossier: “Journalism, that first draft of history, opens a window onto the annals and accounts of our scientific progress, problems, and paradigm shifts.” My goal as a scholar of science journalism history is to reveal and report a more complete account of the feats and foibles of science, scientists, and science journalists.

Origins of a Science Journalism Historian

The inspiration for adopting science journalism history as my academic research topic was an essay written by Boyce Rensberger, former director of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship program and a science reporter for 32 years. In his article “Science Journalism: Too Close for Comfort,” published in Nature (2009), Rensberger explored “the progression of scientific correspondents from cheerleaders to watchdogs.”

According to Rensberger, New York Times science journalist William Leonard “Atomic Bill” Laurence was a prime example of the cheerleading journalist who was too close to his sources. In the spring of 1945 until shortly after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Laurence wrote articles and press releases for the U.S. War Department about the development and deployment of the atomic bomb – all while he was also on the payroll of the Times. I found the story of Laurence’s conflicted roles troubling and fascinating.

In 2015, after I was hired as an assistant professor at the University of Arizona School of Journalism, I began examining Laurence’s science journalism under a microscope. In the course of my examination, I uncovered the journalist’s previously unrecognized plagiarism of an eye-witness report on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. I presented this research in March of 2017 at a conference sponsored by Washington State University, Tri-Cities.

The essay I wrote about Laurence’s journalistic shortcomings was published as a book chapter titled, “Borrowed Chronicles: New York Times Science Journalist, William L. ‘Atomic Bill’ Laurence and the Reports of a Hiroshima Survivor.” My essay appeared in Legacies of the Manhattan Project: Reflections on 75 Years of a Nuclear World (ed. Michael Mays; WSU Press, 2020).

E.W. Scripps and the Science Service

I try to keep multiple articles in the publishing pipeline, so as I was drafting and editing “Borrowed Chronicles,” I was also working on other manuscripts. Somewhere along the way, I’d learned about the Science Service, an “agency for the popularization of science” founded in 1921 by E.W. Scripps. I was delighted to learn that, in addition to a corps of male science journalists, Science Service had engaged several women to write about science – an unusual situation in the early-to-mid twentieth century. I became interested in the women of Science Service and was determined to find out more about them. I was especially interested in Marjorie Van de Water who wrote articles about psychology.[1]

As I continued my Science Service research, I discovered that issues of the organization’s Science Newsletter were available online through JSTOR. At a meeting of the American Society for Environmental History I met a scholar who told me that many Science Service materials were archived by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. A visit to the Science Service archives was an obvious must! I applied for and was awarded an AJHA Rising Scholar Award in 2018, which provided funding for an archival visit. Within weeks of receiving the award, I was in Washington D.C. on a mission to find out more about Science Service and its journalism.

The Science Service/Eugenics Connection

When I arrived at the Smithsonian Institution archives, I was thrilled to find the boxes I’d requested on a cart in the reading room. I dove eagerly into the files within those boxes – exhilarated at the thought of questions they could answer and surprises they might contain. Before that first day ended, I’d found (“hidden” in plain sight) evidence of the organization’s involvement with eugenics – an unscientific, nativist belief system used to justify social policies such as sterilization of those deemed “unfit” to reproduce. In a number of carefully labelled Science Service files, I found correspondence between Science Service leaders and the American Eugenics Society (AES) as well as documents revealing that a substantial number of the organization’s board members and staffers had been closely involved with the American eugenics movement. To my knowledge, nobody had written about the Science Service/eugenics connection before.

After I returned home, I examined in more detail the documents I’d scanned. Next, I searched JSTOR for Science Newsletter articles on eugenics. I found many articles about eugenics - most of which were favorably inclined toward the pseudoscience. Curious about E.W. Scripps’ personal attitude regarding eugenics, I googled “E.W. Scripps archives” and found, quite fortuitously, that there was an online digital collection of the publisher’s private papers maintained by Ohio University. In these online archives, I located pro-eugenics writings authored by Scripps. The results of my research, described in an article titled, “’Well-Bred and Well-Fed,’ the Science Service Covers Eugenics: 1924-1966,” were published in American Journalism 38(2): 202-230 (2021).

To those who might think that the topic of eugenics is no longer relevant, I would point to the harsh rhetoric we see today regarding immigrants – rhetoric that mirrors early twentieth century debates in the U.S. Congress concerning restrictive immigration laws justified on the basis of eugenics’ flawed principles of human heredity and unscientific concepts of “race.”

A Final Note

Re-inventing myself as a science journalism historian has been challenging at times, but I’ve been fortunate enough to have benefited from the knowledge of more experienced journalism history scholars. As a result, I am an enthusiastic convert to the study of journalism history. Thank you, AJHA, for your guidance and support!

____________

[1] For further information about Van de Water, see: Swanberg, S.E. (2019). “Psychological Armor: The Science News-Letter Warns Against Propaganda (1926-1965),” Journalism Studies 20(13): 1883-1902; Swanberg, S.E. (2020). “‘Wounded in Mind’: Science Service Writer, Marjorie Van de Water, Explains World War II Military Neuropsychiatry to the American Public,” Media History, 26(4): 472-488.

Figure 1: Photo illustration - cover, and page 4 of American Eugenics Society (AES) membership recruitment pamphlet containing the Watson Davis quotation that inspired my manuscript’s title. Photo illustration by Susan E. Swanberg.

Figure 2: Bookshelves containing eugenics research materials. Photo by Susan E. Swanberg

Plans in the Works for Hazel Dicken-Garcia Donation

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 18:38:21 GMT

by Aimee Edmondson, AJHA President

As many of you know, long-time AJHA member and friend Hazel Dicken-Garcia bequeathed $22,664 to the organization. She died May 30, 2018, at the age of 79.

There have been many discussions about how best to honor her memory and utilize these funds to further the work of the AJHA. And one of my first acts as president last October was to ask outgoing President Donna Lampkin Stephens to lead the Long-Range Planning Committee in developing a recommendation for the use of the gift.

The Long-Range Planning Committee consists of the current chairs of all committees and two immediate past presidents of the AJHA; it is chaired by the immediate past president of the organization.

At the last in-person conference in Dallas in 2019, the president of our organization first asked the Long-Term Planning Committee to investigate ways to use the Dicken-Garcia bequest and make a recommendation to the board. However, due to continued disruption caused by the pandemic, the chair of that committee determined to wait until in-person conventions returned in order to best engage the AJHA membership regarding funding proposals. The chair felt that issues related to the pandemic might change priorities for the funding in unpredictable ways.

Hopefully, we are emerging from the pandemic. Or maybe we just have a new normal. And as we ramp up for our in-person conference in Memphis, I have renewed the focus of the AJHA leadership in establishing and executing a plan for Dicken-Garcia’s generous gift this year.

Also, as many of you know, she was known for her dedication to journalism education and media history. She taught in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis for 30 years. She also was the 2006 recipient of the AJHA’s Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement. In addition, she was among the first to explore the evolution of journalistic ethics, and her students populate newsrooms and universities across the country.

For additional context, Dicken-Garcia also bequeathed funds to the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, and in 2019 that organization established the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Outstanding Master’s Thesis in Journalism and Mass Communication History award to recognize the top thesis completed in the prior calendar year.

Stay tuned to the Intelligencer for updates on this issue. Meanwhile please feel free to reach out to me at edmondso@ohio.edu or Donna at donnals@uca.edu with any feedback regarding the use of the Dicken-Garcia gift.

Michael S. Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend and the Return of the AJHA Auction

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 18:21:03 GMT

by Mike Conway, AJHA First Vice President

It will be no surprise to those who knew Dr. Michael S. Sweeney of Ohio University that one of his final acts before passing away on January 15 involved helping graduate students pursue their interest in journalism and media history as well as finding a home in AJHA.

We’ll start with the renewed initiative to help graduate students reduce the cost of attending our conference and then explain how Dr. Sweeney helped make it happen.

$400 Graduate Student Travel Stipend. The Michael S. Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend will provide $400 to graduate students who have a paper accepted and attend our 2022 AJHA Conference in Memphis in September. Student who are on conference panels or have their research-in-progress work accepted for presentation also will be eligible. In exchange for the $400 stipend, students will agree to attend the full conference and work a set number of hours to help with conference logistics. We will be setting up a registration process for eligible students who would like to receive the stipend.

Return of the AJHA Auction. Many of us first “experienced” Mike Sweeney through his yearly role as the auctioneer for the AJHA conference media history auction. After the silent bidding was complete, Mike got on the microphone and encouraged, shamed, cajoled, and used any method necessary to get us to bid higher on all of the items, always reminding us the money was given directly to grad students. By the end of the night, many of us had stacks of books, historic newspapers, trinkets, glasses, and other random items connected to journalism history that we didn’t know we needed. One of my favorite memories was when Mike was able to create a bidding war for a half-eaten ham sandwich that someone had left on an auction table.

We are reviving the AJHA Conference auction for two reasons. First, the auction did raise money for graduate student travel. But maybe just as important, the auction created a space during the conference where graduate students and other new members could get to know members of AJHA away from the panel and paper presentations.

The format for the renewed auction is still under discussion. We may not have the space necessary for the traditional Friday night auction event at our Memphis hotel. If not, we will conduct a silent auction that could run through much of the conference, keeping the items near the presentation rooms to allow people more time to bid. We may even reserve some top items for a short live auction during the Saturday Closing Gala, depending on our meeting space.

No matter what the format, it’s time to start searching your journalism history collection for items that we can auction off for graduate student travel funds.

Mentorship. The other piece of this initiative to help our graduate students involves a renewed commitment and new ways to help our graduate students succeed in their historical research and in navigating the world of academia. Many of us were drawn to AJHA as graduate students because of the way we were treated at AJHA compared to other academic conferences. I still remember senior members of AJHA that would stop me in the hallway to ask me about a research presentation or even just say hello. They seemed genuinely interested in my research and my hopes for an academic career. My first book and many of my research articles were directly a result of help from AJHA members at the conference. Our AJHA members still have that giving and inclusive spirit, so we want to find more ways to connect professors with graduate students.

One of our ideas that we hope to set in motion this spring is one or a few Zoom sessions featuring AJHA members speaking on topics of interest for graduate students. We hope the timing could encourage them to submit their research for the AJHA Memphis conference. We could make these Zoom sessions year-round depending on interest.

We also want to increase our efforts to make graduate students feel welcome at our conference and in our organization. We’re working on ways to connect graduate students who will be coming to Memphis so they can meet other students and faculty who will be at the conference.

The enduring legacy of Dr. Michael S. Sweeney. This initiative began when AJHA President Aimee Edmondson appointed a temporary committee last fall to look into ways to recruit and retain graduate students for AJHA. She asked Claire Rounkles (Missouri; AJHA Graduate Student Committee Chair), Michael Fuhlhage (Wayne State), Gerry Lanosga (Indiana) and me to come up with some ideas.

When we first considered the idea of bringing back the auction, I was in touch with some of the people who had been involved in the past, including Mike Sweeney. He provided important background and insight into the AJHA auction for us.

We all know Mike’s commitment to students--not only those he directly mentored at Utah State and Ohio University, but also all of the students he has encouraged through his work at AJHA and as editor of Journalism History. He is also a role model for all of us in AJHA for his prolific and important scholarship over the years. In the past decade, he has taught us a master class in how to live with terminal cancer. His acceptance speech for the 2015 Kobre Award in Oklahoma City was a moment I will never forget.

As we were working on these graduate student initiatives, we learned Mike was close to death. Aimee Edmondson and I talked about the strong connections between Mike, AJHA, and graduate students. We came up with the idea of naming the stipend after him. Mike’s wife Carolyn was able to talk to Mike about the idea during his final week and they were both enthusiastic about the opportunity. They even made it a point to encourage donations to the AJHA Graduate Student Travel Fund in his obituary.

On February 17, the AJHA Board voted to rename the fund The Michael S. Sweeney Graduate Student Travel Stipend as well as to provide one-time seed funding to guarantee the $400 stipend for the Memphis conference. The amount of future stipends will depend on how much we can raise through donations to the Sweeney Stipend fund as well as AJHA auction proceeds.

Because of the decision by Mike and Carolyn Sweeney to include AJHA in his obituary, we already have received more than $4000 to help fund the travel stipend for Memphis.

Of course, these initiatives only will work if we can find members willing to help us with the auction and mentorship plans as well as help raise money for the Sweeney Stipend. The ad hoc committee has agreed to work on the auction for 2022, and then we can hopefully come up with a plan to keep it going beyond Memphis. If you would like to help us with any of these initiatives, please get in touch with any member of our committee: Michael Fuhlhage, Gerry Lanosga, Claire Rounkles, or Mike Conway.

Researching the History of Presidents and the Press

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 18:01:19 GMT

by Jon Marshall, Northwestern University

My fascination with the presidency was born at age five during the summer of 1968 when my family went on vacation to San Diego. Richard Nixon, fresh from winning the GOP presidential nomination, was staying at a hotel a couple of miles down the beach from us. My dad, never one to be shy, decided my brother and I should meet Nixon. We hiked across the sand to Nixon’s hotel and stationed ourselves outside the entrance. When Nixon walked by, my dad greeted him, and the soon-to-be president graciously walked over and shook our hands.

My interest in the presidency deepened a few years later as I learned about Nixon becoming ensnared in the Watergate scandal. My mom and I spent the summer of 1973 watching the U.S. Senate Watergate Committee hearings on television. The next summer we watched Nixon resign as I wondered how this powerful man could have such a steep downfall.

Fast forward to 2017. The recently elected Donald Trump was shattering every norm in the relationship between presidents and the press. He was using Twitter to bash journalists, calling them enemies of the people, and threatening them with violence. Much of the media was fractured along deeply partisan lines. I wanted to know, “How did we get here?”

To find an answer, I began the research that resulted in my second book, Clash: Presidents and the Press in Times of Crisis (Potomac Books, 2022). I had already satisfied some of my Nixon fascination with my first book, Watergate’s Legacy and the Press: The Investigative Impulse. This time I wanted to take a broader look at the history of presidents and the press during some of the nation’s tensest moments.

Clash has the dual aim of providing knowledge that will be useful to historians while also appealing to students and other readers who are interested in government, politics, and the media. I chose ten presidents (John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Trump) who encountered severe crises and whose relationships with the press tell us something important about how we arrived at our current toxic media environment. By exploring this history, Clash seeks to identify what was truly unprecedented about Trump’s relationship with journalists.

I began by reading the many outstanding books, articles, and papers that other scholars have produced on the presidency and the history of the Washington press corps. During the AJHA conference in Dallas, I was able to visit the archives at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum and found fascinating material about his efforts to woo conservative radio hosts. However, like other scholars trying to conduct research in the age of COVID, I was soon limited in the number of physical archives I could visit. Fortunately, the cavalry of digital resources came to the rescue. I found a bounty of online primary sources in presidential archives, the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and the Internet Archive. I examined White House and congressional documents, speeches, public opinion polls, letters, oral histories, memoirs, and much more.

One of my researching joys was using America’s Historical Newspapers, Gale’s Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers, NewsBank, ProQuest, and Readex’s African American Newspapers series to find and analyze articles, editorials, and cartoons in more than six dozen newspapers and magazines stretching back to the 1790s. In addition, I used clips and transcripts available from the C-SPAN Executive Branch Archive and Vanderbilt Television News Archive. For the Trump and Obama years, I also sifted through collections of social media posts.

One of my biggest challenges was sifting through this rich material to determine what to include within my publisher’s 90,000-word limit. I had to ignore some presidents (sorry about that, Millard Fillmore fans), and there was a lot more I could have written about each president who appears in Clash. In the end, I cut twice as many words as I included.

Based on my research, Clash highlights eight main themes:

Presidents have frequently attacked, restricted, manipulated, and demonized the press to strengthen their own positions.
Using new technology, presidents since Franklin Roosevelt have boosted their power by avoiding the White House press corps and communicating directly to the public.
Presidents who developed respectful relationships with the press have had more long-term success than those who didn’t.
Journalists who advocated for political and social movements have pushed presidents to dramatically change their policies.
Despite their own mistakes and formidable forces trying to hinder them, reporters often have courageously served the public when covering the White House.
Starting with Reagan, policy changes have led to a surge in partisan, divisive media content that widened polarization.
Faith in democracy has been undercut by presidents and their media allies who spread conspiracy theories and other lies.
The news media’s economic woes have weakened its ability to hold presidents accountable.

I had the most fun writing about the moments that bring the relationship between presidents and the press to life: Adams stomping on his wig out of frustration, Lincoln chatting amiably with Frederick Douglass, Wilson lecturing the White House press corps as if they were dimwitted schoolboys, Roosevelt and Edward R. Murrow discussing World War II over sandwiches and beer deep into the night, the inept Watergate burglars accidentally locking themselves inside a banquet room, George H.W. Bush carrying Rush Limbaugh’s luggage into the White House, and Trump studying printed copies of his first tweets to learn which words sparked the most controversy.

Before completing Clash, I faced one final challenge. I thought it was important to include the Trump presidency, and so I had negotiated an early 2021 deadline with my publisher, figuring I could wrap the book up quickly after the November 3 election. But then Trump refused to concede, leading to the bloody January 6 insurrection. I scrambled to include at least a rough draft of that history and the role some media played in America’s descent into political madness.

Clash ends with Joe Biden’s inauguration. Coincidentally, Biden is the other president I’ve met. When my family was visiting Boston in the fall of 2007, my wife, Laurie, spotted Biden coming out of a restaurant. Like my dad with Nixon nearly 40 years earlier, I shouted a greeting to Biden. He came over and chatted with us for about five minutes, asking our three young sons all about their lives. Who knows, maybe someday one of them will want to write about presidents too.

Member Spotlight: Melissa Greene-Blye

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 17:18:21 GMT

Melissa Greene-Blye is an assistant professor in the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas. She worked for 20 years as an anchor and reporter covering local news in television markets big and small. A former chair of AJHA's Graduate Student Committee, Greene-Blye currently serves as co-chair of the Membership Committee. She has presented research at the AJHA annual conference as well as the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference.

When and how did you first become involved in AJHA?

I first became involved with AJHA while still a graduate student at Tennessee. I had taken a historical methods course from Dr. Amber Roessner, and she encouraged me to submit that paper to the 2016 AJHA annual conference. To my surprise and delight, it was accepted and I have been attending and involved in AJHA ever since.

What do you believe is the importance of studying journalistic representations and negotiations of American Indian identity?

A central theme of my work is the importance of connecting the past with the present. Coverage of Native issues, individuals, and identity continues to fall prey to a legacy of misrepresentation established by long ago editors and reporters; if we can understand the historical roots of that misleading representation, we stand a much better chance of improving coverage of Native issues, individuals, and identity in today’s journalism. As for studying negotiations of Native identity, there are two key points: First, is understanding that Native nations and individuals did not always have access to their own press, so we often have to look into the silences in the historical record and be open-minded in using non-traditional sources of information in order to fully understand how Native nations were seeking to be heard and understood by the press of their day. Second, is understanding the purpose of the work Native news outlets were doing in a particular period. This requires a broader research perspective that goes beyond a mere textual analysis of the journalistic content produced by those outlets and which also includes an understanding of tribal culture and politics.

Your professional career was largely in broadcast news. What intersections are there between your professional experience and your historical research agenda?

That is a great question and one I am still coming to understand myself. I often joke that I am like the circus rider who is standing atop two moving horses while simultaneously keeping those horses moving forward together at a steady pace. Two new endeavors are allowing me to use my professional broadcast experience and multimedia teaching experience to educate the next generation of Native journalists: First, I am on the executive team that is launching a Native Media Storytelling Workshop for Indigenous high school students this summer hosted by the University of Kansas School of Journalism and Mass Communications. Second, I am helping produce a news segment for a newly launched streaming news and information program titled Good Morning Indian Country. My KUJH student news team will be contributing content to this program which also allows me to teach those students about best practices when covering Indian Country.

How does your historical research influence your teaching?

I find that my historical research and grounding informs any course I teach in the field of journalism and mass communication because I believe it is essential to connect the past with the present in order to have a well-rounded perspective on what it means to be a media practitioner, whether your field is journalism or strategic communication. In this moment when we as a nation are grappling with questions around social justice and the meaning of authentic equality, understanding the role media has played historically and continues to play in the present moment around creating popular memory and shaping public discourse has never been more crucial. My historical perspective offers an opportunity to teach students how to seek out and include marginalized and underrepresented voices in their work in a way that is authentic and fully formed.

What can you tell us about any current research projects?

I am currently working on a project with Dr. Teri Finneman using Indigenous Standpoint Theory as a platform to examine how Native news outlets have covered Interior Secretary Deb Haaland from her nomination into the current moment with an eye toward comparing that coverage with Haaland’s representation in non-Native news outlets. Also in progress, a book chapter covering the history of the Native press, and lastly, a project examining how three key Native women who did not have their own press platform were able to use the established press to further their advocacy of issues around Native health, education, and political autonomy.

What are some of your hobbies and interests outside of academia?

Wait, am I allowed to have those as a pre-tenure faculty member? Kidding. Seriously though, I spend as much time as I can attending tribal events in Miami, Oklahoma so that I can continue growing my knowledge about our Myaamia culture, history, and language, an interest I love sharing with my daughter. I am also a voracious reader and almost always have one scholarly, one non-fiction, and one fiction book in progress. Beyond that, my dogs require a lot of attention and petting, demands I indulge unbegrudgingly on a daily basis.

Ohio U. Course Coaches Students to Become Historians

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Sun, 16 Jan 2022 18:48:00 GMT

Mike Sweeney (third from the right) with current and former Ohio University graduate students at the 2018 AJHA conference, where Sweeney received the National Award for Excellence in Teaching.

by Erika Pribanic-Smith, AJHA Executive Director and Interim Intelligencer Editor

Over the past 38 years, an Ohio University graduate seminar has been responsible for bringing dozens of students to AJHA—many of whom have become faculty members and brought their own students to the conference.

Pat Washburn developed the historical research class and taught it for the entire time that he was at Ohio University (1984-2012). He said he modeled the course after a seminar he took with David Nord as a doctoral student at Indiana University.

Washburn incorporated lessons he learned from reading papers presented at conferences and listening carefully to the critiques of the papers.

“After doing that for three years, I basically knew what errors to avoid,” Washburn said. “As a result, throughout my entire academic career, I only had one paper rejected at a meeting.”

To help his graduate students learn how to do--and write--historical research successfully, Washburn required them to read three historical papers that had been given at conferences for every class meeting. He carefully chose papers that had flaws so the class could discuss them and learn what not to do.

Washburn also required his students to conduct their own historical research using primary and secondary sources. At the end of the course, students would get one of their peers’ papers by blind draw to critique. Ultimately, all but 10 percent of the course grade was based on the research paper and peer critique.

“The success of the class was shown by the fact that from 1985 to 2012, 91 papers from the class were given at academic meetings (mostly AEJMC and AJHA), and 24 became journal articles,” Washburn said. “I was proud of those numbers.”

A former student of Washburn’s, Mike Sweeney picked up the course in 2012 and continued the success Washburn had. Sweeney's driving philosophy was that historiography is easy and fun. Convincing students of this meant ensuring their success in the class, he said.

Sweeney reduced the weight of the research paper to 60 percent of the course grade so he would not “‘freak out’ students by having the final paper count overmuch.” Furthermore, it was important to Sweeney that students receive feedback early in the course, particularly on Chicago Style. Therefore, a five-page paper worth 100 points (10 percent of the final grade) was due about three weeks into the term. This gave students the opportunity to see how Sweeney marked papers.

The assignment involved looking for examples of the inverted pyramid in primary documents: news stories from 1865, 1875, 1885, and 1895 that students could view in hard copy at libraries or electronically using resources such as newspapers.com. Sweeney chose that time frame because the start of the inverted pyramid generally is said to be the wire story of the telegram Secretary of War Edwin Stanton sent to the commanding general in New York City regarding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. By giving students this assignment, rather than immediately cutting them loose to research anything in any period, Sweeney helped students learn the importance of selecting a research timeline and a rationale for that timeline.

Like Washburn, Sweeney felt it was important to give students an understanding of what historiography is. They would learn this from reading how to do it, reading professional examples of it (including Sweeney’s own work), and getting feedback on their own research from him and their classmates. He adopted Washburn’s assignment of critiquing a peer’s research paper selected by blind draw, and he added a short paper critiquing an anonymous research paper that Sweeney selected.

Ultimately, Sweeney aimed to ensure that students produced a publishable, high-quality academic research paper about a mass communication history topic. Sweeney specifically wanted students to produce a paper that they could present at AJHA or AEJMC, which he relayed to them at the outset of the course. His goal in getting students published was to show them how easy it is to keep on publishing because teaching is, as he told them, a “good gig.”

Sweeney said his students “blew out the field” in terms of published papers. In one year, he noted, seven grad students from the program at Ohio presented a paper or research in progress at the AJHA conference.

AJHA President Aimee Edmondson now is the lone historian in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism after the retirements of Washburn and Sweeney as well as fellow AJHA members Joe Bernt, Ellen Gerl, and Marilyn Greenwald. Edmondson will be teaching the historical methods course, which is open both to master’s and doctoral students.

She said she would maintain the focus on students producing publishable research papers. Her updates would include incorporating more of how historians use theory. Edmondson aims to “break down the silos” by showing how scholars use other disciplines to study history, including critical cultural studies, social history, environmental communication, law, political science, and African American studies.

“I think that would be the way I would do it, while keeping the best of what Mike and Pat did,” she said.

Edmondson routinely teaches the undergrad history course. The primary difference is that the undergraduate class involves lecturing to students on history topics whereas the graduate class involves students learning history through the process of learning how to do history.

Furthermore, the undergraduate course is about six times larger than the graduate seminar. The smaller size of the seminar allows for individual coaching.

"There's a lot of working with students one-on-one to help them come up with a topic and then how to best approach it," Edmondson said.

Member Spotlight: Jennifer Moore

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Sat, 15 Jan 2022 18:52:07 GMT

Jennifer Moore is an associate professor in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Her work on the nineteenth century illustrated press has appeared in media history journals and edited collections. A former co-coordinator of the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference, Moore is a member of the AJHA Board of Directors and coordinator of the organization's media literacy efforts.

When and how did you first become involved in AJHA?

My first AJHA conference was in San Antonio as a graduate student in 2005. I was invited to present on a panel about online resources for scholars. My presentation focused on visual materials (e.g. cartoons, photojournalism, graphic design). I remember the experience fondly. It was a lively session where senior scholars had a lot of questions about using online databases and visual culture. It was a nice introduction to the supportive environment AJHA has proven to be for many early scholars. Remembering this also makes me feel a little old! Who can imagine doing research without the use of online resources today?

I also remember being pleasantly surprised when I was handed a check to offset my travel expenses. I hope our organization can continue supporting the next generation of scholars. Every penny counts!

You've been heavily involved in the Symposium for the 19th Century, Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression. What draws you to that era of history?

Dr. Hazel Dicken-Garcia first introduced me to the endlessly fascinating world of nineteenth century journalism. Dicken-Garcia advised my Master's thesis at the University of Minnesota, and I continued working with her during my Ph.D. studies. I would not be the scholar I am today without her guidance and enthusiasm about studying the past. I see so many fascinating parallels between journalism innovations in the nineteenth century and today's media ecosystem. Studying the past is like time travel, and it keeps me curious. Nineteenth century artifacts offer endless possibilities for new knowledge. It's such a joy to make new connections to the past, and it happens often enough to keep me returning to this time period. I also find the community of nineteenth-century scholars to be the best colleagues one could hope for.

How does your historical scholarship influence your teaching of modern topics like digital storytelling and social media?

I strive to make connections to past media practices to contextualize social, political and economic issues facing journalism and media today. For example, it's always fun to introduce students to "fake news" in the nineteenth century and use history to reflect on misinformation and how it spreads on social media. The differences and similarities always spark thoughtful discussions with my students about power, audiences, and media as social institutions.

What do you feel is the importance of media literacy to the study of media history?

That is a great question and one that I continue to ask. The recent challenge to the democratic process by way of mob violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, is the wake up call we all needed to make media literacy a more urgent matter. An understanding of media history can help empower citizens to know when politicians are abusing their elected positions for personal gain. It's trite, but apt, to say if we don't know our past we're doomed to repeat it. As an organization, I'd like to consider how AHJA members can serve the communities where they work and live. For example, I am speaking on a panel to the League of Women Voters of Duluth in January 2022 about media literacy. I'm also excited to be working on this with AJHA President Aimee Edmondson, who is making media literacy a priority of her presidency this year. We hope to come up with some actionable steps for our members to do in their communities on this topic.

What can you tell us about what you've been working on during your sabbatical?

I am revisiting a research area that I've put aside that looks at public health, journalism, and visual culture. By the time I return to the classroom in Fall 2022 I hope to have a book contract in hand. Wish me luck!

I've also taken advantage of this time to do some skill-building. I had the opportunity to take a documentary film workshop from an international award-winning documentarian in Duluth last fall. It was a terrific experience, and I look forward to bringing what I learned back to the classroom as well as in community-engaged research projects.

What are some of your hobbies and interests outside of academia?

I do my best to embrace the outdoors. I love a brisk walk or a long bike ride and hope to start running again after recovering from an injury. Living where I do, I also take advantage of the snow and cold. I like to snowshoe and cross country ski a few times a season. I began knitting a few years ago and that continues to be a source of solace. Live music is also a passion of mine; the pandemic has made that a bit of a challenge, but I attend shows when it feels safe.

From the AJHA Vault: Roanoke 1994

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Fri, 17 Dec 2021 16:44:52 GMT

The August 1994 Intelligencer included preview columns and
the full program for the Roanoke conference. Click here to view the full PDF.

by Erika Pribanic-Smith, Executive Director and Interim Intelligencer Editor

Last month, AJHA President Aimee Edmondson shared her AJHA “origin story” and urged other members to share theirs. Comments in the AJHA Facebook group revealed that several members first attended at the 13th annual conference, best remembered for disco dancing at the conference hotel and a tour bus that broke down outside a dive bar.

The late Sam Riley led the planning for the conference, which took place Oct. 6-8, 1994, at the Airport Marriott in Roanoke, Virginia. His August 1994 Intelligencer column previewing the conference emphasized two main speakers and a field trip.

Keynote speakers were Donald Ritchie, associate Senate librarian, who spoke on the history of the Washington press corps, and Eric Newton, founding managing editor of the now-defunct Newseum, which was under construction in Arlington, Va., at the time of the conference.

The annual historic tour took visitors on a one-hour drive to Poplar Forest, Thomas Jefferson’s getaway home, and a return trip via the Blue Ridge Parkway. In his Intelligencer preview, Riley wrote, “By early October, nature should have cooperated by turning the mountain leaves all sorts of pretty colors.”

John Coward, who was on the planning committee for the Roanoke conference, recalled that most tour-goers never had heard of Jefferson’s Forest, Va., home.

“I remember that the buildings and grounds were modest compared to Monticello, but the tour was informative about Jefferson’s life as a farmer and agricultural innovator,” Coward said.

Though the planners had promised that those on the tour would be back to the hotel by 6 p.m., one of the buses took an unexpected detour.

“The bus limped into a roadside restaurant or bar, and we decamped to some tables outside to tip a glass or two,” Coward said.

Karen Russell and David Davies were newcomers to AJHA that year. Russell remembered piling into the bar with some locals that Friday afternoon, “and the staff wasn't very pleased, especially when we all picked up and left again.”

Davies said the group was at the restaurant/bar for an hour or two while waiting for a ride back to Roanoke.

“I just remember thinking, ‘Wow, this is my kind of conference,’” Davies said. “The conversations at the bar allowed for even more back-and-forth than usual at an AJHA conference.”

Coward remembered talking at length with Shirley Biagi, Elizabeth Burt, and several other members during the long wait. “We arrived back at the hotel late, but nobody seemed to mind,” Coward said.

The Thursday evening reception also offered an opportunity for attendees to chat. Riley noted in the Intelligencer that the Roanoke Times & World News, then touted as Virginia’s largest paper west of Richmond, was hosting the reception.

“The newspaper building had a rooftop plaza/garden that offered a view of downtown and the weather was pleasant, so that was an unexpected treat,” Coward said.

Jim McPherson, who also was attending his first AJHA conference that year, remembered spending a lot of time talking to the late Wally Eberhard at that reception. McPherson also recalled that he and another grad student stayed in a cheap motel a ways away from the conference hotel and rented a car.

“It turned out that the conference hotel wasn't close to anything, so I got to drive around some of the long-time members,” he said.

Another first-timer at Roanoke, Janice Hume explained that AJHA wouldn't book a hotel that cost more than $70 a night in those days, “which meant strange places and sometimes sketchy hotels.”

Coward said the hotel was isolated along a major highway, so there were no restaurants, shopping, or attractions to walk to. “That meant that we were all pretty much captives at the hotel, which worked out okay since it was a fairly new property and the food was good,” he said.

One evening, the hotel bar was the site for a spontaneous disco dance. Hume and Russell reminisced about dancing with Davies, Fred Blevens, and Caryl Cooper.

“It was hilarious,” Hume said. “And in case the young people don't know, it was WELL past the disco era.”

Bars and dancing aside, the Roanoke conference featured plenty of serious business. In her president’s column leading up to the conference, Carol Sue Humphrey noted that the membership would be voting on several proposed amendments to the AJHA Constitution and Bylaws. One set called for the creation of the Awards and Convention Sites committees, both of which had been operating as ad-hoc committees for a while.

Another set of amendments created AJHA’s vice-president positions: one to oversee the committees and a second to put together the annual conference program. “Having spent the last 10 months trying to juggle all the current responsibilities of AJHA president, I find this proposal an inviting one that I believe is truly needed,” Humphrey wrote.

In her column, Humphrey praised the efforts of Riley, Coward, the late David Spencer, and Alf Pratte to plan the Roanoke conference. “All of their hard work is clearly paying off in a meeting that promises to be full of good scholarship,” she wrote.

Among the ten panels discussions on the program was one that Riley organized on the Research Society for American Periodicals, featuring that organization’s president and the editor of its academic journal. The program also included 42 research papers and 24 research-in-progress presentations.

Russell presented her paper about public relations, the community, and newspaper coverage of a 1946 steel strike on a paper session about news as propaganda, alongside Burt and Kitty Endres. Davies’s paper was on Presidents Madison and Monroe in the party press, Hume’s was on the women of Godey’s Lady’s Book, and McPherson’s was on newspapers’ use of editorials to define their First Amendment functions.

Karla Gower presented her first AJHA paper in Roanoke as well: “Women in the News: A Look at the Presentation of American Women in News Magazines from 1945-1963.” Gower said her MA advisor was busy with board business, so Spencer took her under his wing and introduced her to people.

Among the people she met was Jim Startt, whom she sat next to at a lunch. Gower experienced what many students attending their first AJHA have felt: the wonder of talking with the very scholars whose work they have read in class.

“I kept thinking, ‘How do I know his name?’ Once I realized (David) Sloan and Startt were the authors of our text, I was awestruck,” Gower said.

All of the first-timers said that they felt right at home among the people in AJHA, and that was why they kept coming back year after year.

Were you at the Roanoke convention? Comment your memories below.

Member Spotlight: Rich Shumate

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 21:34:53 GMT

Rich Shumate is an assistant professor in the journalism sequence at Western Kentucky University’s School of Media. Winner of the 2019 Margaret Blanchard Dissertation Prize and 2021 Rising Scholar Award, Shumate is AJHA's web editor and co-coordinator of the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference as well as a member of the Board of Directors and Blanchard Prize Committee.

When and how did you become involved in AJHA?

I first heard about AJHA from Sonny Rhodes, when I was his research assistant in my master’s program at Arkansas-Little Rock. After I moved to Florida to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Florida, I attended my first convention in St. Petersburg, where I had a bit of an epiphany that “these are my people.” I actually drove home from that convention through the tail end of a hurricane.

You've recently received the Rising Scholar Award for your research on "Style, Spin, and Strategy: The Kennedy Press Conferences." What led you to that topic?

I ran across a website that had been put together by a Kennedy buff that had audio and transcripts of all of the news conferences, so I investigated because I knew the research material would be accessible. The Kennedy news conferences are discussed in every biography of Kennedy and every book about the administration as a seminal development in political communication that changed the way presidents communicate. Yet, once I looked into this, I discovered that no one had published an in-depth scholarly study of them. So I thought this was a great opportunity to extend scholarly knowledge. Another interesting facet of this is that even though these news conferences were considered to be a ground-breaking innovation, no president since Kennedy has done this, which is also something I would like to explore.

How does this research tie into your overall research agenda, including your recent book (stemming from your AJHA award-winning dissertation)?

My research focuses on the news media’s coverage of American politics and how that coverage impacts audiences and political discourse. My book, Barry Goldwater, Distrust in Media, and Conservative Identity: The Perception of Liberal Bias in the News, explores why conservatives came to believe that the news media have a liberal bias, focusing on the early 1960s when conservatives coalesced as a social movement during the Barry Goldwater campaign. I posit a social identity explanation for the phenomenon – that conservatives embrace the belief that the news media have a liberal bias to reinforce their social identity as conservatives. The book was based on my doctoral dissertation that won the Blanchard award in 2019. Given all the research I’ve done about political coverage in the early 1960s, I thought the Kennedy book would be a great fit.

How does your news and editorial background--including your Chicken Fried Politics site--inform your historical research?

One of the reasons that I got interested in liberal bias as a topic is that I know, as a journalist, that the news media do not set out to produce biased content, which raises the question of why conservatives feel that way, which is what I set out to explain in my book. My years covering politics certainly give me a great background to analyze political coverage. My website ChickenFriedPolitics.com covers Southern politics, and Southern conservatives played a significant role in the development of conservatism nationally. So it all goes together.

How does your historical research inform your teaching?

In addition to direct application in teaching media history courses, it also informs media studies/media literacy classes that I teach. The perception of bias and the conservative “fake news” paradigm are topics I cover in those classes, and my research allows me to put a unique perspective on my teaching.

What are some of your hobbies or interests outside of academia?

I am an obsessive college football fan, particularly my beloved Arkansas Razorbacks. When football season is over, I take long drives in the country to fill the void. I also enjoy opera. (That’s kind of a weird combination, right?)

Book Author Q&A: Thomas Schmidt

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 20:58:20 GMT

Please introduce yourself and include your connections/role with AJHA.

I’m Thomas Schmidt, an assistant professor at the Department of Communication at the University of California, San Diego. Prior to my academic career, I worked as a journalist for a variety of news organizations in Austria, where I’m from originally. AJHA is very dear to my heart, because its annual conference in Oklahoma City in 2015 was one of my first academic conferences. In addition, I felt particularly honored and humbled to receive honorary mentions for a best student paper at the conference in Little Rock 2017 and for the Margaret A. Blanchard Doctoral Dissertation Award in 2018, respectively.

What drew you to your topic/time period?

When I was in my twenties, I discovered American narrative journalism as I was spending a year in New York City thanks to a Fulbright fellowship. There, I for the first time read writers like Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, and Gay Talese. Later, I studied the practice of narrative nonfiction at the University of Oregon, and I became increasingly curious about the larger context of this journalistic tradition and why it felt so different from the journalism that I grew up with in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. So, when I began my Ph.D. studies, I just wanted to explore this question from a historical and conceptual perspective.

How did your thinking in the development of your topic start and then lead to this publication? Did it stray? Did you make any sudden and unexpected turns?

Thanks to the wonderful guidance from my mentors Lauren Kessler and Gretchen Soderlund, I had a pretty good idea where to begin (the Washington Post in the late 1960s) and where to end (at the Oregonian in the early 2000s). The tricky part was trying to find reliable archival materials because, for example, unlike the New York Times, the Washington Post didn’t have a repository for its organizational documents. I was lucky enough to get access to a special collection at the Poynter Institute (thanks to the amazing support of Roy Peter Clark), which allowed me to tell the story of the Washington Post Style section in great detail. As I was revising my dissertation to be published as a book, I spent some time at the Harry Ransom Center at UT Austin and felt incredible elation when I found documentation about the first Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing, a discovery that greatly enriched my book. It was one of those moments when you sit in a very quiet special collections room and you just want to scream because you’ve found such a gem!

What surprised you most about this project?

From a historical perspective, I was most surprised by finding out that the evolution of narrative journalism was not just a result of a few writers in New York who just happened to be cultural trendsetters. What really propelled and sustained the emergence of narrative journalism was the interplay of individual actions in newsrooms and institutional initiatives such as writing awards, writer’s workshops, and personal networks. From a personal perspective, I was amazed to find so many primary sources stemming from personal correspondence and organizational communication. The range and quality of these materials would be impossible to find in Europe because journalists and their organizations are not that interested in keeping these kinds of records.

What did you find to be your biggest challenge in working your way to completion of your monograph?

I was in the comfortable position to graduate from my Ph.D. program with a book contract from the University of Missouri Press in hand. But my first son was just a few months old at that point and because my wife was working full time in a demanding job, I was juggling being a stay-at-home dad with finishing the book while doing some part-time postdoctoral work. That said, I think these external pressures also helped me to stay focused on substantially expanding and revising my dissertation. Chris Wilson from Boston College helped me figure out some of the more intricate writing challenges and the library at Central Oregon Community College became my second home as I spent wintry nights there writing from 8 p.m. to midnight.

What are you working on now?

My current research explores the changing role of journalistic objectivity and how it shapes the norms, values, and practices of journalists. Since I’m at UC San Diego, I’m particularly inspired to carry forward a tradition of scholars like Michael Schudson and Dan Hallin. I’m particularly interested in exploring the intersection of journalism and social justice as the Black Lives Matter movement inspired journalists of color to reflect on the systemic blind spots of practices of “objective” reporting when it comes to covering racial and ethnic issues.

AJHA President Aimee Edmondson Outlines Goals

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 23:27:18 GMT

Aimee Edmondson took the gavel and became president of AJHA at the 2021 National Conference. In this column, she outlines her goals for her term.

Goal 1: Hook ‘em young.

Those of you lucky enough to have been introduced to the AJHA as graduate students, think back to the first conference that got you hooked.

For me, the dealmaker was the 2006 conference in Wichita, Kansas, and the “party bus,” a tricked out, rolling romper room of a vehicle that hauled our group of distinguished scholars to the Saturday evening gala dinner at a nearby museum.

During the height of football season, all of the regular buses apparently had been scooped up for the “away” high school teams in that part of the state, and the AJHA conference organizers had been relegated to renting what was left over. The party bus.

This thing had a seriously loud stereo system, a disco ball hanging from the ceiling and flashing neon lights bouncing off the walls. The seats had been pulled out and bench seating installed around the sides so there was plenty of room for dancing in the middle. And on our way back from the dinner, there he was: distinguished journalism historian Dr. Dave Davies, then associate dean of the College of Arts & Letters at the University of Southern Mississippi, doing what only could be described as….the funky chicken.

Who were these people? Had I been transported to some retro rave rather than an academic conference?

My contemporary, fellow graduate student Amber Roessner, also remembers “one strange night of karaoke,” in Wichita. Her adviser, Dr. Janice Hume of the University of Georgia, told her at the time: “What happens at AJHA, stays at AJHA.”

Make no mistake, I had heard Dr. Davies discuss major trends of America’s daily newspapers (1945-1965) earlier at the conference, and I’d already read his edited volume, “The Press and Race: Mississippi Journalists Confront the Movement.”

Roessner, now an associate professor at the University of Tennessee, wrote in the Intelligencer in 2011: “As a graduate student, after my initial shock of seeing singing and dancing historians, I had numerous opportunities to discuss journalism history with the best and brightest in our field.”

So, if you are like me, the annual AJHA event was the academic conference you didn’t want to miss. These days, it feels a bit challenging to keep that AJHA work-hard, play-hard spirit alive during a pandemic. Slashed university travel budgets and COVID-19 have kept us isolated – away from each other and the archives.

We’ve had two fantastic virtual meetings, and these annual conferences have enabled us to think big in terms of speakers and sessions. We have seen some advantages of zero travel worries and therefore less of a time and financial commitment. But nothing can replace the AJHA’s in-person research sessions, robust panels, chance meet-ups with old friends and new over breakfast, often where research collaborations begin and take shape. There’s the Donna Allen luncheon, chats over coffee, and always, the Friday afternoon historic tour. The annual conference leaves me invigorated and even more enthusiastic about journalism history and this organization.

As we begin to ramp back up for in-person conferencing, among my goals as this year’s AJHA president is to refocus on expanding our membership numbers and especially to the recruitment of graduate students. The connections we make most often start at the in-person convention and keep us working together throughout the year.

Since our annual October meeting, AJHA members have remained hard at work in their service to the organization. I’ve appointed an ad-hoc committee to look for ways to encourage graduate student attendance and retention at the conference. Special thanks goes out to First VP Mike Conway and Research Chair Gerry Lanosga, both from Indiana, along with board member Michael Fuhlhage from Wayne State, and Claire Rounkles, Graduate Student Committee chair and a Missouri doctoral student. Thank you all for the generous gift of your time and talents.

I don’t want to give too much away yet, but this group will bring to the Board of Directors tangible ways to help expand conference attendance and graduate student funding. Stay tuned to the Intelligencer as more details emerge. Meanwhile, if you’d like to help get involved in this effort or have ideas for this committee, please reach out to me or Mike Conway.

Goal 2: Continue AJHA media literacy efforts

Given the urgent need for an informed populous in a functioning democracy, media literacy topped the list of AJHA officers’ goals in 2020-2021 under the leadership of Donna Lampkin Stephens of Central Arkansas. To maintain these efforts, I have continued to ask our members to help come up with ways we might combat the flood of misinformation and revisionist history narratives that remain all too common in our media ecosystem. And now we’re ready to take things a step further.

I have asked AJHA board member Jennifer Moore of the University of Minnesota Duluth to take the lead in reaching out to other organizations who are working in the area of media literacy. She is researching and gathering resources, making connections and pondering how we as journalism historians can contribute to the conversation on this vital topic. She will then work to put knowledge into action, leading discussions with AJHA members and creating an action plan on how we might help lead the broader conversations within our own communities and nationwide. We can call Jennifer the point person or our media literacy czar, but regardless of her title, I’m grateful that she has stepped into the significant service role that I expect will yield tangible results for our membership and our communities.

We took the lead in highlighting/emphasizing the importance of history in the journalism curriculum. Now is the time to make the same commitment as it relates to media literacy. We’ll talk about this issue at our conference in Memphis, Sept. 27-Oct. 1, 2022. Meanwhile, if you’d like to help Jennifer or get involved in this effort, please reach out to me or her.

Goal 3: Facilitate your work where I can – and sometimes just stay out of your way!

I continue to be amazed by the energy and hard work of our members. Take the efforts of Teri Finneman of Kansas, Pamela Walck of Duquesne and Ashley Walter, a doctoral student at Penn State. These scholars have kept up their momentum from the fantastic oral history preconference event held Oct. 7. These three, along with Candi Carter Olson of Utah State, Melissa Greene-Blye of Kansas, and Will Mari of LSU, provided attendees with two hours chock full of information to advance the field of oral history. A highlighted speaker of the special event was Bonnie Brennan of Marquette, a widely noted expert in qualitative research and oral history.

The preconference oral history organizers have maintained the enthusiasm of that day, and now we are expanding the Oral History Committee by breaking its work into two parts.

Gheni Platenburg from Auburn will continue to oversee the AJHA Oral History Project and work to preserve and publicize the materials gained through the interviews in this project. Please reach out to her or me if you’d like to be part of this exciting effort. Thank you, Gheni, for your leadership in this area.

According to the AJHA Constitution and Bylaws, the second half of the Oral History Committee’s charge is this: “work to encourage the use of oral history in research by journalism historians by developing panels and convention presentations.”

As you can see, the charge of this committee big, so Teri, Pam and Ashley will proceed with some events you won’t want to miss, and that will incorporate some of Pam’s work as editor of American Journalism. They have some exciting things cooking in 2022, so stay tuned to the Intelligencer for details. Thanks again, you three, for all you do.

I see my job as helping to facilitate your work where I can – and where appropriate, just stay out of your way to let you do your jobs. So, I’m finally wrapping up my president’s column about my goals for the year, per the request of our newly-named executive director, Erika Pribanic-Smith of UT-Arlington. You’ve heard my “origin story,” and I’d sometime I’d like to hear yours. (This is what long-time AJHA member Gwyn Mellinger calls your first brush with the AJHA.) And I look forward to making more fun memories at future AJHA conferences in Memphis, then Columbus, Ohio, in 2023, and beyond.

We’ll share what we know about all things historical far and wide. But when it comes to party buses and karaoke, Janice is right: What happens at AJHA stays at AJHA.

Member Spotlight: Michael Fuhlhage

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 22:35:12 GMT

Wayne State doctoral candidates Darryl Frazier, left, and Keena Neal present the Research Gang’s paper “Spinning toward Secession: The Interplay of Editorial Bellicosity and Exchange News in the Press before the American Civil War,” at the 2018 AJHA annual conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. The manuscript is now in press in the Southeastern Review of Journalism History.

Michael Fuhlhage is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Wayne State University.

When and how did you become involved in AJHA?

I took Earnest Perry’s grad seminar in media history during my master’s program at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He encouraged me to submit my paper, and it got accepted for the AJHA 2005 conference in San Antonio. I’ve been to all but one AJHA conference since then, and my involvement deepened with panel, paper, and research in progress submissions during my PhD studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Frank Fee, my advisor, and Barbara Friedman, who was on my dissertation committee, really encouraged me to get involved. Since then, I’ve been a frequent paper and panels presenter, panels coordinator, research committee chair, and a member of the AJHA Board of Directors.

Your paper on the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act in Detroit River Borderlands Newspapers recently won AJHA's awards for outstanding paper on a minority history topic. What led you to that particular subject?

Part of it came from being an opportunistic archive pack rat, and part of it was interest in the events that led up to the American Civil War. Some of the journalists I researched for my first book, Yankee Reporters and Southern Secrets, were involved in abolitionism and the Underground Railroad. That led more famously through Philadelphia and New York, but it’s a real point of pride for Detroiters that the UGRR’s western network running through Detroit was nearly as busy. I noticed that Michigan journalists’ part in that story had been neglected, with the exceptions of recent works by Afua Cooper and others, and I’ve become more and more interested in local and regional history here in Michigan.

You've been successful forming a research gang with several students. Talk a bit about your process when you're working with a team of students?

It started when I was a panelist for a grad student brown bag session in my department on research agendas and how to get them off the ground. A couple of colleagues in the Wayne State Department of Communication and I did a sort of show and tell about what we were working on and how we got interested in it. And I was brimming with excitement and ideas about news and editorials about the secession movement in 1860-61 after doing research at the American Antiquarian Society in summer 2015. I mentioned I’d like to collaborate with grad students on the primary sources I had brought back. That led to a couple of students following me up to my office to look at a database I’d started that tracks the flow of secession news and opinion from one newspaper and region to another, and they followed me down the rabbit hole. That turned into an AEJMC History Division paper and then an article in American Journalism. That’s how the Research Gang started.

Here’s how the Fugitive Slave Act paper came together: The first thing to remember is most of this in the pandemic lockdown. Campus was closed. Vaccines weren’t even available yet. It would have been easy to give up and sit it out until we could get together in person. But I knew that we had already gathered the primary sources that we needed to explore Detroit journalism’s role in that story. One of the first things I had done after arriving at Wayne State University in 2014 was to spend a few hours combing the card catalog at the Detroit Public Library’s Burton Historical Collection and learning about their Michigan newspaper holdings. A couple of titles stuck out to me: complete runs of the 1851-52 editions of Henry Bibb’s Voice of the Fugitive and the anti-slavery Baptists’ Michigan Christian Herald in nearly perfect condition in bound volumes. I knew the Detroit Free Press was a pro-slavery voice among the city’s newspapers and thought it would be interesting to compare how the three framed the slavery issue in the same time period. It can be hard to find full runs of a single newspaper, so we were really fortunate to find three in the same time period for direct comparison of their framing of slavery. So in the fall of 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, Wayne State doctoral candidate Darryl Frazier and M.A. student Eloise Germic and I set out to make digital images of each page of the Voice of the Fugitive and Michigan Christian Herald, and we put them in a shared Google Drive file. Digitizing those papers was initially an exercise in archival methods. We didn’t know exactly what might be done with them at the time. Eloise graduated and moved on to doctoral study elsewhere, and other matters like my going up for tenure, Keena preparing for comps, and oh that’s right, the pandemic hit. Darryl and I pretty much forgot about the digitized newspapers until we all got past those other events and figured out how to teach remotely.

My model for collaboration with graduate students was my professor at UNC, Donald L. Shaw, who would lead free-flowing discussions first about possible general topics, research questions we might ask, how we might locate primary sources to answer those questions, and how to organize our findings. He put a lot of care into creating an agenda for each research team meeting, explaining steps in the research process, working with us to set deadlines, and analyzing the evidence. So I followed that model. The core of the Media History Research Gang at Wayne State consists of myself and students who took my graduate seminar in agenda setting, my doctoral advisees, and M.A. and undergrad honors students in my American journalism and media history course.

I got the ball rolling by convening an organizational meeting to decide which of a list of ongoing research projects they’re most interested in. The Research Gang had tackled the flow of news about secession in 1860, newspaper news and opinion during the secession crisis, and the work of a Wayne State journalism alumnus who had covered the Civil Rights Movement in the South in the 1960s. Variations on those topics were on the list, but we also had these really rich primary sources that we hadn’t done anything with yet that concerned the struggle over slavery in the Detroit River borderlands connecting Michigan and Ontario. I think we were all really curious about what we would find once we started to explore them, so that became the topic. Then it became a matter of dividing the work according to our interests and skills. We used Zoom, email, and Google Drive to coordinate on the project.

Keena, who is my doctoral advisee, Darryl, and I had already collaborated on a couple of projects, and as new members of the Research Gang each of them had started with compiling, analyzing primary evidence, and discussing how their findings fit with everyone else’s. Darryl had photographed the Voice of the Fugitive, so he already had a stake in that title. Keena was intrigued in the idea of interracial cooperation and allyship in the fight against slavery. The Michigan Christian Herald fit that theme, so that became her object of analysis. Anna Lindner, another of my doctoral advisees and the junior partner on the team for this paper, took on analyzing the Detroit Free Press, which we accessed through a database. She also wrote our methods section in consultation with me based on team discussions of how we would execute the study.

As the established historian, I had the most solid grounding in the literature, so I wrote the background section. Keena, Darryl, and Anna started reading and taking notes on their newspapers while I completed the background section—and that really was crucial for everyone to understand enough about the political, economic, and cultural context in order to do their analysis of their respective newspapers. We touched base about whether the research questions guiding us were really doing the job and adjusted after everyone had swum in the evidence a bit. Once everyone was finished with analysis, we reconvened as a group to make sense of what had been discovered and to assign writing and editing duties. Keena took on writing the introduction and Anna wrote the conclusion. My role at this stage was to merge all the parts together, line edit it so it read as one piece, and make sure we hit deadline. We all proofread. For the conference presentation, I feel that it’s my students who need the most exposure as people bound for the job market soon, so as long as they don’t have something heavy at conference time like defending comps or a dissertation prospectus I offer that role to the students. My role then is to prepare rough slides that they’re free to tweak and otherwise be their cheerleader.

What do you believe is the value of co-authoring with students?

There are so many valuable things that come out of it. Of course, my students learn how to execute a historical research project step by step. But I always learn something new from them because they have the benefit of having recently studied with my faculty colleagues from disciplines different from my own. Because of this, the students often bring different ways of seeing to a project. Here’s a confession: I recognize that I’ve sometimes been guilty of methodological sloppiness. Working with my students keeps me on my toes in terms of rigor in our methods of analysis. I benefit from their knowledge and expertise as they benefit from mine. In addition, it’s really satisfying to see how the students are growing as each phase of a project comes together. And it fills me with pride when I see them present the work that we completed together.

How do you incorporate research into your teaching?

For one thing, teaching historical methods from scratch to the Research Gang students has made me pay close attention to how to explain the steps that I outlined above in a step-by-step fashion. This semester, I’m experimenting with a hybrid group/individual final project for my undergraduate journalism history students. I created a list of 13 topics through various periods in U.S. and Detroit history. Then I surveyed my students and assigned them to nine teams. This way, they have a degree of ownership in the project in that they were able to pick something they were already relatively fascinated with. I’m getting them off the ground by guiding them as they formulate initial research questions, master some of the secondary literature for their topic and period, refine keywords to use in a newspaper database, and analyze and organize their findings. This pretty much follows the Research Gang model, but it feels a little like building an airplane while it’s taking off. It’s a fun challenge, and I’m learning a lot in the process by examining secondary lit about topics and historical periods that haven’t necessarily been at the center of my own bull’s-eye of research interests.

What are you working on next?

I’ve got a few projects at various stages of completion. I’ll just describe one of them here: It’s an extension, reorganization, and rewrite of my dissertation on the prehistory of stereotypes about Mexicans in the American nineteenth-century press.

What are some of your hobbies or interests outside of academia?

Gardening is one. During the pandemic lockdown I needed to do something that made me feel like I was in control of something since so much was beyond our control. So I took an online extension course in vegetable and fruit gardening. I’ve dabbled in music for years and have a piano and a couple of electric and a couple of acoustic guitars. I love the arts of all kinds and visit art museums when I need to refill my cup of joy and inspiration. But my newest toy is a Fender Mustang P/J short-scale electric bass guitar. For ages, I have loved the play of Talking Heads’ Tina Weymouth and the Rolling Stones’ Bill Wyman, who both played Mustangs. My big bass heroes are Geddy Lee and John Entwistle, but Rickenbacker and Alembic are a little rich for my taste, at least for a beginner’s bass.

Research Essay: Painful Failure Followed by Sweet Success

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 22:09:39 GMT

Madeleine Liseblad presents her co-authored research on Lee Zhito at the 2021 AJHA convention.

by Madeleine Liseblad, California State University, Long Beach

When Greg Pitts, my Billboard research co-author, dragged me into the Center for Popular Music to look at the Lee Zhito archival collection, I was lukewarm to the idea. I did not know anything about Billboard magazine, other than the name and that it covered the music industry. I had certainly never heard of Lee Zhito. But, it was an archive no one else had explored yet. Zhito had spent almost fifty years at Billboard and worked his way up to publisher and editor-in-chief. I figured there was probably something there to work with.

Fast forward to today. I am now a big Lee Zhito fan. By reading his writing and the correspondence in his files, you get a real sense of who he was. He was an excellent writer, seemed to be a great boss, had solid business skills, and knew how to network like no one else. His writing is incredibly colorful. He speaks in soundbites. In almost everything, there is a perfect quote waiting to be discovered.

For our first manuscript, Greg and I outlined Zhito’s career. It was presented at a national conference. We re-worked it based on reviewers’ comments and submitted it to a journal. I figured we would get a revise and resubmit. But, we did not. It was an outright reject. Thank you, but no thank you. I was devastated, but not for myself. I was devastated for Zhito because I felt his story was worthy of exposure. One of the reviewers commented we should have built the paper more around big events, such as how he exposed editorializing at radio station KMPC. I muttered to myself, yeah, of course that would have been nice. If only there were primary sources to tell that story.

As I was getting ready to leave Middle Tennessee State for a new position at Cal State Long Beach, I told Greg I wanted to review everything in the archive again. Since I was so green to the topic initially, I wanted to make sure I had not missed anything significant.

Box 7 folder 8 was labeled “Federal Communications Commission – 1951.” I haphazardly flipped through the pages of the FCC reports--I had seen them before--and found a letter from Ben Cottone, at one time the FCC legal counsel. The letter was addressed to “Dear Lee.” Interesting, I thought. I put folder 8 back in the box and took out folder 9. I casually started going through the items. I think I was halfway through the folder when I finally realized what a gold mine it was.

Zhito had not only saved everything related to KMPC, but he had also put items in a chronological timeline. He was 30 years old when he discovered the story. His prior writings focused on lighter, entertainment coverage. This was his big story. He was so afraid of libel, he taped stories, logged correspondence, and retained items he had gathered together in a big, long manuscript just waiting for me to unfold. As I read the items, following his intended trail of discovery, I could feel his excitement and fear. I read the back and forth correspondence with supervisors. It felt like I was there, listening in. I have never been so elated in an archive before.

The paper wrote itself. By far the hardest part was the literature review. I probably should not admit this, but the manuscript came together in less than a week. Part of it was that I was mesmerized by what I had. The primary source material was excellent. I was eager to see how Zhito framed his stories, how Billboard covered the topic, and what exactly transpired. The process of pulling it all together gave me some sort of natural high. I knew this was something special.

Generally, historical research is done in solitude. It is not a method that naturally lends itself to co-authors. But Greg and I balance each other well. He has a radio background so he knows things I do not. He added details to our paper that I had missed.

I would like to say I knew what I was doing when I went back to the archives. But, it was my stubbornness, and some luck, that led us here. I do not know how I initially missed it, but I did. We have now received a second chance to tell the world about this terrific journalist and Billboard leader. As Zhito would phrase it, he did not do “namby-pamby journalism.” His KMPC exposé had an immediate ripple effect with national ramifications.

Greg and I are obviously thrilled to have won the 2021 Wm. David Sloan Award for Outstanding Faculty Paper. But, the satisfaction goes well beyond the award. For me, it took us from a painful failure to sweet success. The quest to tell this story is personal because the world deserves to know about Lee Zhito and his impact. The KMPC story also reminds us that journalists and scholars have a responsibility to investigate and question media power and the potential abuse of that power. Good work, Lee Zhito!

New Book Award Process Aims for Greater Equity

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 21:47:53 GMT

by Jane Marcellus, AJHA Book Award Chair

If you scroll to the bottom of the page labeled Book of the Year Award on AJHA’s website, you’ll find a list of fabulous books related to journalism history published during the past two decades. You’ll find books on newspaper editors and press censorship, foreign reporting and religion, public relations and television production. You’ll find several related to race, abolition, the Black Press and the Civil Rights movement, as well as one on the Holocaust.

What you won’t see is a single book about women. Eighty-five years after the New York Times ran a nearly full-page review of Ishbel Ross’s Ladies of the Press, there are no books on AJHA’s awards list about female journalists or representation of women in the press, no books about women’s magazines or women and television. There are no books on women’s suffrage, though we’ve just passed the centennial of the 19th Amendment.

You also won’t see many books by women, on any topic. If you attended the Recent Books by AJHA Women panel at the 2021 conference, you know the reason is not a lack of productivity.

The fact is that in the two decades since the AJHA Book of the Year Award first was presented (in 2001), nineteen of the 23 authors given AJHA’s Book of the Year Award have been men (including co-authored books). Only four have been women. Put another way, that means men have won roughly 82 percent of the top book awards, while women have won 18 percent. Granted, this doesn’t include runners-up, but those aren’t listed on the website.

I happened to notice these statistics one rainy Sunday morning a few months ago when I was sitting at my computer, though they have been there all along for any of us to see. I asked myself how this could happen. I have never thought of AJHA as a particularly sexist organization; if it were, I wouldn’t have remained an active member for 20 years.

When I look back on that morning, what surprises me is how reticent I felt about causing a stir. Raised female in America, I wanted to be, you know, nice, since women often pay heavily for being perceived as troublemakers. But those statistics warrant a stir. After all, this is 2021, not 1921—although having studied women of the 1920s, I can say with assurance they would be outraged.

I talked to others about the issue and we speculated on possible reasons. Judging is not dominated by men (actually, more women volunteer) but fewer women do enter. That fact may indicate a self-fulfilling prophecy—why enter a contest you’re unlikely to win?

I wonder if the reason is more subtle. Could it have something to do with narrow or outdated ideas about what counts as award-worthy journalism history? That possibility merits a conversation about the field—possibly in a panel at next year’s convention. Another idea: Do judges—even female judges—unconsciously place less value on a book when they see a woman’s name on the front?

Back in the 1980s, Ramona Rush of the University of Kentucky came up with what she called the Ratio of Recurrent and Reinforced Residuum or R3 hypothesis. It predicted that “the percentage of women in the communications industries and on university faculties will follow the ratio residing around 1/4:3/4 or 1/3:2/3 proportion females to males.”(1) She was talking about the gender ratio in jobs, but it fits our book award, too. Granting women 18 percent of awards over two decades is actually less than 1/4.

This seems like a good spot to note that AJHA is not alone. Some other organizations have similar ratios.

My goal is not to lay blame, but to offer leadership in fixing the problem.

I agreed to chair the Book Award Committee, and this past week, the Board approved my proposed new process for judging. Modeled on the Blanchard Dissertation Prize, which I previously chaired, it calls for a two-step process, with finalists chosen after committee members first look at an introduction, table of contents, and sample chapters. Unlike the current process, where each judge reads only one or two books, it gets more eyes on more initial entries. Finalists will be invited to submit their complete books. At that stage, we will welcome digital Advance Reader Copies or PDFs from publishers, a change that will cut down on the expense of providing several hard copies and make it easier to share the books among judges. Also, edited collections will be welcome.

It may not be a perfect solution, but the Blanchard model seemed like a good place to start, since the ratio is less problematic there. Since 1997, 10 of the 25 winners of the Blanchard Prize have been women, while 15 have been men, making the ratio 60-40 male to female.

The first step toward any kind of change is raised consciousness. I’m hopeful that the good men and women of AJHA will rally behind this effort. After all, journalism practice at its best is all about fairness.

(1) Rush, R.R., Oukrop, C.E., and Sarikakis, K. “A Global Hypothesis for Women in Journalism and Mass Communications: The Ratio of Recurrent and Reinforced Residuum.” Gazette, 67 (2005: 3). pp. 239-253. Online https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/464/1/sarikakisk2.pdf. Rush’s hypothesis can also be found in Seeking Equity for Women in Journalism and Mass Communication Education: A 30-Year Update, eds. Ramona R. Rush, Carol E. Oukrop, and Pamela J. Creedon (Routledge, 2004).

Gearing Up for Media Literacy Week: Oct. 25-29, 2021

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 19:52:38 GMT

by Aimee Edmondson, AJHA President

Four months after Joe Biden took the oath of office and moved into the White House, one quarter of all American adults believed Donald Trump was the “true president” in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in May 2021.

In fact, Biden won by more than seven million votes, and U.S. courts have rejected Trump’s challenges to the 2020 presidential election results in at least 60 different lawsuits as baseless conspiracy theories continue to permeate the media ecosystem.

Similarly, about a third of Americans believed that it is “definitely” or “probably” true that “powerful people” intentionally planned the COVID-19 outbreak, according to a June 2020 Pew Research Center Survey.

Given the urgent need for an informed citizenry in a functioning democracy, media literacy topped the list of AJHA officers’ goals in 2020-2021 under the leadership of Donna Lampkin Stephens. To continue these efforts, I ask our members to continue to help combat the flood of misinformation and revisionist history narratives that remain all too common.

Media Literacy Week is Oct. 25-29, and there’s lots we can do as journalism educators and media historians in our continued search for truth in this fractured environment where people don’t — or can’t — even agree on basic facts.

Please check out the fantastic resources provided by the sponsor of this effort, the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), a nonprofit organization whose members are as motivated as we are about helping people become more critical thinkers and understand how to evaluate news sources.

Here’s a list of events co-hosted by NAMLE, all for free, next week (I’m particularly interested in the Amanda Knox session as well as the session on mis- and dis-information relating to algorithms via social media). You can also join NAMLE for free, with access to newsletters, new resources, curriculum ideas, along with opportunities to attend or present at the organization’s biennial conference as well as connect with other members.

In addition, here’s a cool set of classroom ideas and events for post-secondary educators with examples of what some faculty members and universities are planning for Media Literacy Week. We know that media literacy is most vital for K-12 students as educational attainment can have a huge impact on one’s critical thinking skills.

And as Donna mentioned during the AJHA’s conference earlier this month, we as AJHA members can get out into our own communities to talk about media history and media literacy. We can speak to our local Rotary Club or at our neighborhood elementary school. After all, it should be as cool for third graders to meet a real journalist as it is to meet a real firefighter! (Career day, anyone?)

We face a continued crisis in funding of local journalism and the polarization of voters who have scattered to digital media echo chambers on the left and the right. As such, we must provide the historical context to show the importance of verified information and the role of journalists to provide an accurate view of critical issues facing our communities and our country.

In case you missed it, the AJHA has already worked closely with the good folks at NAMLE:

NAMLE executive director Michelle Lipkin (@ciullalipkin) spoke at the 2020 AJHA virtual conference on the panel on media literacy and inspired us to get involved in the effort.

Our own AJHA members have also become members of NAMLE, including Nathaniel Frederick II of Winthrop University, who attended his first NAMLE conference way back in 2013 where he met educators, academics, activists, and students with a similar passion for understanding media messages and the role of media in our culture. He began incorporating critical media literacy into his own courses and even held a series of sessions at Winthrop entitled “News Literacy and the Future of Journalism.” The series included eleven events over eight months that sought to deepen the public’s knowledge and appreciation of the vital connections among democracy, the humanities, journalism, and an informed citizenry. Topics included the history of fake news, editorial cartoons, investigative journalism, and the future of journalism. In his Intelligencer column published in April 2021, Frederick encouraged the AJHA membership to take advantage of our new-found emphasis on virtual conferencing to Zoom in media literacy experts into our own classes and campus programming.

The Intelligencer has also hosted guest commentary from Kristy Roschke, an expert in media literacy. She is the managing director of the News Co/Lab at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University and serves on the NAMLE board. In her column, “Why teach students about media literacy – and how,” Roschke gives the AJHA membership tangible ideas for incorporating such information in courses in media history, reporting, introductory mass communication, and media law, for starters.

I’m eager to hear your ideas as we continue the conversation about media literacy and media history.

Member Spotlight: Elisabeth Fondren

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 19:43:36 GMT

Elisabeth Fondren is an assistant professor of journalism at St. John’s University in New York. She received her Ph.D. in Media & Public Affairs from Louisiana State University (2018).

When and how did you become involved in AJHA?

I participated in my first AJHA conference in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 2016, when I was a doctoral student at Louisiana State University. My mentor, Dr. Erin Coyle, encouraged me to submit my work, and I was excited that I won both the Wally Eberhard Award for Outstanding Research in Media and War and the Robert Lance Memorial Award for the Outstanding Graduate Student Paper. I was welcomed very warmly by members and was impressed with how encouraging and open the organization was, and intrigued by the quality of research and discussions about journalism history.

Your paper recently won AJHA's awards for outstanding paper on a women's history topic and outstanding paper on transnational/international history. Talk a bit about that paper. What led you to that particular topic?

This paper explores the little-known story of Leonora Raines, an American female reporter (originally a fashion and music journalist) who covered the Great War from Paris. Raines had several brushes with foreign censors, including French and German military police, and she wrote about her interactions with propagandists, soldiers, and ordinary civilians. She gained access to dangerous frontlines, reported hospitals, ammunition factories, war-torn cities, the Western Front, German-occupied Belgium, and toured enemy Germany in 1915. Through her war reportage and eyewitness stories, which were primarily published in the New York Evening Sun, Raines brought the conflict home to distant American readers. At a time when most war reporters were men, Raines published her regular column under her own byline. Readers in the U.S. but also in Western Europe read her accounts, as foreign newspapers were widely distributed and, surprisingly, uncensored.

How does your research on Leonora Raines fit into your overall research agenda?

My research broadly explores the history of international journalism, government propaganda, military-media relations, and freedom of speech during wartime. I first came across Raines’ name while working in diplomatic archives in Berlin. The U.S. Ambassador to Imperial Germany, James W. Gerard, sent a letter to the German Foreign Office in spring 1915, announcing Raines’ arrival. German censors, in turn, then had secret discussions about how they could influence this female correspondent. I was really surprised that historians have neither mentioned Raines’ work nor fully studied her wartime journalism from Paris and Western Europe, and this led me to seek out and backtrack her story. In a related project, I am looking at international journalists’ discourse about government propaganda and publicity campaigns at the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920). This period was marked by anxieties about the role of words and images used to ‘sell’ diplomacy and peace after belligerent countries had relied heavily on propaganda during the Great War.

How has your international experience influenced your approach to media history?

My worldview was shaped by having lived in Germany, Canada, the UK, and now the United States. After finishing high school in Germany, I backpacked coast-to-coast through Canada for one year. I completed my B.A. in humanities in Germany and pursued my master’s degree at City, University of London, where I studied international journalism. I met incredible people from all over the world, and their perspectives and experiences influenced my belief that our work as journalism historians is valuable. Some of my best friends are now correspondents in dangerous places or conflict zones. I think of them when I research reporters’ interactions with propagandists during past conflicts and how important it is to: 1) have journalists as eyewitnesses, and 2) for scholars to dig deep and reveal how governments continue to build proficiency in propaganda and censorship that restrict reporters’ access to all sides of the story.

How does your journalism history research influence your teaching?

I teach classes in Online News Writing, International Reporting, and Journalism History, which is really a great combination. I often feel that students have an interest in understanding the historical dimensions of news coverage and media systems, and I enjoy looking at news and journalism cultures through a comparative lens. Throughout the semester, I emphasize global perspectives and share work from reporters (past and present) to have discussions with students about the eyewitness role journalists play during conflicts and wars, the different reporting/writing styles, and the state of press freedom around the world, among other topics.

What are you working on now?

I just finished a long-form article that examines the German government’s “propaganda blackbox” during World War I (1914-1918), including their failure to modernize their messages and institutions, and how they tried to copy (unsuccessfully) the propaganda produced by enemy countries. All countries during and after the war claimed that they did not do propaganda—only other countries did it. Archival records, of course, paint a very different picture. This article will be published in Journalism & Communication Monographs later this fall. Currently, I am collecting primary sources and news materials for my first book project, which will be a cultural history of American reporters stationed in Berlin during the early twentieth century.

What are some of your hobbies or interests outside of academia?

I love traveling and exploring the East Coast and New England region with my husband, our seven-month-old daughter and our red heeler, Maxi. We try to do lots of weekend trips. I grew up in a mountainous region of Germany with much forest and small villages, which is why living in NYC (8.4 million people!) and being so close to the Atlantic Ocean is very exciting.

Teaching Essay: Pandemic-Driven Innovation

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 19:22:21 GMT

Are exams necessary in a survey course on the history of American journalism?

I asked myself this as I prepared for teaching in the first full semester of the pandemic. I would have 59 students in two classes. They would be freshmen taking their first course in the journalism major. Their transition from high school would be on Zoom.I was so apprehensive that before the fall semester, I reached out to each student individually – via email and then Zoom – to make a connection. I was delighted to see how eager they were.

I dreaded giving timed exams online, especially if students would be ill or in quarantine. I recalled the cramming students do in the days before midterms and finals. What’s jammed into their brains doesn’t have much of a shelf life. I wondered if marathons of cramming could be replaced with opportunities each week for students to capture what strikes them as important and do some critical thinking. What if students could keep journals and use the entries to craft midterm and final essays – with prompts addressing themes of the course?

I decided on Adobe Spark for what I called a “personal learning journal.” Spark makes a simple web page with text and multimedia elements. Students could share the URL with me rather than posting to the open web. I thought that if I could master Spark in minutes, so could they.

Each week, students got a new prompt. In the second week, the prompt included this: “Make an entry … on ways that tensions between freedom and repression of the press played out in the time period we are covering this week - from Publick Occurrences to the Partisan Press era. Include a connection you might have made to whether you see these sorts of themes playing out today.”

Although this was not a newswriting class, they did write a research profile of a historical journalist plus several “reflections” on current news stories. These allowed me to help with writing. We talked about “mastery,” and we looked at primary sources to see the evolution of newswriting over time. One journal prompt said, in part, “I would like you to reflect on whether and how any of the material we covered has inspired you or surprised you in any way as you think about your own writing.” The entries were not graded for writing quality but figured into class participation scores. I provided individual feedback on the journals every three weeks. And I let students know well ahead what the midterm and final essay prompts would be.

The students took to the journals. And I could tell in real time what was resonating with them. I treasure this from one entry after we read Ida Wells: “This queen wrote what she wanted and changed the world...” The same student included this in her entry on the Black press: “Very important moment for me. Inspires me to keep going even though times are tough.”

In the spring, when my students came from many majors, the journals worked just as well. A theater major wrote: “… having more chances to just explore what I was learning from the course really helped – way more than traditional exams ever could… I also think it helped my writing relax.” A student who plans to be a music teacher wrote: “I have never been so emotionally attached to a school assignment in my life.”

In the end, I am glad the pandemic forced me to rethink how we teach, how students learn and how we assess what they have learned.

Ira Chinoy is the winner of the 2021 National Award for Excellence in Teaching. A Pulitzer Prize-winning veteran journalist with 24 years of experience at four newspapers, Chinoy has been on the faculty at the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism since 2001.

Whova conference platform offers networking, security

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 22:15:47 GMT

The AJHA 40th annual conference is just a few weeks away. We are excited to host the virtual conference on the Whova platform and hope that members will find it to be an enjoyable experience.

A primary reason that we selected Whova was for its networking capabilities, including the following highlights:

Each attendee can create a profile with a photo and as much or as little information as they like--including a CV for those who are on the job market. This will make it easy for attendees to network with each other.
Attendees can engage in one-on-one text chats or on the message board, just like bumping into each other in the hallways between sessions.
Attendees can create one-on-one or small-group video meet-ups, just like going out for a coffee or beer at the conference hotel. We hope that committees, students, and scholars with similar research specialties will take advantage of this feature for interest group confabs during the Saturday morning meeting time.
Our Historian Speed Meet event on Friday is a special Whova "networking tables" feature that enables attendees to talk with a lot of people in a short span of time, just like mingling at our reception or gala dinner. Attendees are randomly assigned to a virtual table of 3-4 individuals and will be randomly re-assigned at regular intervals over the course of the hour.

Another reason we selected Whova was for its security. The platform is seamlessly integrated with Zoom video conferencing. Each session will be embedded directly into the Whova platform. Only registered attendees will have access, and they will not be able to share the meeting with anyone. Whova's own Q&A feature allows attendees to post questions and comments during the sessions.

Though online, the research paper sessions, panels, and even the virtual historical tour will provide the same enlightening and engaging conference experience AJHA members have come to expect. Check out the schedule and, if you have not registered yet, you can do so through Oct. 6 at this link.

Erika Pribanic-Smith, AJHA Secretary &
Virtual Conference Administrator

Book Interview with Linda Lumsden

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 13:06:12 GMT

Linda Lumsden is the author of Social Justice Journalism: A Cultural History of Social Movement Media from Abolition to #womensmarch.

Please introduce yourself and include your connections/role with AJHA.

I’m Linda Lumsden, and I just retired from the School of Journalism at the University of Arizona, where for 15 years I taught courses in journalism history, journalism ethics, diversity in journalism, and social movement media. Before that I taught for ten years at Western Kentucky University.

I’ve been affiliated with AJHA since I was a graduate student in the 1990s at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I’ve found AJHA to be a friendly and nurturing community over the years. I’ve filled just about every role in the organization from presenting papers to serving on the Board of Directors. I’m most honored to have received the Maurine Beasley Award for Outstanding Paper in Women’s History for three consecutive years--a record, I believe. AJHA also has been instrumental in advancing my work by awarding me two Joseph Kerns Research Grants.

What drew you to your topic/time period?

I’ve been studying advocacy media of the Progressive Era for thirty years. I’m drawn to its producers’ belief in the power of the word and facts as well as their passion for justice. Oftentimes these publications are the best exemplars of the journalistic mission to be a ‘voice for the voiceless.’ I started out as a student looking at how suffragists used the right of assembly to make their case, which of course led me to the suffrage press, particularly Alice Paul’s The Suffragist.

Inez Milholland kept popping up at the head of suffrage parades and, later, as the impetus for the White House pickets after she died while stumping for suffrage in California. Milholland dipped her toes in just about every Progressive movement of the 1910s, so I learned more about socialism, feminism, and other movements as I researched her biography. That led to a full exploration of the prewar radical press in Black, White, and Red all Over (2014).

How did your thinking in the development of your topic start and then lead to this publication? Did it stray? Did you make any sudden and unexpected turns?

I studied the role of online news media and its “contentious journalism” in opening up political discourse in Malaysia when I was a Fulbright Scholar there during its 2013 election campaign. The connections between print and online advocacy media intrigued me. As were many journalists and scholars at the time, I also was reconsidering the meaning of journalism in the digital era. The Internet spawned a renaissance of what some call ‘activist journalism’ and a reconsideration of the elusive ideal of ‘objectivity.’

People seemed to think activist journalists were born on the Internet, so I wanted to demonstrate their roots in a venerable print culture of dissent that goes back more than a century. As I delved more into current digital mashes of journalism and advocacy, I wrestled with how to characterize the genre. The result was Social Justice Journalism.

As the title indicates, I’m most interested in the aspects of journalistic social movement media, not its propagandizing. I argue facts can be powerful persuaders. To those who say real journalism is neutral, I have two words: Tucker Carlson.

What surprised you most about this project?

The similarities in functions of 20^th-century social justice journalism in print for with 21^st century digital media. For example, I write about how the Black Lives Matter interactive website Mapping Police Violence, which documented 1,175 police killings in 2014, is a technologically advanced iteration of Ida Wells-Barnett’s documentation of terrorism against African Americans across the South in her 1892 pamphlet, Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.

What did you find to be your biggest challenge in working your way to completion of your monograph?

Conceptualizing and theorizing what actually comprises “social justice journalism.” Negotiating the amorphous lines between journalism and activism remains a challenge. I wrote the conclusion in 2019, when the so-called Trump Resistance Movement was in full swing. I focused on its use of the Internet to spread information, educate citizens, and inspire recruits, but in the end I have to confess its use of media veers more into electoral politics.

As an old print journalist, I found myself vexed by the general lack of print publications at the nexus of current social movements. For example, I questioned whether BLM could survive without at least an online periodical to serve as its institutional memory and maintain movement momentum. Well, I guess the answer is “Yes!”

What are you working on now?

I just retired, and I spent 2020 coping not only with the COVID pandemic but cancer. I am eager to toss my mask and hop onto my bicycle instead of my laptop. I’m spending the summer visiting family and friends in the Carolinas, Vermont, and Colorado before returning to Tucson in autumn. Hikes, bikes, kayaks, and cocktails figure prominently in my itinerary.

What topic would you like to tackle next?

After about a year’s sojourn from academia, I might like to return to more popular writing. I’m a big fan of books that combine travel/memoir/natural and cultural history. I’d love to write one.

Of course, I’m also closely observing how social movement media evolves. One of my favorite books this summer was Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones, and the New Protest #Journalism by Alissa Richardson. She does a fantastic job of exploring this form of social movement media.

Member Spotlight: Lexie Little

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 10:16:37 GMT

How did you become involved in AJHA?

I’ve been familiar with AJHA for several years thanks to involved mentors, but I didn’t join until this summer when I finished a paper submission after completing my master’s degree at the University of Georgia.

How did you get into media history?

My junior year at the University of Tennessee, I took a media history course with Ed Caudill. History and media had always respectively been my jam, but it hadn’t ever occurred to me that I could study the history of media. We explored the evolution of American media, and I found myself more drawn to our discussions about Hearst vs. Pulitzer and “The War of the Worlds” than I did inverted pyramid practice.

The next semester, Amber Roessner taught our course on literary journalism. She used historical, cultural, and critical lenses to underpin our class discussions about long-form journalism examples and practice. She couched substantial theory into what seemed like just a fun undergrad writing elective. It wasn’t until halfway through my second semester of graduate school (when I took a deeper dive into research) that I realized how she’d informed the course. She deserves much credit for my career as the first to recognize my interest and passion. She has championed me every step of the way and led me to other great mentors like Janice Hume and Karen Russell.

What is your most recent research about?

The paper I will present in October examines collective memory of the Civil War through newspaper coverage of Confederate symbols, extending my previous work to explore the role of Confederate flags in addition to monuments. The study derives in part from my master’s thesis. In the 1890s and later in the 1920s, Confederate flags and southern flowers served as symbols of goodwill, at least according to oft-quoted political and business power brokers. Organizers attempted to fly the “Conquered Banner” (the Stars and Bars) alongside the United States flag or used flowers in its place as a show of southern pride during unveiling events. I argue newspapers helped to craft the reconciliation narrative that resulted from a white-ruling desire to connect the sections economically, thus contributing to marginalization of minority dissent through potent southern reverence.

Your research mirrors today’s conditions in many ways. Were you inspired by current events, or was it coincidental?

My study actually started as a class research proposal in October 2019, well before the events of Summer 2020. I turned that proposal into my thesis proposal, not knowing how timely it would become. Gov. Ralph Northam ordered the removal of the Richmond, Virginia, Robert E. Lee monument the very day I analyzed initial coverage of its unveiling. The coincidence certainly sparked some reflexive moments to consider: a) history as a conversation between the past and present, and b) my positions on praxis and its future role in my career.

Finally, what hobbies or interests outside of academia do you enjoy?

Southeastern Conference sports dominate many of my weekends. It comes with the territory when you have degrees from two and work at another! Otherwise, you can find me listening to music, watching 60s/70s sitcoms or classic films, shopping, or spending time with friends. I love music and have been a musician for most of my life. I grew up playing piano and singing, and am classically trained in the latter. (Great for living in the Music City)! I also read French novels whenever I can. I double majored in journalism and French as an undergrad, so putting that other muscle to use always feels gratifying. La plus belle langue, à mon avis!

Lexie Little is a former magazine feature writer and sports columnist, now an associate content creator at Vanderbilt University. She is the 2021 recipient of the Robert Lance Memorial Award for Outstanding Student Paper and the Wally Eberhard Award for the Outstanding Paper on Media and War. She currently serves as Social Media Chair for the AEJMC Magazine Media Division and intends to later pursue her Ph.D. with interests in journalism history and critical and cultural studies.

Nominees for 2nd VP and Board of Directors

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 20:48:09 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association will conduct electronic voting in September to elect a second vice-president and fill three open positions on the Board of Directors. The ballots, which will be emailed to all members, also will include a proposed amendment to the Constitution and Bylaws.

Tracy Lucht and Ken Ward have been nominated for the position of second vice-president. Mark Bernhardt, Erin Coyle, Matthew Pressman, and Yong Volz have been nominated for the board of directors. The electronic ballot will include space for write-in votes.

After elections are held, current Second Vice-President Mike Conway (Indiana University) will become first vice-president for 2021-2022, and First Vice-President Aimee Edmondson (Ohio University) will become president.

Nominees

Second Vice-President

Tracy Lucht is an expert on the history, experiences, and representations of women in the U.S. media. A winner of the National Award for Excellence in Teaching from the American Journalism Historians Association, Lucht teaches courses in writing and reporting for the media, news and feature editing, and journalism history. She has written, co-written or co-edited several books, including The Media in America: A History (Vision Press); Sylvia Porter: America’s Original Personal Finance Columnist (Syracuse University Press); and Mad Men and Working Women: Feminist Perspectives on Historical Power, Resistance, and Otherness (Peter Lang). Her latest research is about Amelia Bloomer and early feminist journalism. Lucht previously worked as a copy editor at USA Today, The Washington Post, and The Des Moines Register.

What AJHA means to me: “I owe my professional success to this organization and the people in it, who have given me material and moral support since I joined in 2008. As the overall environment becomes more challenging for us as academics and historians, it will be more important than ever for us to continue to support each other. I am interested in exploring ways to help our group evolve and flourish – and to help our members get the mentoring they need all the way through their careers.”

Ken J. Ward, the 2019 recipient of AJHA's President's Award for Sustained and Exemplary Service, has been involved in AJHA as the Convention Registrar, Graduate Student Chair, and a member of the Board of Directors. He also is chair of AEJMC History Division's teaching committee and co-host of the Journalism History podcast. Ward's research focuses on the journalism history of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. His research has appeared in top academic journals and received accolades such as AJHA's Robert Lance Memorial Award and the AEJMC History Division's Warren Price Award. Before earning his Ph.D. from Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, Ward was a reporter for the McPherson (Kansas) Sentinel and a sports radio producer for 1410 KGSO in Wichita. He recently joined the Pittsburg State University Department of Communication in Kansas after three years on the faculty at Lamar University (Beaumont, Texas). He teaches courses in journalism and production as well as media history and law.

What AJHA means to me: “AJHA has been my academic home since I was working on my Master's, and I treasure the relationships I've built over these years through the organization. I wouldn't be who I am today without the mentorship and inspiration I've received from AJHA's members, and I'm thankful for that. In return, I've sought to give back wherever possible, be that on the board of directors, as registrar, or through committee work, and I'd be honored to continue serving the organization as its second vice-president.”

Board of Directors

Mark Bernhardt is a professor in the History department at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi, where he has served for fourteen years. Prior to that he taught at the University of California, Riverside, for the History department and Women’s Studies department. Mark received his B.A. degree in History from the University of California, Berkeley, his M.A. in History from California State University, Sacramento, and his Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Riverside. He has taught courses on late nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. History, the American West, Sexuality in the United States, U.S. Media History, and courses examining how films have engaged with a variety of historical social and political issues. His research examines how newspapers, films, and television engage in public discourse about imperialism and its legacy in the transnational North American West, U.S. involvement in wars, social and cultural issues surrounding crime, and the impact of intersectionality in people’s lives.

What AJHA means to me: “I have been a member of the American Journalism Historians Association for five years and currently serve on the History in the Curriculum Committee and editorial board of Historiography in Mass Communication. I have also published in both American Journalism and Journalism History over the years. What has drawn me into this organization is that it serves as a home for scholars in a variety of fields with different perspectives and methodologies who share the common interest of studying History. As someone who works across disciplines, I value what the AJHA does and want to be a part of helping the organization strengthen and grow. Specifically, I support the ongoing advocacy to include Media History as a requirement in the Mass Communications curriculum and building connections with History departments as one means to accomplish this. It is something I have already been working on for the organization and I will continue to do so should I be elected as a member of the board.”

Erin Coyle researches advocacy for free expression, rights to access government information and government proceedings, and conflicts between free expression and privacy rights. Coyle teaches courses in journalism history, media law and ethics, writing and reporting, and theory. She has written a book, The Press and Rights to Privacy: First Amendment Freedoms Vs. Invasion of Privacy Claims. She also has published articles in American Journalism, Journalism History, Historiography in Mass Communication, and Communication Law & Policy. Her latest research focuses on journalists’ coverage of high-profile trials and American newspaper editors’ international advocacy for press freedom during the Cold War era. She has previously served on the AJHA Board of Directors and as the AJHA Research Committee Chair.

What AJHA means to me: Erin is grateful that AJHA and the organization’s members have played important roles in her professional life since she joined the organization as a graduate student. She values the mentoring, support for research, and promotion of journalism history education the organization and its members consistently provide to students and faculty. As a member of the board, she would like to explore ways the organization could provide more formal mentoring of students and faculty as well as encourage historical scholarship on diverse topics.

Matthew Pressman is an assistant professor of journalism at Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ. He is the author of numerous journal and mass-media articles and of On Press: The Liberal Values That Shaped the News (Harvard University Press, 2018). He first joined AJHA as a graduate student in 2013 and currently serves as book review editor for American Journalism and as co-chair of the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference. He received his Ph.D. in History from Boston University and worked as a journalist at Vanity Fair prior to his academic career.

What AJHA means to me: “I would not be where I am in my career today were it not for AJHA. It has provided me, like so many other scholars, with funding opportunities, venues in which to publish and present my work, and access to outstanding research on journalism history and pedagogy. But just as important as those tangible benefits is the sense of belonging to a supportive community of talented scholars. In my experience, AJHA has always been welcoming and inclusive while upholding a commitment to scholarly excellence, and I would be honored to help maintain that tradition as a member of the AJHA board.”

Yong Volz (Ph.D., University of Minnesota) is an associate professor and chair of the Journalism Studies faculty at the School of Journalism, University of Missouri. Her research centers on journalists and their place in society and history. Working primarily in the tradition of historical and comparative sociology, her research explores the formation of journalists as a distinctive occupational group, especially concerning gender and social stratification, career path and professional mobility, social movements, and the construction of collective identity. She has examined empirical cases spanning three centuries from both the United States and China. Her oral history project – Herstory – brings to light the experiences of senior women journalists. Volz has received several campus and national awards, including the University of Missouri Alumnae Anniversary Faculty Award, the Outstanding Service Award from Chinese Communication Association, Adviser of the Year from Kappa Tau Alpha National Honor Society, the University of Missouri’s 2020 Jordan Hoyt Tribute to Women Award, and the 2021 Ann K. Covington Award for Mentoring. She is a former head of the AEJMC History Division and served on the advisory board for the Chinese Association for History of Journalism and Communication. She currently serves as Vice-President/President-Elect of the Chinese Communication Association.

What AJHA means to me: AJHA has been a special part of Volz’s academic career. She joined AJHA as a junior faculty member in the late 2000s and benefited from the many meaningful conversations she had with fellow members at the research panels, receptions, and group dinners during the annual conventions. She would like to be involved with AJHA and contribute to a forward-thinking and sustainable future of the organization. With her continuing involvement with other national or international academic and professional organizations, she hopes to help AJHA expand its partnerships and collaborations, promote and increase AJHA’s visibility and impact, and seek ways to better serve the diverse interests and backgrounds of its members.

Member Spotlight: Cayce Myers

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 16:37:47 GMT

How did you become involved with AJHA?

I first became involved with AJHA nine years ago as a graduate student presenting at the Raleigh, North Carolina conference. Since then I’ve presented several times as a graduate student and then as a faculty member at Virginia Tech. I served a term on the Board of Directors and have been a reviewer for the paper and research-in-progress submissions. I’ve always felt that AJHA is such a welcoming organization, and it provides a great atmosphere for sharing research and learning new insights into media history.

You were a practicing attorney before entering academia. How did that transition from lawyer to media historian take place?

Prior to becoming an attorney, I received a master's degree at the University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, where I wrote my master's thesis about 19th century American media. After that I went to law school and practiced law, but I always was interested in history and research. As a law student I was a student editor for the Journal of Southern Legal History, which was part of the Georgia Legal History Foundation, so my interest in historical research never waned. In 2011 I decided I wanted to go back to get my Ph.D. and LL.M., a post-graduate law degree, at the University of Georgia and transition my career from lawyer to professor. I ended up writing my dissertation about U.S. public relations history, and I have been writing about PR history and corporate communication history ever since.

You are the Director of Graduate Studies at the School of Communication at Virginia Tech and also teach mainly public relations and communication law courses. How does media history impact your instruction on contemporary communication issues?

I think any time we teach a course in communication we should ground that discussion in history. The past provides context for the present day, and I think there is a great need, especially today, for communication students, whether it be journalism, public relations, or advertising, to understand historical context. It makes them stronger communicators and provides them with broader insight into society.

What hobbies or interests do you have outside academia?

I have a three-year-old daughter, Cayce Anne, so my hobbies have largely been centered around her interests and extra curriculars (swimming, dance, golf, soccer, and school). This summer, my wife, daughter, and I took a golf clinic (different classes) and have taken up the game. I serve on the board of my daughter’s preschool, and have been actively involved in Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) at the local and national levels. I also enjoy doing things around the house, especially cooking and gardening, and, when we get a chance to travel, spending time with my family in Georgia.

Cayce Myers is an associate professor of public relations and director of graduate studies at the Virginia Tech University School of Communication. He currently serves as chair of the AEJMC History Division.

Battling a fading memory of cursive writing

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 04:47:50 GMT

by Teri Finneman, University of Kansas

Sitting at the Library of Congress, I held up the first letter and could feel my brain shifting like it was trying to remember high school calculus.

Except it wasn’t calculus. It was cursive writing. And I was trying to compute a language that I hadn’t used in years.

Discussions (and K-12 debate) about cursive writing have been going on for years. But during my trip to Washington to finally use my 2019 McKerns Grant, I found myself feeling a twinge of fear. Not scary fear, but vanishing culture fear.

After prior archive trips, I often would need to have my mom or my grandma help me read some cursive writing that I brought back. But this trip was worse than usual.

Some of it, I’m sure, is pandemic brain of trying to re-enter society in general. I used to know D.C. so well, yet I found myself making some wrong turns at times as I reacquainted myself with being outside of a Covid bubble and being back in reality.

But I’m also a Millennial. I spend 16 hours a day on a laptop or phone. My grandma died four years ago, essentially erasing all cursive writing exposure in my life now that I no longer receive her letters.

So as I sat in the manuscript room, I felt good looking at Grace Coolidge’s letters. I had to sit and think about Mary Lincoln’s (shown here) and knew that my mom was going to have to help with some of the words.

But Angelica Van Buren’s? I was so overwhelmed looking at that horrible faded brown ink cursive writing that I didn’t even take a single picture of it. Not a single word of it computed in my fuzzy brain.

I put the folder away quickly and moved on. But then I felt a massive amount of guilt for the next two days. If I, a first ladies researcher, was giving up that easily on Angelica, who would ever tell her story?

I wish I could say that I went back and tried again or at least took a picture. But I didn’t. Instead, I found myself wishing I could somehow take a class in historical cursive writing. And I find myself wondering what’s going to happen with Generation Z and the next generation of historians. Will we one day get to a point when few know how to read these materials?

The thought of that weighed heavily on me as I typed this sitting at Reagan airport. What can we do about this? Do we need to have a session at AJHA where there are a bunch of letters and a group of us Millennial and Gen Z scholars are put in a room while more senior faculty help us re-learn how to read cursive writing that we’ve barely used since fifth grade? I, for one, would gladly attend that session ASAP.

Maybe it’s just a matter of self-practice. Maybe I need to just pull up more digitized letters and get my brain used to seeing that language again. I’d be curious to know your tricks for reading historical writing and may need to get a Facebook conversation going on it.

Meanwhile, for those wondering about archive visits during a pandemic, the Library of Congress requires a special appointment to go under its Covid protocols. A limited number of people are allowed inside and are only guaranteed a half-day appointment each day. I made my appointment four weeks before going and opted for morning shifts. We could check to see if there were any afternoon openings once we got there, but there weren’t. They were full.

Once there, it felt very safe inside with all of us spread out and everyone required to wear a mask. From there, operations were fairly normal. I didn’t have any Covid safety concerns at all inside the building.

However, masking from tourists at my hotel was hit or miss despite being required. The same was true for a portion of men in the airport terminals. So that was the most pressing concern of archive travel and the predominant concern for any other historians to weigh as they determine whether to get back to the archives.

Museum visit changed the direction of a McKerns research trip

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Fri, 13 Aug 2021 21:52:49 GMT

by Amy Lauters, Minnesota State University, Mankato

When I saw the coffin filled with copies of a working-class newspaper at the People’s History Museum in Manchester, England, the entire scope of the research project I’d gone to the United Kingdom to uncover changed.

The project started life as a proposed examination of how the Guardian had grown from its Manchester roots to become a national and international voice, and to what extent the Guardian played a role in building a community for its readers. The community-building function of media remains a keen interest of mine, and the McKerns grant I received from AJHA in 2018 provided me some of the funds I needed to take the trip to the U.K. to continue research in this area and lay the groundwork for future research.

However, when a friend suggested I visit the People’s History Museum on my first day in Manchester, those initial plans sharply diverged, as the newspaper in the coffin became my primary interest.

According to the plaque next to the coffin, the newspaper, called the Poor Man’s Guardian, had been illegal and regularly smuggled about the country in coffins of this kind in an attempt to keep the bearer from being jailed and fined for possessing it.

Several bits of that short story immediately piqued my interest: First, the word “illegal” applied to “newspaper” nearly guaranteed that I’d take note. Second, the lengths to which the publishers and readers of the paper apparently went to connect suggested to me a level of commitment that needed further exploration. And third, I immediately wondered if the Poor Man’s Guardian had any relationship at all to the current national Guardian.

The third question was easily answered with a trip to the museum’s front desk, where a helpful attendant directed me to the museum’s basement and its gorgeous newspaper archive. The archivist showed me the bound copies of the Poor Man’s Guardian, which was entirely separate from the original Manchester Guardian. The museum also houses an excellent selection of books about the press and labor history in Britain, which proved to be valuable in contextualizing the rest of the story I was beginning to untangle.

The timing of my visit was fortuitous; many organizations in the city of Manchester had begun rolling out events to commemorate the Peterloo Massacre, a protest for universal suffrage that ended in bloodshed in 1819. The Manchester paper was founded shortly after it, and I already had established that the Manchester paper had evolved into the national Guardian. (While an office remains in Manchester, its primary offices were moved to London in the mid-20^th century. I visited both while I was in the U.K.) The rise of the Unstamped newspapers has its roots in Peterloo, as one government response to that event was to re-impose the newspaper stamp, making it economically challenging to produce and to purchase newspapers as well as requiring content to be pre-approved.

While none of the newspapers in the museum’s collection were digitized, I was given permission to go through them in the archive’s reading room and to digitize the copies I wanted to take myself, for a small fee per day. I quickly found myself sucked into the 19^th century, reading week after week of the Poor Man’s Guardian and learning about a working-class community that was agitating for political change. The community had an underground network of distributors of the paper, which was Unstamped and therefore illegal.

The publisher of PMG, Henry Hetherington, got arrested and imprisoned three times during the paper’s run for the crime of publishing the paper. His editor, James Bronterre O’Brien, published in Hetherington’s stead, raising funds to replace presses that had been seized, coaxing readers to send in the minutes from their union meetings, publishing letters from readers incensed over numerous issues, including Hetherington’s imprisonment, and publishing a list, at the back, of all who had subscribed or contributed to the bail fund that had been set up. O’Brien also published notices looking for men without ties to distribute the paper, promising that if they were caught, their fines would be paid from the fund.

Hetherington and O’Brien rarely used bylines in the paper itself, and it would have been foolish to do so given the illegality of the work. Neither did they specify many of the techniques they used to distribute the paper, and again, it would have been foolish to do so. Some of the tales told now no doubt have roots in oral history that will never be verified.

The Poor Man’s Guardian also provides an example of a newspaper that folded once its purpose had been fulfilled. It had been founded to agitate for an appeal to the Stamp Act, as well as to provide a forum for working-class activists who were seeking universal suffrage, unionization, and representation. According to the editors, once the Stamp Act had been repealed, it was no longer as popular, and it no longer made enough money to sustain itself. PMG folded in 1836, and Hetherington and O’Brien moved on to other projects and publications. The publication itself is cited by British Labour scholars as a cornerstone of Labour Party movement.

My experiences traveling with the McKerns Grant provided an object lesson in the value of actually visiting archives and historic sites, rather than relying exclusively on digital archives. The work I’d intended to do became derailed by a story seldom told in the United States. And yet, that story opened up several new directions for research and questions about the nature of a free press and its development in the United States as opposed to Great Britain that could prove fruitful for future study. Certainly, the image of the newspapers in the coffin will never leave me.

Visit the People’s History Museum online if you can’t make it to Manchester in person: https://phm.org.uk

All images courtesy of Amy Lauters. From the top: interior of the People's History Museum; front page of The Poor Man's Guardian; a printing press at the museum.

Lauters also did video diary posts to send home to her family during her trip. The below clip is a from a visit to John Rylands Library:

Your browser does not support the video tag.

Proposed Constitution and Bylaws Amendment

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 19:11:54 GMT

The AJHA Board of Directors is proposing an amendment to the Constitution and Bylaws, changing the title of the organization's Administrative Secretary to Executive Director to better reflect the scope of the office’s duties.

Board member Teri Finneman proposed the change, indicating that "secretary" is a dated term that does not encompass the full level of workload involved with the position. Executive Director is the title used by people who do the same duties at other organizations, making AJHA an outlier.

In February, the board voted unanimously to place the amendment on the fall ballot for a member vote. Per the Constitution and Bylaws, amendments must be advertised to the membership at least one month in advance of member voting, which will occur this year by electronic ballot before the virtual convention scheduled for Oct. 8-9.

The amendment would change the title wording only. The title would be changed everywhere in the Constitution and Bylaws where the Administrative Secretary is mentioned. See this copy of the Constitution and Bylaws with those locations highlighted.

Voting will occur via electronic ballot in September, along with the election for Second Vice-President and Board of Directors. Members will receive a link to the ballot via email.

Representing overlooked communities

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Fri, 16 Jul 2021 12:26:13 GMT

By Kimberly Voss

With the fall semester starting, it’s time to look at which people and which media are included in our journalism history classes. Are we relying too much on textbooks that highlight the mainstream, and in the process, are we overlooking marginalized communities in our classes? NYU has a Culturally Responsive Curriculum Scorecard that is helpful in examining a syllabus and curriculum for diversity and inclusion, which is available online through the Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools. If you decide you can do more, then providing students access to these materials is not difficult as there are numerous archives with scanned materials for students to explore.

One of my favorite digital archives is the U.S. Caribbean and Ethnic Florida Digital Newspaper Project. It is a collaborative project between the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida, the library system at the University of Puerto Rico- Rio Piedras, and the University of the Virgin Islands. Thanks to a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, the project offers digitized versions of ethnic and Caribbean newspapers, which are available through the National Digital Newspaper Program.

The collection also has articles based on topics, including the Bubonic Plague, the Armenian Genocide during World War I, and the presidential election of 1920. There are also sections regarding feminism in the early 20th century Puerto Rican press.

Another great resource within the project is the digitized version of Diario las Américas. The newspaper focused on coverage of local events, as well as news from across the state. It included a recurring news section “La Voz de Tampa” (The Voice of Tampa), which featured news directly from the paper’s Tampa office. There are about 15,000 pages covering November 1953 through December 1960 that are text-searchable in Chronicling America.

Also found in the project is the Southern Jewish Weekly, which began publication in 1939 when editor Isadore Moscovitz merged the Florida Jewish News and the Jewish Citizen to create a new newspaper that would be “an independent weekly serving American citizens of Jewish faith.” The newspaper was published in Jacksonville, Florida, once a week, with issues typically being eight pages. While Isadore was away serving in World War II, his wife, Mrs. Ethel “Teddy” Moscovitz, managed the paper and served as its editor in the interim. The paper continued as a monthly until January 1947 when Isadore returned to the United States.

An excellent collection of newspaper’s women’s pages are also contained in the project. As the collection notes, an examination of the women’s section in the Pensacola Journal reveals a portrait of the social calendar in the city. (The project has digitized versions of the Journal spanning from January 1905 to December 1914.) There were the traditional reports of weddings, births, and deaths, but also columns reporting illnesses, birthday parties, and club meetings. The social events found on the “People and Events” page typically contained a paragraph or more. For example, a 1909 “Society” column included four paragraphs about Miss Victorine Kroenberger, “a beautiful young Pensacola girl” who left home to “enter the Convent of the Holy Cross at Notre Dame” in order to become a nun.

One of the newspapers in the digital collection is the Ocala Evening Star, published from 1895-1943 before joining with the Ocala Banner to form the Ocala Star-Banner. From Jan. 28, 1902 to Feb. 24, 1908, the paper regularly dedicated space for local African American news, even though it was published by a white owner. Known as the “Colored Folks Column” from 1902 to 1903 and the “Colored People’s Department” from 1904 until it ended, it provided insight into African American life in the community and contained notices about illness and recovery, wedding news, deaths, and the availability of lodging and property.

The most important news to any community, just like politics, is local. Don’t be afraid to bring community and regional voices into your history curriculum. Direct access to primary source material, made possible through these digital archives, is instrumental to creating an inclusive environment.

Kimberly Voss is a professor at the University of Central Florida

Tales of the dreaded research paper

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Fri, 16 Jul 2021 12:15:55 GMT

By Dr. Kaylene Armstrong

When I first started reading one student’s media history research paper, I was surprised. Her writing had improved remarkably from all the previous work she had turned in. Naturally, my plagiarism antenna went up, and within a few keystrokes I found her paper word-for-word — on Wikipedia, no less. I expected the usual litany of excuses for plagiarizing — no time, started too late, illness/personal problems/work interfered with getting it done, etc. Instead, the response she gave was one I hadn’t really expected: “I’ve never written a research paper in my life, and you didn’t teach us how to do it.”

She was right. That’s the sort of thing my own children learned in their high school senior English class, not in a college class, right?

This piece is meant to spark discussion among colleagues so that more voices can add perspective and ideas for successfully tackling the student research paper.

Through the last few years of teaching a media history class, I have encountered several challenges with students when it comes to research papers: the assignment itself, the writing, the sources and the citations.

Making the research paper assignment interesting and at least a little challenging has always been my plan. I have each student write a history of his or her hometown newspaper. It wouldn’t be thorough by any means because it only had to be 1,000 words, but I hoped it would inspire them to work on finding some interesting things about what should be an institution in their hometowns.

The perimeters for the assignment include using at least four sources, one of which has to be an interview with a live person at the newspaper, preferably the publisher or editor, about its continuing role in the community. I suggest they ask the existing editor if an old, retired staffer was still around who also might have historical knowledge to share about the newspaper, knowledge such as when the old linotype machines were replaced with “cold type” or what quirks the old presses had or stories they have to tell about experiences in the newsroom.

The students are specifically warned NOT to use Wikipedia or any other unreliable sources. I suggest the students check for books or journal articles instead. In many areas of the country, enterprising researchers (perhaps as a dissertation) have written books or lengthy journal pieces about the history of a particular newspaper. As most of my students are from Oklahoma, I suggest they use a book found in our library: “The story of Oklahoma newspapers, 1844 to 1984” by L. Edward Carter.

The newspaper itself can serve as a source, especially articles from the earliest editions that might include information from early editors and reporters who address the purpose or goals of the newspaper. I encourage them to find the first edition (many are available online) and then determine who were the various editors.

When I first designed the project, I got excited just thinking of it. I tried to convey that excitement when we talked about it the first day of class. I expressed my hope that some of the small newspapers they wrote about would be interested in running an edited version of the student’s paper (with the citations modified), and I offered extra credit if they did.

I wish I could report that I got wonderful papers, with stellar writing and excellent researching, but alas I did not. No one earned an A. Most of them found the exercise daunting and not as exciting as I had hoped. Actually interviewing another person intimidated almost everyone in the class, even when I provided lengthy lists of possible questions to ask. Only a few included the newspaper itself as a source, but did a poor job of incorporating it smoothly into the paper. In fact, the biggest challenge for students seemed to be figuring out how to transition between the various pieces of information they found. Almost all had major writing problems: sentences that didn’t make sense (fragments and incorrect word usage), and grammar/spelling/punctuation errors. Few had taken the time to copyedit their work.

Now I spend at least a couple of days, sometimes three, on how to research and write a research paper. I hand out and review an example research paper that I created. I emphasize copy editing, reading work aloud, getting someone else to read the work. I remind them that I grade harshly for carelessness. I require all sources to be approved beforehand—so many want easy Britannica-like sources online rather than using the databases that the library provides to find academic sources and books. I require all papers to be submitted electronically so they can be run through Turnitin to find plagiarism issues. As usual, I encourage (beg?) all students to come see me for help.

A friend suggested I drop the research paper and save myself the headaches. I won’t do that. I will continue to try to teach these students how to do good research, and maybe I can spark the same love of media history that I have.

Dr. Kaylene Armstrong is an associate professor of mass communication, Northwestern Oklahoma State University.

Member Spotlight: Earnest Perry

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Fri, 16 Jul 2021 11:25:19 GMT

How did you become involved in AJHA?

I was encouraged by several of my graduate student colleagues to submit a paper for presentation at the AJHA convention. It was accepted and during that weekend I met some fabulous people who encouraged me, challenge me and in many ways helped shape my future. I would not be who I am today as a scholar, teacher, person without AJHA.

Why are inclusion, diversity, and equity important in education?

If journalists are going to tell other people’s stories, then they need as students to begin to understand that you are engaging with people who come from different cultures and backgrounds and that those backgrounds are connected in economic ways, in racialized ways, in different cultures. One of the most important ways to be able to have a better understanding is to be a part of educational environments that are diverse. I think that’s important. I think it’s always been important.

How can programs better include these ideas?

I think the most important thing is to introduce students to the ideas of inclusion, diversity and equity early as freshman. They’re in educational environments. We need to do a better job of educating them to better understand other spaces and cultures and embrace the fact that this is a never-ending educational process. And that process should start day one when you walk in.

What drew you to early 20^th century Black press history?

I’ve always liked history, even when I was an undergrad, in particular, civil rights history. What draws me to the early twentieth century is looking at where the press and in particular the Black press, was and the role that it played in helping African Americans navigate Jim Crow. How do you navigate this space that you are in? How do you navigate being asked to be an American when you are denied the rights of Americans? They could pick up a white newspaper but the only times they’d see themselves in it was if something bad happened. The only place they could see themselves in education or church or all of these spaces that they lived their lives was in the Black press.

What hobbies or interests do you have outside of academia?

When I’m not working I like to play golf, cook (mainly BBQ) and watch sports (St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Chiefs). I don’t get to do enough of those things. Life as an administrator is pretty tough these days, but the joy comes from watching my students achieve their goals. That makes all the hard work worthwhile.

Earnest Perry is is the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Research at the Missouri School of Journalism. Dr. Perry currently serves as chair of the Publications Committee for the Association on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. He is a former president of American Journalism Historians Association, a former chair of the Standing Committee on Research and a member of the Standing Committee on Teaching for AEJMC.

#100DaysOfWhatever

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 13:52:27 GMT

By Aimee Edmondson

During our last week of spring classes in late April, I took a grading break and scrolled across an Instagram post from my friend and colleague Julie Elman, who teaches design and the creative process at Ohio University.

In her trademark zany style, Julie drew a pointed purple face with plants growing out of her open brain and included the hashtag #100DaysOfWhatever. The image reeks of exhaustion, but there’s determination on that pinched, weary face. Summer break was upon us, and Julie reminded me that it’s the perfect time to nurture those sprouts, those little green tendrils of creativity.

Julie knows of what she draws. A professor in Ohio’s School of Visual Communication, she brings 15 years of newspaper design experience to the classroom. She designed the book “The Rise of Barack Obama” for another colleague, Pete Souza, who left Ohio University to become the chief White House Photographer during the Obama years. Her book of freehand drawings, “Fear Illustrated: Transforming What Scares Us,” was published in 2017 and will change the way you think about your own biggest anxieties.

So, taking a cue from Julie, I set out this summer to make the most of my #100daysofwhatever. To me, this was to be THE summer for regrowth, mindfulness, and nurturing creative processes. What was I going to do with this time?

Certainly, there’s the research agenda and a few open-at-last archives to visit, but work could be done at a less frenetic pace than the pre-tenure and pre-promotion years. The pandemic consumed and transformed everyone’s school year, and I had not even taken the time to think ahead to the summer break.

Then my mom died unexpectedly in May, and I have a dear friend who is battling the end stages of cancer. These #100daysofwhatever began to matter even more as I think about how we spend the time that we have.

So, for the rest of this summer: more time paddling on the lake, more time in the garden, more reading just for fun in the hammock, more in-person visits with friends and family after 15 months of isolation (everyone fully vaccinated, of course).

And yes, more time to think about the AJHA and how our organization can continue to contribute to the national conversation about journalism and journalism history during this pivotal time in our profession. As you may have read, the AJHA officers are working to provide our membership with more information about media literacy—this is one of our main goals of the year.

As journalists and media historians, we must continue our work addressing the onslaught of misinformation and revisionist history narratives that have become all too common in today’s information ecosystem. If you haven’t done so yet, please take a look at some of the resources on the AJHA web page and stay tuned to the Intelligencer as we continue to solicit more content from the nation’s top experts and educators in the area of media literacy. AJHA president Donna Lampkin Stephens, second VP Mike Conway and I want to hear from you about this topic. Please share your ideas and any resources you have relating to media literacy, and we’ll make them available to the AJHA membership.

I continue to draw inspiration from the creativity of our AJHA members, and I love keeping up with you via the Intelligencer, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

And, of course, summer is still a time for assessment reports, accreditation self-study, directing graduate students’ theses and dissertations. But there’s still time for regrowth, reflection on what really matters in our lives and nurturing our own creative processes.

What are you doing with your #100DaysOfWhatever?

Aimee Edmondson is a professor and Director for Graduate Studies at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. She serves as First Vice President of AJHA.

Member Spotlight: Wayne Dawkins

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 13:18:05 GMT

Why did you choose to write a biography of New York Congressman Emanuel Celler?

When I wrote the 2012 biography, City Son, Andrew W. Cooper’s Impact on Modern-Day Brooklyn, Celler was among five members of Congress representing gerrymandered Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville, which was 80% Black and Puerto Rican.

After my Cooper biography was published, I discovered that Celler was known for 1965 immigration reform. I was intrigued because my parents and extended family, Caribbean natives, have immigration stories. From internet searches I found that a few sites demonized Celler, Jacob Javits and Chuck Schumer as people who allegedly destroyed American culture because of their immigration reform advocacy.

University Press of Mississippi, my publisher, green-lighted the Celler book idea. Early in the research I learned my subject was richer. Celler was also the godfather of civil rights legislation, because as longtime chairman of the House Judiciary Committee he was floor manager of landmark legislation, including the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 1965 Voting Rights Act and 1968 Fair Housing Act.

Celler served nearly 50 years in Congress. What were his accomplishments?

Celler co-authored three Constitutional amendments, Voting Rights for citizens who live in the District of Columbia [23^rd], Abolishing Poll Taxes [24^th] and Presidential Succession [25^th]. Celler did not personally support it, yet he successfully floor managed a fourth amendment, the 26^th, Voting Rights for 18-year-olds.

Celler’s name is on at least 300 U.S. laws. Among them is the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, which historians are now crediting Celler with rescuing approximately 340,000 to 600,000 refugees, many of them Jewish, trapped in post-World War II Germany and Poland.

Celler was an unequivocal advocate for an independent Jewish state, achieved in 1948 with the creation of Israel from former British colony Palestine.

Also, Celler pressed the FDR administration during World War II to establish U.S. diplomatic relations with the Vatican. The United States made good on that promise in 1981 when Ronald Reagan was president, also the year Celler died.

What might surprise readers regarding Celler’s political or personal life?

Celler has been hiding in plain view. There are 600,000 documents about the man at the Library of Congress. My research however began at Brooklyn Public Library central office, which had a Celler College in its Brooklyn Room.

Celler’s family heritage was Jewish and Catholic from Germany. Celler wrote two books, “The Draft and You,” a 1940 primer, and “You Never Leave Brooklyn,” his 1953 autobiography.

Celler’s creative talents were piano, his preferred instrument, violin, which his parents made him play. He doodled and drew caricatures of his political colleagues, and made paper puppets to entertain his grandchildren. Celler kept a diary book of pithy sayings to cite when he spoke publicly.

A secretary who worked for Celler during 1965-1972, his last years in Congress, told me in June that although I cited a source who wrote that the congressman was 5-feet, 2-inches tall, Celler was probably closer to 5-feet 7-inches tall. A rare, near-fatal illness in 1941 may have curved Celler’s spine.

Celler’s opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment contributed to his 1972 upset defeat by Elizabeth Holtzman, however Celler’s views on women was much more enlightened than his male congressional colleagues. Celler was praised by a coalition of women’s organizations for ending a ban on wives working for the government if their husbands were federal employees, and he lobbied for the acceptance of women doctors in the Medical Reserve Corps.

Yet Celler, born at the end of the 1800s, was Victorian in attitude toward women.

Bryan Cranston, who played LBJ in the 2014 Broadway play “All the Way,” performed as Celler too and spoke a few lines. However, in the 2016 HBO movie version of “All the Way,” Celler was not cast, but an adversary, Rep. Howard “Judge” Smith of Virginia, was featured.

Wayne Dawkins, 2016 AJHA Educator of the Year, is a professor of professional practice at Morgan State University School of Global Journalism and Communication.

Q&A: Author Paige Gray

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 13:04:05 GMT

Please introduce yourself and include your connections/role with AJHA.

I'm Paige Gray. I'm a liberal arts professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and I've previously taught at Fort Lewis College, the United States Military Academy at West Point, and the University of Southern Mississippi. Much of the historical research that I did for Cub Reporters was rooted in journalism history, so I relied heavily on scholarship from the AJHA and its members.

What drew you to your topic/time period?

I've been fascinated by newspapers and journalism since I was very young. I used to recruit my friends in elementary school to be on my newspaper—but no one ever did their assigned stories! I ended up writing the stories and drawing the accompanying art all by hand on blank sheets of computer paper, designing it to look like a newspaper with columns and headlines.

My undergraduate honors thesis focused on The Wizard of Oz. Instead of going into a PhD program after my BA, I decided to go into journalism. After doing my MA in Chicago, I did newspaper work in Colorado and New Mexico, which I loved. But academia still nagged at me, and I was interested in further exploring children's literature.

When I started my PhD coursework and began thinking about my dissertation, I was trying to answer questions about my own interests—Why am I so fascinated by children's literature? Why am I so fascinated by journalism?

This led me to the Golden Age of children's literature—basically the latter part of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth—which is also a golden age for the American newspaper.

How did your thinking in the development of your topic start and then lead to this publication? Did it stray? Did you make any sudden and unexpected turns?

Cub Reporters was my dissertation. The project evolved over many years. In the early days, I focused on the overlap between the figure of the child and the figure of the reporter in American culture—how in the public imagination, these were agents of curiosity. They also seemed to have a reciprocal relationship, the reporter in the child, the child in the reporter. This led my initial outline and scholarship to be rooted in the concept of curiosity. As my work began solidifying into distinct chapters, new ideas and possibilities emerged. It wasn't until after I had solid chapter drafts that I made the connection to what I eventually termed "artifice."

What surprised you most about this project?

So many things! The notion of "surprise"—the constant promise of discovery and newness—is why I love both reporting and scholarship. In particular, the ways in which American journalism and children's literature responded and reflected one another further revealed to me the constructed nature of childhood and adulthood as well as how we police ideas of curiosity and creativity.

In terms of the book's material and subjects, stumbling upon the Chicago Defender Junior was probably my biggest (and most delightful) research surprise.

What did you find to be your biggest challenge in working your way to completion of your monograph?

My monograph started as my dissertation, so when I began revision work, my professional world had changed—no longer was I graduate student with mentors surrounding me (at least in physical proximity), giving me guidance. Also, I was teaching full-time, so I had to be judicious with time. But more than that, I had to learn to really trust myself and the scholar I'd become. This was crucial since I recrafted the manuscript's organizing thesis.

What are you working on now?
I usually have several projects I'm juggling—articles and chapters in various stages of development. Ideas are never the problem. It's time! I recently finished work on a chapter for a collecting commemorating The Brownies' Book, published by W.E.B. DuBois and the NAACP in 1920. That research extends on my chapter in Cub Reporters on the Chicago Defender Junior by looking at other children's sections in Black weeklies around that period.

What topic would you like to tackle next?
I've been working on a new-book project since I moved to Atlanta and discovered the Center for Puppetry Arts. Puppetry may seem like a sharp turn from Cub Reporters, but it's really more of an extension. Cub Reporters considers how American children’s literature of the Golden Age subverts the idea of news; journalism, in the works that the book discusses, is not a reporting of fact, but a reporting of artifice. With this new project (tentatively called Play Things), I'm still thinking about artifice’s primacy to the human experience. While the cub reporters of children’s literature report the truth of artifice and relish it, the avatars of American puppetry similarly suggest the superseding condition of the human experience is that of creative invention—to be human is to create. The artifice of the puppet makes this notion inescapable. Through the creation of life via material means, puppetry promotes artifice, and promotes it through the acknowledgement of its process.

Member Spotlight: Melita M. Garza

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 17 May 2021 21:31:28 GMT

How did you become involved in AJHA?

My dissertation adviser at UNC Chapel Hill, Barbara Friedman, encouraged me to get involved and submit my paper from her journalism history seminar to the AJHA conference. This was my first paper acceptance as a doctoral student and it was so memorable that I kept the email sent me by then research chair, Janice Hume. Janice has been a wonderful role model and mentor, and is representative of the inspiring, encouraging, and supportive scholars students get a chance to know through AJHA.

How does your previous career working for major market and international news organizations relate to your research approach?

Working for more than two decades across multiple cities, beats and roles has given me a deep practitioners’ knowledge of journalism from which to draw on. I pioneered the ethnic affairs beat, and covered city politics, gentrification, immigration, business, and courts, among other things. As the only Mexican American woman general assignment reporter, I brought a different lived experience and perspective to covering the news. I was acutely aware of how unrepresentative journalism was (and still is) in relation to our demographics. While serving on the board of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ), I became involved in the development of UNITY, a collaboration between the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA), and the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA). We thought that by joining forces we might better push for change. This fault lines approach to journalism is a lens that I use in my historical research and is key to challenging limited binary approaches to understanding journalism history.

What influence does your family history and background have on your research interests?

I was raised in a bilingual, bicultural household and acutely aware of discrimination my parents, grandparents, and other relatives faced in San Antonio, Texas. For instance, one of my uncles, who had been a POW during World War II, returned home only to be denied service in a Texas restaurant. Mexican school children, when they didn’t attend segregated schools, were forced to sit in the back of the classroom. The front seats were reserved for White students. Growing up, we were exposed to both English and Spanish language media, and early on, I had a clear sense of Spanish-language media and its significance in U.S. journalism.

In your view, what needs to change in the field of journalism history and why?

It’s in some ways unfair to single out journalism history, because lack of representation is a significant concern throughout academia, the media, and our nation. Considering how reporting across the fault lines of race, gender, class, generation, and geography intersect with every beat, from healthcare, to business, to sports, to climate change, etc., it becomes increasingly clear that we need a faculty that looks more like America, and we need research that looks at journalism history through a range of lenses, theories, and methods.

It goes without saying that journalism history is more than knowing landmark events. Journalism history is at least in part about understanding the role of journalism in developing communities of readers and in many cases, inculcating ideas about who merits citizenship. In the context of journalism education, journalism history, if approached as something beyond merely toting up facts, helps ground future journalists in the power of the press, helps them understand that the press, in varied manifestations, is an institution that has helped build and shape communities, and has also been complicit in helping tear some communities apart.

What hobbies or interests do you have outside of academia?

Mark Twain has been (most likely erroneously) quoted as saying that “golf is a good walk spoiled.” I am more inclined to say that a walk is a good golf game spoiled.

Melita M. Garza studies news as an agent of democracy, specializing in English- and Spanish-language news, the immigrant press, and coverage of underrepresented groups. Garza is an associate professor at TCU’s Bob Schieffer College of Communication in Fort Worth. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2012 after two decades as a reporter.

D.C. Archives: How I Used the McKerns Research Grant

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 17 May 2021 21:19:30 GMT

By Michael Fuhlhage

None of us can wait for the pandemic to be over so the archives will open to researchers again. For the time being, this is a good time to plan visits, and I’d like to share what I learned about navigating the major ones in and around Washington, D.C.

I was blessed in 2018 with the opportunity to work with materials from the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C., and National Archives II in College Park, Maryland with help from AJHA’s Joseph McKerns Research Grant as I wrapped up my first book, Yankee Reporters and Southern Secrets: Journalism, Open Source Intelligence, and the Coming of the Civil War (Peter Lang, 2019). The Washington visit was guided by this question: How did Federal and Confederate military and civilian authorities act on secession-related information in newspapers?

A visit to LOC and the NARA research centers is like being a contestant on Supermarket Sweep, except that your prizes are notes and photos of artifacts. That was how I felt at the end of each day. The Library of Congress (LOC) is a good place to get your feet wet because its manuscript collection is much smaller and more manageable for a beginner to navigate than NARA. It’s also friendlier to your budget due to the time factor: At LOC, it’s easier to use online finding aids to build a list of collections to request. The Library of Congress Manuscripts Division is much more straightforward than NARA. The most commonly requested materials are catalogued online, though I still found myself combing the finding aids shelves for binders that guided me to the papers of more obscure historical figures.

The National Archives is massive, and though it’s impeccably organized there’s a learning curve before you can start accessing materials, and that takes more time. It helps to understand the organization of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government because all NARA materials are filed by department, agency, bureau and other federal unit. The downtown NARA center also has the legislative archives.

The following advice applies to both LOC and NARA:

Do your homework. All time is precious time in an archive. That’s especially true at NARA. Unless you have a solid game plan before you go, it’s easy to get lost in minutiae. If you need to consult the legislative archives at NARA, you need to know which term and session of Congress, which committee, and which dates you want to request records for. A good research library near you should have copies of the Journal of the U.S. House and the Journal of the U.S. Senate, which index debates, introductions of legislation, and how those were acted on by committees.

Make a game plan. You won’t know what, if anything, you might find until you request your materials, pull them off the cart, and dive in. The first thing you need to do is figure out which branch of the National Archives has a critical mass of materials within the scope of your studies.

Don’t just think in terms of prominent individuals; include in your search the military units and federal agencies with which your research targets served. You want to look up agencies, find documents that show orders they issued or requests for action they received, and use the names and events mentioned on those documents to trace back to evidence in other collections. Request materials associated with significant events by date, then look for correspondence by the people who are germane to your search.

Don’t count on even going to the NARA researcher rooms until you’ve spent most of your first day and perhaps more in the finding aids room. Get there as close to opening as possible. Even if you’ve worked with National Archives finding aids, identifying records to pull will take longer than you expect if you’re working with material from an agency or Cabinet-level department you haven’t worked in before.

Before you crack open a single aid, ask the curator on duty to speak with a records specialist. They’ll ask what Executive Branch department or agency you need to explore. Explain your project to them, and be ready to take notes and follow them around as they pull finding aid binders for you to review. The earlier you arrive, the longer you are likely to have their undivided attention.

Pack a lunch, USB drives, memory cards, and charging cords: You will save a lot of time since it’s a long walk to any place where you can buy replacements. The exception on brown-bagging is that you owe it to yourself to dine at least once at the cafeterias of LOC and NARA 2, which offer healthful, affordable meals with surprising local flair. Otherwise, save your per diem to splurge on dinner because you’ll be ravenous at closing time.

As for photography: It’s fair game for anything except classified materials. Take a couple of options with you. A small digital camera is great and may be more adjustable than your cellphone camera, but you see lots of researchers making pictures with an iPhone or Android phone.

To prepare for a new day in the archives, I wrote a debriefing memo every evening and used this to map the relationship between agencies and figures I found material about. I also noted what my targets were that day, what worked, what was a bust, and what my top five or so targets for the next day were.

The more affordable hotels, if you are driving, are out beyond the beltway. The tradeoff is commuting time, but you can use the time on the Metro train to write debriefing memos and stop off for dinner after your day in the archive.

Michael Fuhlhage is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.

What Makes a Successful AJHA Submission: Tips From the Pros

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 17 May 2021 20:09:23 GMT

By Gerry Lanosga, AJHA Research Committee Chair

The June 15 deadline for AJHA's fall conference is fast upon us, and I was asked as chair of the Research Committee to put together some tips for submitters of papers, research in progress, and panels. Since this is my first year as chair, I decided to consult some voices of experience. I’m grateful that former research chairs Erin Coyle and Michael Fuhlhage answered the call, as well as former research in progress coordinator Keith Greenwood and current panel coordinator Rob Wells.

Paper Submissions

First, make sure to carefully read and follow all of the published rules. Having been stung by my own failure to do so once or twice, I cannot emphasize that enough. As Keith puts it: “Follow the call directions! Pay attention to length and formatting for the proposal and the references. As the call says, submissions that do not follow the guidelines get rejected.”

Once you get the technicalities right, what makes for a successful submission? Erin reminds us that AJHA interprets journalism history broadly and values research that explores diverse topics and time periods using diverse methods. Good papers make clear the contribution they are making to journalism history. “Strong research papers clearly indicate the manuscript's purpose, state what primary sources are analyzed, explain literature that provides a foundation for the analysis, and explain what method each author applied,” Erin says. “Briefly stating whether a paper uses document analysis, oral history, or other methods can help readers understand more about authors' interpretations.” Further, Erin notes that a good historical paper will include sufficient details “that contribute to the paper's main observations and clearly relate to the purpose of the paper.”

Something reviewers appreciate is good writing and organization. Michael, in fact, believes the writing is as equally important as the primary sources and interpretation in a research submission. I love this advice he gives: “The best papers minimize the effort the reader must put into them through clear expression and signposting in the writing. One of the most important signposts is one I remember Mike Sweeney discussing: an explicit statement of what the paper is about. I've taken to requiring my students to begin that sentence no later than the bottom of the first page.”

Leave yourself enough time to step away from the paper for a day and then make a final edit with fresh ideas. That can help you spot not just grammar and style issues but also unclear or missing ideas. “I say this because after you've been deeply immersed in a project, you might not recognize that the things you assume everyone would know aren't actually such common knowledge after all,” Michael says. “These things need to be explained to readers who are generally well versed in history but not necessarily in your topic, place, or era.” Make certain you deliver on the promises you made to the readers.

Erin adds: Make sure you check your citations carefully, since AJHA reviewers are footnote readers. (Also, she says, our reviewers tend to appreciate footnotes that contain additional context or stories.)

Research in Progress

Many of Erin’s and Michael’s suggestions for papers also apply to research in progress submissions. For instance, Keith looks for a thorough discussion of primary sources: “Don’t just list but give some indication of scope and relevance. It’s hard to evaluate them without a description.”

Similarly, the focus and contribution of the research, as well as how it differs from previous work, are critical. “Some proposals score lower because the history connection or the connection to journalism isn’t clear,” Keith says. “Write so that someone who doesn’t study your specific area can understand the topic and significance.”

Panel Proposals

Rob says he looks for panel proposals that have a clear mission to discuss a specific episode or topic in history from a variety of perspectives.

“Each of the panelists should be making a separate contribution to advance the overall narrative. The problematic panels have a general thematic idea and sort of a grab bag of papers under that heading. The good ones drill down into a topic.” Rob also likes to see diversity on proposed panels. That can include a mix of advanced students and seasoned faculty, for instance.

Major problems Rob has seen with panel proposals include the omission of a moderator, which is required, and the inclusion of panelists who are also on other panel proposals, which is not permitted.

I greatly appreciate these wise words from Rob, Michael, and Erin, and I hope you also find them useful as you finalize your submissions. This year’s research committee, including Rob and new research in progress coordinator Jane Marcellus, look forward to seeing your proposals. Good luck!

Lessons on Oral History as a Tool for Activism

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Sat, 17 Apr 2021 14:08:56 GMT

By Gheni Platenburg

Social unrest and violence have always created a need for activism. While protests, boycotts and, more recently, social media campaigns have all become common ways to express dissent and call for change, researchers have also found ways to fight against injustice. In recent years, oral history has increasingly emerged as a form of resistance.

Groundswell: Oral History for Social Change worked to promote oral history as an advocacy tool. Groundswell was an international network of oral historians; activists; cultural workers; community organizers; and documentary artists that “use oral history to further movement building and transformative social change.”^{^[1]} To accomplish these goals, the network provided “mutual support, training, and resources in the practice of applied, community-based oral history.”^{^[2]}

I attended the organization’s fall 2019 introductory training workshop in hopes of learning additional approaches to expanding my oral history work beyond academic journals. Over the course of six weeks, Groundswell members led my cohort through an intense online training consisting of lectures, in-class activities, homework and assigned readings.^{^[3]} Like the organization itself, my cohort was also composed of people from different geographic locations, professions and fields of study.

From the start, trainers sought to establish the value of oral histories beyond the general collection, preservation, and analysis of historical accounts. Instead, they encouraged we also view the methodology as “a source of power, knowledge and strength in our struggles for justice” that “provides a unique space for those most impacted by injustice to speak and be heard in their own voices.”^{^[4]} I saw this as an opportunity to move beyond a reactive standpoint in my role as a researcher to a more proactive role.

While trainers did review the basics of ethics, interview techniques and recording equipment, a large amount of the training was spent teaching the foundations of developing collaborative community oral history projects. These teachings provided guidance on building community connections, locating funding and finding strategy within stories. In my opinion, one of the best parts of the course was learning about all the different types of oral history projects underway.

One such example was the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project,^{^[5]} a “data-visualization, critical cartography, and multimedia storytelling collective documenting dispossession and resistance upon gentrifying landscapes,” primarily in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City.^{^[6]} The project’s website provides everything from the oral histories of residents to helpful information about tenants’ rights to a searchable database for area evictions and a digital form to submit reports of landlords’ wrongdoings. Another example discussed during the course was the Tibetan Resettlement Stories project, a collection of stories of the first Tibetan immigrants to settle in Boston sharing their experiences of political exile and resettlement.^{^[7]} While neither example pertains to journalism history, both offered important applicable takeaways about project design and presentation.

A third example, Voice of Witness, is a “nonprofit that advances human rights by amplifying the voices of people impacted by—and fighting against—injustice.”^{^[8]} In addition to publishing oral histories, project administrators also provided a complementary curriculum. Furthermore, the course also offered information on additional innovative oral history audio projects including walking tours, site specific audio installations and participatory community dialogues.

The course was nothing short of transformative. At the end of the six weeks, I felt inspired, motivated, and ready to jump on projects. In academia, professors often strive for the holy grails of journal article publications as a measure of success. Admittedly, there are obvious benefits to this model of information dissemination. However, this course reminded me to also consider how I can share my work with non-academics in a way that is meaningful and creates reflection and if necessary, change. Amid the nation’s current fights for social and economic equality, Groundswell provided a group of colleagues and potential collaborators for those looking to serve as change agents.

^{^[1]}Groundswell: Oral History for Social Change, 2014, Retrieved from: http://www.oralhistoryforsocialchange.org/about .

^{^[2]} Ibid.

^{^[3]} A few examples of the course reading include the following: Donald A. Ritchie, Doing Oral History (New York, Oxford University Press, 2003) ; Martha Norkunas, “Teaching to Listen: Listening Exercises and Self-Reflexive Journals,” The Oral History Review 38, no. 1(2011): 63-108.

^{^[4]} Groundswell: Oral History for Social Change, Fall 2019 Class PowerPoint.

^{^[5]} Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, Retrieved from: https://antievictionmap.com/

^{^[6]} Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, “About Us,” Retrieved from: https://antievictionmap.com/about

^{^[7]} Tibetan Resettlement Stories Voices of Boston, Retrieved from: https://www.tibetanresettlementstories.org/

^{^[8]}Voice of Witness, Retrieved from: https://voiceofwitness.org/about/

Member Spotlight: Ashley Walter

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Tue, 13 Apr 2021 13:11:57 GMT

Ashley Walter is originally from Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Following her undergraduate degree at Duquesne University, she worked at the Pittsburgh City Paper, an alt-weekly newspaper. In 2017, Ashley graduated from Duquesne’s journalism department with an M.S. in media arts and technology. She is now a doctoral candidate at Penn State University working under Ford Risley’s advisership.

When and how did you first become involved in AJHA?

In 2015, I made the scary decision to quit my job and start a master’s degree. It is my good fortune that I was randomly selected as Pamela Walck’s research assistant. At that point, I had never heard of “research interests,” and, to be honest, I didn’t understand academic research. Pam asked if I was interested in helping her research a lesser-known WWII-era comic strip that featured a female protagonist. Saying “yes” to her changed my life. Through that project—and Pam’s patience—I learned how to conduct and write research. I also grew to love media history. We presented at AJHA and eventually published the piece in Journalism History. Later, once I started my doctoral program, I became an editorial assistant for American Journalism under editor Ford Risley. Here again, I was fortunate to have another mentor walk me through an essential academic process.

While Pam and Ford opened the AJHA doors for me, I felt such a warm welcome at my first conference. I immediately knew I had found an academic home, and I’ve attended yearly since 2016. One of my favorite memories was at our last in-person conference in Dallas when three women scholars I admire treated three graduate students to lunch. We had such a lovely time getting to know each other. I’m certain AJHA members are the most generous academics alive.

Describe your dissertation. How did you get interested in the project?

My dissertation looks at class-action sex discrimination lawsuits that occurred at print organizations during the 1970s. These lawsuits did so much to diversify newsrooms across the U.S., but they were contentious battles that pushed some women out of journalism.

I first learned about the lawsuits while watching Amazon’s short-lived TV show, Good Girls Revolt. Based on Lynn Povich’s memoir, the story details how 46 women working at Newsweek filed a sex discrimination complaint against the magazine in 1970. A few weeks after binge-watching the show, I was stuck at the airport after an AJHA conference. I was lucky to pass the time with Paulette Kilmer, who I told about the TV show. She then told me about the sex discrimination she experienced as a young woman reporter. I began to wonder how many more of these lawsuits occurred. Now I am conducting oral histories with women involved in the suits and piecing together this history.

What drew you to oral history?

Like many journalism historians who worked in media, I naturally gravitated to a method where I could interview people. It is my favorite part of my dissertation work, and I love immersing myself in stories.

Conducting oral histories during COVID-19 isn’t ideal, but in some ways, our Zoom-run world has given me access to people I couldn’t have visited in pre-pandemic times. The women I am interviewing are in their 80s and 90s. There is urgency in collecting their stories, and in some ways, the pandemic has helped me interview faster. Also, it has eliminated technological challenges that might have existed before. Everyone is Zooming now!

Why is oral history important?

Capturing voices and untold stories is always important, but as a feminist researcher, oral history’s value is in sharing marginalized stories. For so long, women were absent from history books and archives. When researchers amplify marginalized voices, we provide fuller and richer histories. There is a 1977 quote from Sherna Gluck that inspires my current work:

“With our foremothers we are creating a new kind of women’s history, a new kind of women’s literature. To this task we should bring the sensitivity, respect, tremendous joy and excitement that come from the awareness that we are not only creating new materials, but that we are also validating the lives of the women who preceded us and are forging links with our own past.”

Isn’t it great? We still have so many stories to capture.

What are your future goals?

I am on track to complete my dissertation in spring 2022, and I will enter the job market this summer. (Hey, hiring committees!) I hope to have a tenure-track job where I can focus on both teaching and research. I’m excited to pay forward the kindness I’ve received from mentors, and would love a position where I can mentor students. I’d love to become a graduate director someday.

What are some of your hobbies or interest outside of academia?

Since moving to Central Pennsylvania for graduate school, I started hiking several times a week. I also love folk music and enjoy singing and playing guitar. Before COVID-19, I frequently attended concerts and outdoor music festivals. I also love reading historical fiction and magazines. An ideal day would be spent lounging in my hammock with a New Yorker in my hand and a cat on my lap.

Integrating critical media literacy into media history

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 21:26:05 GMT

By Nathaniel Frederick II

As a member of AJHA and the National Association of Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), I support the officer’s goals to emphasize media literacy. The timing is perfect to broaden our scope and introduce our work to a new audience.

I attended the NAMLE conference for the first time in 2013, with the intention of learning new pedagogical techniques for a restructured of course I was scheduled to teach. There, I met educators, academics, activists, and students with a passion for understanding media messages and the role of media in our culture. The most surprising aspect of my experience was observing the international scope of media literacy efforts. In 2015, NAMLE and the UNESCO Media and Information Literacy Alliance held concurrent meetings. Attendees were able to meet with educators focused on raising the profile of media and information literacy in countries across the globe.

The goal of NAMLE is for people to be critical thinkers and media producers, using all forms of communication. Similarly, media history involves critical analysis and comparisons that help evaluate contemporary media systems.

In a course titled, “African Americans in Media and Culture,” I incorporated critical media literacy (Kellner & Share, 2006) which focuses on ideological critique and analyzes the politics of representation of gender, race, and class, and sexuality, while incorporating alternative media production. This perspective suggests that media can be tools for empowerment when marginalized or misrepresented people in the mainstream media receive the opportunity and tools to tell their stories and express their concerns.

By incorporating the work of media literacy scholars and exploring new pedagogies, we can facilitate active media citizenship by providing historical context to public health crises, social movements, and misinformation in journalism. Before the pandemic, Winthrop University collaborated with a number of stakeholders to organize a media literacy series titled, “News Literacy and the Future of Journalism.” The series included eleven events over eight months that sought to deepen the public’s knowledge and appreciation of the vital connections among democracy, the humanities, journalism, and an informed citizenry. Topics included the history of fake news; editorial cartoons; investigative journalism; and the future of journalism. By collaborating with other departments to recreating a similar media literacy events, a virtual program and would be inexpensive and a worthwhile endeavor.

I look forward to the research and pedagogical insights that come from alliances between AJHA and NAMLE. This interdisciplinary exploration will make media history engaging to students and highlight the relevancy of different subjects.

Nathaniel Frederick II is an Associate Professor at Winthrop University. He studies African American magazine history, representations of masculinity in television and film, the American Civil Rights Movement, and African American sacred music.

Teaching: Community journalism must have a place in teaching journalism history

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 15:43:57 GMT

By Teri Finneman

I still vividly remember grabbing the newspaper off the kitchen table and hurriedly slamming through the pages.

Somewhere, in the middle of the paper, there it was: my very first byline. I was 17 years old and now a real journalist for the newspaper of my hometown of 2,500 people.

I often say I owe everything I have today to my work with weekly newspapers between the ages of 17 and 22. After that, I dared cross that red line over to the world of dailies, one I swore I would never cross.

In 2014, I returned to the world of weeklies when I partnered with the North Dakota Newspaper Association to capture oral histories of older/retired North Dakota journalists. I’ve been doing that work ever since. I frequently guest speak at state newspaper conventions throughout the Heartland, where I mingle with community journalists and return home to the world of weeklies.

Therefore, when I finally got the opportunity to teach journalism history, it was important to me to highlight community journalism history. After all, as Reader (2018) notes, there is little prior research focused on U.S. weekly newspapers despite the fact that “community newspapers, the vast majority of them weeklies, accounted for 85 percent of all newspapers in the United States and for three-fifths of overall print circulation” in 2015.^[1]

I wanted to go beyond journalism history in New York and Washington, D.C. I wanted journalism students to be told that a career in community journalism was just as important as one in the big cities.

Early in the fall semester, I invited the Kansas and South Dakota newspaper associations to talk to my history students about why community journalism matters. They impressed upon Generation Z that community journalism can align with their values of entrepreneurship, putting their multimedia skills to use while advocating for a community.

From there, I divided my class of 34 students into seven groups. I had already worked with the Kansas Press Association to identity seven notable journalists in the state to work with us so students could capture their oral histories. By the end of the semester, the class presented nearly 570 pages of new Kansas journalism history to the state historical society.

I began the assignment process by giving the students an overview of how oral history differs from journalism. I learned from my prior experience doing a similar project in South Dakota that it was best for me to be the one to go over the legal paperwork with the subjects. I also provided the students a base list of 100 questions that I ask of all of my oral history subjects. From there, it was on their group to complete the rest.

I am a big proponent of group contracts for group projects where every single task is written down and a student’s name is placed in front of it. Then, it is crystal clear who is in charge of (and accountable for) what. Students divided up research on the journalist, additional question development, the interviewing process, audio editing, transcript proofing and corrections, social media posts, and biography write-ups.

The pandemic created some issues in that I usually block off a whole day for collecting oral histories in person. Instead, we needed to use Zencastr and train our subjects how to log into that system so that students could remotely capture their audio through their laptops from home.

The students ended up having long phone calls with their journalists instead of video taping with them in person. They took turns interviewing their assigned journalists and hearing their life stories.

It was disappointing the students couldn’t meet these journalists in person. But even with the altered and distanced assignment, the impact on Generation Z was clear:

Doing the oral history project was one of the most fascinating things I have done. Talking to someone who made a profound impact in journalism history was like jumping into a book and seeing everything firsthand. Buzz Merritt is a very multi-dimensional man with a lot of great stories to tell. It was very different from just reading a history book because I learned about how his family dynamic, his favorite parts of the job and things he wants us to know. Participating in this project not only taught me more about journalism history, but also introduced me to an entirely different generation and how it made journalism what it is today.

Kansas journalist Buzz Merritt is pictured at his desk with two generations of newspaper technologies. Credit: Buzz Merritt.

Throughout this oral history project, I have learned just how important it is to document journalism history. This was one of the most rewarding projects I have ever had the opportunity to be a part of. When interviewing Craig McNeal, I was so impressed and fascinated with everything that he has accomplished in his life and I found his career to be very inspiring.

When I first heard of what we were going to do for the oral history project, I had no idea the significance of what we were embarking on. I never quite understood how history was made or how people conducted informational interviews with a certain subject… I never thought that I would be making history in one of my classes, but I can honestly say it was a lot of fun, and I feel grateful for the lessons I’ve learned and the new outlook I have gained.

These kinds of experiential learning projects require a lot of coordination for the professor among students, between clients, and between students and clients. If/when I embark on this endeavor again, I will decrease the number of oral history subjects to four or five to make it more manageable in a 16-week semester.

I benefited from a grant that helped fund this project. But whether or not you have the time or funding for a large project, the bottom line is this: How are you incorporating active learning of your state’s community journalism into your journalism history class?

Teri Finneman is an associate professor of journalism at the University of Kansas and past chair of the AEJMC History Division. For more on this project, visit http://journalism.ku.edu/cherry-picked-ku-class-produces-oral-history-kansas-journalism.

Q&A: Kim Mangun on her book, Editor Emory O. Jackson, the Birmingham World, and the Fight for Civil Rights in Alabama, 1940-1975

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Thu, 18 Mar 2021 11:49:20 GMT

Please introduce yourself and include your connections/role with AJHA.

Like many longtime members, my involvement with AJHA began as a graduate student. I presented research as a master’s student at the 2001 convention in San Diego and discovered a welcoming and supportive group of people. Participation in subsequent conferences enabled me to practice presentation skills, get feedback on projects, and prepare for the job market. In fact, I was informally interviewed for a position at the University of Utah during the history tour that was part of the 2005 San Antonio convention. Also at that convention, I was elected to the Board of Directors. In 2010, I was elected second vice-president of AJHA and began a rotation through the senior leadership roles.

During my 20-year affiliation with AJHA, I’ve also served as coordinator and host of the Donna Allen Luncheon; chair of the research-in-progress paper competition; reviewer for both RIPs and papers; reviewer and board member for American Journalism; and cohost of AJHA’s 2018 convention in Salt Lake City.

Salt Lake City has been my home since 2006, when I accepted a tenure-line position in the Department of Communication at the University of Utah. I teach the introductory news writing class, the capstone journalism class that focuses on diverse beat reporting, and the required course on mass communication history.

What drew you to your topic/time period?

I became interested in the Black press during my doctoral program at the University of Oregon. A study of Ida B. Wells and her anti-lynching crusade sparked my interest in Black newspapers and how editors used them to create community and advocate for civil rights.

My dissertation focused on Beatrice Morrow Cannady, editor of the Portland, Oregon Advocate, and her activism for Black Oregonians during the 1920s and 1930s. I then studied other Black newspapers in the West while working on a documentary about Cannady for Oregon Public Broadcasting and preparing a book manuscript for Oregon State University Press.

Just when I was thinking about my next project, I was fortunate to spend time with Hank Klibanoff. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Race Beat co-taught a special course with me at Utah about the media and civil rights. I asked if there was someone who deserved further study and Hank blurted: Emory O. Jackson, editor of Alabama’s Birmingham World. Jackson managed the paper from about 1940 until his death in 1975 and fought for the franchise, equal educational opportunities, an end to police violence, and other civil-rights issues.

A few months after we chatted, I attended the 2009 AJHA convention in Birmingham. I slipped away and walked to the Birmingham Public Library Department of Archives and Manuscripts, one of the repositories for Jackson’s papers. That initial dip into his files was enough to convince me that I wanted to learn more about the editor and the Birmingham World.

How did your thinking in the development of your topic start and then lead to this publication? Did it stray? Did you make any sudden and unexpected turns?

From the outset, I wanted to learn as much as possible about Jackson, his activism, and the World. But as I read issue after issue and pored over Jackson’s personal papers, I realized that he was most passionate about voting rights, ending police brutality, and securing equal educational opportunities. I decided at that point to honor Jackson’s work in those areas and focus on them in my book.

What surprised you most about this project?

Emory Jackson is described in a few articles and books as passionate, dedicated, and fiery. Those are apt descriptions of the man who devoted decades to the newspaper, worked for the NAACP, and gave countless talks to groups about civil rights. Yet Jackson missed key stories, stories that might have ensured his place in the Civil Rights Movement. For example, he didn’t interview Martin Luther King Jr. during the protests in Birmingham in April and May 1963, even though the minister was working out of a hotel near the Birmingham World office. Nor did Jackson report on King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” That Jackson did not document important events from a race perspective is both surprising and disappointing.

What did you find to be your biggest challenge in working your way to completion of your monograph?

Time, distance, and funding presented challenges. I continually sought research grants to help defray the cost of trips to Birmingham, Atlanta, and Detroit. My semester-based teaching schedule meant that most trips occurred during summer breaks. And the gaps between each trip necessitated a period of reorientation to my project and its historical context.

What are you working on now?

After the 2019 release of my book and the 2020 publication of a monograph about the Negro/National Newspaper Publishers Association, I decided to take a break from research. This has given me time to accept numerous interesting invitations in 2021. For instance, I delivered the keynote address (about Jackson) at the 12^th annual Discerning Diverse Voices Symposium, held virtually at the University of Alabama College of Communication and Information Sciences. Most recently, I helped two Oregon high school students, each of whom is creating a documentary about Beatrice Morrow Cannady to enter in the state history competition.

What topic would you like to tackle next?

I presented research on The Nation’s coverage of the early years of the Civil Rights Movement at the 2016 AJHA convention. I would like to revisit that project and explore the magazine’s reportage of the period from 1960-1965.

Member Spotlight: David R. Davies

Autumn Lorimer Linford — Tue, 16 Mar 2021 17:28:37 GMT

David R. Davies is professor in the School of Communication at the University of Southern Mississippi. Before entering academia, he was a reporter for 10 years in Arkansas, working for both the Arkansas Democrat and the Arkansas Gazette. Winner of the second Margaret A. Blanchard Dissertation Prize (in 1998), Davies is the author of The Press & Race: Mississippi Journalists Confront the Movement (University Press of Mississippi, 2001) and The Postwar Decline of American Newspapers, 1945-1965 (Praeger, 2006). He is co-editor (with Pam Parry) of the Women in American Political History book series (Lexington Press). AEJMC recently awarded him a $5000 Senior Scholar Grant to study Mississippi editor Ira Harkey.

When and how did you first become involved in AJHA?

My first AJHA was in 1994 in Roanoke, Virginia. At that time I was a first-year PhD student at the University of Alabama, and my adviser, Dr. David Sloan, had encouraged us to come to AJHA. I was amazed at the welcome the graduate students received, and I was hooked. AJHA has been my primary academic conference home ever since. I take absolutely any opportunity to tell folks how important this organization has been to my career.

You’ve recently been awarded an AEJMC Senior Scholar grant. How does that proposed project fit into your overall research agenda?

I've taught at Southern Miss since 1991, and I've spent almost two-thirds of my 30 years here in administrative jobs. While I enjoyed administration -- particularly my time as department chair -- I was unable to do as much research as I would have liked in those years. I was absolutely thrilled to receive the Senior Scholar grant, as it offers much-needed support for my research agenda as I've returned to the classroom full-time. The award means a lot to me because of my longtime membership in the AEJMC History Division, which as we all know shares much of the membership of AJHA.

The project is also important to me because of my longtime interest in Ira B. Harkey, Jr., of the Pascagoula Chronicle in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Harkey was an important voice of reason at a time when editorial leadership was lacking in much of Mississippi during the civil rights years. He was a rare breed indeed -- an integrationist! -- but his contributions to Mississippi journalism have been overlooked. I hope my project will represent progress in shedding light on Harkey and the important role he played in these years.

What do you believe is the importance of researching racial justice topics?

Researching historical topics in racial justice allows us to study how a society comes to terms with momentous change. Given the incredible upheaval in recent years surrounding racial justice, such insights are more important than ever. Sadly, I think there are many parallels between historical coverage of race and the coverage that we see today.

As a past dissertation prize winner and mentor of several Blanchard finalists, what advice do you have for advising historical dissertations?

Gosh, this is a tough one. My students' success is very much much a reflection of their hard work, resolve, and talent. But if I had to draw a few lessons from my experience, I would say it's most important for students to pick an important and compelling topic with ample primary sources. The advising process works best if there's a schedule of some sort. There's some elasticity built in, of course, but both adviser and student need something to serve as a guidepost for a timely completion. Then it's important to stay in touch with your adviser and committee as the work progresses. I don't have to tell you how important AJHA is to the process both for the sense of community it brings as well as for the research insights of our colleagues.

How does your international experience (teaching study abroad in England each year) influence your historical study?

The experience has given me so many opportunities to make cross-cultural comparisons in my history and writing classes. It's been absolutely invaluable. While I have not yet researched a British media history topic myself, several of my graduate students have, and it's been rewarding to watch their progress as they work in British archives and libraries.

What are some of your hobbies or interests outside of academia?

I'm an enthusiastic -- if not particularly gifted -- language learner. I've been taking Spanish and French classes here and there, and I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I'll finish my BA in Spanish in 2023. I've found that it's informed my teaching to have the experience of being a student again. I can now empathize better with the students as they have difficulties navigating the course management system or the university registration system or learning a new concept.

Otherwise, my wife Jennifer and I read, watch a lot of Netflix and tend to the dog and six cats. Annie the dog has gotten way more walks than usual in the Covid years, and we're all about that. And Jennifer and I are very much looking forward to traveling -- aren't we all -- once the pandemic is behind us all.

President's Column: AJHA to have virtual conference

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Tue, 16 Mar 2021 17:19:53 GMT

By Donna Lampkin Stephens, AJHA President

The decision none of us wanted to make has been made, and now — for a second straight year — we are left with making the best of it.

Despite promising news on the vaccine front, AJHA officers and conference personnel made the call in early March to again forego an in-person October conference after survey results of the membership indicated most of us still don’t feel comfortable committing to an in-person experience yet.

It was the right decision again, even though no one is happy with the outcome. It is simply too much of a risk, health-wise, as variants of the virus continue to evolve. And for many of us, finances would have been an issue as travel funding at so many institutions has been all but axed in the COVID-19 era.

Although by the advent of 2021, I think we all suspected we might be here (even if we didn’t utter the words aloud), we didn’t make the decision based on our guts. Instead, we took a data-driven approach that confirmed what we’d thought.

Of 314 surveys sent to AJHA members, we received 157 responses; 139 of those were completed for an 88.54 completion rate. Of those, only 15.89 percent (24) were very likely to attend a regular in-person conference; 17.22 percent (26) were somewhat likely. Thirty-five (23.18 percent) were unsure.

Twenty-four respondents (15.89 percent) were somewhat unlikely, with a whopping 42 (27.81 percent) very unlikely.

So 66 of the 151 respondents to that question were somewhat or very unlikely to attend an in-person conference.

On the other hand, 95 (68.84 percent) of 138 respondents reported they were very likely to attend an online only conference. Twenty-four others (17.39 percent) said they were somewhat likely. Twelve were unsure; only four (2.9 percent) were somewhat unlikely, with just three (2.17 percent) very unlikely.

While it wasn’t what we wanted, those numbers made our call easy to make.

Our virtual conference in 2020 gained good reviews, and between a year of experience and a few more months to prepare, we feel confident we can have an even better online experience in 2021.

Demographically, a great majority of the survey respondents (109) are active faculty members; 14 others are retired, and 11 are students.

Perhaps more than most organizations, our membership and participation skew older; once we get involved with AJHA, we tend to stay involved for many years. Forty-one of the respondents have attended more than 10 conferences; 17 have attended more than 20.

Many of us remember spending time during previous conferences visiting with some of the founders of our organization, picking their brains about research projects and tenure applications. With covid appearing to more severely affect older people, how could we take a chance of endangering anyone’s health, even in what we hope will be the waning days of a pandemic? It just wasn’t worth the risk.

Another reason this was an easy call was the work of our Convention Sites Chair Caryl Cooper and Loretta Champion Johnson of HelmsBriscoe, who after doing so last year in Memphis, successfully negotiated with our Columbus hotel so that we won’t be penalized financially. The Memphis hotel agreed to move our contract from 2020 to 2022; the Westin Columbus hotel agreed to do the same, from 2021 to 2023. So we will retain our site schedule, just with a two-year pause.

One factor did make it easier for the Columbus hotel to be so amenable — thank God for that Ohio State home football game in October 2021.

The virtual conference will be Oct. 8-9, 2021. Submission deadline is June 15.

"Letter from a Region" provides historical context for current events

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 22:45:44 GMT

by Kathy Roberts Forde (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

The past four years have utterly transformed my understanding of the relationship between journalism and democracy, past and present. Our democracy is fragile; that much I understood from deep historical reading. And I knew our press could either make it stronger or weaker. What I did not adequately understand, until I dug into my new line of research while simultaneously living through the Trump era, was how quickly the news media could help rip democracy apart.

My Substack newsletter Letter from a Region (subscribe here, if you’re interested) gives me a forum to think through sticky problems of journalism and democracy and, I hope, have conversations with journalism students, instructors, and professionals, and anyone else interested in these problems.

We have all lived through the dangerous mendacity of the Trump administration and its partisan news organ Fox News. During these years, I was researching and writing Journalism & Jim Crow: The Making of White Supremacy in the New South (University of Illinois Press), the book I’ve co-edited with Sid Bedingfield that will appear later this year. In the research, I kept seeing clear parallels to our country’s present vexing problems. I see clearly now a disturbing reality: U.S. news media have often not served democratic ends or as guardrails for democracy. They have often been essential actors in violent, racist, anti-democratic political movements.

Letter from a Region allows me to share what I’ve learned in working on this book and to suggest how understanding the past can help us make better decisions in the present. It allows me to place current events and problems in historical context. And some of the historical context I provide is a significant revision of what we thought we knew about the history of journalism.

So what specifically did I learn from writing and editing Journalism & Jim Crow? From the end of the Civil War in 1865 through the Voting Rights Act of 1965, many white news leaders and newspapers in the South actively involved themselves in building and defending white supremacist political economies and social orders across the South. They held political office; used their newspapers to spread lies in racist political campaigns to disfranchise Black voters and thus institute white supremacist, one-party rule; ran industrial enterprises that profited off the stolen labor of Black men, women, and children in the convict leasing system; and struck corrupt deals with political and business leaders while misleading the public in their newspapers. They fomented racial terror, like lynching.

What’s more, these white news leaders used their papers to spread racist disinformation that whipped white racial anxieties into white mob fury, leading to episode after episode of electoral violence meant to disfranchise Black voters and consolidate authoritarian, anti-democratic rule. The parallels with the insurrectionist attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6—with the incitement of President Trump and the mass delusion about electoral fraud caused by the relentless disinformation spread by Fox News and its right-wing peers—are vivid.

Sid and I hope Journalism & Jim Crow will inspire other journalism historians and journalism studies scholars to take seriously the role of press leaders and organizations as political actors. This idea of the press wielding hard power through political activity—not only wielding soft power through news coverage—is one I’m exploring in my newsletter.

Democracy requires constant renewal, and so does journalism. What can be done to discipline anti-democratic news media actors like Fox News, One America News, Brietbart, InfoWars, and other right-wing media that traffic in dangerous and anti-democratic political disinformation? This is a massive, urgent problem that requires our best thinking. In Letter from a Region, I’m thinking through this problem, and related ones, using history as a tool with which to think. And I’m eager to think with others in the tradition of the Pragmatists, like John Dewey, who believed the more minds working a problem, the better. I’m not so arrogant as to believe I’ll find a solution, but I at least want to be part of the conversation with other people who care.

James Carey famously said that journalism and democracy are really “names for the same thing.” And he centered public conversation in this understanding. A journalism that is indifferent to honest and inclusive public conversation, he wrote, will become a “menace to public life and an effective politics.”

We have seen that happen in one large segment of our news and media ecosystem, and the result has been near destruction of US democracy. As journalism historians, we can and should continue to undertake cultural histories of journalism. We need to pay attention to the messages journalism has spread and their influence on public life and democratic struggle. But we must also account for the hard power news leaders and institutions exercise in political and economic life. Letter from a Region is my way of thinking through all of these concerns in a more informal, more conversational, more community-minded way than my formal scholarship allows.

I’d love to have readers of the Intelligencer (and their students!) join me in this conversation.

Member Spotlight: Sheryl Kennedy Haydel

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 22:26:21 GMT

Sheryl Kennedy Haydel is an assistant professor in public relations at Louisiana State University's Manship School of Mass Communication. She holds a bachelor's degree from Clark Atlanta University, master's degrees from the University of Wisconsin and the University of Maryland, and a Ph.D. from the University of Southern Mississippi. Prior to her academic career, she was a journalist for publications including Chicago Tribune, Detroit News, Detroit Free Press and Austin American-Statesman.

Some of your research focuses on historical influences of the Black College Press. How did you become interested in that topic?

My research area is an extension of my commitment to uplift and empower marginalized communities – especially Black Americans. It’s also reflective of my lived experiences. As the former editor of my college newspaper – the Clark Atlanta University Panther – I’m riveted by how these Black spaces with scant resources managed to carve out space for students to express themselves on their terms and advocate for unapologetic progress. Being editor was one of the most demanding and rewarding times of my collegiate years. The Black college press is an under-mined part of the movement for civil rights and an extension of the Black press.

Also, I’m always curious about the layered effort needed to bring about liberation for Black American men and women. History is the necessary thread that authentically tells the stories of oppression and triumph of Black people. Considering how our ancestors arrived in this country and then were denied education and many other birthright resources, yet still carved a path for themselves and their descendants, leaves me speechless, humbled, and inspired. Once I discovered that student-run newspapers on Black college campuses in the early twentieth century beat the same drum to end systemic racism, I had found my calling as a researcher. Black people who faced punishment if they were caught reading then leveraging newspapers to speak their truth is worthy of exploration.

Now, I must thank Dr. Vanessa Murphree because she taught me my first media history course. One of our assignments was to visit an archive and find something interesting to share with the class. An archivist at the Amistad Research Center on Tulane University’s campus asked me one simple question: “Tell me something about yourself? Maybe this will help us find you something to explore?” I said, “Well, I’m from New Orleans and I earned my undergraduate degree from an HBCU.” Out he came with a box full of newspapers from historically Black colleges and universities. I took pictures, scribbled notes, and immediately said, ‘this is it!’ This class assignment evolved into a class paper and then my 400-page dissertation. I can vividly remember the sense of urgency to get it right and to keep the paper relevant. Going through hundreds of newspapers from the 1920s to the 1950s is something I will never forget.

What are some of the most important things you've discovered in that research?

In the early twentieth century, student journalists on Black college campuses were deeply engaged in the fight for racial equality. They cared about Black political currency and building a stronger sense of Black excellence. These student editors and writers advocated for change long before the modern-day civil rights movement of the 1960s. They were activists and clearly understood the power of words, the value of higher education, and how to strategically use media to inspire their peers. They also were equally resistant to censorship. Much like their mentors in the Black press, they were constantly pushing back on murmurings that their work wasn’t their own. I admire their sense of proud ownership and accountability for what appeared on the pages of the Black student-run press. Finally, they had an irreverent sense of humor. Not everything was so serious. They teased each other about fashion, flirting, and how they behaved at school dances. For example, the Southern University Digest published jokes. They were well-rounded students who understood that they had a role to play in the fight for liberation.

You also look at topics like first-time minority voting and social movements such as #BlackLivesMatter--two topics that are especially relevant these days. How does your historical knowledge enrich your study of these contemporary issues?

Black students in the twentieth century cared about the same things that Black student change-makers do today. They are equally as passionate about racial equality, political justice, and communal solidarity. Black students will use whatever platform they can to share the same messages of advocacy. I keep this at the forefront of all of my contemporary projects because it reminds me of the connection between then and now.

How do you bring your historical perspective into the classroom?

I use historical research in each of my classes (for example Principles of Public Relations, Public Relations Writing and Applications, Public Relations Campaigns (undergraduate) and Strategic Communication Campaigns (graduate)) to ground students in the mission and purpose of our industry. I use it to provide a foundation that fosters an enduring passion, dedication, and understanding of the symbiotic relationship between journalism and public relations since the inception of our industries. Knowing this history keeps us all accountable and prepares them to be a valuable asset as communicators. Of course, I pull from David Sloan’s books, especially The Media in America: A History, and the other scholars such as Jinx Broussard. I also invite guest speakers to share from a historical lens such as an editor from The Louisiana Weekly or The New Orleans Tribune – both Black New Orleans-based publications – which means a diverse offering including retired practitioners, seasoned scholars, and younger representatives of the aforementioned areas. In my graduate course, I employ a mix of older peer-reviewed articles and contrast them with peer-reviewed articles that have been published in the last two to three years to see how history continues to shape the profession.

What are some of your interests and hobbies outside of academia?

I love riding my bike with my two teenagers (I can’t! I just wrote I have teenagers, but it’s true). We do at least 10 miles but try to do 15 or more miles each outing. I enjoy working out, taking walks, and dancing to some of my favorite music.

Anything else you want to add that AJHA members would want to know about you?

Stay tuned for a book project I’m the co-editor of coming out in August 2021. It’s titled Black Identities and Media and will be published by Louisiana State University Press. The book is comprised of original essays, ranging in theoretical applications and methodologies, exploring media representation, media effects, and historical accounts of media practices relating to Black communities and their varying identities. Scholarship centered in Black identities often frames racial identity as a monolith, erasing the group’s intersections, including such attributes as gender, sexuality, class, and ability status. Moreover, literature often overlooks how these identities are represented across media platforms, including newsprint, radio, television, social media, and more. This volume provides a much-needed exploration of those intersections and centers the role of Black media creators -- including producers, journalists, and social media influencers -- to highlight Black representation in various genres of mass media. This text will be ideal for use in college classrooms and among general audiences and scholars seeking to explore and discuss the spectrum of Black identities represented within mass media.

McKerns Grant funded work on paper dolls

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 23:13:49 GMT

Pamela Walck (Duquesne University) was a Joseph McKerns Research Grant recipient in October 2018. Following is her McKerns Grant report.

News of the first American troops landing in the United Kingdom had scarcely made headlines across the Western world when a lurking societal question emerged in newspapers: What role would U.S. women play in the war? Would American women, like the generation before them, be content to demonstrate their patriotism by knitting socks and planting victory gardens? Or would they seek more significant roles—positions which one Los Angeles Times editorial warned would give some a case of ‘gooseflesh’. The column opined that such a limited view of the role women should play diminished their patriotism and capabilities in a total war. But this seismic shift in how society viewed women’s work would not come easily.

In some quarters, officials would lament how difficult—and unsuccessful—Office of War Information (OWI) campaigns were when it came to recruiting U.S. women for the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) or the Naval Reserve’s Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES). By 1945, with hopes of an end to war in sight, the OWI launched a final push for more military womanpower. Along the way, governmental officials found unlikely allies: newspapers, comics sections and paper dolls.

During this ‘golden age’ of paper dolls it was popular for graphic art, including paper dolls, to mimic news photographs and vice versa. Paper dolls were commonplace inside print publications from Good Housekeeping and Godey’s Lady Book to newspapers such as the Boston Herald, The Boston Globe, The Boston Post, Boston American and the Buffalo Express.

It is not surprising that the military would target newspaper comics for propaganda efforts: a 1946 government survey found that 84 percent of men and 82 percent of women read newspaper comics as well.

Thanks to my 2018 McKerns Grant, I was able to travel during July 2019 to Kansas City, Missouri, where an international paper doll convention was being held—just miles from the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library archives, which houses the papers of Philleo Nash from the Office of War Information during these critical war years. Through archival research, I was able to find examples of how wartime propaganda worked to not only normalize women in the workplace and in the military—but also aimed to garner public support for the military service of African Americans and other minority groups during a segregated time in American history.

In addition to the archival work, I was also able to attend the paper doll convention and collect oral history interviews with a dozen men and women who grew up during the war years, played with paper dolls, and were influenced by these temporary artifacts that commonly appeared in the comic section of newspapers each week.

Through these oral history interviews, my co-author Ashley Walter, a doctoral candidate at Penn State, and I were able to explore how newspaper paper dolls may have influenced the collective memory of Americans during this critical moment in time—and how it would impact views of women in the military for years to come. Despite being very temporary in nature, the feelings these paper dolls evoked remain long lasting. For many women who were children during the war years, their collective memories are of a time when newspaper dolls fed into a general feeling of American pride and patriotism.

After presenting this project as a research-in-progress at AJHA—and receiving a warm reception on the direction of our work—I am thrilled to report that our manuscript is currently under revise and resubmit with Media History, a Taylor & Francis publication based out of the United Kingdom. I am thankful for this research grant funding, which made this project and new line of research possible in the first place.

AJHA should develop support group for history grants

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 23:00:15 GMT

by Tom Mascaro, Service Awards Committee Chair

Every historian can name archivists, compendia, and collections that facilitate our work in immeasurable ways. As we build from past AJHA conventions, we might look for ways to honor other nominees for the Distinguished Service Award from the ranks of historical preservation, more workshops on historical uses of specific collections, grant-writing workshops for media historians, and perhaps a consultant group within AJHA to build templates to help members find, write, and secure grants for media history.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Workshop on Media History Grant Proposals at last October’s virtual AJHA conference offers a jumping-off point for the association to consider how to expand our access to grants for the various aspects of journalism and media history.

Joshua Sternfeld, senior program officer for NEH, expressed keen interest in attracting media history funding proposals, including for preservation and access. Josh is highly knowledgeable about the NEH process and approachable as a resource for those interested in writing history project grants. Funds are also available from various state grants for history.

Ken Ward presented a Research-in-Progress proposal (AJHA 2020) on the use of geography databases to track the “expansion of newspapers across the American frontier.” Ken’s was an excellent project to involve multiple investigators on a history mission, the kind more commonly available to quantitative-scholar teams. His project requires a central leader, or Principal Investigator, but also associates that could easily come from the ranks of media history graduate students on various campuses. Such a project would not only present a proposal suitable to larger history grants, but it would also involve grad students and young scholars with AJHA and the grant-writing process, which would expand our membership and facilitate their careers.

AJHA honored James Danky with the rare Distinguished Service Award for his exceptionable commitment to preservation of “alternative” publications at the University of Wisconsin. We may want to have a discussion among the Service Awards Committee about ways to nominate and/or honor other archivists who serve the academic field in roles from outside academe.

In my field of documentary history, Daniel Einstein, the retired UCLA Film and Television Archivist, published an indispensable two-volume compendia cataloging every network news documentary and special report from 1955-1989. Every broadcast journalism historian of long-form, documentary, and news magazine history relies on Dan’s books.

Another stalwart professional who supports academe from outside the circle is documentary film archivist Kenn Rabin. Kenn’s list of credits includes The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, Eyes on the Prize, Vietnam: A Television History, Pedro E. Guerrero: A Photographer’s Journey, and Ralph Ellison: An American Journey. He is always busy on film projects, but extremely knowledgeable about archive sources, Fair Use Copyright provisions, costs of footage, and the challenges to historical media projects. He would be a great addition to a future conference program as a speaker or workshop leader. I’m sure there are many more.

“Ideas” are easy; execution takes time and effort and a place on anyone’s busy schedule. That said, I could see using AJHA as a focal point for media historians who need assistance on grants. We could create an informal group of advisers, something more formal -- like a workshop somehow tied to our annual convention (without adding sessions), or maybe a Zoom group to help scholars complete their proposals in a timely fashion and search for innovative ways to fund our research. I’d welcome suggestions.

AJHA board appoints interim Intelligencer editor

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 22:01:52 GMT

The AJHA Board of Directors has voted to appoint Autumn Lorimer Linford as interim editor of the Intelligencer. Linford's interim appointment will expire in October, at which point the board may appoint her for a full three-year term.

Linford is a doctoral student and Roy H. Park Fellow in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, where she specializes in journalism history under the direction of Barbara Friedman. Her master's degree is from Brigham Young University, where she completed her thesis on symbols in American Revolutionary newspaper nameplates under the direction of Kevin Stoker.

Linford has presented her research at AJHA, AEJMC, and the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference. Most recently, her paper presented at the AJHA virtual conference in October received the Robert Lance Award for Top Student Paper and honorable mention for the Maurine Beasley Award for the Outstanding Paper on a Women's History topic.

Professionally, Linford has worked as a reporter and photojournalist at the News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina), Deseret Morning News (Orem, Utah), Daily Herald (Provo, Utah), and Riverton (Wy.) Ranger. Among her journalism awards are the News & Observer's Ambitious Reporting Award and 2nd Place Multi-Media Project from the North Carolina Press Association, both for her 2019 coverage of 13-year-old Hania Aguilar's murder.

Linford's professional experience stood out when the AJHA Publications Committee assessed her resume. Second Vice-President Aimee Edmondson had been speaking with Linford about potential service opportunities because she wants to get more involved in AJHA. Based on her experience, the Intelligencer editor position seemed like a good fit.

"Ms. Linford's extensive background in publishing and editing give her the skills to do the work," Publications Committee Chair Paulette Kilmer wrote in the committee's report recommending Linford's appointment.

The report noted that "although we usually do not appoint graduate students to serve as editors, one who is organized and adept at time management could serve AJHA in this vital capacity while getting the opportunity to network with historians at all levels of experience and gain an impressive accomplishment for the resume."

As reported in the December 2020 Intelligencer email, the board approved in October a new system for the newsletter in which AJHA's committees curate and produce content. Edmondson, whose role as second VP is to oversee the committees, has been assisting with shepherding content for monthly distribution to members.

Since the newsletter's re-launch in December, Administrative Secretary Erika Pribanic-Smith has been posting the content and producing the monthly email. Pribanic-Smith, who edited the Intelligencer from 2014-2016, will mentor Linford as she begins her interim term.

Why teach students about media literacy--and how

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Sat, 23 Jan 2021 23:10:52 GMT

AJHA officers are working to provide our membership more information about media literacy as one of our top goals of the year. As journalists and media historians, we are working to address the flood of misinformation and revisionist history narratives of recent years. We want to provide ongoing information and historical context to inspire our membership to help share the importance of media literacy in their own communities, including the importance of verified information and the vital role journalists play in our democracy.

The good news is that there has been a great deal of work put into media literacy already, including the work of Kristy Roschke, an expert in media literacy. She is the managing director of the News Co/Lab at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Roschke also serves on the board of the National Association for Media Literacy Education.

I started to write this essay on media literacy’s importance early on January 6. By the end of the day, rioters had overtaken the U.S. Capitol in a coordinated effort aided by social media platforms, the right-wing media ecosystem, and a president and other elected officials who used these media bullhorns to spread lies and conspiracy theories that culminated in an insurrection.

The events at the Capitol will be scrutinized for years to come. They are a stark reminder of how, as journalism scholars and educators, we haven’t fully addressed the fundamental changes in our news and information systems. We still study news using 20th-century framing. And, for the most part, we continue to train journalism students for an industry that hasn’t existed in their lifetime.

What I’ve learned in teaching undergraduate media literacy classes for the past five years (and teaching high school journalism the decade before that) is that too often young people learn about media in silos. Academic media are used for research papers, news media are used to stay up-to-date on current events, entertainment media are used on personal time, and social media should be used at your own risk. The problem with that approach: It is antithetical to how most of us actually use media.

Pew Research and the American Press Institute have found that people have a hard time distinguishing between different types of content online. The aesthetic markers we learned to help us identify different types of information in print form largely don’t apply online, because content does not have the same borders, boundaries and labels. On social media and in search, content is removed from its original context and becomes a discrete piece of information that will be evaluated in its new context. We should be actively teaching students to query information in this mode so we can help them evaluate what they find as they would when they are on their own.

In recent years, the term media literacy has been conflated with misinformation. But centering media literacy in misinformation discounts its more fundamental purpose in modern life. Media literacy is not merely a set of tools and techniques for assessing information credibility or spotting fake news. It is a lifelong practice that examines our relationship with the media inundating our daily lives.

The National Association for Media Literacy Education defines media literacy as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create and act using all forms of communication. Though these practices are learned on a continuum, it is not a unidirectional journey with an endpoint. And as the means for creating and distributing media continuously evolve, so should our media literacy practices.

Most of us begin consuming media at a very early age — and we never stop. And yet we spend very little time explicitly teaching people how to use media, or the social, cultural and ideological contexts that underlie media engagement. And when we do, it’s too often using a reactive frame to protect us from propaganda and misinformation’s negative effects. To effect real change, however, we must proactively integrate media literacy practices early and often, across disciplines including history, science and math, to help people build constructive relationships with media.

For children, this may mean learning how to safely access digital content and how advertisers and other content producers use persuasion techniques to lead us to take certain actions. For adults, we may look at how new media technologies impact the content we encounter.

Professional journalism should be a vector for teaching media literacy, and the best place to start is with future journalists. After all, journalism students are both creators and consumers of news. Journalism students should actively interrogate how media is, and has been, created, as well as reflect on how their own media use impacts their professional role.

Though I teach media literacy classes and would love to see a dedicated curriculum in every journalism school, media literacy practice can be incorporated into any journalism class. You may already be doing this and not identifying it as media literacy.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

In a journalism history class: Assemble an intergenerational panel of media users to discuss where and how they get news they trust. How are the experiences the same and different, and what does that mean for our common understanding of big news events?
In an introductory mass comm course: Evaluate how a spectrum of news outlets cover a major news story; examine headline and word choice, and discuss what agendas may influence coverage. Ask students to bring in the examples they encountered in their own media use.
In a mass comm law class: Review the terms of service for a major social media platform company. What speech and limitations and content control do you agree to when you sign up for the service? Discuss differences between government and private control of speech.
In a reporting class: Compare the sourcing policies for major news outlets, using Trust Project indicators as a standard. Which organizations publish their policies for including a diverse array of sources or using anonymous sources? Have students include a “behind the story sidebar” that explains how they sourced their story. (See how my colleague Celeste Sepessy does it with her Intro to News Writing students at ASU.)

Linked References:

Pew Research Center, June 2018, “Distinguishing Between Factual and Opinion Statements in the News.”

American Press Institute, June 2018, “Americans and the News Media: What they do — and don’t — understand about each other.”

Trust Project, “Trust Project Indicators,” retrieved from https://thetrustproject.org/#indicators

News Co/Lab, December, 2019, “Transparency in the journalism classroom: A how to,” retrieved from https://newscollab.org/2019/12/12/transparency-in-the-journalism-classroom-a-how-to/.

Teaching journalism history online

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Sat, 23 Jan 2021 23:06:29 GMT

by Kimberly Voss, University of Central Florida

Many universities now have a wide variety of classes offered fully online. It can be a challenge but also a method that can be helpful for students. I have been lucky that most of my students are prepared for virtual learning. They are usually from Florida, and they are required to take fully online classes in high schools.

I have taught an online History of American Journalism class three times a year – fall, spring and summer – for about the last decade. I have about 120 students in each class – a mix of majors, minors and students outside of communication.

For the past few semesters, I have used Rodger Streitmatter’s books (Mightier Than the Sword and A Force for Good). I use weekly modules that include textbook readings, videos and some journal articles. This semester I am adding podcasts from Journalism History.

My assessments are a mix of quizzes and exams plus low stakes crosswords and word searches that double as study aids. I use rubrics for discussion posts. This is especially helpful in the occasional semester when I have a graduate teaching assistant. I am adding a presentation through FlipGrid, which can be used in Webcourses – our online learning system. (My third-grade son also used FlipGrid for his online classes last semester without any training, so it is very user friendly.)

Some overall thoughts about teaching focus:

Try to create personality – for yourself and for your students. I ask that students include photos. If they are uncomfortable with using their own photos, I ask them to use a photo of their pet or a favorite animal. (Last semester there were more cats than dogs, and sloths were a big hit.)
When possible, tie history to current events. Many of my students are not journalism students who read the news, so I am sure to include links from a variety of sources – and explain why I use CBS News and the New York Times, for example.
Have a variety of ways to interact. Each module features word searches and timelines about the topics. These are low risk – for a few points but helpful for studying. I strive for a mix of high and low point assignments.

Some final advice:

Give examples and then model the email etiquette you expect. I often remind students that this is the only way I will know them, so email communication is especially important. Tone, of course, can be tricky. I use emojis to compensate for the lack of body language – a smiley face, thumbs up, etc.
Get training and look for professional development – it is often free. The technology is continuously evolving. Look for opportunities to learn more.
Look for engagement moments. One of my favorite final assignments is getting feedback about which readings they found most interesting and the readings that made the least impact – and why. I have office hours by Zoom by appointment.
Define cheating and consequences. My university has been great about creating policies for online academic integrity, and I would be happy to share them.

Perspective: Zooming to conferences--Easy, fun, and mostly inexpensive

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Sat, 23 Jan 2021 22:51:12 GMT

by Paulette Kilmer, University of Toledo

The older I get, the more I realize I do not know everything, and, therein, should keep an open mind about possibilities. My attitude colors everything I experience.

Therein, this summer, I decided to travel via Zoom to places COVID had closed for me. I started with University of Toledo training webinars for Collaborate and online teaching. I expected to learn a lot, and I did. I also assumed the speakers would model strategies and show me, rather than just tell me things—and they did.

So far, so good in this armchair safari of the mind.

Next, I checked out Poynter's Teachapalooza and invited a half dozen of my cronies to join me in the $50 all-day training. Tech savvy speakers and inspired writers offered us insights into helping students use technology (old and new) to tell the truth, confront white privilege, and expose wrongdoing. We saw long-form writing in action as well as social media applied to covering breaking news. Al Tompkins reminded us of the values that remain the bedrock of our pursuit, regardless of technology or social crises.

The big three conferences for me all had gone online because of concerns over safety amid the COVID outbreaks. The first one, AEJMC, started with a round of Trivial Pursuit, and playing with the Ohio University (Athens) historians, I won a gift card to Barnes and Noble, one of my favorite haunts. The camaraderie of that venture still makes me smile. I enjoyed exchanging short messages with colleagues from across the nation.

However, one thing surprised me. Virtual reality did not suck the vitality out of presentations as I had feared might happen. One of the best reasons to go to virtual conferences is to see what other scholars are doing. Seldom do my colleagues research news as narrative, literary, mythic expression as I do, but discovering what matters to my peers empowers me to see history from a different vantage point.

AEJMC tends to draw huge numbers of scholars, which makes it hard sometimes to connect with colleagues. The online sessions did not solve this problem for me. I tended to stay too long listening to the questions to make use of the chat rooms since I went to the next session. I liked seeing the faces of the people I respect and consider friends.

I moderated a panel for the AEJMC Ethics Division, and so I learned how to get people on and off the screen and help them present their PowerPoints. I also saw how breakout rooms work, which was very helpful in the fall of 2020 when I had to use them for my classes on Collaborate. I enjoyed moderating, and all went well. A representative from AEJMC told us our session was over, and so we ended a little more abruptly than I had intended, about 10 minutes early. That extra time allowed me to brew a cup of coffee before the next event.

AJHA is always smaller than AEJMC and focuses precisely on history. I missed the chats in the halls, the adventures to shopping or historical sites, the meals with lively conversations, and the laughing with people I enjoy. Still, the online AJHA provided lots of opportunity for me to check in briefly using chat bubbles with friends and to hear the voices of many historians I admire.

I really enjoyed seeing my friends and colleagues at AJHA even virtually. I did not feel as isolated here in Toledo when I participated in the conferences and training workshops this summer. The papers introduced me to the current tides of historical thinking in our field. I noticed a lot of biography, which is not unusual. I liked the critiques of these journalism trailblazers’ support of racism through negative portrayals of people of color based on emotions and assumptions far more than facts. If we do not notice the mistakes we made in the past, we probably are condemned to repeat them.

Because I hosted four days of programming for the UToledo Banned Books Coalition on Zoom, Facebook, and YouTube in conjunction with the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week from Monday through Thursday of the week of the AJHA conference, I was exhausted and ready to relax by Friday morning. I liked seeing people I respect present lively papers, and I was grateful that the timing worked out so that I could fulfill my freedom of expression commitments and also attend the AJHA convention.

Next, in November, I went to the Symposium on the Nineteenth Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression. Once again, I heard colleagues present their findings and liked the sense of fellowship that I felt despite the barriers virtual conferences impose. The Symposium welcomes research ventures that push historical inquiry in new directions and raise questions that often result from interdisciplinary study or international inquiry.

The virtual conferences also let me share in honoring those who won awards at all of the conferences. I liked watching them get recognition for their hard work.

Going to virtual conferences allows one to pop in and out of sessions quite easily, although I tended to go to stuff until each day ended. I found opportunities to do some paperwork with the split screen on my computer, and so multi-tasking is also an option. However, I limited my paperwork to things that do not interfere with my ability to monitor and then deeply listen when necessary.

The Zoom webinars, conferences, and cultural opportunities enriched me during the lockdown when it was not safe for me to go out. I also learned that I can handle far more technology than I supposed before the pandemic. Last March, I taught myself to make videos on my computer, and then when the Google advice did not suffice, I asked a student for help in setting up a YouTube channel so my classes could access my short video of instructions and pep talk each week as well as the lectures for every week. I also figured out how to narrate PowerPoints and use Zoom to meet students.

My most recent Zoom conference took me to Seneca Falls, New York, for the “It’s a Wonderful Life” conference in early December. I enjoyed the virtual tours, the chat with the historian at the women’s history museum about the connections between the “Donna Reed Show” and feminism in the late 1950s through the mid-1960s, interviews with stars from the movie, and classic TV programs featuring actors from the Christmas movie. I had just turned in grades, and so I wrapped presents as I enjoyed my cyber visit to Seneca Falls.

Perhaps, I liked the Zoom conferences because they transported me out my COVID cage into worlds of possibility where historical inquiry continued to thrive. I felt refreshed, ready to work on my projects, and mentor students in the fine arts of perseverance and intellectual curiosity.

Perspective: Stuck with Zoom, for better or worse

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Sat, 23 Jan 2021 22:46:40 GMT

By John Coward, University of Tulsa (Emeritus)

Let me start with a straightforward proclamation: I’m Old School (read: old enough to remember typewriters, pica sticks and proportion wheels), and I don’t like Zoom conferences. Or Zoom teaching. Or Zoom family reunions. Or Zoom anything, for that matter.

On the other hand, I realize that the COVID-19 threat is real and dangerous and that we need Zoom and other screen technologies to do our jobs and carry on with our professional and personal lives.

So I’m not blind to the advantages of Zoom meetings and virtual conferences. In the throes of a deadly pandemic, we need such fixes. And, truth be told, virtual meetings can be interesting and productive. It’s great to see and hear from colleagues, even when the pictures are fuzzy and the sound is tinny.

I acknowledge, too, that virtual conventions save money—no need for airline tickets, hotel rooms, Uber rides, meals, bar tabs and the like. (Deans and budget officers will approve.) Virtual meetings also benefit the environment for the same reasons, an advantage that should not be overlooked.

On the individual level, virtual conferences are easier on the mind and body. I expect every AJHA or AEJMC veteran has come to the end of a convention bone tired, too exhausted to appreciate yet another paper session in yet another bland, windowless meeting room. Zoom conferences avoid this sort of wear and tear.

But that convenience cuts both ways, of course. Since you can opt out of meetings with the click of a button, you can easily disengage. My own limited experience with Zoom conferences over the past few months has been mixed. Sometimes I’m attentive and inspired by the presentations. Other times I’m distracted by my environment. The cat jumps on the keyboard, the Amazon delivery guy rings the doorbell (Hey! My new flannel shirt!), the kitchen timer dings… well, you get the idea.

Even when I’m fully engaged in Zoom presentations, I always feel the distance between myself and the speakers. To put it another way, even when the technology works well—not always a given—and the presentation is effective, the virtual experience is still remote, still an arm’s length away. Even at its best, a screen presence is not the same as an in-person, flesh-and-blood experience.

Virtual conferences also eliminate the pleasures of the host city. There’s no technological means to check out the regional cuisine and bend an elbow with a local brew. I’m surely not the only one who wants to explore the streets and shops of Salt Lake City or any of the other cities where AJHA has met in recent years.

In addition, AJHA has a long tradition of Friday afternoon field trips to historic sites in the host city. These are often significant, even moving, as when we toured Little Rock’s Central High School or the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas. I was looking forward last year to eating barbecue in Memphis and touring the National Civil Rights Museum. Obviously, no teleconference can replicate the experience of being in the place where history happened.

If the pandemic continues and personal safety requires it, I’ll happily participate in future Zoom meetings. It’s much better than no conference at all, and, as I’ve said, virtual conferences can be productive even when we’re stuck in those little Zoom boxes on a small screen.

I’m also open to hybrid meetings, where some participants convene in person and others link up via the screen. These could be a solution, though I don’t have experience with any hybrid conferences and I can’t speak to their strengths or weaknesses.

Meanwhile, many of us remain isolated, cut off from family, friends, students and colleagues. Given the continuing threats of the pandemic, Zoom is about all we have and we should probably make the best to it.

AJHA panel prompted local history series

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Sat, 23 Jan 2021 22:33:34 GMT

by Kate Roberts Edenborg, University of Wisconsin-Stout

A recent conference session prompted me to reach out to my local historical society, and I ended up collaborating with the director to develop a year-long series of virtual presentations.

During the panel, “Did that Really Happen: Historical Fiction as 'Gateway Drug' to Historical Research” at the AJHA 2020 virtual conference, all of the participants were struck by how a variety of books, movies and other forms of popular culture had an influence on their research interests as academics. For me, it was a fictional girl named Caddie Woodlawn.

This character from a children’s book published in the 1930s is the focus of the series of conversations, activities and events I developed, sponsored by the Dunn County (Wis.) Historical Society (DCHS) throughout 2021. Through Caddie, readers get a glimpse not only of childhood in the Wisconsin woods but also of an incredibly fraught time in midwestern and United States history.

“Conversations with Caddie Woodlawn” will feature presentations and activities highlighting the world of Caddie Woodlawn, the beloved children's book character. Created by author Carol Ryrie Brink in 1935, Caddie was a pioneer girl coming of age in Dunn County during the Civil War era.

A Dunn County native, I grew up reading “Caddie Woodlawn,” and the book stuck with me, from childhood to choices I made during my academic career. In graduate school I ended up doing research related to girlhood and children’s books, and my connections to this community and Caddie were definitely the inspiration for this work. I’ve learned a lot about myself and about the community’s history throughout the years.

While Brink’s work was fiction, the book was based on her grandmother’s stories. Her grandmother was Caroline Woodhouse, the basis for the Caddie character. The book features the adventures of Caddie and her brothers Tom and Warren.

The “Conversations with Caddie Woodlawn” series will cover a variety of topics which are inspired by the book, from learning about childhood in the 1860s to discussing representations of race in historical fiction. The series will be an opportunity to bring in experts to discuss the representation, history, and context of the Native American side of the story. The book also provides a way to talk about the Civil War in Wisconsin, along with other topics, such as the expectations of how to raise girls and boys during the era.

The first event on January 9, “Caroline, Caddie and Katey: A favorite childhood book character inspires career,” introduced the series and my connection to the book. I really want people to see historical research as a personal endeavor. A book that I first took off the shelf of my elementary school library as a 10-year-old girl has opened my eyes in so many ways.

The next few events will highlight aspects of childhood and provide an opportunity to learn about the book’s writer and her place in the literary world. Caroline Woodhouse’s granddaughter became a successful author after writing a book telling her grandmother’s stories.

We are hoping to use social media to continue to collect stories about the local community’s connections with Caddie. The county has a Caddie Woodlawn park and has put on countless versions of a Caddie Woodlawn-based play over the decades. The historical society and I plan to post questions to gather more about these and other ways this book has been part of the local lore.

While the original audience for the events was the local Dunn County community, I've realized that there are fans of Caddie all across the country. All of the Zoom presentations will be recorded and available online.

Information on upcoming events, along with links to resources, can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Conversations-with-Caddie-Woodlawn-101502568487838

Graduate Student Committee plans workshops, peer mentoring

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Sat, 23 Jan 2021 22:19:23 GMT

University of Southern Mississippi students at an AJHA Southeast Symposium

by Natascha Toft Roelsgaard (Ohio University), Graduate Student Committee Chair

As we begin a new year, the American Journalism Historians Association Graduate Student Committee plans to foster an even stronger graduate student network for our current student members and those interested in joining.

There are so many ways to get involved with the AJHA. The association offers a reduced-rate membership for students and a chance to submit your original research and present it to some of the leading scholars in journalism history. We have three annual conferences: the national convention, the Southeast Symposium, and the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference (co-sponsored with the AEJMC History Division). The Southeast Symposium specifically focuses on student research.

While AJHA attracts some of the brightest minds in the field, the association is much like a big academic family. You will have ample opportunity to discuss your research with other scholars, discover new resources, and form collaborations. Networking with fellow journalism historians often stretches beyond the conference walls.

Our committee’s goal for 2021 is to facilitate online workshops and establish a co-mentoring program for our graduate student members. The workshops will be hosted by senior scholars, and the topics will include navigating your research agenda, teaching, publishing and presenting at conferences, grant funding, and transitioning from graduate school to a professional job.

Our co-mentorship program will pair students with similar research areas and interests. The co-mentorship program is a great opportunity for you to share your work with another student scholar, give and receive feedback, and help you stay on top of your deadlines. We are also launching a new Facebook group for graduate students, where members can ask questions, share resources, and pair up for mentoring or reading groups.

Faculty members: If you have graduate students you think might be interested in getting involved in the Graduate Student Committee, please send them my way.

Graduate Students: If you are interested in becoming a member of AJHA, attending online workshops, working with the Graduate Student Committee, and/or participating in the co-mentorship program, please reach out to me at nataschatoft0@gmail.com

Media literacy tops AJHA officer goals for 2021

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 22:49:04 GMT

By Donna Lampkin Stephens (Central Arkansas), AJHA President; Aimee Edmondson (Ohio), First Vice-President; Mike Conway (Indiana), Second Vice-President

If you’re like us, your social media feed has been filled this election year with news, rumors, misinformation and bizarre conspiracy theories. In mid-November, a public school teacher in Arkansas posed a question in a private Facebook group about a situation she faced in the days following the presidential election. In teaching the executive branch of government, she told her class, “When Joe Biden is inaugurated, he will be the oldest president ever to take office.” A student answered her by announcing to the class, “But he wasn’t elected,” and proceeded to argue with her about the results of the election. She then came to the Facebook group with sincere questions about how to handle this situation.

While there weren’t any easy answers there, the incident revealed one of the many dilemmas we all face in this fractured environment where people don’t — or can’t — even agree on basic facts.

We all have spent most of the last year dealing with the new realities of life during the COVID-19 era, and now it is time for us as AJHA officers to take on the goals we’ve set for 2020-21. As journalists and media historians, we want to work to address the flood of misinformation and revisionist history narratives such as the above example.

With the crisis in funding local journalism and the increasing polarization of information, we can provide the historical context to show the importance of verified information and the role of journalists to provide an accurate view of critical issues facing our communities and our nation.

Who better to add the context of history and media literacy than AJHA—the premier organization for journalism history? This need to serve our profession is growing more urgent by the day, and as AJHA officers, we plan to do so with tangible resources for our members.

One route to this end is to partner with the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), a nonprofit organization whose members are as passionate as we are about helping people become more critical thinkers and understand how to evaluate news sources. NAMLE executive director Michelle Lipkin (@ciullalipkin) spoke at the 2020 AJHA virtual conference on the panel on media literacy.

We want to build on the foundation this panel laid by working with NAMLE to create an online repository of tools for our AJHA members to use as we all work to address these issues locally, in our own communities. We envision that this toolbox will include PSAs, presentations for civic clubs and other key stakeholders, social media messaging and other resources.

We urge AJHA members to join NAMLE, whose membership is made up of educators, journalists, and yes, even media historians. Our AJHA colleague Nathaniel Frederick from Winthrop University has inspired us with his own work relating to media literacy and the role of journalists and journalism educators to further this conversation on a local level.

We want to continue the conversation with NAMLE members throughout the next year and beyond. And we should all work together on the messaging that media literacy is an essential life skill that is necessary for educated citizens and voters, who in turn are vital for our democracy. Because we expect that this will be an ongoing need for the foreseeable future, we hope that future AJHA officers will continue to add to our members’ toolboxes as we continue the fight against misinformation and disinformation.

We envision several action plans to support this initiative. As journalism historians, we can reach out to our own local civic organizations and offer to talk to the group about media literacy and journalism history. AJHA members who are already filling that role can tell us what has worked for them. We can amplify those messages through sharing on social media.

We believe outreach, perhaps especially to junior high school civics classes, could pay big dividends long term. We would like to focus on this age group to let these young students meet real journalists and former journalists.We believe that personal connections with journalists and journalism historians (like members of AJHA!) could make a real difference in youngsters’ perception of who we are and what we do.

We believe these relationships can help them understand it is the journalist’s duty to question our elected officials—whoever they are. As one of us responded over the summer to a Facebook “friend” who criticized journalists for not supporting the sitting president, “Real journalists tell the truth. It’s not our job to make the president look good or bad.” Students need to see that it is not un-American to hold our leaders accountable. Rather, it is just the opposite. As Marty Barron, executive editor of The Washington Post, says, “We’re not at war. We’re at work.”

We all need to be doing more of this outreach. Our democracy depends on such efforts.

While your officers are united in these goals, we want to hear from you. Have you made efforts in this area? What has worked? What hasn’t? What can we do to help each other? Let’s collaborate. Email us at donnals@uca.edu, edmondso@ohio.edu or mtconway@indiana.edu. Our goal is to have resources available to our members on the AJHA website by the end of February.

While media literacy is our top goal for the coming year, we also want to continue the progress we’ve made in the last year toward structural reinforcement of our organization. Now that we have incorporated as a nonprofit, we need to decide on event and liability insurance to protect us, especially in this COVID-19 era.

At this point, we know we will have to make a decision in the spring about our Columbus conference. As many of us learned in the decision to postpone our Memphis conference until 2022, our planning includes a number of moving parts, many of them out of our control, and any such decision requires many people working together. Other goals are to continue to have more collaboration with the AEJMC History Division and to continue to build our reserves.

As you can see, we have much to do. But with all of us working together, we are confident that our efforts will bear fruit.

Member Spotlight: Debra van Tuyll

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 22:20:40 GMT

Debra van Tuyll, pictured above on a trip to Ireland, is a professor in the Department of Communication at Augusta University. The 2019 winner of AJHA's Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism History, van Tuyll recently received the Donald Shaw Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression.

She has served twice on the AJHA Board of Directors and is co-coordinator of AJHA's annual student conference, the Southeast Symposium. She also is editor of the Southeastern Review of Journalism History, which focuses on student work.

In this member spotlight Q&A, van Tuyll discusses her Civil War-era research, the importance of providing outlets for student work, her international community of scholars, and her hobbies outside of academia. - Erika Pribanic-Smith

When and how did you first become involved with AJHA?

I actually got my start with AJHA by attending the Southeast Symposium as a graduate student. The meeting was in Gadsden, Alabama, that time, and I decided to give it a try since my home is Birmingham, and that meant I could visit my parents that weekend as well.

In the first meeting Friday night, I noticed a woman across the room who looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her at all. It finally occurred to me that she was Susan Thompson. Susan had been in a Media Law class for which I was TA at Alabama during my master’s program, and then we’d ended up working for the same newspaper in North Alabama, but I hadn’t seen her for probably close to 15 years. I went over and spoke to her, and after we had our momentary reunion, she introduced me to her dissertation adviser, Dr. David Sloan.

Well, he, of course, encouraged me to get involved in AJHA, as did Susan. She and I even shared hotel rooms at some of the conventions, and of course we stayed in touch because our dissertations touched each other – she was doing the penny press up to 1860, and I was doing the Confederate press. We even had some newspapers and editors in common. She ended up getting a teaching job at my undergrad alma mater, the University of Montevallo, after graduation and living in the house that my parents-in-law had lived in when my father-in-law was a professor at Montevallo. Yes, he was my professor, but that was before I met his son.

As editor of the Southeastern Review of Journalism History and an organizer of the Southeast Symposium, what do you believe is the importance of offering presentation and publication outlets for student research?

Well, that’s a no-brainer—I wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for the Southeast Symposium offering presentation opportunities for students! More importantly, though, it’s offered an outlet for my undergraduates as well. I discovered a long time ago—1999, in fact—that students respond better to learning history when you can make it real to them, and nothing makes it real like doing research, especially on local topics. I’ve had a host of students present at the symposium, and they’ve all gained confidence in their research abilities, which has led to a marked improvement in other academic areas as well.

What advice do you have for young scholars pursuing journalism history research?

Just do it, and don’t get discouraged when it isn’t easy. Nothing is as rewarding as research, and it’s fun, too. I remember my first archive visit as a Ph.D. student. I went to Emory in Atlanta to look at the papers of Joel Chandler Harris because he’d had a correspondence with an editor I was particularly interested in. I ended up looking at some other collections as well, and I remember so well picking up a letter on that thin blue stationary that was so ubiquitous during the Civil War and realizing it was from Robert E. Lee. I remember thinking, “Oh, my gosh! They’re letting me hold a letter from Robert E. Lee!” That was a heady moment. I love it when my students have those moments, but the only way they do is by getting out and doing the research.

I had a student once, an older, returning student, who didn’t have a lot of confidence, but she took on a research subject whose children were still living. She contacted them, went to North Carolina to interview them, got access to some family papers, came home and wrote a paper that won best undergraduate paper at the Southeast Symposium the next semester. She couldn’t believe she’d done work at that level, and that was a turning point in her undergraduate experience. It is for so many students—we, their faculty mentors, just have to open up opportunities and get behind them.

You’ve been touted as the preeminent scholar of the southern press in the Civil War era. How did you become interested in that subject area?

So, that’s a story, too. My mother loved the Civil War period. Read every book she could about it. When we moved to western Maryland for my senior year of high school, we lived eight miles from Sharpsburg, the site of the Antietam battlefield. She dragged my brother and me to that battlefield, to South Mountain, to Harper’s Ferry. We weren’t interested. We could have cared less about the Civil War at that point in our lives.

Many years later, I was teaching—you guessed it—a journalism history class at the University of South Carolina, Aiken. I had a student who wanted to do a paper on a topic related to the Civil War, and I suggested she look at how the Augusta Chronicle covered Sherman’s March to the Sea. I knew what was then Augusta College, where my husband taught and I had done some adjuncting, had a full run of the paper, so source material was easy. She, however, didn’t want to read six weeks’ worth of papers, so she chose a different topic.

Well, one day, I was on the AC campus, waiting in the library for my husband to get out of class, and I decided just to go see what the Chronicle had done with its coverage of Sherman. I found the Chronicle microfilm, pulled the reel that covered November and December 1864, sat down at an old hand-cranked microfilm reader and fed the film in. I started reading, and I was hooked. Literally, that spur-of-the-moment decision changed the direction of my academic interests. I was expecting to do my dissertation on the different management styles required for visually and verbally creative people, based on my experience in public relations at Texas A&M.

You’ve also organized a transnational/international journalism history conference. How has that enriched your historical study?

I’d known—or at least thought I did—for a long time that the European understanding of news and entertainment media was different from the American, but my only direct evidence was published scholarship. Until 2007 or so, I’d never met a European journalism scholar. But then I attended my first international conference at Cardiff University, a conference on the future of journalism. I was in a conversation with a group of people during a tea break, and one of them caught my accent and exclaimed, “You’re American!” I responded, cautiously, “Yes, I am,” and he replied, “You’re the ones who invented journalism.” I was stunned. All I could say was, “We did? When?” I mean, we all know Americans didn’t invent journalism. It was around long before we were even a country.

That was verification that I had been reading the European literature properly—they do think differently about mass communication than we do. I mean, that wasn’t really a surprise. Media is shaped by culture, and their culture is different from ours. And because of those differences, European models and thinking don’t always make sense to Americans, but it’s worthwhile to understand how scholars who are different from us understand mass communication. That sort of exercise gives us a chance to look deeper and differently at the news and entertainment of American media.

Through the transnational journalism history community I’ve been able to put together with two European colleagues, I’ve had the chance to get to know scholars from Scandinavia, China, Latin America, Africa, and all over Europe, including Russia and its former satellite states. I’ve heard so many different perspectives on what the press is and what its functions are supposed to be. It’s really expanded my understanding of what the possibilities are. I’ve found my work in this field and with these people invaluable in helping me understand—truly understand—the connections between culture and media.

This work has also given me a global network of colleagues I can call on when I need help. For instance, I was writing something about the flow of journalism-related technologies and wondered whether the linotype had ever made its way to China. I mean, that’s a language with 2,000 characters, I believe. Imagine what a linotype would look like with those 2,000 characters plus all the other characters you’d need to set type. Those machines are huge just with English’s 26-character alphabet. But I knew exactly who in China to ask. He answered my question and even sent me some citations to check out about the history of the linotype in China.

What interests or hobbies do you have outside of journalism history?

I play the harp, the mandolin and the tin whistle in an Irish band—or I did before COVID hit. We’ve been together seven years now. I play harp with a former student who’s now a good friend, her father, and her son (father plays cello; son plays mandolin).

I also love traveling, particularly to Ireland where my husband’s oldest sister and her daughter and family live. My niece lives in Co. Tipperary, which is God’s country as far as I’m concerned. A friend who passed away two years ago had a farm there, Fairy Fort Farm, that his son now runs, and that’s where we stay most of the time. There’s a real fairy fort right behind the main farmhouse, and Larry the Leprechaun lives at the foot of a nearby tree. It’s a truly magical spot. We get to take care of the farm animals, including Pippi the dog, gather firewood from around the farm (there’s no central heating in the cottage where we stay), and just relax in a spot where no one can find us and there’s virtually no cell phone or WIFI access. It’s a slice of heaven!

You’ve recently won the Donald Shaw Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Symposium on the 19th Century Press, about a year after you received AJHA’s Kobre Award. Looking back on your illustrious career, what are you most proud of?

That’s sort of funny. I don’t think of my career as illustrious—I think of it as just doing what you’re supposed to do if you’re a scholar. But, to your point, I think the thing I’m most proud of is having spent the last 30 years producing professionals who are now spread throughout the country and who are shaping my field. I think particularly of my students at Union College in Barbourville, Kentucky—so many of them started out so very underprepared for college. Union is in the heart of Appalachia, about 20 miles west of the Cumberland Gap. To give you an idea of how remote the area is, we lived halfway between Stinking Creek and Bimble. To watch students from that part of the world blossom into competent, high-achieving professionals has been a real blessing.

In terms of scholarship, that’s harder, but I’d say I’m proud of helping to build the literature on the Civil War-era press, particularly in the South, and of building a community of scholars who lend each other a helping hand rather than undercut one another. My colleagues in Civil War journalism history are the best—well, actually, I can say that about my journalism history colleagues generally. They’re the most generous, warm group of people you could ever want to know. We don’t compete with one another—well, not much, anyway. We build each other up. We offer support, we share knowledge and resources, and I love that about us. To the extent that I’ve been able to help build that sort of nurturing community is something I’m truly proud of.

Research Q&A with Blanchard Prize winner Amie Jones

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 21:42:32 GMT

Amie Marsh Jones is the recipient of the 2020 Margaret A. Blanchard Prize, awarded to the outstanding doctoral dissertation on a mass communication history topic completed in the 2019 calendar year. She completed her dissertation “The Forgotten Children of Bath: Media and Memory of the Bath School Bombing of 1927” at the University of Georgia under the direction of Janice Hume.

Jones is the the assistant director of student services at the University of Georgia Graduate School. In this Q&A, she discusses her research process, advice for doctoral students, and future plans for her work.

For information on the Blanchard Prize and details on how to submit for the 2021 award, visit the Blanchard Prize page. - Erika Pribanic-Smith

How did you get into historical study? Was it an interest going into your graduate program, or did you discover it while pursuing your degree?

I discovered it while pursuing my degree. One of the courses that we could select for research methodology was “Historical Research in Mass Communication,” taught by Dr. Janice Hume. I found that I enjoyed this methodology much more than the traditional qualitative methods. That semester, my paper was on the topic of how female reporter Amy Robsart of the Boston Post covered the Lizzie Borden murder trial of 1893. It was fascinating. I was hooked on historical method after that.

Was there a particular research focus throughout your graduate study, or did you dabble in different things?

I dabbled some in a variety of topics at first, but I have always been interested in media coverage of crime so that became my focus in the latter years of my studies.

How did you decide on the topic for your dissertation?

In 2012, when the tragic murders of 20 children and six adults occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I was looking into how media were covering the event. Many outlets were making comparisons to the tragedy at Columbine in 1999 or to the shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007. Phrases such as “worst in a school since Columbine” were commonplace. I started thinking, “Just what is the worst attack in a school in American history?” A simple Google search revealed the fact that Andrew Kehoe’s attack on Bath Consolidated School back in 1927 in the small village of Bath, Michigan, remains the deadliest. I was shocked. I had never heard of this. The media do not mention this. Why don’t we remember this tragedy? Surely the newspapers in 1927 covered this event. How did they do so? How might that coverage differ from coverage we see today of these tragedies? And, what role, if any, do media play in our seeming collective amnesia of the Bath tragedy? This is how the idea was born.

Describe your process for researching and writing your dissertation. In particular, how did you access the primary sources that you needed?

In discovering how media covered this event, I started out searching keywords in various historical newspaper databases, and this did provide me with an initial small start into my sample. However, I quickly realized that many of the newspapers that I needed had not yet been digitized. I then entered the world of microfilm. Luckily, my university library has some very nice microfilm machines, and I spent many afternoons scanning and saving from them in the library basement. I divided my sources into nearby newspapers, regional newspapers, and national ones. Some of the microfilm required that I travel to Michigan in order to view it, so I arranged this research to occur during my two visits there. Much of the microfilm could be lent to me via interlibrary loan so I was grateful for that. After I gathered all of the articles, around 250 in total, I began to look for themes in coverage and to digest what it all might mean. For memory of the disaster, I visited memory sites in Bath, studied artifacts and court documents, got to know residents, and attended the local 90^th anniversary commemoration event of the disaster in May of 2017. Through all of this, I had the guidance of my major professor, a master of memory and media history, Dr. Janice Hume. Her mentorship was invaluable, of course, throughout my entire research and writing process.

What advice do you have for graduate students who are considering an historical dissertation topic?

My advice is to not limit yourself. What is wonderful about history is that there is so much from which to choose. And, there is always a nugget of history out there, or an aspect of it, that has yet to be brought to light. You could be the one to bring it up and help enlighten others. And, the process of unearthing it, while tedious at certain points, is ultimately very rewarding. It is a journey, a specific one that you are the first to experience, and that makes it exceptional.

Do you have any future plans for your dissertation research? (Book, article, public history, etc.)

I would like to publish it with an academic press. I am in the process of editing it, as to make the successful transition from dissertation to book. If for some reason that does not come to fruition, I will certainly make it available to the Bath School Museum, the Michigan State University library, and to the various local historical societies and county libraries around Bath. In this way, it will add to collective memory of the Bath tragedy of 1927 and be a resource for future researchers.

Transcript: Teaching Award Acceptance Speech

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 21:37:23 GMT

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Michael Fuhlhage (00:03):

Hi, this is Michael Fuhlhage talking to you from the city of Detroit and Wayne State University. It is my profound honor to be selected for the national award for excellence in teaching. And I am so grateful to the American Journalism Historians Association for this award. I'm indebted to Erika Pribanic-Smith, who marshaled my nomination and my Wayne State University colleagues, Fred Vultee and Kat Maguire for their support of my nomination. I'm especially grateful to my graduate and my undergraduate students. More than anyone, they're my collaborators and co-creators, and they never fail to lift me up when I'm down. They always inspire me to be my best. And I'm thankful that I've been able to learn from and have the flame of my passion for history and writing fanned by some great teachers of my own. At North Carolina, Frank Fee, my advisor, Barbara Friedman, Lucila Vargas, Donald Shaw, William Barney, and Fitz Brundage. At the Missouri School of Journalism,

Michael Fuhlhage (00:59):

Earnest Perry, Lee Wilkins, Yong Volz, Don Ranly, and George Kennedy. And at the University of Kansas, Calder Pickett, Donald Worster, Paul Jess, and Tom Eblen. And here's a special shout out to Marcia Whittemore, my English composition teacher at Tonganoxie High School, and Marie McDaniel by junior high English teacher. Mrs. Mack was the best. Everyone, when you log off, find a way to locate the K through 12 teacher who gave you the fire for writing, and thank them, will you? Now, if I were able to do this in person with everybody in the same room, I would be calling out folks and sharing the love for what I've learned about teaching from all of you. Of course, that would take a lot of time. Feeding on the enthusiasm of everyone in this big research and teaching family of ours has made me a better teacher. So let's celebrate our obsessions with the past.

Michael Fuhlhage (01:51):

Our obsessions give us depth of knowledge and the fire of discovery, and I can't help but get excited along with you when you let your enthusiasm show. And that is the most important thing I can think of about teaching. Let your enthusiasm draw in your students. Your joy is infectious in the classroom and in collaboration and co-creation. We all love the archives. I always feel a sense of wonder when I encounter things that historical figures touched and created. So I try to recreate that wonder by bringing my own collection into the classroom for my students to experience. Share, tell, and invite them to make some meaning out of artifacts. It's it's, it's...it'll hook them. It's addictive. I always warn my students that I seed a lot of pop culture references into the classroom, and this talk is no exception. When you get them to feel the wonder of putting their hands on artifacts, you're sharing a Ben Kenobi moment with them.

Michael Fuhlhage (02:49):

If you'll pardon the Star Wars reference, you've taken them on their first step into a larger world. By way of a statement of my own way of teaching, I will draw from my teaching philosophy--just the lead and some bullet points. Okay, it's a long lead. We'll call it an anecdotal lead. So here goes: History is as alive as we are. And our students' grasp of how it influenced the development of journalism and mass media is vital to their ability to thrive in the field. It's up to us to convince the students that this is true, that learning to be a contributor to history through their own original research will make them better practitioners of their chosen field and that they have it within themselves to one day, be celebrated by future historians for their own contributions to journalism. I tell my students, I see journalism history as the story of the tension between control and conscience control pertains to attempts by government and other powerful actors to constrain what journalists and citizens do. Conscience guides journalists' responses to that. We explore that history together by feeding off one another's interests, enthusiasms, and aspirations while unearthing the past and the hidden, the marginalized and the forgotten people and struggles in journalism's past. In doing so, we learn more about each other, how we can be better scholars and human beings, and how to have fun all at the same time. So what follows are my guiding principles for teaching and learning? So here come the bullet points. First point:

Michael Fuhlhage (04:24):

Let your students' interests become your interests. Find out what your students aspire to do when their time with you is up. What historical events fascinate them, and which journalists do they admire the most? This can help you to identify topics that will fascinate them when the time comes for them to start doing historical research of their own. Second point: Meet the students where they are.

Michael Fuhlhage (04:50):

Do this regardless of their level of preparation and personal circumstances and regardless of their social identity. And regardless of whether we're in the classroom as usual, or if we were driven online by a global pandemic, this thing that's all around us right now. In the socially distanced virtual classroom, find ways to connect them with the resources that they need and base your teaching on what will serve their needs best. Third point:

Michael Fuhlhage (05:17):

Let inclusivity and diversity be a driver in your class. The canon that I was taught consisted mainly of white men, which was unacceptably limited, so enlist their help to expand the pantheon so it includes the underemphasized contributions that women and people of color made to journalism's development. For example, you can't teach history of investigative reporting, which I was taught mainly involved Woodward and Bernstein, without discussing the methods and motivations of Ida Tarbell, Ida B. Wells, and Elizabeth Cochran. Further, it's vital to remind students that these heroes' tales were overlooked until someone in their future recognized their value, which in turn implies that they, the students, can be the ones who resurrect the stories of the marginalized but deserving. Fourth point: Adaptability and flexibility are crucial. Winter 2020 presented a special challenge. The coronavirus pandemic led us to be cautious, shut down our campus, and shifted to remote learning.

Michael Fuhlhage (06:24):

My class was always driven by lecture, discussion, and hands-on examination of primary sources in about equal measures. I would draw from my own collection of antiquarian newspapers and magazines and other communication artifacts, such as petroglyphs, Edison cylinders, and retired lead type. I surveyed the students about their access to the internet and other circumstances that might hold them back. It became clear that not everyone could do Zoom live. So we went asynchronous, and we found low bandwidth ways to share lecture. I found digitized artifacts and created online discussions where we talked about them, again in a low bandwidth manner. We didn't do live Zoom. We had really lively discussion threads, though. So fourth point: Have fun. When I was an undergraduate, I heard W. Edwards Deming speak at the University of Kansas. The last point that he made--after describing how he helped Japanese automakers to refine their production systems using ideas that American companies had rejected--consisted of those two words, which he wrote on a chalkboard to punctuate the end of his presentation.

Michael Fuhlhage (07:33):

My test reviews are fun, and they're meaningful for my students because they pick what they think is the most important material to be tested on. They write multiple choice questions, and we review by running the review like a trivia contest, with historical artifacts like clippings from ancient comic strips or retired lead dingbat type as prizes. You can find this stuff pretty easily for not too much money on eBay. This puts students in charge of one another's learning in a lighthearted way. This way I do what Deming taught: to attain quality, empower everyone and have fun along the way. So I'll wrap this up with one final thought: Encourage your students to see their own potential by considering the achievements of previous generations, and empower students to be co-creators in learning and creating knowledge. I'm a curator of things that are knowable about communication history, but I'm not the master of all that. It's not possible for any one person to be that. Once I've learned about my students' interests, I help them become masters of the history of those interests. And by the end of the semester, our roles have shifted. And that makes me so proud with how much they've grown. And when I can see that my students have become my teacher, that is how I know that I've done my job. Again, I really appreciate this honor. Thank you for your time and your attention.

Transcript: Kobre Award Acceptance Speech

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 21:35:25 GMT

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Ford Risley (00:03):

Greetings everyone! I'm here in my office at Penn State doing what we've all been doing for far too long: looking at a computer screen and preparing for a virtual classroom meeting. How I wish I was instead getting ready to travel to another AJHA convention and the opportunity to see many great friends. AJHA conventions have been one of my favorite fall activities for more than 25 years. I'm disappointed that we can't meet in Memphis this year, but it was certainly wise to make this year's meeting virtual. I'm so grateful to receive the Kobre award. I want to thank the folks who supported my nomination. I owe special thanks to David Sloan, who took the lead in nominating me. I've always appreciated David's unending commitment to our organization, and the idea that he wanted to nominate me is something I will always appreciate. I also want to thank Penn State for making it possible for me to be a productive scholar and an active member of AJHA.

Ford Risley (01:02):

I've been fortunate to work for two outstanding deans, Doug Anderson and Marie Hardin, and a college with terrific faculty and staff. I wouldn't have been able to do so many things for the organization, if it wasn't for their incredible support of my work. I've been fortunate to know many members of our organization who I consider role models. I won't name them for fear of leaving someone out, but I would be remiss in not mentioning one: Wally Eberhard. I took a media history seminar with Wally at the University of Georgia, and by the time the semester was over, I knew what the path of my academic career would be. Wally was a wise counsel as I learned the ins and outs of academia, and he became a good friend. He also won the Kobre award, and it's terrific to follow in his footsteps. Finally, I owe a great debt to my family. My parents instilled in their children a love of reading and history. My mother was an elementary school teacher. We spent many Saturdays at the Willow Branch library, finding new books to take home. My wife Mary has always supported my work, starting when I decided to go to graduate school soon after we were married. I can never thank her enough.

Ford Risley (02:22):

I want to say just a few words about what AJHA means to me and encourage you all to support the organization with your time. I joined AJHA in 1993, when I was a doctoral student, and I attended my first convention in Salt Lake City. Like all graduate students, I was warmly welcomed, and I immediately felt a comradery with a group of people who shared my interest. Twenty-seven years later, AJHA remains my academic home outside of Penn State. I believe passionately in the organization's mission to promote research and education in mass communication history. There's simply no way that I would have been able to accomplish what I have if it wasn't for AJHA. I've also made many wonderful friends and have fond memories of spending time together at conventions. It's why I've been an active member as a convention host, as a board member and president, and most recently as editor of American Journalism. I never planned to do any of these things.

Ford Risley (03:21):

I just felt like when the opportunities presented themselves, I should help. I want to encourage everyone to do the same. AJHA can only be successful if members are willing to do more than pay their annual dues and attend conventions. We need folks to enthusiastically serve as reviewers, committee members and chairs, convention hosts, and officers. You'll be helping an outstanding organization, and I promise that you'll be better from the experience. Thank you again for this wonderful honor. I can assure you it's something I will always cherish. Please stay safe, and I look forward to the time when we can meet again in person. Thank you.

Uncovering the Life and Career of a Pioneering Journalist

Thu, 03 Sep 2020 15:11:24 GMT

(Editor's note: Raymond McCaffrey is an assistant professor and director of the Center for Ethics in Journalism at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. He received the McKerns Grant in 2019.)

By Raymond McCaffrey

My first encounter with Louis Stark occurred ten years ago while combing the “stacks” at the University of Maryland’s McKeldin Library as part of an assignment for a journalism history course required for doctoral students. The topic that I had picked for my research paper concerned how journalism textbooks might reveal how early educators addressed the physical and psychological risks faced by journalists. One of the texts on a library shelf was an anthology titled, “A Treasury of Great Reporting; ‘Literature under Pressure’ From the Sixteenth Century to Our Own Time,” which included a contribution by Stark, a New York Times reporter who had had covered the 1927 executions of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, the so-called “anarchists” convicted of killing two men during a robbery.

Stark’s first-person account was dramatically different than the terse, objective news stories he wrote for the Times. Stark’s harrowing depiction revealed that journalists had insight into the psychological toll of covering traumatic events long before the topic became a focus of research near the end of the twentieth century. Stark wrote about what it was like to be in Charlestown State Prison on the day of the executions, writing that the prison was like an armed camp, with rioters outside the gates, and reporters were herded to a room next door to the execution chamber: “The windows had been nailed down by a nervous policeman ‘because somebody might throw something in.’ The shades were drawn. The room was stuffy, and in an hour the heat was unbearable. We took off our coats, rolled up our sleeves, and tried to be comfortable. The morse operators were the coolest of the fifty men and women in the room. The noise of the typewriters and telegraph instrument made an awful din. Our nerves were stretched to the breaking point. Had there not been a last minute reprieve on Aug. 10? Might there be one now?”^{^[1]}

Stark’s account offered a unique view of stressors faced by reporters covering a traumatic event on deadline, intensified by the need to meet the increasing demands of the evolving technology of the day. But I met with an unusual sort of dead end when I searched for more of the author’s personal writing. Most of what I found by Stark was the work of a master of the objective, almost deeply impersonal news writing that was practiced by New York Times reporters. Stark went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for pioneering a completely new journalism beat that quickly became a staple in many newspapers in the United States: coverage of the increasingly powerful U.S. labor movement. In 1951, nine years after winning the Pulitzer for labor reporting, Stark moved on to writing editorials for the Times, specializing in analysis of the labor movement. Stark also appeared to have embraced the type of stoic response to personal setbacks that is common amongst journalists. When Stark died in 1954, shortly after turning 66, the Times published a tribute that celebrated “a devotion to duty” that motivated Stark to come to work until the very last day of his life, despite what was characterized as “a series of mild heart attacks.”^{^[2]} Though too sick to come into the office, Stark wrote his final editorial at home, ultimately having to ask his wife to call the newspaper and phone in his piece. Three hours later, at 4 p.m., Stark “died unexpectedly,” and his last editorial - “Trade Union Democracy” – ran in the same edition that carried his obituary.^{^[3]}

Stark, who had so powerfully depicted the on-the-job stress faced by the working journalists, also appeared to exemplify the kind of macho journalistic ethos that I was interested in studying. Yet the preliminary evidence that I found only supported a potentially fascinating study about Stark and his role in pioneering the labor beat. Unfortunately that wasn’t the part of his story that fascinated me. So I put Stark on my list of possible long-term story ideas with the understanding that ultimately I was going to have to make a tough practical decision. My only real chance to discover Stark’s personal story was to examine his personal papers that had been donated to the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. But in order to allocate the time and money to travel to Boston from Arkansas, where I now teach, I felt I needed to be committed to telling the story of Stark, the pioneer of the labor beat, especially if his papers failed to contain much of his personal side.

The American Journalism Historians Association ultimately helped me make that decision by awarding me a Joseph McKerns Research Grant in 2018. The grant not only eased practical concerns by helping to support my travel to Boston, but also offered some external confirmation that the overall story of such a pioneering journalist was worth telling. The two days I spent at the Nieman Foundation, located in the historic Lippmann House, were ideal for an historian with a tight schedule. The Nieman administrators gave what every researcher should hope for: a quiet room filled with stacks of assiduously inventoried file boxes. During two days of reviewing notes, correspondence, and other writings, I constantly felt as if I was in Stark’s presence, even if that involved being in the company of a journalist who was deeply private, but only to a point.

Amid the writings that spoke to the politics and key players behind the growing labor movement, I found a diary, which Stark kept sporadically, starting in 1932. His personal writing contained the type of insights he included in his recounting of the 1927 execution. In one entry, he wrote about the human suffering in one impoverished mining community where he was confronted by a child begging for food. “Somehow my attention always swings around to the children,” Stark wrote.

Stark’s papers also provided many insights into the professional practices of a legendary journalist. Stark’s reputation as a journalist who was trusted by his sources could be seen in an exchange of letters he had with the powerful labor leader George Meany in 1954. Stark’s request for insider information on an “off-the-record basis” resulted in an extraordinarily candid account that Meany documented on American Federation of Labor stationary (with a return address of the Monte Carlo Hotel, in Miami Beach, Florida).

Some of Stark’s most personal writing involved his correspondence with William M. Leiserson, a scholar and labor expert. His letters, addressed to “Billy,” included brief references to personal information as well as fascinating takes on the inner workings of official Washington. The letters were so informed yet conversational that one could imagine the Times posting much of them online today as part of ongoing blog.

My review of the papers led me to conclude that two stories about Stark that I saw having to choose among — the personal versus the professional — were actually one and the same. The journalist who wired the labor beat seems to have been the same one whose nerves had been “stretched to the breaking point” while awaiting two public executions. The careful eye he used at Charlestown State Prison was also on display when he was observing the struggling people in union country, where his attention always swung around to the children.

END NOTES

^{^[1]} Arthur Krock, Hanson Weightman Baldwin, and Shepard Stone, We Saw It Happen: The News Behind the News That's Fit to Print (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1938), 366.

^{^[2]} Louis Stark," New York Times, May 18, 1954, 28.

^{^[3]} “Trade Union Democracy.” New York Times, May 18, 1954, 28.

Nominees for Board of Directors

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 18:03:54 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association will have an electronic election in September to fill three open positions on the Board of Directors. Ballots will be emailed to all members and also will include approval of the 2019 General Member Business Meeting Minutes and three proposed amendments to the Constitution and Bylaws.

We will not have an election for second vice-president this year. Given the unprecedented global health crisis that forced AJHA to opt for a virtual conference this fall, the membership agreed to pause the presidential leadership chain for one year. Donna Lampkin Stephens will remain president. Aimee Edmondson will remain first vice-president, and Mike Conway will remain second vice-president.

Members nominated the following three scholars for the three open board seats. The electronic ballot will include a space for write-in votes.

Julien Gorbach

Boston native Julien Gorbach is an assistant professor in the School of Communications at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His book The Notorious Ben Hecht: Iconoclastic Writer and Militant Zionist was published by Purdue University Press in March 2019, and it earned the National Jewish Book Award “Finalist” prize for Best Biography. His chapter “Not Your Grandpa’s Hoax: A Comparative History of Fake News” appeared in Fake News! Misinformation in the Media (LSU Press, June 2020), and his studies have been published in American Journalism, Journalism History and Literary Journalism Studies. He currently serves as the chair of AJHA’s Public Relations Committee. Gorbach earned his doctorate at the Missouri School of Journalism in 2013. Before that he worked as a newspaper reporter for ten years. His articles have appeared in the Boston Globe, The Boston Phoenix, Time Out New York, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, and the New Orleans Gambit.

What AJHA has meant to me and why I want to serve: AJHA has been my scholarly community for more than a decade, since I presented my first study at our March 2008 joint conference. The association has provided peers who are now among my closest friends, and extraordinary mentors like Berkley Hudson, Ross Collins, Kathy Roberts Forde, Mike Sweeney, Ford Risley, and Donna Lampkin Stephens. AJHA has taught me not just methods and insights into historiography; it also instilled in me the ethos of our field and has shown me why our work is so important. The association has been a constant source of support, encouragement and collegiality, and our members all appreciate how much that means whenever we find ourselves buried deep in the archives, or in the tenth draft of a particularly thorny study. This past year was my first opportunity to contribute service as chair of our public relations committee. I would be honored to help further build and strengthen our organization by serving on our board of directors, so that we can assist our seasoned scholars in expanding upon their achievements and invite the younger scholars on board, just as the association so graciously did for us.

Jennifer Moore

Jennifer E. Moore is an Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of Minnesota Duluth. She received her Ph.D. from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Her research interests include journalism history, visual communication, participatory news practices and digital news preservation. Moore’s work on the nineteenth-century illustrated press appears in issues of Journalism History and several chapters in media history collections, including Sensationalism: Murder, Mayhem, Mudslinging, Scandals, and Disasters in 19th-Century Reporting (Transaction Publishers, 2013) and After the War: The Press in a Changing America, 1865–1900 (Transaction Publishers, 2017). An essay about her participatory news scholarship appears in the forthcoming Journalism Research that Matters (Oxford University Press). From 2014 to 2016, she served as a co-coordinator for the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference. Her research awards include funding from the National Association of Broadcasters and two National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Scholar Awards. She teaches courses in media history, digital journalism, social media, and media ethics. Prior to academia, Moore worked as a radio reporter and as a digital content producer and manager.

What AJHA has meant to me and why I want to serve: I will never forget the first time I attended AJHA as a graduate student and was pleasantly surprised to receive a stipend to offset my travel expenses. It's that kind of commitment to developing and supporting scholars that has kept me involved. As a former co-coordinator for the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference (JJCHC), I am excited by an opportunity to be in service to our discipline again as an AJHA board member. I want to continue the work of those before me who have helped communicate the importance of journalism history, not only among scholars but also to a general audience. Our work as journalism and media historians is more important than ever. What we do as scholar-teachers is needed to help understand our current moment as we negotiate both a global health pandemic and efforts to dismantle systemic racism in the U.S.

Rich Shumate

Rich Shumate is an assistant professor in the School of Media at Western Kentucky University and holds a Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of Florida. His research centers on historical political communication, specifically news media coverage of U.S. political conservatism in the 1950s and 1960s. He was the winner of AJHA’s Margaret Blanchard Award for Outstanding Dissertation in Journalism History in 2019, and he is currently proceeding to publication with a book based on that work, The Liberal Bias Rebellion: How Coverage of Goldwater Made Conservatives Hate Media, which will be published by Lexington Books in 2021. Prior to moving into academia, Shumate worked for more than 25 years as a professional journalist on newspapers in North Carolina and Georgia and spent 10 years as a news editor and web writer at CNN’s world headquarters in Atlanta. He is also the founder and editor of ChickenFriedPolitics.com, a blog covering politics across 14 Southern states.

What AJHA has meant to me and why I want to serve: I first became aware of AJHA when I was in graduate school at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock and working as a research assistant for Sonny Rhodes, who introduced me to the organization and spoke highly of it. My first convention was in St. Petersburg, where I, literally, drove through a hurricane to attend; my first presentation as a faculty member came in Salt Lake where I regaled people with details of the 1959 cranberry panic. I have enjoyed making friends and connections at AJHA with people who share my passion for media history, and I come away from conferences stimulated not only with ideas for research projects but ideas for the American news media history class that I created and teach at WKU. In 2017, I also signed on as AJHA’s web editor, taking over a smooth-running operation so ably constructed by Erika Pribanic-Smith, and have enjoyed working with the various committees to put together the convention micro-sites. I am interested in serving on the board because I believe organizations only work effectively if members are willing to step up and contribute what they can. I have enjoyed my membership in AJHA and have gotten a lot out of the experience, so I’d like to give back.

Proposed Constitution and Bylaws Amendments

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 15:32:13 GMT

The AJHA Board of Directors is proposing three amendments to the Constitution and Bylaws related to the committees that decide the organization's annual awards. The first renames the Awards Committee to the Service Awards Committee and clarifies its duties. The second formalizes the sub-committee charged with deciding the annual Book Award as its own committee. The third creates an addendum outlining what committee is responsible for each award, dividing them into Service, Teaching, and Research awards. [To review the current Constitution and Bylaws, see the Members Only page (login required).]

The Awards Committee has been responsible for deciding the Sidney Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism History and the Distinguished Service to Journalism History Award. A sub-committee of the Awards Committee has been responsible for the Book Award. Based on a proposal from Awards Committee Chair Tom Mascaro, the board voted to separate the two committees and specify their duties in two amendments to Section 4.06 of the constitution, which lists all AJHA committees and their charges.

First, the board proposes the change the language of 4.06(f), which currently reads:

(f) Awards. This committee will propose to the Board nominees for prizes, plaques, and certificates including the Kobre Award for distinguished service to the profession of journalism history.

This wording is inaccurate because other AJHA committees propose nominees for a majority of the organization's awards (as outlined in proposed Addendum B, below). Furthermore, the Kobre Award and Distinguished Service Award are two separate awards.

The proposed new language is as follows:

(f) Service Awards. This committee will recognize outstanding service to the field of journalism history by selecting recipients for the Sidney Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Distinguished Service Award.

Second, the board proposes creating a new entry formalizing the Book Award Committee as a separate committee. The formatting of this new entry would be consistent with other committees listed in section 4.06, as follows:

(o) Book Award. This committee will seek to celebrate scholarship in the field of mass communication history by advertising and conducting the annual competition for the best book on a topic in mass communication history.

Finally, the board proposes adding the following sentence to Constitution Section 1.02 (b): See Addendum B for a full list of awards and the committees responsible for selecting them.

The following then would be added to the end of the Constitution and Bylaws as Addendum B:

AJHA Awards for Service, Teaching, and Research

The following listing outlines the awards given by the American Journalism Historians Association. In addition to being separated according to whether the award primarily recognizes service, teaching, or research, the awards are organized according to the entities within AJHA that select the award recipients.

I. Service Awards

A. Service Awards Committee

Sidney Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism History: The Kobre Award is AJHA's highest honor, recognizing individuals with an exemplary record of sustained achievement in journalism history through teaching, research, professional activities, or other contributions to the field of journalism history.
Distinguished Service to Journalism History Award: The Distinguished Service Award recognizes contributions by an individual outside our discipline who has made an extraordinary effort to further significantly our understanding of, or our ability to explore, media history.

B. Local Host Committee

Local Journalist Award for Substantial Contribution to the Public Interest: American Journalism Historians Association annually bestows its Outstanding Local Journalist Award to a journalist local to the convention city whose work has had a positive impact on the community.
Donna Allen Luncheon Honoree: The annual Donna Allen Luncheon celebrates contributions of women to the field of journalism. American Journalism Historians Association invites a woman journalist local to the convention city as its honored guest and featured speaker for the luncheon.

C. AJHA President - President's Award for Sustained and Meritorious Service: The President of the American Journalism Historians Association may select up to two members each year who have gone above and beyond in their service to the organization to receive the President's Award.

II. Teaching Awards

A. Education Committee - National Award for Excellence in Teaching: The annual AJHA Award for Excellence in Teaching honors a college or university teacher who excels at teaching in the areas of journalism and mass communication history, makes a positive impact on student learning, and offers an outstanding example for other educators.

NOTE: The Kobre Award (detailed in I.A.1. above) also recognizes recipients' record of teaching.

III. Research Awards

A. American Journalism (academic journal)

Rising Scholar Award: The Rising Scholar Award is intended to provide research assistance of up to $2,000 for a junior faculty member who has not yet achieved tenure.
Best American Journalism Article Award: The Best Article Award recognizes the outstanding article published in American Journalism during the previous year.

B. Blanchard Prize Committee - AJHA Margaret A. Blanchard Doctoral Dissertation Prize: The Blanchard Prize is awarded annually for the best doctoral dissertation dealing with mass communication history. Up to three honorable mentions also may be selected.

C. Book Award Committee - AJHA Book of the Year Award: The Book Award recognizes the best book in journalism history or mass media history published during the previous calendar year. Up to two honorable mentions also may be selected.

D. Research Committee

Joseph McKerns Research Grants: The McKerns Grant is intended to provide research assistance and to recognize and reward the winners. Up to four grants for up to $1,250 each will be rewarded annually upon review and recommendation of the Research Committee.
Research Paper Awards: The Research Committee rewards outstanding research papers submitted to the annual AJHA convention with the following awards.

a. Wm. David Sloan Award for outstanding faculty research paper.

b. Robert Lance Award for outstanding student research paper.

c. Jean Palmegiano Award for outstanding international/transnational journalism history research paper.

d. J. William Snorgrass Award for outstanding minority-journalism research paper.

e. Maurine Beasley Award for outstanding women’s history research paper.

f. Wally Eberhard Award for outstanding research in media and war.

NOTE: The Kobre Award (detailed in I.A.1. above) also recognizes recipients' record of research.

Journalism Halls of Fame as Public History

Thu, 28 May 2020 14:48:28 GMT

By Kimberly Voss, Ph.D.

Professor, University of Central Florida

Journalism Halls of Fame often mirror the histories of journalism where the stories of white male trailblazers are widely lauded and institutionalized. Left in the margins or footnotes are women and people of color. When the portraits and busts that populate these shrines are primarily male, the echo chamber grows and these groups are forgotten or ignored by history.

Nominating important but overlooked journalists to these halls of fame is a way of engaging in public history.

Public history is largely defined as using historical methods outside of the academic world. Typically, it is the audience that differentiates the public historian’s work from more traditional historical fields. (This, of course, does not mean that researchers won’t use the information. One of the fashion editors I study, Madeleine Corey, has only been referenced in the Rhode Island Journalism Hall of Fame.)

Two examples of women I’ve successfully nominated to state journalism halls of fame are Marjorie Paxson and Roberta Applegate, though the process is not easy. Both took repeated nominations before gaining entrance.

Marjorie Paxson

Paxson was a groundbreaking journalist who covered hard news for a wire service during World War II (an unheard of opportunity prior to the war) before being forced back into the women’s pages during peacetime – where she helped change the definition of women’s news. By the time she retired from journalism more than 50 years later, she had been one of the first female U.S. newspaper publishers and established the National Women and Media Collection (NWMC). She also was editor of Xilonen, the eight-page daily newspaper published for the United Nations World Conference for International Women’s Year held in Mexico City in 1975, played a significant part of the 1976 governmental report To Form a More Perfect Union and in 1963 was elected president of Theta Sigma Phi (now known as the Association for Women in Communications).

She was the fourth female publisher in Gannett — first at the Public Opinion in Pennsylvania (1978-1980) and then the Muskogee Phoenix in Oklahoma (1980-1986). In Muskogee, she used her power to change her newspaper’s editorial stance that had been previously opposed to the Equal Rights Amendment and changed newsroom policy to allow women to wear pants — something that had been prohibited. She made a difference for female employees and women in her community.

Despite all the accomplishments throughout her journalism career, she was not a member of the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame, which I sought to correct. It took five years to get her inducted. (She would have been officially inducted posthumously in a March event but the virus postponed it. She will be officially honored in the fall.)

Roberta Applegate

Several years ago, I nominated women’s page editor (and later Kansas State University journalism professor) Roberta Applegate into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame. Her father, Albert A. Applegate, was a longtime journalism professor at Michigan State University, and had been inducted into the Hall of Fame years earlier. It took two nomination attempts to get Roberta inducted, but when she was, it marked the first father-daughter combination in the hall. Along with her brother, I had the honor to speak at her induction ceremony.

After earning a master’s degree in journalism, Applegate covered the Michigan statehouse during World War II and went on to become one of the first women to be a press secretary to a governor. She then wrote for the top women’s pages in the country – at the Miami Herald. Ultimately, she became a journalism professor at Kansas State University where she subscribed to the leading women’s pages to help her students improve the sections.

Her inclusion in the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame means that Roberta Applegate is an official part of journalism history. She needed two nominations before earning her recognition. Part of the process was to submit numerous letters of recommendation – which is no easy feat considering that she died when I was in middle school. Luckily, she saved everything and the NWMC included her reference letters from the World War II era.

Marie Anderson

Fingers are crossed that legendary Miami Herald women’s page editor Marie Anderson gets inducted into the Florida Journalism Hall of Fame. Anderson’s section won so many Penney-Missouri Awards — the top recognition for the sections — that she was retired from the competition. She was a groundbreaking editor and became a regular speaker for newspapers across the country who wanted to improve women’s page news.

I recently turned in the nomination paperwork for Anderson. Several more nominees will be sent in soon. It’s a way of making marginalized women visible. If you know of a woman or person of color who is a part of local journalism lore but has been left out of the historical record, consider engaging in an act of public history and nominate him or her to their state or regional journalism hall of fame. But be prepared to do it more than once — but it will be worth it for its contribution to public history.

2020 AJHA national conference now virtual

Thu, 28 May 2020 00:48:41 GMT

In light of COVID-19, the 2020 AJHA national conference, scheduled for October in Memphis, will be a condensed virtual conference Oct. 2-3 with no registration fee.

Deadlines for research submissions are extended until July 1, 2020: https://ajha.wildapricot.org/2020papercall/.

AJHA will resume the full, in-person conference Oct. 7-9, 2021, in Columbus, Ohio, and will return to Memphis from Sept. 27-Oct. 1, 2022.

Because AJHA confirmed the revised Memphis dates recently, AJHA did not incur a financial penalty from the hotel.

More details will surface as they become available.

Member News: Spring 2020

Wed, 27 May 2020 16:05:16 GMT

Dr. Teri Finneman, a member of the AJHA board, was granted tenure and promotion to associate professor at the University of Kansas.

Dr. Debra Reddin van Tuyll, professor of communication at Augusta University, is co-editor of a new book that will be published in June by Syracuse University Press.

The book, Politics, Culture, and the Irish American Press: 1784–1963, also is edited by Mark O'Brien and Marcel Broersma

Van Tuyll is the 2019 recipient of the AJHA Kobre Award for lifetime achievement in journalism history.

Dr. Erika Pribanic-Smith and Dr. Tracy Lucht recently joined Dr. David Sloan as editors of the 11th edition of the textbook The Media in America: A History.

The Media in America was first published 30 years ago.

Dr. Pribanic-Smith is the co-author of Emma Goldman’s No-Conscription League and the First Amendment. She has written a number of book chapters, and her articles have been published in American Journalism, American Periodicals, Journalism History, Kansas History, and Media History Monographs.

Dr. Lucht is the author of Sylvia Porter: America’s Original Personal Finance Columnist and co-author of Mad Men and Working Women: Feminist Perspectives on Historical Power, Resistance, and Otherness. Her articles have been published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, American Journalism, and other journals.

Dr. Pam Parry will be the next editor of the journal, Journalism History, a peer-reviewed publication of the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC).

Parry, a professor of public relations at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, where she teaches media history, is the author or co-editor of eight academic books. She is the author of Eisenhower: The Public Relations President (Lexington 2014) and has a forthcoming book, Eisenhower and Women: Changing the Face of Politics. She is also co-editor of the book series Women in American Political History.

Parry will serve as an apprentice under current editor Greg Borchard (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) beginning in August and then begin her three-and-a-half-year term as editor in August 2021.

Dr. Melony Shemberger, associate professor of journalism and mass communication at Murray State University, recently earned the Quality Matters Teaching Online Certificate.

To earn the certificate, seven classes were required by Quality Matters, a global assurance program for online teaching. It is considered the gold standard in online pedagogy.

Mark Holan presented at the 2019 AJHA National Convention in Dallas about Ruth Russell in Revolutionary Ireland. He closed with the issue detailed in the below link from his blog.

As can seen in the bottom photo on the blog page, Ruth's name has been added to the gravestone with her sister, Cecilia.

https://www.markholan.org/archives/7822

Member News

Fri, 27 Dec 2019 17:35:49 GMT

Elisabeth Fondren, of St. John’s University, published a chapter on “News Editing and the Editorial Process” in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication (Oxford University Press). The entry traces the historical origins of international editing practices (Europe, Asia, North America), professionalization in the 20th century, changes in copy editing technology, and digital gatekeeping in the online news environment.

Here is the citation:

Klein, T., Fondren, E., & Apcar, L. News Editing and the Editorial Process. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication. Oxford University Press. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.802

In addition, Fondren was recognized in November 2019 with a faculty award by the Phi Eta Sigma National Honor Society for her commitment to student success.

Jon Marshall, assistant professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School, had an op-ed, “Like Watergate All Over Again? In Some Ways, Yes, but There Are Stark Differences,” published Sept. 25, 2019, in the Chicago Tribune.

Dr. Melony Shemberger, associate professor of journalism and mass communication at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky, was selected for the first cohort of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education's Faculty Advisory Network. This new group of 12 faculty across Kentucky will convey faculty perspectives on state-level policies and initiatives and advise the CPE president on matters of interest to the faculty. In the 2019-20 academic year, the network will focus on closing achievement gaps, responding to current business needs, and enhancing academic quality.

In addition, Shemberger graduated Oct. 18 from the Bluegrass Academic Leadership Academy in Kentucky. She was among five faculty to represent Murray State University in the academy.

Call for proposals: Special issue of TMG - Journal for Media History

Fri, 27 Dec 2019 16:57:41 GMT

A special issue of TMG - Journal for Media History will focus on transnational journalism history.

Transnational journalism history acknowledges that cultural forms are produced and exchanged across borders. It focuses on the interactions between agents, ideas, innovations, norms and social and cultural practices beyond national boundaries, as well as the way these interactions affect the incorporation and adaption of new ideas, concepts, and practices into national frameworks. By moving back and forth between the national and transnational level, the connective and dialectic nature of these movements is emphasized. It thus treats the nation as only one level or context among a range of others, instead of being the primary frame for analysis.

This special issue aims to critically interrogate and go beyond the national frameworks within which historical developments of journalism are generally studied. Due to its institutional organization and topical focus, journalism historiography has traditionally been confined to national boundaries. This holds true for studies restricted to the development of journalism in one country, like most press histories, as well as studies that take nations as units for comparative research. Differences and, to a lesser extent, similarities in professional practices and news coverage are usually discussed as autonomous developments and ascribed to national peculiarities. The special issue intends to bring together papers that open new venues for research that move beyond this national boundary. Articles are invited that relate to transnational journalism that (particularly, but not exclusively) focus on one of these areas:

Theoretical and methodological reflections on transnational journalism.
Transnational journalistic networks.
Journalists or publishers who were influential “transfer agents."
Transnational impact on journalistic genres.
Adaptation of foreign examples in a national context.
Case studies of transnational reporting.
Case studies that rely on digital humanities methods (for example, text mining or network analysis).

Guidelines

Those interested should submit an abstract of maximum 350 words that clearly outlines a research question, relevance of the topic, a theoretical/historical framework, justification of research material and approach, and main argument.

Send proposals to the editors: Frank Harbers (f.harbers@rug.nl) and Marcel Broersma (m.j.broersma@rug.nl). The deadline is Jan. 15, 2020. Authors will be notified of acceptance by the end of January 2020.

Tentative timeline

The authors of the accepted abstracts will be invited to contribute a full article (maximum 8,000 words, excluding references and bibliography). The deadline for the full papers is May 29, 2020. It is also possible to contribute a non-peer reviewed piece (between 4,000-6,000 words).

TMG - Journal for Media History is an open-access, peer-reviewed academic journal, published in the Netherlands. Its aim is to promote and publish research in media history. It offers a platform for original research and for contributions that reflect theory formation and methods within media history. For more information and author guidelines, see: https://www.tmgonline.nl/.

Call for proposals: Transnational Journalism History annual conference

Fri, 27 Dec 2019 16:44:37 GMT

The fifth annual conference on Transnational Journalism History will be held May 28-29, 2020, at Augusta University in Augusta, Georgia.

Papers that study historical transformations in journalism from a transnational perspective are being sought. The deadline to submit papers is Feb. 1.

Conference organizers welcome papers that discuss theoretical or methodological issues as well as empirical case studies from all parts of the world. Specifically, here are possible contributions:

the transfer of norms, practices, genres, and textual conventions from one country/region to another and their consecutive adaptation in national contexts.
transnational networks of actors.
biographical studies of transnational agents such as journalists or publishers.
the transnational coverage of particular news stories.
transnational audiences.
the impact of (emerging) technologies on transnational journalism.
different media such as television, radio, newspapers or magazines, and the intersection between them.
theoretical perspectives/interpretations/applications of transnational journalism history.

Submissions

Abstracts of maximum 500 words (for research-in-progress), full papers (for completed projects) and panel proposals (max. 4 papers; 400-word panel description and 150-word abstract of each paper) should be submitted to dvantyl@augusta.edu by Feb. 1, 2020. Submissions will be blind reviewed.

Conference fee is still being finalized but should be around $75 and will include coffee/tea breaks, lunches and conference dinner. Keynote speaker will be announced in the next months.

This conference is sponsored by the journalism and mass communication programs at Augusta University, at Dublin City University in Ireland, Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, and the Centre for Media and Journalism Studies at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

Any questions may be addressed to Debbie van Tuyll (dvantuyl@augusta.edu), Marcel Broersma or Frank Harbers via journalismconferences@rug.nl, or Mark O’Brien (mark.obrien@dcu.ie).

Book project

The conference organizers are working toward the publication of a Companion to Transnational Journalism History. Submissions for the conference will also be considered (in adapted form) for publication in the handbook, and discussions during the conference will be geared toward preparing the publication.

About Transnational Journalism History

Transnational journalism history acknowledges that cultural forms are produced and exchanged across borders. It focuses on the interactions between agents, ideas, innovations, norms and social and cultural practices, and their consecutive incorporation and adaptation into national frameworks. By moving back and forth between the national and transnational level, the connective and dialectic nature of these movements is emphasized. It thus treats the nation as only one phenomenon among a range of others, instead of being the primary frame for analysis.

This opens new venues for research because journalism history is institutionally and topically still confined primarily to national boundaries. This holds true for studies restricted to the development of journalism in one country, like most press histories, as well as studies that take nations as units for comparative research. Differences and, to a lesser extent, similarities in professional practices and news coverage are usually discussed as autonomous developments and ascribed to national peculiarities. Transnational journalism history critically interrogates these national paradigms and provides new ways forward.

Graduate Student Testimonial: AJHA a welcoming space

Fri, 27 Sep 2019 02:06:38 GMT

By Bailey Dick

At every AJHA conference I’ve been to, I’ve spilled something on myself.

In 2017, it was coffee. In 2018, it was an entire hot tea. On both occasions, it was right down the front of whatever business casual, but neither too business nor too casual outfit I’d picked out to wear. And on both occasions, it was on the last day of the conference, right before the awards ceremony.

The good people of AJHA have been kind enough not only to provide me with a few certificates to cover my clumsiness with, but also were nice enough to not point out the fact that I was covered in my caffeinated beverage of choice two years in a row while receiving them. In a way, that’s what my time in AJHA as a graduate student so far has been about: Seeing those who I look up to champion the work of graduate students, and being warm and welcoming to us as we learn to be historians ourselves.

As a master's student, and now a doctoral student at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, I’ve had the honor to learn from Dr. Mike Sweeney and Dr. Aimee Edmondson, who are the embodiment of what AJHA is all about. They both believe in me and my work more than I believe in myself, and are what we Ohioans call “good people.” Both of them told me that I’d find AJHA to be full of people who are genuinely interested in my research, people who aren’t competitive or territorial, people who want me to succeed as much as they want to succeed themselves.

And it’s true. At every AJHA conference I’ve attended so far, I’ve had conversations with people whose books I’ve read, whose research I’ve cited in my own work, whose faculty bios I have bookmarked on my web browser so I can look through their work. And they’ve wanted to hear about my work. Not because it’s particularly amazing or because I’m particularly aggressive in wanting to talk about myself (it actually makes me deeply uncomfortable). It’s all because these are scholars and teachers who want to see others love history, love this field just as much as they do. And that’s a sign of mature, selfless scholarship.

AJHA has been a space where graduate students like myself are welcomed not only by faculty, but by other graduate students. It’s a solid network of people doing the same kind of work I am, and who care about history just as much as I do.

I know AJHA conferences have helped bolster my own confidence in my work as a journalism historian, and that’s thanks in no small part to the warm, welcoming atmosphere cultivated by both faculty and other graduate students. I’ve found it to be a group of people who will still root for you, even after you’ve spilled something on yourself. Twice.

International perspectives on journalism history: Britain

Fri, 27 Sep 2019 01:22:12 GMT

By Ross F. Collins, AJHA president 2018-19

One of my goals as this year’s AJHA president has been to strengthen our connections with journalism history groups internationally. While it appears AJHA is the world’s oldest organization focused on the discipline of media history, newer groups in France and Britain have certainly demonstrated a high level of enthusiasm and scholarship. Previous columns have considered France. This column considers Britain. But this time I had an opportunity to do more than correspond by email. As I was going to England to present at another conference, I arranged to meet with the directors of the Centre for the Study of Journalism and History, housed at the University of Sheffield.

The center is barely a decade old—launched in 2009—but scholars there have already established an impressive body of research. Most recently co-directors Adrian Bingham and Martin Conboy published a history of the British popular press, Tabloid Century (Peter Lang, 2015). I had the opportunity to chat with them over coffee on a sunny afternoon outside the university cafeteria.

Considering journalism history as part of the larger discipline of history, Adrian emphasized a need to rethink the scholarship to a more general level. “Historians of journalism need to be more ambitious in engaging with the big questions of the discipline, political, social, and cultural” he said, and they need to be less defensive about the field. “I consider myself to be a social and cultural historian of modern Britain, first and foremost.”

Martin agreed, noting journalism historian conferences should become more inclusive, reaching out to allied disciplines. “Try to incorporate journalism history into the larger area of history by considering it as social and cultural history.”

In his article “The Paradoxes of Journalism History,” (Australian Journalism Review 32), Martin wrote that journalism history needs to establish common research approaches. “In order to best create methodological links between journalism history and other areas of interest,” he wrote, “we need the sort of textual analysis which book history has developed and which, within journalism history, might well be served by some sort of historically grounded discourse analysis.”

The co-directors warn against journalism historians falling too strongly toward the traditional focus on biography of famous journalists and newspapers. Not that this work has no value, Adrian noted, but “if they are to avoid being pigeonholed as players in a relatively minor field, then journalism historians, I think, need to be more ambitious.” Conboy in his article acknowledged that American scholars such as David Paul Nord and James Carey also have addressed this, but added that scholars in other disciplines could benefit from greater understanding in how journalism historians analyze texts. “Journalism history,” he said, “ is a reference for social and cultural change in society.”

Adrian said as well that today’s journalism historians can be more ambitious in exploiting sources in new and more sophisticated ways, based on material now available online. The center offers an online archives for journalism historians accessible at the university, and encourages international scholars to research and study there in the discipline. “We currently have a student here interested in Chinese journalism history,” Adrian noted. The center actively seeks postgraduate students, and schedules conferences “from time to time,” most recently 2017. When they launch the next one, Adrian added, we in AJHA will hear about it. Check out the center at sheffield.ac.uk/journalismhistory.

Elections for second VP and board

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 17:30:12 GMT

By Nick Hirshon, William Paterson
AJHA Nominations & Elections Chair

It’s almost that time of year again: fall leaves, pumpkin spice lattes, and the AJHA conference! With our hearty crew of media historians about to take on Dallas in a few weeks, our members have nominated three scholars for the office of second vice-president and four to occupy three open seats on the board of directors. Additional nominations can be made from the floor during the election that will take place at the annual member business meeting on Saturday, Oct. 5. After elections are held, current Second Vice-President Aimee Edmondson (Ohio University) will become first vice-president for 2019-2020, and First Vice-President Donna Lampkin Stephens (University of Central Arkansas) will become president.

Proxy Voting

Dues-paying AJHA members unable to attend the conference are eligible to vote by proxy. They should send their name, email address and the name of the person who will cast their proxy vote at the conference to AJHA Nominations and Elections Committee Chair Nick Hirshon (nickhirshon@gmail.com) no later than midnight Friday, September 20, 2019. PLEASE CONFIRM IN ADVANCE that the proxy voter will be at the business meeting on Oct. 5 and is willing to cast the proxy vote.

Nominees

Second Vice-President

Mike Conway (Indiana University) is an associate professor of journalism. Before becoming a professor, he spent more than 15 years in local television news, working as a reporter, photographer, anchor, producer, and news director. Conway studies twentieth-century journalism history, especially the rise of radio and television news. His latest book is Contested Ground: “The Tunnel” and the Struggle Over Television News in Cold War America. Conway is a lifetime member of AJHA, first joining in 2003. He has been on the American Journalism Editorial Advisory board for ten years and served as chair of the Awards Committee for nine years. He was also elected to the Board of Directors and has served on the Convention Sites Committee and the Blanchard Dissertation Award Committee. He reviews papers every year and books most years. He has won the American Journalism “Best Article Award” twice.

Paulette Kilmer (University of Toledo) is a professor of communication. She began her association with AJHA as a graduate student in the late 1980s. Since that time, she has worked in some of AJHA's most important committees, including the education committee and publications committee. As longtime publications chair, she provided feedback from the Publications Committee to assist in the transition from print newsletter to digital format and worked with AJHA leadership to forge a relationship with publisher Taylor & Francis to move American Journalism into its scholarly journal listings. She won a president's award for her work as coordinator of the Donna Allen Luncheon series and a second award for coordinating the successful search for editors of both the newsletter and journal one summer. Kilmer also served a term on the board of directors and has published books and articles in journalism history.

Pam Parry (Southeast Missouri State University) is chairperson of the Department of Mass Media at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau. She is a lifetime member of American Journalism Historians Association, having served on the AJHA board of directors and the public relations committee. She also has served as chair of the education committee. In addition to her administrative duties at Southeast Missouri State, she teaches media history and communication law. She is the author of Eisenhower: The Public Relations President as well as two trade books. Parry is a co-editor of the Women in American Political History Book series by Lexington Books, which has produced five books to date--most of them authored by members of the American Journalism Historians Association. She is writing another book that should be released in 2020.

Board of Directors

Teri Finneman (University of Kansas) is an assistant professor of journalism. She has been a member of AJHA since 2015 and is a past Oral History Committee Chair. Chair of the AEJMC History Division for 2019-2020, she executive produces the podcast Journalism History. Her research focuses on a mix of history, gender, media and politics, with an emphasis on press portrayals of women politicians and first ladies, oral history and women in journalism. Finneman is the author of Press Portrayals of Women Politicians, 1870s-2000s, which was named a 2016 finalist for the Frank Luther Mott -Kappa Tau Alpha book award for best research-based book about journalism or mass communication. Her documentary, “Newspaper Pioneers: The Story of the North Dakota Press,” premiered in 2017. She is a recipient of the American Journalism Historians Association's Wm. David Sloan and Maurine Beasley awards, as well as the AEJMC History Division's Michael S. Sweeney Award, for her research on the press and the suffrage movement.

Michael Fuhlhage (Wayne State University) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication. His research interests include the development of stereotypes about Mexicans in U.S. mass media, the mid-nineteenth-century press, and the history of the book in American culture. He has served as chair of the AJHA Research Committee, member of the AJHA Board of Directors, juror in the AJHA Margaret Blanchard Dissertation Awards competition, juror in the AJHA McKerns Research Grant competition, coordinator of the AJHA panels competition, member of the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame board of directors, and as faculty adviser for the Auburn University chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He has reviewed manuscripts for AJHA, American Journalism, and the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference. Fuhlhage is the author of Yankee Reporters and Southern Secrets: Journalism, Open Source Intelligence, and the Coming of the Civil War (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2019).

Gwyneth Mellinger (James Madison University) is director of the School of Media Arts & Design. Her research, which has been supported by the collegial fellowship of AJHA, focuses on the southern press of the 1950s, the newsroom diversity movement, and journalism ethics. Mellinger has been a member of AJHA for 15 years. She has reviewed for the AJHA conference, book award, research in progress, and McKerns Research Grant, which she has received twice. She previously served on the AJHA board from 2009 to 2012 and chaired the AJHA Outreach Committee from 2008 to 2010. She is a member of the American Journalism advisory board and a contributing editor for Journalism History. Recent winner of the Farrar Award for research on the historical relationship between the media and civil rights, Mellinger is the author of Chasing Newsroom Diversity: From Jim Crow to Affirmative Action (Illinois, 2013) and co-editor, with John Ferré, of the forthcoming Journalism’s Ethical Progression: A Twentieth-Century Journey.

Melony Shemberger (Murray State University) is an associate professor of journalism and mass communication and recent winner of the AEJMC History Division's teaching award. Editor of the Intelligencer newsletter, Shemberger has published in several peer-reviewed publications, including Journalism History, Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, and the Teaching Journalism and Mass Communication Journal. She also has authored several book chapters and professional articles in guidebooks published by the PR News Press. Her primary research interests include various journalism history topics, with education news dominating her current agenda; the scholarship of teaching and learning, with a focus on andragogy and instructional design; sunshine laws; and crisis communication. Before entering academia, Shemberger had successful, award-winning reporting careers — specializing in the education, court and business beats — and received numerous awards from the Kentucky Press Association.

Proposed Constitution and Bylaws Amendments

Erika Pribanic-Smith — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 16:48:44 GMT

The AJHA Board of Directors is proposing two amendments to the Constitution and Bylaws related to the planning of the organization’s annual national and regional conferences. The first formalizes the ad-hoc committee charged with planning the student-focused Southeast Symposium, while the second outlines the duties of the Local Hosts who assist with the national conference. [To review the current Constitution and Bylaws, see the Members Only page (login required).]

One or two representatives have been responsible in the past for planning the Southeast Symposium, held each winter in Florida. At the 2017 Board of Directors meeting, Symposium representative Dianne Bragg outlined a plan for expanding the symposium to draw more participants. Part of the plan was to make a committee consisting of faculty members who regularly attend the symposium. The board voted to create an ad-hoc committee, chaired by Bragg and Debra van Tuyll, and submit a constitutional amendment making it a permanent committee.

Therefore, the board proposes adding the following to Section 4.06 of the constitution, which lists all AJHA committees and their charges. The formatting of this new entry would be consistent with other committees listed in the section.

(n) Southeast Symposium. This committee will plan the annual Southeast Symposium, including setting dates, securing a location, and crafting the program.

At the 2018 Board of Directors meeting, then Long Range Planning Chair David Vergobbi reported on the work the Long Range Planning committee had undertaken for the previous two years to formally outline the duties of the local hosts for the national convention and make those duties publicly available so that future hosts will have access to them well in advance of beginning their planning. The board approved the Long Range Planning Committee’s request to propose an addendum to the Constitution and Bylaws listing the local host duties.

The board voted to add the following sentence to Bylaws Article 8, Section (a), which outlines the duties of the Convention Chair: See Addendum A for a full explanation of local host duties and responsibilities.

The following then would be added to the end of the Constitution and Bylaws as Addendum A:

AJHA Convention Host(s) Duties & Responsibilities

This is to serve as a guide when deciding to be the host for the annual AJHA convention. The actual legwork of getting hotel bids is the responsibility of the convention committee chair and the convention administrator. They will submit request for proposals (RFP) to the area hotels and be the contact persons for the hotels and Helms Briscoe (meeting and conference consultant). The convention chair will also arrange a trip to the host city for an overnight stay (usually one or two nights). This trip will be to visit hotels identified as suitable based on the RFP responses, meet and discuss the meeting with the local Convention and Visitors Bureau, and visit possible sites for the historic tour and gala dinner. Usually quite a bit of work is done in the short visit and the local host(s) is encouraged to participate in the meetings and site visits if possible.

The main responsibility of the local host(s) is to be the local host to the convention, serve as a point of contact for the convention committee chair and local vendors, to assist the committee chair and to provide:

1. Obtaining Sponsors and contributors: The local host is responsible for obtaining additional funding for the convention events and is encouraged to find sponsors in the area to help offset the costs incurred with the convention. The sponsor/contributor is given credit for the hosting in the program, website and throughout the event. The following suggested levels are meant to be a guide in your fundraising efforts:

a.       Underwriting Welcome Reception--$5,000

b.       Underwriting History Tour--$3,000

c.       Underwriting Awards Lunch--$2,000

d.       Underwriting Allen Lunch--$1,000

e.       Saturday Gala Dinner--$5,000

f.        General Support--$500-$1,000

2. Hotel services—It is extremely helpful to have a local host offer input in regards to hotels that may serve as suitable host hotels and areas of town that are most suited to the convention (restaurants/shops within walking distance). Assisting in this area will help the convention chair and administrator identify suitable hotels so RFPs can be submitted to the hotels. The first preference is for a historic hotel if possible. The committee chair will negotiate the contract, and follow up with meal and catering needs.

3. Local History Tour: The committee chair/convention administrator will negotiate the contracts, arrange for transportation and all other work associated with the Historic Tour. The main duty of the local host is to help facilitate the identification of a suitable tour site.(Friday afternoon, departure time from the hotel should be 30 minutes after the end of the Donna Allen Roundtable lunch). Tour should conclude by 5:30-6:00. These times are just guidelines for choosing the locales; the convention administrator will make all of the necessary arrangements once a venue has been selected. As a note, per feedback at previous conventions, Friday night is left open so members can have dinner on their own.

a. Location Requirements: A total of two to three historical sites within a short bus ride of each other make an ideal itinerary. The number of historical sites is usually determined by distance between the venues and the time required for travel to and from. Following the tour members are free to have dinner on their own.

b. Transportation Requirements: Will this be a walking tour or will buses be needed, also what assistance will be needed for those with physical limitations?

4. Saturday Night Gala Dinner (to be held offsite)

a.       Location requirements: A nice restaurant within walking distance of the hotel with a private room that will accommodate approximately 80 people.

b.       Transportation requirements: The restaurant should be no more than a 10-minute walk from the hotel. Also transportation for members requiring assistance needs to be made available. We don’t want to have to use a bus for this meal unless there is sponsorship. Two buses for a group our size is between $1,500 to $2,000 EACH per round trip (even a short trip).

c.       Catering requirements: The restaurant needs to be able to provide a plated full course dinner with salad, main course and sides, dessert, coffee, iced tea, plus a cash bar. The restaurant needs to be able to meet special diet needs as well as gluten free, vegetarian and vegan menu selections. If more than 60 attend there will be a need for a second bartender. Meal cost should total $50.00 per plate not include tax and gratuity. Usually the bartending charge is in addition to the meal charge. Again the actual meal selection will be done by the committee chair/administrator the prices are just a guide (don’t forget tax and tip will add a minimum of 27% -30% to the meal costs).

5. Nominating and securing the Local Journalist awardee.

6. Nominating and securing the Donna Allen Luncheon honoree and speaker.

7. Identifying and arranging the Local Panel that precedes the Thursday Reception.

8. Identifying a local printer for the printing of the conference program.

9. Arranging for the transfer of AJHA’s projectors to the next local host.

Call for AJHA board, VP nominations

Wed, 10 Jul 2019 23:40:32 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association is seeking nominations for three board positions and the office of second vice president.

Board members serve for three years and are expected to attend board meetings at the annual convention. The 2nd VP, under normal circumstances, rises to the presidency in two years, then serves on the board for an additional two years.

A nominee to the Board of Directors or to any of the other Officer positions must have been a member of the AJHA for at least one calendar year immediately preceding the date of the election. No more than one person from an institution can serve on the board at one time.

To make nominations and to vote in an election, an individual must be a member of AJHA. Those who wish to nominate candidates may do so by sending an email with the nominee's name, contact information and affiliation to election and nominations committee chair Nick Hirshon, nickhirshon@gmail.com.

Please confirm the candidate's willingness to serve before sending the nomination to Nick, and if possible, you should send a brief bio of the candidate.

Deadline for nominations is 5 p.m., Aug. 15. Nominations also may be made from the floor.

President's Column: Internationalizing common goals

Wed, 10 Jul 2019 23:21:59 GMT

By Ross F. Collins, president, American Journalism Historians Association

One of AJHA’s long-term goals from its founding in 1981 emphasizes raising awareness of journalism and mass media history as a significant and important field of research within the larger history discipline. In its efforts to showcase the work of American journalism history scholars, AJHA has I think raised scholarly awareness of media history, and certainly has raised the bar for high-quality research. But we are not alone in efforts to do that.

In the last Intelligencer I introduced many of our members to work of our journalism history colleagues in France. Le Temps des Médias, the scholarly research journal of media historians writing in French, has appeared since 2003. According to Christian Delporte, its director, the journal’s founding rests on a goal similar to that of AJHA. In 2000, when the sponsoring Société pour l’histoire des médias (SPHM; Society for Media History) was founded, “the research area was still little recognized in the French academy,” says Delporte. “Even the expression ‘media history’ had not really acquired respectability.”

Despite that, French scholars certainly had produced towering achievements in media history. The five-volume General History of the French Press from the 1970s is an immense reference far beyond anything ever produced for any other country’s journalism that I’m aware of. But since that time I thought media history research in France had seemed to lose some steam. In 1996 Jean-Noël Jeanneney published his one-volume A History of Media from Its Origins to Today. “We were familiar with historians of the press,” said Delporte. “We saw the appearance of historians of television, even of radio. By then the idea of a ‘historian of media’ was no longer surprising, and we were delighted.” But he and other French scholars deplored the absence of university structure or scholarly organization for media history study. “We never met without raising our incantation: ‘Something must be done!’”

Jeanneney brought greater public awareness to French media history study as well-known Radio France director, politician, and from 2002 to 2007 president of the Bibliothèque Nationale (French National Library, equivalent of Library of Congress). In 2000 Delporte, along with prominent French media history scholars Gilles Feyel, Michael Palmer and Hélène Eck, met to formalize a plan. They proposed a group open to media history study of any aspect, economic, cultural, social or political, technical, industrial, and open to researchers of all disciplines, both French and international, who worked to advance interest in scholarship of mass media history. SPHM was born in 2000.

Today, Delporte believes media history study has evolved. “It is no longer identified only as history of the press.” It has extended to questions of media culture and cultural exchange, has reached to studies of image and sound, and has led to exploitation of new archives. In sum, media history has moved to “the heart of the field of contemporary historical study.”

But, Delporte admits, still, universities do not always recognize the vitality of what he calls a young discipline. He credits SPHM still for moving media history into the mainstream.

I have been a member of SPHM since its inception, but I admit I’m still part of a small group of United States mass media scholars who are reaching out internationally. In fact, according to the SPHM directory, in this group we comprise three. One is Jeremy Popkin of the University in Kentucky, the monumental English-language scholar of French revolutionary-era journalism who was a founding member of SPHM. I like to keep good company.

This group did not offer international research conventions until 2016—at which research papers in English were accepted. Despite a Ph.D. in French history, my ability to write French at a scholarly level is pathetic, so I jumped on the opportunity to present in English. The June conference in a Paris suburb turned out to be a delightful occasion to meet with media history scholars from around Europe, and to see how media history has grown from mostly a topic of interest to U.S. scholars to one of general appeal throughout Western culture and beyond. SPHM is on the verge of publishing a book based on this conference, Penser l’histoire des medias (Thinking of Media History, CNRS Editions), in which I have a modest contribution.

Next year SPHM will be meeting in Switzerland. And in case you’re wondering—most of these international scholars can speak English. As unfair as that is, the language of global scholarship has become that annoying Anglo-Saxon tongue.

In welcoming English-language presentations and meeting outside of France SPHM is trying to internationalize its reach, just as AJHA is making efforts to build interest in transnational journalism and international research. We have a lot in common, our efforts to build media history into a central and important historical discipline. You can check out SPHM (English language version available) at http://www.histoiredesmedias.com.

Member News

Wed, 10 Jul 2019 23:09:17 GMT

Arceneaux continues as interim director at SDSU

Noah Arceneaux continues as the interim director for the School of Journalism and Media Studies at San Diego State University for the 2019-2020 academic year.

The university will be conducting a national search for a new director, looking for someone to take over the helm of this ACEJMC-accredited program. An official job posting will appear in the early fall semester.

Hirshon recognized by SPJ for work on campus

Dr. Nicholas Hirshon, assistant professor of communication at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey, received the Society of Professional Journalists' inaugural New Jersey Journalism Educator of the Year Award at a ceremony in June.

The judges cited Hirshon creating an SPJ chapter on his campus, leading a walking tour of historic journalism sites in Philadelphia with his students during a regional SPJ conference last year, and demonstrating "tireless work" to establishing the New Jersey Journalism Hall of Fame at William Paterson.

Shemberger elected faculty regent on university board

Dr. Melony Shemberger, associate professor of journalism and mass communications at Murray State University, was elected to represent the faculty on the university's board of regents.

Shemberger officially began her three-year term on July 1. She defeated four other candidates, including the incumbent.

A former vice president of Murray State's Faculty Senate, Shemberger will be sworn into office in August.

Nominations, applications sought for editor of American Journalism

Thu, 06 Jun 2019 18:15:56 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA) seeks nominations and applications for the editor of American Journalism, the organization’s quarterly refereed journal of media history, established in 1983 and published by Routledge, Taylor & Francis.

The position begins January 1, 2021, with a transfer of some editorial duties in January 2020. The AJHA Board of Directors appoints the editor of American Journalism to a four-year term, subject to annual review and reconfirmation by the Board. Consecutive terms may be held.

The editor receives a stipend of $1,000 per issue.

The editor works with a book review editor, digital media editor, and, if desired, an associate editor. The editor may recruit and appoint editorial staff members. In addition, the editor works with the Editorial Advisory Board, whose duties include continuous development of the journal and selection of the annual “Best American Journalism Article.” The editor organizes and presides over a meeting of the Editorial Advisory Board at the annual AJHA conference.

The editor works with the treasurer and finance officer of AJHA on budget matters, handles all journal correspondence, and prepares an annual report for the AJHA Board and membership. The incoming editor will work with the editorial staff to maintain the journal’s website, which includes additional information, teaching materials, and author interviews. The incoming editor also will work with the editorial staff to share editorial content on social media.

Applicants and nominees must be current members of AJHA. They should be able to write and edit clearly and concisely, and they must understand and appreciate the broad range of literature and methods of the media history field. Preference will be given to tenured applicants who have established reputations as journalism/media history scholars and are affiliated with an institution that can provide support to the editor with consideration to office space, travel, use of equipment, provision of student/staff assistance, and/or course release.

Applications should include a statement indicating a willingness to serve, a curriculum vitae, and a letter of institutional support. Applications or nominations should be sent to the AJHA Publications Committee Chair, Paulette D. Kilmer, at paulette.kilmer@utoledo.edu.

Covert Award recipient for 2019 announced

Mon, 06 May 2019 17:59:49 GMT

Ana Stevenson is the recipient of the 35th Annual Covert Award

The 35th annual Covert Award in Mass Communication History has been won by Ana Stevenson, a postdoctoral research fellow in the International Studies Group at the University of the Free State, South Africa. Stevenson won for “Imagining Women’s Suffrage: Frontier Landscapes and the Transnational Print Culture of Australia, New Zealand, and the United States,” Pacific Historical Review, 87, no. 4 (2018): 638–666.

Stevenson’s article was selected from 18 articles nominated. Her work joins a growing body of literature in both mass communication and history that examines cultural dissemination across national borders; it was impressive to see work that drew from suffrage print cultures of three different countries. Stevenson showed how constructed language advocating for women's suffrage, in particular rhetoric that made ties to geography, the frontier, and settler narratives, was exchanged via transnational connections. Her reporting out of the archives was persuasive, as was her attention to how these narratives advantaged women of European heritage and excluded indigenous peoples.

The award was endowed by the late Catherine Covert, a professor of public communications at Syracuse University and former head of the AEJMC History Division. It goes to the article or chapter in an edited collection that represents the year's best essay in mass communication history.

The Covert Committee includes some longtime members, the current and past heads of the History Division, and previous winners of the award. Committee members this year were Erika Pribanic-Smith, University of Texas at Arlington; Douglas O. Cumming, Washington and Lee University; Richard B. Kielbowicz, University of Washington; Nancy Roberts, State University of New York at Albany; and Sheila Webb, Committee Chair, Western Washington University.

The History Division will present the $500 award to Stevenson at the award celebration at the annual AEJMC convention in Toronto, Aug. 7, 2019.

President's Column: The fake news of Louis XIV

Wed, 20 Mar 2019 22:35:10 GMT

By Ross Collins, North Dakota State University

Louis XIV ruled 72 years. He must have been a king of robust health.

Except that he wasn’t. But people weren’t supposed to know that. The press made sure of that.

Except it didn’t.

Alexis Lévrier of the University of Rheims writes in last spring’s Paris journalism history review, Le Temps des Médias, that the “fake news” of Louis XIV’s good health arose from an effort of the court to exert total control over the three newspapers of Paris. They were expected to celebrate the robust health of Louis from cradle to (nearly) grave: a strong, virile and vigorous king of Europe’s (perhaps) most influential monarchy.

That was a journalistic stretch, Lévrier writes. Louis’ mother, Queen Anne of Austria, gave birth in 1638 at the then advanced maternal age of 37 to a fragile boy who worried doctors. But not the press. At least not in its reporting. So often did Paris read of the “perfect health” of the prince that they actually became suspicious.

Louis overcame the concerning birth. But in celebrating the vaunted vigor of the king the Paris press had to manage some considerable vexes. At age 9 the prince contracted smallpox. The court’s response would set its press management style through many more noisome maladies that would befall the king, from gonorrhea (at age 17), to typhoid (19) to gout (episodic from 47). The approach: Report little of nothing until the king was out of the woods. Then, as in the smallpox case, report a blow-by-blow description including such details as “delirium” and “pustules.”

A graphic account of the king’s misery after his recovery served to celebrate his strength and courage, the “exceptional resistance of his body,” writes Lévrier. This was the king who never faltered, never aged.

But the court’s control of Paris journalism faced a challenge beyond reach: newspapers published outside of France and aimed at French readers.

Particularly Dutch newspapers offered a lively counterpoint to the highly controlled journals of Paris. They read between the lines to presume what really was happening in the court, and were smuggled back to France to offer spirited competition to the official view. But they also were not reliable.

As fake as the news about Louis XIV’s health was in the censored press, it was as often as fake in the foreign press, writes Lévier. By the early 1700s the king was Methuselah by era standards, and the foreign papers proclaimed his demise so often that the they became as sensationally unreliable as the court-controlled press. In August 1715 gangrene appeared on the king’s left leg. It was two weeks before the doctors realized it may not be sciatica after all.

The Paris journalists maintained silence. The foreign papers could not scour out any real news but, because the king had become Europe’s greatest celebrity, responded by latching onto to whatever rumor could be caught or contrived. The king actually did die Sept. 1, 1715.

The court’s control over the king’s health news kept his subjects in the dark until the end. But in the long run it was bad policy. “Notably it fed almost to absurdity a vicious circle impossible to stop,” Lévier notes, as it encouraged fake news from the foreign press, leading the crown to stack lie on further exaggerated lie regarding the king’s illnesses.

Why am I telling you this story? Well, aren’t we all still interested in King Louie? It’s only been three centuries, after all.

More germane, it pulls from a large body of international journalism history research that we in AJHA almost never hear about. Our sister group in Paris, the Society for the History of Media, publishes this journal. While the language barrier is a challenge, I think we can do more to internationalize our discipline. I hope we can find ways to strengthen our global reach, and intend to consider ideas in future columns.

Member News

Wed, 20 Mar 2019 21:23:21 GMT

Will Mari, assistant professor in the department of communication at Northwest University, had his book, A Short History of Disruptive Journalism Technologies 1960-1990, published in February 2019 by Routledge as part of its "Disruptions" series. The book covers the history of the computer in U.S. newsrooms during the latter Cold War. It is the first such media-history account of newsroom computerization.

For more information: https://www.routledge.com/A-Short-History-of-Disruptive-Journalism-Technologies-1850-to-2000/Mari/p/book/9780815367918

Erika Pribanic-Smith, associate professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Arlington, is the co-author (with law scholar Jared Schroeder) of Emma Goldman’s No-Conscription League and the First Amendment published in late 2018 by Routledge. This book analyzes the communications that led to Goldman's arrest — writings in Mother Earth, a mass-mailed manifesto, and speeches related to compulsory military service during World War I — as well as the ensuing legal proceedings and media coverage. The authors place Goldman’s Supreme Court appeal in the context of the more famous Schenck and Abrams trials to demonstrate her place in First Amendment history, while providing insight into wartime censorship and the attitude of the mainstream press toward radical speech.

For more information: https://www.routledge.com/Emma-Goldmans-No-Conscription-League-and-the-First-Amendment-1st-Edition/Pribanic-Smith-Schroeder/p/book/9781138493476

Editor's note: Please recommend books written by AJHA members to your libraries for purchase.

Teaching Tip: Incorporating John Milton in the Modern Media Law Curriculum

Wed, 20 Mar 2019 21:13:43 GMT

By Rebecca Taylor, Siena College

It was 375 years ago that John Milton penned what would become the oft-cited essay against censorship by royal decree, Areopagitica: A speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, to the Parliament of England. Published in 1644, the text is arguably a sophisticated reading assignment for undergraduate journalism students to interpret.

But Milton’s arguments against government suppression of the press can be used in the undergraduate journalism classroom, to analyze contemporary cases in modern media, and to enhance the student’s understanding of First Amendment protections.

As a professor who teaches communications law at a small liberal arts college, students generally grimace when I assign Areopagitica, which is often one of the first required texts in my media law seminar.

The importance of the assignment is not just to digest the complex text, but to underscore its application to contemporary cases involving the First Amendment, and more specifically prior restraint. Prior restraint is pre-publication censorship, and generally held to be unconstitutional.

To underscore the applicability of Milton’s essay, I pair the reading with a contemporary case. In one of my classes, we used Milton’s arguments to analyze President Donald Trump’s efforts to stop the publication of the book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump Whitehouse, amid his claims that the book contained defamatory content. Another semester, we applied Milton’s arguments to examine efforts to prohibit a controversial website from providing detailed instructions to print and assemble a gun using a 3-D printer, a case that was pending in federal court.

Students are required to argue all of the relevant arguments from Areopagitica they can identify to the facts of the contemporary case – that truth will prevail, that censorship is insulting and paternalistic, and that legitimizing censorship in one form would inevitably lead society down a slippery slope, permitting government to sanction other forms of self-expression. And while it is important to note that critics have sharply criticized Milton for his limited view of freedom of the press, the merits of some of the arguments against prior restraint maintain relevance today.

I should note I provide a link to an annotated version of Areopagitica, which students find immensely helpful in understanding the text. Some students tell me they’ve elected to read Areopagitica aloud in pairs to better dissect its meaning.

Not only am I impressed with their performance, but the students also express genuine pride in demystifying such a famous, yet complex, text.

Moreover, I find students are better able to digest the reasoning of the U.S. Supreme Court in Near v. Minnesota, the landmark case that held a presumption of unconstitutionality in acts of prior restraint. Having tackled a 17th century essay on censorship, they exhibit greater confidence when examining United States Supreme Court decisions. Clearly, the Court’s legal language can be sophisticated, but in general, not so challenging as 1644 Milton. And the historical document’s relevance to contemporary cases in journalism law and ethics can make for an engaging class assignment.

Rebecca Taylor, J.D., is director of the Journalism program at Siena College in New York, where she teaches reporting and communication law.

Students' Insights: 2019 AJHA Southeast Symposium a Resounding Success

Wed, 20 Mar 2019 19:44:38 GMT

By Jordan Stenger, Augusta University

Undergraduate and graduate students from universities in Alabama, Florida and Georgia presented their research at the American Journalism Historians Association’s Southeast Symposium in Panama City Beach, Fla., on Feb. 1 and 2.

The Symposium kicked off on Friday, Feb. 1, with Leonard Teel’s talk on his book, Reporting the Cuban Revolution: How Castro Manipulated American Journalists. Teel recounted how he found his topic from a short newspaper topic and answered questions from students about the research and writing process.

On Saturday, 21 students, many of whom were first-time presenters, shared their research and answered questions from the other Symposium attendees. Students said they found the Symposium to be a friendly and supportive conference setting, especially for beginners.

Alex Sigars, a senior at Augusta University, was the first to present on Saturday.

“I found the experience eye opening,” Sigars said. “It revealed to me the great diversity of journalism history research and the implications it can have on us today as a society.”

Another undergraduate student from Augusta University, Alexis Parr, also found the experience to be rewarding.

“The Panama City Research trip gave me the college experience that I’ve always wanted,” Parr said. “I loved getting to know my peers better while also improving my resume.”

After a long day of presentations, conference co-coordinator Dianne Bragg from The University of Alabama presented awards for the best graduate and undergraduate papers.

Mackenzie Bryan, an undergraduate student from the University of Florida, won first place for his paper, “How the Media Shaped the Political and Racial Narratives of the Louis vs. Schmeling Rematch.”

“Winning first place was a huge honor,” Bryan said. “It’s the academic achievement that I’m most proud of, and I have to thank my professor, Dr. Bernell Tripp, for her guidance, her encouragement, and for simply believing in me and my writing.”

Sigars, who won third place for her paper in the undergraduate division, said regarding her experience at the conference, “The tools I gained from going to this conference I will most assuredly continue to use in the future."

Here is the complete list of paper award winners:

Undergraduate Student Paper Winners

1. How the Media Shaped the Political and Racial Narratives of the Louis vs. Schmeling Rematch — Mackenzie Bryan, University of Florida.

2. The Augusta Chronicle’s Coverage of the Seminole Wars: How it Changed Over Time — Jordan Stenger, Augusta University.

3. Progressive Era Georgia Suffrage Journalists Enforce and Utilize Social Contract Theory — Alex Sigers, Augusta University.

Graduate Student Paper Winners

1. Can A Flapper Be A Wife? A 1920s Marriage Editor Asks — Serena Bailey, University of Alabama.

2. Sexist Sports Coverage and Commentary in The Times-Picayune (1891-1994): A Longitudinal Qualitative Analysis — Nicole Morales, Universiy of Alabama.

3. Incident or Massacre: Race, Riot, and Representation in The Palmetto State — Tanya Ott-Fulmore, University of Alabama.

Call for nominations for American Journalism editor

Wed, 20 Mar 2019 19:39:57 GMT

The deadline for applications is Sept. 1, 2019.

The position begins Jan. 1, 2021, with a transfer of some editorial duties in January 2020.

The AJHA Board of Directors appoints the editor of American Journalism to a four-year term, subject to annual review and reconfirmation by the Board. Consecutive terms may be held.

The editor receives a stipend of $1,000 per issue.

The editor works with a book review editor, digital media editor, and, if desired, an associate editor. The editor may recruit and appoint editorial staff members. In addition, the editor works with the Editorial Advisory Board, whose duties include continuous development of the journal and selection of the annual “Best American Journalism Article.” The editor organizes and presides over a meeting of the Editorial Advisory Board at the annual AJHA conference.

Applications should include a statement indicating a willingness to serve, a curriculum vitae, and a letter of institutional support. Applications or nominations should be sent to the AJHA Publications Committee Chair Paulette D. Kilmer at paulette.kilmer@utoledo.edu.

Call for papers, panels, research-in-progress for 2019 AJHA convention

Wed, 20 Mar 2019 19:20:32 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association invites paper entries, panel proposals, and abstracts of research in progress on any facet of media history for its 38th annual convention to be held Oct. 3-5 in Dallas, Texas.

The deadline for all submissions is June 1, 2019.

More information on the 2019 AJHA convention is available at https://ajha.wildapricot.org.

The AJHA views journalism history broadly, embracing print, broadcasting, advertising, public relations, and other forms of mass communication that have been inextricably intertwined with the human past. Because the AJHA requires presentation of original material, research papers, research in progress, and panels submitted to the convention may not have been submitted to or accepted by another convention or publication.

Research submitted for the conference must be significantly different from previous work, meaning the submitted research would represent new archival research, interviews, or content analysis that has not been presented before at a conference and represents a new departure from prior presented or published work. Research that previously was presented as a research-in-progress presentation at an AJHA convention or the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference, however, may be submitted as a research paper. Each author may submit at most one paper, one research in progress, and one panel.

RESEARCH PAPERS

Authors may submit only one research paper. They also may submit one research-in-progress abstract and one panel proposal on a significantly different topic than the paper. Research entries must be no longer than 25 pages of text, double-spaced, in 12-point type, not including notes. The Chicago Manual of Style is recommended but not required.

Papers must be submitted electronically as Word attachments. Please send the following:

 An email with the attached paper, saved with author identification only in the file name and not in the paper.

 A separate 150-word abstract as a Word attachment (no PDFs) with no author identification.

 Author’s info (email address, telephone number, institutional affiliation, and undergraduate student, graduate student, or faculty status) in the text of the email.

Send papers to ajhapaper@gmail.com. Authors will be notified in mid-July whether their papers have been accepted.

Authors of accepted papers must register for the convention and attend to present their research.

Accepted papers are eligible for several awards, including the following:

David Sloan Award for the outstanding faculty research paper ($250 prize).
Robert Lance Award for outstanding student research paper ($100 prize).
Jean Palmegiano Award for outstanding international/transnational journalism history research paper ($150 prize).
J. William Snorgrass Award for outstanding minority-journalism research paper.
Maurine Beasley Award for outstanding women’s-history research paper.
Wally Eberhard Award for outstanding research in media and war ($50 prize).

Research Committee Chair Erin Coyle (ekcoyle@lsu.edu) of Louisiana State University is coordinating paper submissions. Authors will be notified in mid-July whether their papers have been accepted.

PANELS

Preference will be given to proposals that involve the audience and panelists in meaningful discussion or debate on original topics relevant to journalism history.

Preference also will be given to panels that present diverse perspectives on their topics.

Entries must be no longer than three pages of text, double-spaced, in 12-point type, with one-inch margins. Panel participants must register for and attend the convention.

Panel proposals must be submitted electronically as Word attachments. Please include the following:

 A title and brief description of the topic.

 The moderator and participants’ info (name, institutional affiliation, student or faculty status).

 A brief summary of each participant’s presentation.

Send proposals to ajhapanels@gmail.com.

No individual may be on more than one panel. Panel organizers must make sure panelists have not agreed to serve on multiple panels. Panel organizers also must secure commitment from panelists to participate before submitting the proposal.

Moderators are discussion facilitators and may not serve as panelists. Failure to adhere to the guidelines will lead to rejection of the proposal.

Panelists may submit a research paper and/or research in progress abstract.

Rob Wells (rswells@uark.edu) of the University of Arkansas is coordinating the panel competition. Authors of panel proposals will be notified in mid-July whether their panels have been accepted. Panelists must register for the convention and attend.

RESEARCH IN PROGRESS

Each author may submit only one research in progress. The research-in-progress category is for work that will NOT be completed before the conference. Research in progress must be significantly different from previously presented or published research.

Participants will give an overview of their research purpose and progress, not a paper presentation, as the category’s purpose is to allow for discussion and feedback on work in progress. RIP authors may also submit a research paper on a significantly different topic.

For research-in-progress submissions, send a blind abstract of your study. Include the proposal title in the abstract. The abstract should include a clear purpose statement as well as a brief description of your primary sources. Abstracts must be no longer than two pages of text, double-spaced, in 12-point type, with 1-inch margins, excluding notes.

Primary sources should be described in detail in another double-spaced page.

Entries that do not follow these guidelines will be rejected.

The AJHA research-in-progress competition is administered electronically.

 Proposals must be submitted as Word attachments, saved with author identification ONLY in the file names and NOT in the text of the proposal.

 Each proposal must be submitted as an attachment, with author’s info (name, project title, telephone number, email address, institutional affiliation, and student or faculty status) in the text of the email.

Send research in progress proposals to ajharip@gmail.com. Authors will be notified in mid-July whether their proposals have been accepted. Authors of accepted proposals must register for the convention and attend.

Authors whose work is accepted must register for and attend the convention.

Keith Greenwood (greenwoodk@missouri.edu) of University of Missouri is coordinating the research in progress competition.

Center for Intercultural Dialogue announces video contest

Fri, 15 Mar 2019 03:58:46 GMT

The Center for Intercultural Dialogue announces its second annual video competition, open to students enrolled in any college or university during spring 2019.

Intercultural dialogue (ICD) is “the art and science of understanding the Other.” ICD can include international, interracial, interethnic and interfaith interactions, but it is always active (“a matter of what someone does”) rather than passive (“a matter of what someone knows”). Typically, people assume that ICD requires face-to-face interaction. This competition asks: “How do social media influence intercultural dialogue?” Entries must be between 30 seconds to 2 minutes in length and will be accepted May 1-31, 2019, at the URL to be posted to the CID website by May 1. Longer videos will be disqualified.

You are invited to discuss intercultural dialogue in a class, perhaps showing winning entries from 2018, and to suggest students produce videos as their responses. Please encourage students to be creative, show off their knowledge and skills, and have fun with this topic.

The top award winner will receive a $200 prize. All award-winning entries will be posted to the CID YouTube channel and highlighted on the CID website, LinkedIn group, Facebook group,and Twitter feed, through posts describing the creators and highlighting each of their videos. Perhaps most important to student learning, all entries will be sent comments from the judges. Winning entries last year came from not only the USA, but also Italy, the UK, and Peru.

For more information, visit https://centerforinterculturaldialogue.org.

Contact Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, CID director, with any questions at intercult.dialogue@gmail.com.

Graduate testimonial

Fri, 15 Mar 2019 03:46:57 GMT

By Natascha Toft Roelsgaard, Ohio University

Back in 2006, I spent nearly four weeks driving through the southern states with my family. From the back of a rental van, I took in the view of the open plains and tattered shotgun houses that Hurricane Katrina had ripped apart, as we drove through Louisiana toward Mississippi. To say that I was overwhelmed by what I saw would be a complete understatement. For a teenage kid coming from Denmark, a small Scandinavian country who invented the concept of “hygge” to sustain the long and dark winter months, natural disasters were something that belonged on TV, not in real life.

As we witnessed the aftermath of the hurricane, I recall being captivated by the journalists who went out of their way to report on the people that Katrina had left behind, who were now facing displacement and poverty. I realized then the importance of journalism as a means for these people to tell their stories and voice their concerns; that the work and grits of these reporters were essential in telling the rest of the world what was going on. It took me nearly ten years, and a rather windy road, to realize that I wanted to be a journalist myself, and that I too wanted to tell the stories often untold. It hit me the first time I walked into Mike Sweeney’s office, who had by chance—and to my luck—been assigned as my academic adviser when I came to Ohio University for an exchange semester in 2015. There he was, amongst stacks of papers, books, and colorful oil paintings, leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed, telling me about his life as a journalist and historian. Sweeney’s passion and guidance steered me toward a master’s degree in journalism. It has been more than three years since I first walked into his office, and I am now in my first year of pursuing a doctoral degree in journalism at E.W. Scripps. His mentorship and guidance—including his wicked Trivia knowledge—has been a source of inspiration and motivation for me to get where I am today. He was also the one who encouraged me to submit my work to AJHA.

When I attended AJHA in Salt Lake City this fall, I was amazed by the kindness and camaraderie I encountered there. I had been told ahead of time that the organization would be extremely welcoming and that it was more like an academic family than a formal conference, and oh how true it was! Being amongst a group of fellow historians, whose work I have been admiring for years (Maurine Beasley!), watching them do their magic and share my work with them was both intimidating and humbling, but most of all, extremely uplifting.

AJHA is a wonderful opportunity for graduate students to interact with historians from all across the country. It is without a doubt intimidating to present your work in front of your academic heroes, but their willingness to share their experience and research was overwhelming. The support and advice I received after presenting my work at the conference is invaluable to my further studies, and it has allowed me not only to broaden my research scope, but furthermore opened doors for potential collaboration with fellow historians in the future.

I left the conference feeling inspired and supported by my newfound academic pack, and I cannot wait to go back and see everyone again.

Call for proposals: AJHA Joseph McKerns Research Grant Awards

Fri, 15 Mar 2019 03:16:59 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association seeks applications for its annual Joseph McKerns Research Grant Awards.

The research grant is intended to provide research assistance and to recognize and reward the winners. Up to four grants for up to $1,250 each will be rewarded upon review and recommendation of the Research Grant Committee. McKerns Research Grant Awards may be used for travel or other research related expenses, but not for salary.  Awardees must submit a brief article to the Intelligencer newsletter about their completed research by Sept. 1, 2019, discussing method, findings, complications, significance.

Eligibility

All current AJHA full members with a minimum of three years' membership at the time of application are eligible. The research must be related to mass media history. Awardees are expected to continue their membership through the grant period. Members may apply for a McKerns Research Grant once every five years.

Application requirements:

— An application form.

— A 1- to 3-page prospectus/overview of the project, including a budget (which should include a listing of amount and sources of other support, if appropriate), timelines, and expected outlets for the research.

— If appropriate, include Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval from the applicant's university.

— A shortened curriculum vitae (no more than 3 pages). Grant applications must be submitted via email to Research Grant Committee Chair Erin Coyle at ekcoyle@lsu.edu. Materials may be submitted as PDF files or Word documents by June 1, 2019.

Proposal

Please complete this form and send it with electronic versions of your vita and proposal by June 1, 2019, to the email address below.

Proposal Title:

Name:

Title:

Address:

Phone: (home) (cell)

Email:

Number of years as AJHA member:

Year of any previous AJHA grant:

Name, title and address of college/university official to notify if you receive a grant:

For questions regarding the grant application or process, contact Erin Coyle, AJHA Research Grant Committee Chair, via email at ekcoyle@lsu.edu.

By June 1, 2019, send the form, your proposal, vitae, and any other pertinent documents as email attachments to ekcoyle@lsu.edu.

The AJHA Research Grant Award is designed to provide research assistance to qualified members. Up to four grants for up to $1,250 each will be awarded each year.

All current AJHA full members with a minimum of three years' membership at the time of application are eligible. The applicant must be the principal investigator of the research project. The research project must be related to mass media history. Awardees are expected to continue their membership through the grant period.

Proposals may be returned to applicants with requests for additional information.

DEADLINE: June 1, 2019

AEJMC History Division announces Covert Award call

Sat, 09 Feb 2019 21:59:26 GMT

AEJMC’s History Division announces the 35th annual competition for the Covert Award in Mass Communication History.

The $500 award will be presented to the author of the best mass communication history article or essay published in 2018. Book chapters in edited collections also may be submitted.

The award was endowed by the late Catherine L. Covert, professor of public communications at Syracuse University and former head of the History Division.

An electronic copy in .pdf form of the published article/essay/chapter should be submitted via email to Dr. Sheila Webb, sheila.webb@wwu.edu, by March 1, 2019. The publication may be self-submitted or submitted by others, such as an editor or colleague.

AJHA Journalism History Achievement Awards

Sat, 12 Jan 2019 21:27:58 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association invites nominations for two awards honoring significant service to the study and understanding of media history.

Kobre Award

The Sidney Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism History is the organization's highest honor. The Kobre Award recognizes individuals with an exemplary record of sustained achievement through teaching, research, professional activities, or other contributions to the field of journalism history. Award winners need not be members of the AJHA. Nominations for the award are solicited annually, but the award need not be given every year. Those making nominations should present, at minimum, a cover letter that explains the nominee's contributions to the field and a vita or brief biography of the nominee. Supporting letters for the nomination are welcome and encouraged. For a list of past winners, see https://ajha.wildapricot.org/kobre.

Distinguished Service to Journalism History Award

The Distinguished Service to Journalism History Award recognizes contributions by an individual outside our discipline who has made an extraordinary effort to further significantly our understanding of, or our ability to explore, media history. Nominations are solicited annually, but the award is given only in exceptional situations. Thus, it is not awarded every year. Those making nominations for the award should present, at minimum, a cover letter that explains the nominee's contributions to the field and a vita or brief biography of the nominee. Supporting letters for the nomination are welcome and encouraged.

Deadline: The deadline for submitting nominating materials for both awards is May 15, 2019.

Submissions: Electronic submissions are preferred via email to Tom Mascaro, Professor, Bowling Green State University, mascaro@bgsu.edu.

Alternatively, postal submissions may be sent to the following address: Tom Mascaro, AJHA Service Awards Chair, 33905 LaMoyne St., Livonia, MI 48154.

Deadline extended for Media & Civil Rights History Symposium proposals, award entries

Wed, 19 Dec 2018 18:35:01 GMT

The deadline has been extended until Monday, Jan. 7, 2019, to submit proposals to the Media & Civil Rights History Symposium.

The School of Journalism and Mass Communications of the University of South Carolina in Columbia will host the biennial symposium, scheduled for March 8-9, 2019.

The event welcomes scholars from various disciplines and approaches that address the vital relationship between civil rights and public communication from local/national/transnational contexts, perspectives and periods. The symposium will take place in conjunction with the AEJMC Southeast Colloquium.

Paper abstracts (up to 500 words) and panel sessions (up to 1,000 words) are being accepted on all aspects of the historical relationship between media and civil rights.

Abstracts for papers and research-in-progress must include a title, brief description of the research, and some primary sources.

Panel proposals must include a title, brief description of the panel and panelists.

For more information, visit http://bit.ly/uofsc-sjmc-mcrhs or contact Dr. Kenneth Campbell, director, Media & Civil Rights History Symposium, at kcampbell@sc.edu.

In addition, the call to submit entries for the Farrar Award in Media & Civil Rights History has been extended to Jan. 7.

The award recognizes the best journal article or chapter in an edited collection on the historical relationship between the media and civil rights.

Submitted articles or chapters should be works of historical scholarship and must have been published in 2017 or 2018. Submissions that address the media and civil rights from a range of local/national/transnational contexts, periods, and perspectives are encouraged.

Scholars may nominate and submit their own work or the work of others. A national panel of experts will judge the contest.

The recipient of the award will receive a plaque and $1,000 and must present the scholarship in a featured address at the Media & Civil Rights History Symposium in March.

Email PDF of submission by Jan. 7, 2019, to the following:

Dr. Kenneth Campbell, Chair
2019 Farrar Award in Media & Civil Rights History
School of Journalism and Mass Communications
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208
Email: kcampbell@sc.edu

Journalism History podcast now live

Mon, 10 Dec 2018 22:37:37 GMT

The new Journalism History podcast launched by Teri Finneman (Kansas), Nick Hirshon (William Paterson) and Will Mari (Northwest) is now live with several episodes available. The team encourages you to incorporate episodes into your spring syllabi as homework assignments for students.

Episodes are available on iTunes, the purple Podcasts app on iPhones and at this website: https://journalismhistorypodcast.podbean.com/

We are looking for episode sponsors for our spring semester shows. Cost is $25. Authors can promote their books or universities can promote their programs.

Questions? Email Teri at finnemte@gmail.com.

Symposium helps to launch new digital Roy W. Howard Archive at IU

Mon, 10 Dec 2018 22:35:30 GMT

By Gerry Lanosga, Indiana University

Scholars from around the country and even as far away as Germany came to Indiana University’s Media School in October for a symposium to mark the launch of IU’s new digital Roy W. Howard Archive.

Howard was an influential journalist who rose to run the United Press and the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain during the first half of the twentieth century.

IU has been home to an extensive collection of his papers since 1983, when his family donated them to the university. Last year, the family and the Scripps Howard Foundation provided funding to make the collection even more accessible. The grant allowed The Media School to hire a team to catalog and digitize more than 14,000 letters, photos, business records and other items in the archive.

The materials are now online in a free, searchable archive that covers Howard’s life and career from 1892 to 1960.

In the more than three decades before the collection was digitized, a number of historians visited IU to work in the physical archive, and several of those scholars returned to Bloomington to participate in the symposium. They included Gene Allen of Ryerson University, who studies the history of news services such as United Press, and Kirsten Bönker of Bielefeld University in Germany, who used the Howard materials in her studies of Cold War history.

The Howard archive contains correspondence between the publisher and numerous prominent figures, including U.S. presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and Philippine President Manuel Quezon. The enhanced searchability of the online archive opens up new horizons for researchers, who can now run keyword searches and discover specific documents in a way that wasn’t possible before. That advantage of digital archives was among the issues discussed by a panel of archivists during the symposium, and attendees also heard from scholars doing preliminary research in the new digital collection. Melony Shemberger from Murray State University (editor of the AJHA Intelligencer), for instance, spoke about her discovery of correspondence from Roy Howard in 1914 discussing a new strategy for getting news of World War I home to readers in the United States.

The goal of the Howard family in funding the digitization project was to give Roy Howard’s papers greater visibility. To that end, the archive is available to the public as well as scholars.

Journalist and author James Neff opened the symposium with a keynote talk focused on the value of archives for journalists. Neff, deputy managing editor of Philadelphia Media Network, has written five nonfiction books based to varying degrees on archival research.

The Roy W. Howard archive can be accessed for free at this link: http://mediaschool.indiana.edu/royhowardarchive/

Call for proposals: 4th annual Transnational Journalism History conference

Mon, 10 Dec 2018 22:33:16 GMT

The Center for Media and Journalism Studies at the University of Groningen will host the fourth annual conference on Transnational Journalism History.

The conference, which will be June 20 and 21, 2019, is seeking papers that study historical transformations in journalism from a transnational perspective.

Papers are welcome that discuss theoretical or methodological issues as well as empirical case studies from all parts of the world. Specifically, the conference organizers are seeking work that considers:

the transfer of norms, practices and textual conventions from one country/region to another and their consecutive adaptation in national contexts.
transnational networks of actors.
biographical studies of transnational agents such as journalists or publishers.
the transnational coverage of particular news stories.
transnational audiences.
the impact of (emerging) technologies on transnational journalism.
different media such as television, radio, newspapers or magazines, and the intersection between them.

Abstracts (maximum of 500 words for research-in-progress), full papers (for completed projects) and panel proposals (max. 4 papers; 400 words panel description & 150-word abstract of each paper) should be submitted via journalismconferences@rug.nl by March 1, 2019. (Please note the deadline has been extended from the original call for papers because the conference dates are later than usual). Submissions will be blind reviewed.

Organizers are looking for submissions that might also be considered for publication in a new book, the Companion to Transnational Journalism History. The first book from the earlier conferences is presently under review at Syracuse University Press.

For those unfamiliar with transnational journalism history, it acknowledges that media and other cultural forms are produced and exchanged across borders. It focuses on the interactions between agents, ideas, innovations, norms and social and cultural practices, and their consecutive incorporation and adaptation into national frameworks. By moving back and forth between the national and transnational level, the connective and dialectic nature of these movements is emphasized. It thus treats the nation as only one phenomenon among a range of others, instead of being the primary frame for analysis.

This opens new venues for research because journalism history, which has been institutionally and topically confined primarily to national boundaries. Transnational journalism history critically interrogates national paradigms and provides new ways forward.

This year’s conference will take place on June 20-21 at the Centre for Media and Journalism Studies in Groningen, The Netherlands. Conference fee is € 75 (incl. lunches and conference dinner). Keynote speakers will be announced in the next months.

Questions may be addressed to Marcel Broersma or Frank Harbers via journalismconferences@rug.nl, Debbie van Tuyll (dvantuyl@augusta.edu) or Mark O’Brien (mark.obrien@dcu.ie).

This conference is sponsored by the Centre for Media and Journalism Studies at the University of Groningen, and the journalism and mass communication programs at Dublin City University, Augusta University and Concordia University.

CFP: 2019 Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference

Dane Claussen — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 22:05:04 GMT

The Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference (JJCHC),
co-sponsored by the American Journalism Historians Association and the
History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass
Communication, is now accepting submissions for the 2019 conference.

This one-day interdisciplinary conference welcomes scholars and graduate students with an interest in journalism or communication history. Innovative research and ideas from all areas of journalism and communication history and from all time periods are welcome. This conference offers participants the chance to explore new ideas, garner feedback on their work, and meet colleagues from around the world interested in journalism and communication history in a welcoming environment. Graduate students are encouraged to apply.

When: Saturday, March 9, 2019, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Where: Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, New York University 20 Cooper Square, 6th Floor, New York, NY

Cost: $55 online by Feb. 23, 2019; $65 regular registration (includes
continental breakfast and lunch)

Research, research-in-progress, and panel proposals are all welcome. Your proposal should include a 500-word abstract detailing your presentation topic and a compelling rationale as to why your research would interest an interdisciplinary community of scholars. Participants are limited to a single submission per category.

This year, JJCHC is returning to a new scholarly working group concept
called “Up to Ten in a Den.” These round-table meetings are designed to
foster intimate conversation among peers working with similar theories,
ideas, or methods, or in related subject areas. Scholars are encouraged to
propose meetings of any time length during the conference day with up to ten participants.

The deadline for submissions is January 5, 2019. Proposals must be submitted via Easy Chair at: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=jjchc2019.

For more information, contact conference research co-coordinators Brian
Creech at brian.creech@temple.edu or Pamela E. Walck at walckp@duq.edu

Follow us!: Twitter: @JJCHCNYC

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jjchcnyc/

Hashtag: #JJCHCNYC

Find us on the web (including past years’ programs):
http://journalismhistorians.org

Mark your calendar:

Meeting Dates: March 9, 2019, 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Submission Deadline: January 4, 2019

Acceptance Notice: February 2, 2019
Nick Hirshon and Pam Walck
Conference Chairs
JJCHC 2018

AJHA Elects New Officers and Board Members

Dane Claussen — Tue, 23 Oct 2018 17:42:47 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association elected a new second vice president and three new board members during its 37th Annual Convention in Salt Lake City, Utah. Dr. Aimee Edmondson of Ohio University will serve as second vice president during 2018-19, beginning a three-year tenure which will culminate in her serving as the organization’s president in 2020-21.

Elected to the board were Dr. Gerry Lanosga from Indiana University; Dr. Will Tubbs from the University of West Florida; and Dr. Ken Ward from Lamar University. Noting that she would be president of AJHA when its annual convention comes to Columbus, Ohio, in 2020, Edmondson said she was “eager to help continue the important work of the AJHA, especially in advocating for the teaching of media history in our journalism and communications schools.”

“The work of the AJHA is more important than ever given that our profession has been under such heavy fire from this White House,” Edmondson said. “As media scholars, we must continue to educate our students and the public about the important role of the press throughout our history.”

AJHA’s new president is Dr. Ross Collins from North Dakota State University, who was initially elected to serve as second vice president in 2016 and served as first vice president from October 2017- October 2018. Dr. Donna Lampkin Stephens from the University of Central Arkansas now serves as first vice president. The new administrative secretary is Dr. Erika Pribanic-Smith from the University of Texas-Arlington, and Dr. Carolyn Edy from Appalachian State University continues as treasurer.

AJHA Announces Top Papers from National Conference

Dane Claussen — Sat, 20 Oct 2018 01:00:00 GMT

Scholars representing universities from across North America were recognized for their work on research papers at the American Journalism Historians Association’s annual convention in Salt Lake City, Utah, earlier this month.

Gwyneth Mellinger of James Madison University won the Wm. David Sloan Award for Outstanding Faculty Paper for “The AP and the Negro Identifier: An Ideological Battle for Journalistic Standards.” The runners-up in that category were Patrick S. Washburn and Michael S. Sweeney of Ohio University for “Francis Biddle and the Jennings Case in 1934-35: A Freedom of the Press Complaint that Sucked in Franklin D. Roosevelt, William Randolph Hearst, and Heywood Broun” and Debra van Tuyll of Augusta University for “The Transnational Paradigm as a Method of Analyzing Early Colonial American Journalism.”

The Robert Lance Memorial Award for Outstanding Student Paper went to Natascha Roelsgaard of Ohio University for “‘Let Our Voices Speak Loud and Clear’: Daisy Bates’ Leadership in Civil Rights and Black Press History.” The student paper runners-up were Bailey Dick of Ohio University for “‘We Females Have to be Contented with the Tales of Adventures’: Gender Conformity in Dorothy Day’s Early Reporting” and Sara Browning of the University of Maryland for “Answering the Chinese Question: Print Media’s Responses to 19th-Century Immigration.”

Roelsgaard also won the Maurine Beasley Award for the Outstanding Paper on Women’s History. Runners-up in that category were Dick as well as Pete Smith of Mississippi State University for his paper, “‘Raising Unshirted Hell’: The Journalism of Norma Fields, State Capitol Correspondent for the Northeast (MS) Daily Journal.”

Mellinger also earned the J. William Snorgrass Memorial Award for the Outstanding Paper on a Minorities Topic. The runners-up in that category were Browning as well as Linda Lumsden of the University of Arizona for her paper, “Don Sotaco Finds His Voice: Visual Rhetoric and Farm Worker Identity in El Malcriado, 1964-1967.”

Washburn and Sweeney took home the Wally Eberhard Award for the Outstanding Paper on Media and War. The runners-up in that category were Wayne State University’s Michael Fuhlhage, Tabitha Cassidy, Erika Thrubis, Darryl Frazier, Scott Burgess, and Keena Neal for “Spinning toward Secession: The Interplay of Editorial Bellicosity and Exchange News in the Press before the American Civil War” and Harlen Makemson of Elon University for “From Gibson Girl to Gibson Goddess: The World War II Illustrations of Charles Dana Gibson in Life Magazine.”

The Jean Palmegiano Award for the Outstanding Research Paper on International/Transnational Journalism went to van Tuyll.

http://grady.uga.edu/remembering-wally-eberhard/

Dane Claussen — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 21:22:43 GMT

On the Trail of a Journalist Turned Peacekeeper

Dane Claussen — Wed, 03 Oct 2018 22:11:43 GMT

(Editor's Note: The paper, "Barry H. Gottehrer and a 'City in Crisis,'" was presented at the AJHA convention in Little Rock, Ark., in October 2017. Earlier this year, The Intelligencer asked its author to share with us how he got interested in this topic, why it's interesting and important, and what else about it his fellow historians might want to know.)

By Raymond McCaffrey

While working on a history project that involved a look at the interplay of sports and media in New York City at the end of the turbulent 1960s, I kept encountering a somewhat mysterious figure at the periphery of key events.

There he was in February 1968, as protestors stormed Madison Square Garden in an attempt to prevent athletes from competing in the 100th edition of a track meet sponsored by the restrictive New York Athletic Club, a protest staged by those who would organize demonstrations at the Olympic Games later that year in Mexico City. There he was months later, in April 1968, behind the scenes as the city's mayor, John Lindsay, tried to keep the peace on the streets of Harlem in the hours immediately after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis. He became involved with events such as the student protests at Columbia University in 1968; the demonstrations that erupted in 1969 after police raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village and prompted a backlash that has been heralded as the birth of the gay-rights movement, and the so-called “Hard Hat Riot” in 1970, when construction workers clashed with anti-war protestors in lower Manhattan.

Whenever I looked at a major event in New York City during this era, I generally found this figure about whom I knew virtually nothing: Barry H. Gottehrer.

So began a research project within a research project, one in which a peripheral character became the subject of a stand-alone paper. For it turned out that Gottehrer, who was commonly identified as a special assistant to the mayor, had emanated from the world of journalism. Moreover, Gottehrer had been a journalist of considerable note – he had won a prestigious George Polk Award for his work on a major investigative series that did a deep-dive into the troubles facing New York City in the 1960s, and ended up ousting the sitting mayor. Gottehrer eventually went to work for the new mayor, Lindsay, not as press officer, but as the coordinator of a task force that attempted to quell civic unrest and violence.

Researching the background of such an obscure yet important figure proved challenging. I did not find a wealth of primary-source material waiting. Gottehrer boldly emerged on the scene in the mid-1960s and disappeared into the shadows just as quickly as he appeared. The paper trail revealed that he had gone from the Columbia Journalism School to a job with a small Massachusetts newspaper, the New Bedford Times, then ended up working for a number of national publications, including Sport magazine and Newsweek, before ending up at the Herald Tribune. His work on the award-winning “City in Crisis” series certainly put him on the journalistic map, but his role as Lindsay’s chief peacekeeper earned him much wider acclaim. The New York Times devoted considerable real estate in its Sunday magazine in September 1968 to a profile of Gottehrer, whose job was described as “keeping the city cool.” (A interesting tidbit that had no real place in my paper concerned the identity of the author of the profile: Nicholas Pileggi, who would go on to author a book about organized crime that Martin Scorcese used as the basis for his movie, "GoodFellas," and also eventually marry another famous director, Nora Ephron.) Yet, by the time Gottehrer was referenced in another New York Times article in 1984, it was clear that the author--the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anthony Lewis--thought he was writing about a faceless Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company executive who had distributed a pamphlet that was sharply critical of the ethical standards of journalists.

How did a journalist who had won one of the profession’s highest honors decide to abandon the cloak of objectivity and cross the lines to try to make a difference in government in a bold and distinctive way--and why did that same journalist become a virulent press critic after he disappeared into obscurity?

The answers to these questions had not been explored in depth in any research that I could find. But not surprisingly Gottehrer turned up in the margins of some in-depth works of history that focused on Lindsay and New York City during the 1960s, as well as a hefty book about the New York Herald Tribune, which was formed in 1924 and represented the merger of two noble journalistic bloodlines dating back to century before: James Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald and Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune.

Ultimately, Gottehrer provided the best primary-source material about himself. There was a memoir, “The Mayor's Man,” which focussed on his years as the city’s peacekeeper, but offered little discussion of his years as a journalist. An early book, a history of the New York Giants football franchise, did little to suggest the investigative prowess that would later be displayed. A scholarly paper titled, "Urban Conditions: New York City,” published in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science in 1967, showed his ability as a thinker. Perhaps the best primary-source material was the “City in Crisis” stories, which conveyed hard facts with the kind of strong writer’s voice common at the Herald Tribune, known as a launching pad for such “New Journalism” practitioners as Tom Wolfe.

But Gottehrer left that world of journalism behind when he went to work for Lindsay, and just as readily as he retreated from the spotlight when he gave up government work. His name pops up sporadically in the press during a brief time working as a top executive for Madison Square Garden after leaving City Hall; then he effectively disappeared. There was the mention by Lewis in the article about Gottehrer's attack on the press. Then his name only appeared in occasional newspaper or magazine stories looking back at Lindsay and the city he ran during the 1960s. Gottehrer’s professional life was lived in the shadows with scarce clues: Imdb.com lists him working as consultant from 1996 to 1998 for the TV show, Spin City, about a fictional New York City mayoral administration.

Finally, when Gottehrer died of pancreatic cancer in 2008, there was an expansive Times obituary, as well as a posthumous tribute entered by a Congressman into the Congressional Record, that tied some of the loose ends together, focusing on the curious story of the award-winning journalist who took to the streets in the 1960s to try to keep the peace.

As with any project, I was left wanting to know more about my subject. The trouble is that as I continue to look at sports and media in New York City in 1960s, I keep encountering other figures at the periphery. There is the TV executive who brought “happy talk” to one local TV news station and helped create a nationwide phenomenon. There is the Madison Avenue adman who brought bold images to the cover of Esquire magazine, such as the one showing Muhammad Ali--dethroned as heavyweight boxing champ because of his draft resistance--riddled with arrows like the martyr, Saint Sebastian. And how did Marshall McLuhan end up in the middle of all this as a visiting professor at Fordham University, eventually mulling the significance of the relatively new mass phenomenon, the Super Bowl, after Broadway Joe Namath made good on his guarantee to win one with the New York Jets.

In other words, there are too many other stories to tell, too many other figures at the periphery.

Raymond McCaffrey, Ph.D., is assistant professor and director of the Center for Ethics in Journalism, School of Journalism & Strategic Media, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

What do 17th Century Indigenous Mexican Surnames Have to Do With Journalism?

Dane Claussen — Tue, 25 Sep 2018 01:57:48 GMT

By Joel Thurtell

I discovered the AJHA in Alumni Updates in the University of Michigan History Department newsletter, History Matters. I did not know there was such an organization. I googled and just joined. I learned of the existence of AJHA while reading a UM History Matters item about me:

"Joel Thurtell (MA 1968) and Emily Merchant (PhD 2015) published the article 'Gender-differentiated Tarascan Surnames in Michoacán' in the spring 2018 issue of the Journal of Interdisciplinary History. Thurtell writes: The idea for using Mexican parish registers came out a History class I took from Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie in fall of 1969. Almost fifty years ago!"

You well may be wondering, "What do seventeenth-century indigenous Mexican surnames have to do with journalism?" To help explain, see a 2011 article I wrote for the UM History Department: "Why Historians Make Good Journalists." [available upon request to Intelligencer Editor Dane Claussen]

I earned a B.A. in history from Kalamazoo College in 1967. I was awarded a fellowship in Comparative Colonization in the New World at the University of Michigan. I was required to attend weekly discussions at the Institute of Social Research. These sessions promoted scientific history -- a history whose generalizations were based on data analysis rather than the historian's impressions. Prof. Le Roy Ladurie gave me an A+ in his studies course on quantitative methods. I proposed to go to Mexico, find church registers of baptisms, marriages, and burials, and analyze family relations through time. First, I would have to lean to speak Spanish. I went to Mexico, found parish registers, lived with a Catholic priest in a Tarascan village and discovered a secret unknown to historians, anthropologists, priests or anyone: post-Conquest Tarascans preserved their ancient system for tracking genealogy and transmitting everything from personal property to personal identity through a bifurcated structure of name-giving. I saw a means of measuring change over time. A practice like gender-differentiated surnames will evolve over time. One group may retain it. Another may abandon it. By comparing rates of erosion, I can track the retention or loss of indigenous culture in different communities. In other words, I can measure the rate of change -- of assimilation, or lack of it. I am scheduled to read my paper, "Advantage and Disadvantage in Two Tarascan Villages" on November 9 at the conference of the Social Science History Association.

On returning to Ann Arbor in summer 1971, I found that I had no fellowship. I supported my research by working in the law library and driving taxicabs. My girlfriend joined the Peace Corps and went to Togo, West Africa. I visited her in Togo in fall 1972 and wound up joining the Peace Corps, learning French and supervising school and well projects in northern Togo. On returning from Africa, we were married. We lived and worked on a friend's fruit farm in western Michigan. I did radio reporting for WMUK-FM, the NPR station at Western Michigan University.

If you want to know more about how I became a reporter, you might read my book, Shoestring Reporter, subtitled: How I Got to Be a Big City Reporter Without Going to J School, and How You Can Do It Too! (I just noticed that Amazon has jacked the price way up. I will have to correct that.)

In 1978, we lived in Berrien Springs, Mich. My wife was a teacher at the county juvenile home. I was hired over the phone to cover local government meetings in Berrien Springs. I also did features and investigative reporting. My wife wanted to become a doctor. I got a job on the Detroit Free Press in 1984. I retired from the Free Press in 2007. My wife's name was Karen R. Fonde, M.D. She did pre-med, med school and residency at UM and was a professor there until her death in 2015 of Alzheimer's Disease and Lewy Body Dementia.

In 2009, Wayne State University Press published Up the Rouge! Paddling Detroit's Hidden River. Originally, this was a Free Press report on Michigan's dirtiest river. In the midst of production, Knight-Ridder sold the Free Press to Gannett, and the new editor scuttled our Rouge story. What eventually appeared was timid and insipid. I convinced WSUP that we had a book with my writing and photographer Patricia Beck's photos. The book was named a Michigan Notable Book by the Library of Michigan in 2011. That was the year that the faculty of Wayne State University named me Journalist of the Year (I think) because of my blogging (joelontheroad.com) about the trucking magnate who owns the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.

I also broke the story of how California public schools were being bilked by purveyors of a very expensive form of municipal debt known as Capital Appreciation Bonds. I did not receive an award for that work. I was retired. But the California League of Bond Oversight Committees paid my air fare and hotel costs so I could be the featured speaker at its 2013 annual meeting in Sacramento. That work was based on my previous articles for the Free Press in 1993 that described how bond underwriters, bond attorneys and financial advisers were a cartel sucking huge amounts of interest money away from Michigan public schools. As a result of my articles, the Michigan Legislature banned CAB's in 1994. That ban is still in effect. California's Legislature enacted a milder ban in 2012 as a result of my blog posts. Still, Michigan and California are the only states that have taken action to regulate this pernicious form of public debt. Thanks to the Free Press in 1993 and thanks to joelontheroad.con in 2012.

I also wrote a satire on the news industry: Cross Purposes, or, If Newspapers Had Covered the Crucifixion. I've gotten flak about his book from some J-school profs, one of whom wrote that she would not assign my book in her class because I'm telling her students they don't need her. Indeed, marketing of Cross Purposes has not gone well. Sales are stuck in the high two digits.

I am looking forward to receiving AJHA journals. I want to see what kind of articles you are publishing. I believe that I could contribute.

I have taught News Reporting and Writing and Investigative Reporting at Wayne State University. I taught Mexican History at Eastern Michigan University.

AJHA Member News & Notes

Dane Claussen — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 21:48:08 GMT

Laura Díaz-Esteve, a Ph.D. student in History in Universitat Pompeu Fabra, in Barcelona, Spain, reports that she is spending a month doing research in Washington, D.C., and will attend the AJHA convention in Salt Lake City while in the USA. She describes her background and research interests with, “I graduated in Journalism in 2015 and I got a master’s in global history in 2016. Already in my master’s thesis, I showed my interest in journalism history as it dealt with coverage of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide in the Spanish newspaper, El País. Nowadays I am in the second year of my Ph.D. program and my research interests are journalism and imperialism at the turn of the 20th Century.”

George Garrigues, emeritus, Lincoln University of Missouri and University of Bridgeport, has published Marguerite Martyn, America’s Forgotten Journalist as an ebook through CityDeskPublishing.com. It is available on Amazon, and a print version will be ready soon.

Information from Marilyn Greenwald’s biography A Woman of the Times, Journalism, Feminism and the Career of Charlotte Curtis (Ohio University Press, 1999) was used in a September 21 New York Times story, “When the Times Kept Women Reporters Upstairs,” about the history of the women’s pages at the Times.

Mark Holan's piece about American journalist William Henry Hurlbert’s 1888 travels in Ireland was published on “The Irish Story,” a Dublin-based website. The article was drawn from Holan’s 40-part blog serial, "Ireland Under Coercion, Revisited," and included research at Trinity College Dublin.

Jon Marshall, Northwestern University, co-authored an Op-Ed for The New York Times, “The Myth of Watergate Bipartisanship,” published Aug. 14. Jon collaborated on the column with Michael Conway, who served as counsel for the House Judiciary Committee during its impeachment inquiry of Richard Nixon. Jon also appeared on CNN’s “Newsroom” Aug. 25 to discuss the column and historic similarities and differences between the Watergate era and now.

President's Column: Whitewashing History

Dane Claussen — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 16:59:38 GMT

By Dianne Bragg, University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa

Football and fall have finally arrived, but temperatures have still been scorching down South. Many of us are looking forward to cooler weather when we meet in Salt Lake City for the 2018 AJHA National Convention. In Alabama, though, historians have good reason to remain hot under the collar.

The Dallas Morning News has reported that the Texas State Board of Education recently voted to remove certain historical figures from their curriculum, which means they will also be absent from future textbooks. Their reasoning is that children are required to learn about too many people from the past, and there needed to be some streamlining. They designed a rubric to determine which historical figures would score high enough to remain in the curriculum and who would be removed.

After the scores were tallied and the penalties assessed, it was decided that third graders would no longer be forced to learn about one of the most influential and inspirational women in our country’s history, Alabama’s own Helen Keller.

Like a kicker who missed one too many field goals, she just didn’t make the cut.

But, Keller, whose story is recounted in plays, movies, and books, isn’t alone. In fact, some would say she’s in pretty good company, as she is joined by the first woman to run for president as the candidate of a major political party. That’s right, the one who actually won the popular vote only to lose the Electoral College. Gender aside, it seems just the civics lesson involved in how our elections work would be enough to keep Hillary Clinton in the history books.

But, that’s not how they do it in Texas. No, in Texas, history is often influenced by groups such as Texas Values, whose president, Jonathan Saenz, is pleased by the board’s decision to keep textbook passages on Moses’ influence on the Constitution, Arab countries’ responsibility for conflict in the Middle East and the Rev. Billy Graham.

“In Texas, you don't mess with the Alamo and you don't mess with our Christian heritage. We applaud the majority of the State Board of Education for doing the right thing by restoring our foundational rights and history,” Saenz said in a statement reported by the News. “We are prepared to fight to protect these standards all the way to the end.”

All of this should give us pause for several reasons, and foremost among them would be the idea that a partisan religious organization would wield any influence in the area of public school textbooks. But, historically, they do, and that’s not just in Texas. In fact, textbook decisions made in Texas often influence and reflect school board curriculums across the country.

All said, we are reminded once again about the importance of teaching an inclusive history, one that represents the varied cultural historical heritages of our country. That’s what a public school history education should do in order to teach and inspire American students of all races, genders and religions. Removing women like Clinton and Keller from curriculums that too often are saturated with one historical perspective does a disservice to all underrepresented groups, and especially to their children.

Sadly, the truth is that many school districts won’t decry the removal of Clinton from the history books. Some will be glad to see her go because they disagree with her politically or just don’t like her. There are a great many men, though, with whom I disagree, say Joseph McCarthy or Robert E. Lee, but they certainly belong in our history books. History is not a popularity contest, no matter what the rubrics say. It’s a record of our past, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

As for Keller, there might be a bit of a backlash. Maybe Texas thinks it’s ok to mess with Keller, but they should be careful with Alabama, on and off the football field.

American Journalism tabs Mascaro’s documentary study as article of year

Dane Claussen — Fri, 14 Sep 2018 19:48:12 GMT

The peer-reviewed quarterly journal of the American Journalism Historians Association has awarded its 2018 “Article of the Year” prize to Dr. Tom Mascaro of Bowling Green State University.

American Journalism’s editors selected Mascaro’s “The Blood of Others: Television Documentary Journalism as Literary Engagement” as the best article to have been submitted to the journal over the last year.

“I was particularly pleased to have had this article accepted by American Journalism, because it takes documentary scholarship in a new direction,” Mascaro said, “but to have it selected as the Best Article by people I truly admire far exceeded my expectations. I am genuinely honored and thrilled.”

In his article, Mascaro argues that documentary journalists have been too narrowly defined as strictly journalists.

Mascaro posits documentarians, like their counterparts in literature, intimately engage with and immerse themselves in the topics they research, which warrants examining documentaries as both acts of journalism and engaged literature.

Mascaro will be recognized for his work at the upcoming AJHA National Convention, Oct. 4-6 in Salt Lake City.

Archives: you can judge how hard your worked by how dark the ink stains are on your hands

Dane Claussen — Fri, 14 Sep 2018 19:19:18 GMT

By Scott Burgess, Wayne State University

To me, archives are a lot like churches. Both hold ancient texts; both operate in hushed silence; and both have too few visitors. During my career as a journalist, I had visited a few archives, but more to poke around and see what might be there, hoping to stumble upon something I could use for a story. Good research, however, requires more than just groping in the dark for a light switch. Good research tries to figure out where to look before the flailing begins.

As a doctoral student, I rediscovered both my reverence for archives and artifacts and the pure excitement behind realizing you just may have found something important. Under the demanding but kind hand of Wayne State University’s journalism historian Dr. Michael Fuhlhage, I began a project that examined how the United Auto Workers used the media to recruit African-American workers in 1940s. Over the course of the semester, Dr. Fuhlhage patiently helped me hone my skills to comprehensively and meticulously pour through documents filed away that rarely see sunlight. Wayne State’s Walter P. Reuther Library houses all of the UAW’s archives and contains a staggering amount of material ranging from internal memos and handwritten notes to meeting minutes and various campaign flyers. However, as I’m sure many historians know, finding these documents and determining their significance remains is no easy task.

Combining my journalism skills and carefully plotted instructions that showed me how to organize my findings (and later interpret them), I folded away my personal belongings in a hallway locker and entered the archive’s examination room with just a list of boxes I hoped to view, a pencil, and my camera. I set up at a large oak table and took in the cathedral-like atmosphere. A few other scholars quietly worked around me, combing through files. I opened one reserved box and was hit by that sweet pungent smell of damp paper and began my exploration. I worked for more than two weeks – and having strategically invested in cookies for the archivists on a few days -- found the documents that brought to life the first paper I would have accepted at any academic conference – the 2017 American Historical Journalism Association’s national conference in Little Rock, Arkansas.

I had only a vague understanding of how many hours I spent in the Reuther because it was so easy to lose focus on the task at hand and start reading everything. Six banker boxes waited for me when I walked in the first day and every day after that there would be between eight and 10 sitting on library carts. Walter Reuther, a founding member of the UAW, made famous when Henry Ford’s team of thugs beat him outside of the Rouge River plant, had more than one hundred feet of documents. Telegrams from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, letters for dignitaries, and Reuther’s handwritten edits on onion skin drafts of speeches that would embolden union members to continue their work were now in my hands. Another box from another UAW official had notes about how all of the union leaders carried guns because of the constant threats made against them, and how on one night, the second president of the UAW and Reuther’s brother, Viktor, almost killed each other in a dark alley. It was easy to lose myself in the history I was physically holding.

But I did have a paper to finish, and I resisted the urge just enough to discover the first bulldog edition of the UAW’s weekly newspaper that was printed exclusively for African-Americans. While I have never found a reference to this paper in previous literature, the paper was sitting right out in the open in a bounded edition of the papers. The only difference was that every photo in the eight-page tabloid paper included African Americans and the stories were written about and for African Americans. As it would turn out, the UAW’s role in recruiting African Americans would have a profound impact at other unions and throughout the automotive world. It would still take decades before the civil rights movement would take hold – something the UAW would eventually join – but many strategies first employed by the UAW would be used by African Americans fighting for civil rights.

As part of a different historical research team led by Dr. Fuhlhage, I assisted with a second paper accepted at the 2018 AJHA national conference examining how newspapers around the country in 1860 wrote about succession and the editorials that followed. We traced the exchange programs and examine how stories moved around the country more than 150 years ago. Anyone who immerses themselves in those papers immediately understands that any argument that suggests that the Civil War was not about slavery has only a loose grip on reality. A sharp focus and insight into the past certainly crystalizes what is happening today in ways that will continue to produce fascinating research on the human’s race inability to learn from its own mistakes.

While I began my academic career strictly as a political communication scholar who loves journalism, it is through AJHA and the Dr. Fuhlhage’s infectious excitement in journalism history that has broadened the scope and depth of my scholarship. At the end of the day of researching, having dug through dozens of boxes, hundreds of files, you can judge how hard your worked by how dark the ink stains are on your hands. It’s immensely satisfying. Especially after you have on your camera pictures of a brochure created by the UAW in 1941 and used exclusively to recruit African Americans into the union that changed the course of the future. Those little discoveries continue to build up for me, and I understand yet another church-archive similarity. When you find something meaningful, even an atheist like me realizes that there just might have been divine intervention.

G. Scott Burgess is a second-year doctoral student at Wayne State University. A former paratrooper and journalist, Scott has been a reporter, editor, war correspondent, and automotive critic. Scott’s scholarship includes political communication, incivility, new media and journalism history.

Arizona’s Swanberg named 2018 AJHA Rising Scholar

Dane Claussen — Wed, 05 Sep 2018 17:59:02 GMT

The editors of American Journalism, the peer-reviewed quarterly journal of the American Journalism Historians Association, have announced Dr. Susan E. Swanberg of the University of Arizona’s School of Journalism as the winner of the 2018 Rising Scholar Award.

Swanberg received this honor in recognition for her ongoing research titled “Spinning Science: Journalism’s Role at the Interface of Science and Public Policy During the Birth of the Atomic Age.” "I'm honored and thrilled to be the recipient of an AJHA Rising Scholar Award,” Swanberg said. “With this award I'll be able to visit archives crucial to my research on journalism’s role at the interface of science and public policy during the birth of the atomic age. I look forward to sharing the untold history of science journalism in the early years of the Atomic Era.

“I've found AJHA members to be supportive, collegial and inclusive colleagues as well as wonderful scholars. Thank you AJHA for your support! I will use this award wisely and well."

Swanberg’s research will examine not only the impact of journalism on science policy in the mid-20th century, but also the lasting effect of the work of key scientific journalists on today’s scientific landscape.

Dr. Vanessa Murphree, associate editor of American Journalism and professor at The University of Southern Mississippi, said this trajectory distinguished Swanberg’s research from the field of Rising Scholar Award candidates. “Dr. Swanberg has developed an important and timely research agenda that examines the knowledge gap between scientists and the public,” Murphree said. “She further examines how this lack of information influences expertise influences policy development in important areas such as energy, climate, public health, space exploration and other important scientific matters.”

The Rising Scholar Award winner is chosen annually by the editors of American Journalism. The award is designed for scholars who show promise in extending their research agendas.

Folkerts Offers Collection of History Materials

Dane Claussen — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 01:35:34 GMT

Jean Folkerts, former dean and alumni distinguished professor emeritus at UNC-Chapel Hill, reports, "I have a collection of materials regarding the history of journalism, public relations and advertising education history. It probably would fill a small box movers use to move books. If anyone is interested in having this collection, I’d be happy to ship it to them for the cost of shipping. If you are interested, please contact jfolktns@gmail.com.

Candidate biographies for AJHA Election

Dane Claussen — Sun, 02 Sep 2018 22:43:07 GMT

Second Vice President: Tom Mascaro, Bowling Green State University

Dr. Thomas A. Mascaro is a documentary historian and the author of Into the Fray: How NBC’s Washington Documentary Unit Reinvented the News (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2012), which won the 2013 James W. Tankard Award for Best Book on Journalism given by the Standing Committee on Research of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), honorable mention from the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA), and recognition from the Frank Luther Mott-Kappa Tau Alpha Journalism and Mass Communication Research Award. His articles and reviews appear in American Journalism, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Journalism History, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, and the Journal of Popular Film and Television. His analysis on “The Benjamin Report” earned Mascaro the Annual Covert Award in Mass Communication History for best article of the year (co-winner, 2006, AEJMC History Division). Dr. Mascaro earned his Ph.D. in Radio-TV-Film from Wayne State University (1994) and Master of Arts Degree in Communication Studies from the University of Michigan (1990). He is a professor in the School of Media & Communication (SMC) at Bowling Green State University, where he was a finalist for the Master Teacher Award in 2013. Dr. Mascaro is the Advisor to the SMC Documentary Minor and teaches undergraduate courses on documentary history before/after 1968, film-TV-videogame criticism, and media history. He co-founded the Documentary Division of the Broadcast Education Association (2004) and was its first chair, 2005-2008. He teaches graduate classes on Critical Media Analysis, Philosophical Foundations of Communication Theory, and Documentary Studies and has been on dissertation committees dealing with documentary ethics, practices, and fandom, and media depictions of gender. He is also researching a project on documentary ethics and standards and working on the sequel to Into the Fray titled Hard Truths: Documenting America’s Social/Global History from Johnson to Reagan.

Board of Directors: Gerry Lanosga, Indiana University

Gerry Lanosga's research and teaching revolve around the practice of journalism from both contemporary and historical standpoints. In particular, his interests include the development of journalism as a profession, prize culture in journalism, and journalism's intersections with public policy through investigative reporting and the use of freedom of information laws. Lanosga completed his Ph.D. in 2010 at Indiana University and taught for three years at Ball State University before returning to IU. Previously, he spent nearly two decades as a print and broadcast journalist. He worked nine years as an investigative producer at WTHR-TV, the NBC affiliate in Indianapolis, where his work won numerous state, regional and national honors, including the duPont-Columbia award, the George Foster Peabody award, Sigma Delta Chi’s public service award, and the Freedom of Information medal from Investigative Reporters and Editors. Before that, he was a reporter and columnist for The Indianapolis News and The Indianapolis Star. A frequent speaker and writer on issues relating to open government, Lanosga serves on the boards of several non-profit organizations working in that arena – the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, the Indiana Coalition for Open Government and the Indiana Debate Commission. In addition to his scholarly work, he is a regular contributor to the Indianapolis Business Journal's Indiana Forefront political blog. Lanosga is married and has three sons.

Board of Directors: Willie Tubbs, University of West Florida

Dr. Willie Tubbs is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University of West Florida. His expertise in communications is broad and includes interactive media, message design, journalism and media relations. Tubbs’ primary area of research is media history with a focus on 20th Century American media. In addition to his academic and teaching career, Tubbs has worked as a journalist, magazine editor, writer and reporter. Tubbs has served in numerous volunteer capacities. His affiliations include the American Journalism Historians Association and Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. For his work in academia, Tubbs has won numerous awards for teaching, presentations and papers. Tubbs received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Louisiana College, master’s degree in interactive media from Quinnipiac University and a doctorate in mass communication from the University of Southern Mississippi. Tubbs enjoys spending time with Mary Beth, his wife; Scarlet, his Pomeranian; and Charlie, his cat. He is also a fan of traveling, reading classic works of fiction and weight lifting.

Board of Directors: Ken J. Ward, Lamar University

Ken J. Ward is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Lamar University. His research explores both historical and contemporary dimensions of journalism with an emphasis on the relationship between journalism and community. Current projects include an exploration of the impact of past and present trends in journalism on social capital in the United States.

He currently serves as registrar of AJHA and a member of the 2018 AEJMC Presidential Task Force on Building Connections, and he is a charter advisor to the Lamar University chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. His research and teaching have received numerous awards, including the Excellence in Teaching Award from the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools, and he is an inductee of Kappa Tau Alpha.

Ken’s research appears in such peer-reviewed publications as Journal of Media Law and Ethics, Journal of Media Ethics, and Journal of Magazine and New Media Research.

Casey Receives AJHA 2018 Book of the Year Award

Dane Claussen — Tue, 28 Aug 2018 16:04:07 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association has selected Steven Casey of the London School of Economics and Political Science as the winner of its Book of the Year Award for 2018 for The War Beat, Europe: The American Media at War Against Nazi Germany (Oxford University Press).

The award, which recognizes the best book in journalism history or mass media history published during the previous calendar year, will be presented at AJHA’s Annual Convention Oct. 4-6 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

“Our panel of judges agreed that Steven Casey’s work once again established that good history at its best should be good reading,” said Aimee Edmondson from Ohio University, chair of the book award committee. “They also agreed his book provides a landmark work for scholars, an engaging and compelling account of journalists dedicated to reporting the Allied campaigns to dislodge the German forces from Europe.”

Casey is a professor of international history who specializes in U.S. foreign policy. His book—based on hundreds of manuscript collections, many previously unpublished—provides the first comprehensive account of how American war correspondents reported World War II.

Two authors also will be given honorable mention for the award: Carolyn Edy from Appalachian State University for The Woman War Correspondent, the U.S. Military, and the Press: 1846-1947 (Lexington Books), and Julia Guarneri from the University of Cambridge for Newsprint Metropolis: City Papers and the Making of Modern Americans (University of Chicago Press).

“Typically we name one winner, but this year’s competition included so many wonderful works, judges agreed we should award two honorable mentions,” Edmondson said.

Ohio University’s Sweeney named AJHA’s teacher of the year

Dane Claussen — Sat, 28 Jul 2018 16:30:51 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association announced today that Dr. Mike Sweeney of Ohio University has won the organization’s 2018 National Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Sweeney has been on faculty at Ohio University since 2009, having previously worked from 1996-2009 at Utah State. He will receive his award at the AJHA National Convention, which will take place Oct. 4- 6 in Salt Lake City.

“I am honored to join the ranks of some truly great teachers of journalism history – the ‘Mount Rushmore’ of professors -- previously recognized with this award,” Sweeney said. “In accepting, I would like to say that an effective professor recognizes the rich, two-way nature of communication required for deep learning in the classroom, and so I would like to say ‘Thank you’ to my excellent students.”

AJHA’s education committee, the members of which judged all entries, noted Sweeney’s consistently strong course evaluations, creative course and project designs, and engagement with his students. Sweeney’s work with aspiring media historians has also translated into several of his doctoral students participating in annual AJHA national conventions. “The level of mentoring it takes to guide student research projects, and then to oversee the presentations of the projects at a major professional conference, seems to me to separate out Sweeney’s accomplishments," one of the judges’ ballots read.

Kaylene Armstrong, chair of the education committee, said the committee received excellent applications for the award, making the job of the judges particularly difficult this year. "I think we would have been comfortable awarding this honor to any of the applicants," she said.

Call for Papers: Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression, November 8–10, 2018

Dane Claussen — Sat, 28 Jul 2018 05:19:50 GMT

Call for Papers

Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression

November 8–10, 2018

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Deadline: August 27, 2018

The steering committee of the twenty-sixth annual Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression solicits papers dealing with US mass media of the 19th century, the Civil War in fiction and history, freedom of expression in the 19th century, presidents and the 19th century press, images of race and gender in the 19th century press, sensationalism and crime in 19th century newspapers, the press in the Gilded Age, and the antebellum press and the causes of the Civil War. Selected papers will be presented during the three-day conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, November 8–10, 2018. The top three papers and the top three student papers will be honored accordingly. Due to the generosity of the Walter and Leona Schmitt Family Foundation Research Fund, the winners of the student awards will receive $250 honoraria for delivering their papers at the conference.

The purpose of the November conference is to share current research and to develop a series of monographs. This year the steering committee will pay special attention to papers on the Civil War and the press, presidents and the 19th century press, and 19th century concepts of free expression. Papers from the first five conferences were published by Transaction Publishers in 2000 as a book of readings called The Civil War and the Press. Purdue University Press published papers from past conferences in three distinctly different books titled Memory and Myth: The Civil War in Fiction and Film from Uncle Tom’s Cabin to Cold Mountain (2007), Words at War: The Civil War and American Journalism (2008), and Seeking a Voice: Images of Race and Gender in the 19th Century Press (2009). In 2013, Transaction published Sensationalism: Murder, Mayhem, Mudslinging, Scandals, and Disasters in 19th-Century Reporting, and in 2014, it published A Press Divided: Newspaper Coverage of the Civil War. In 2017, Transaction (now Routledge/Taylor & Francis) published After the War: The Press in a Changing America, 1865–1900.

The symposium is sponsored by the George R. West, Jr. Chair of Excellence in Communication and Public Affairs, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga communication department, the Walter and Leona Schmitt Family Foundation Research Fund, and the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Fund for the Symposium, and because of this sponsorship, no registration fee will be charged.

Dr. David Sachsman

George R. West, Jr. Chair of Excellence in Communication and Public Affairs, Dept. 3003

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

615 McCallie Ave.

Chattanooga, Tennessee 37403-2598

(423) 425-4219, david-sachsman@utc.edu

AJHA member news

Dane Claussen — Sat, 21 Jul 2018 21:44:15 GMT

Jon Bekken has been promoted to full professor of communications at Albright College. His entry on “Unions of Newsworkers” is forthcoming in the International Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies. An article on “Incorporating Class into the Journalism and Mass Communication Curriculum” appears in the new issue of Teaching Journalism & Mass Communication (Vol. 8, no. 1). Also, his “Toward a Democratic Journalism” will appear in the next The American Historian as part of a special section on journalism and democracy.

* * *

Sidney Kobre Award winner Hazel Dicken-Garcia died May 30, 2018. Bill Huntzicker has written a tribute to her on page 29 at: http://history-jmc.com/Home_files/Historiography%20vol.%204-4%202018.pdf. An obituary in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune by Kelly Smith, headlined, “Hazel Dicken-Garcia Journalism professor: At the U, she set standard for study of media history, ethics,” reads:

“Hazel Dicken-Garcia’s impact in life is measured in the hundreds of former students who now fill newsrooms and university lecture halls nationwide.

“Hailed as a trailblazer, she helped shape the study of journalism history and ethics and was an author, including of a well-known book on journalistic standards. But it was her work as a University of Minnesota professor for 30 years that she may be remembered for most.

“‘She was a towering figure in journalism history,’ said Kathy Roberts Forde , a former U colleague who is now an associate journalism professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. ‘In her generation, she was one of the top journalism historians. Her legacy lives on not only in her work, but in her students.’

“Dicken-Garcia died May 30. She was 79.

“Born in a log house in rural Kentucky in 1939, she grew up in poverty, the second-oldest of five children. She quickly found an escape through education, voraciously reading every book in her one-room school by the eighth grade.

“‘She’d have a dish rag in one hand and a book in the other,’ said her sister, Letha Amonett of Albany, Ky. ‘She wanted to do better. She wanted to become somebody.’

“Her high school classmates saw that, too, voting Dicken-Garcia the most likely to succeed. And she did, graduating from Berea College by working her way through school. She then spent five years working for the American Friends Service Committee in India and in the U.S. before landing a job as a part-time reporter in Ann Arbor, Mich. But she was drawn back to the classroom.

“‘She loved school all of her life,’ Amonett said.

“After getting a master’s degree and a doctorate, Dicken-Garcia taught in Wisconsin, Iowa, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Michigan and Massachusetts. By 1979, she landed a job at the U’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications teaching mass media history, law, theory and ethics courses.

“She also wrote and co-wrote several books including “Journalistic Standards in Nineteenth-Century America,” which won the Frank Luther Mott Kappa Tau Alpha research award in 1989. And in 2006, she was given the American Journalism Historians Association’s Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement.

“‘She was widely known,” said Bill Huntzicker, a friend and former colleague. ‘She cared a lot about her students.’

“In fact, even after retiring in 2008, Dicken-Garcia continued to supervise graduate students on their dissertations. She was also a mentor to colleagues like Forde.

“‘She just gave so much to so many,’ she said.

“Outside school, Dicken-Garcia loved being part of book clubs, gardening and walking Como Lake — her rural Kentucky childhood cementing a love of the outdoors. Joe Scovronski, a friend and neighbor, would join her on many of those walks, Dicken-Garcia quietly listening to him share life stories before weighing in with her wise advice. It was that generosity, he said, that he will never forget.

“Neither will her former students, who, one by one, traveled from across the U.S. to Dicken-Garcia’s St. Paul home or sent her notes when she was diagnosed with liver cancer in February after being treated for Crohn’s disease for many years.

“‘This is not a time for sadness …,’ she wrote, adding that she is ‘grateful for the life she feels fortunate to have lived ... and of the many, many ennobling people who, by example, teach us all simply and elegantly while contributing indelibly to the world, making it a better place.’

“Along with her sister, she is survived by her brothers Clifton , Clayton and Lee Dicken, all of Albany, Ky. A memorial will be held at 2 p.m. June 22 at Unity Church-Unitarian in St. Paul.”

* * *

One of Julie Hedgepeth Williams’ AJHA papers has grown up to become a book. Three Not-So-Ordinary Joes (NewSouth Books, 2018) started as a paper presented many years ago in 2002. Julie writes, “Now, much expanded, it's a book about the three journalists named Joe who stuttered and staggered their way to starting Southern literature. The first and third Joes are familiar to many of us. The first was Joseph Addison, the famous British journalist and publisher of The Spectator in the early 1700s. The second one you probably haven't heard of, although he was named for the first one. He was Joseph Addison Turner, a Civil War-era editor and plantation owner whose great goal in life was to start Southern literature. The man was persistent. He tried magazines, how-to books, short stories, histories, plays, poems, all in an effort to inaugurate Southern literature, as he often stated in his publications. He failed, failed, failed until at last during the Civil War, it occurred to him he could put up an outbuilding on his plantation, buy a press, hire a printer, and publish a newspaper, which he named The Countryman, and which he hoped would launch Southern literature. He had figured out his trouble with his prior efforts, and it was all in his name: He announced his newspaper would copy Addison's Spectator in size, look, and language. Turner even published Addison's rules for writing in The Countryman. As far as is known, this was the only newspaper ever published on a plantation. And at last Turner had his hit! The Countryman was one of the most widely read newspapers in the Confederacy. But the war didn't go the way Turner had anticipated. The South lost. Turner's plantation collapsed. He died a few years later, thinking he had failed in his lifelong quest to start Southern literature. But in 1862, Turner had hired the third Joe, a teenager named Joel Chandler Harris, as The Countryman's printer's devil. Turner not only taught fatherless, poverty-stricken Harris to do newspaper work, but he turned him loose in the vast Turner library and taught the boy to write. By the time the war was over, the boy had direction and a career. He worked all over Georgia in newspapers until he at last landed at the Atlanta Constitution. There he was ordered to take over the popular "Negro column," which was written in the dialect of the former slaves and was meant to be humorous, but also in the spirit of the New South, it was a meant to bring the concerns of the former slaves into view for white readers. Faced with what he considered a difficult assignment, Harris went back in his memory to his time on Turner's plantation, when he and the Turner children would go to the slave cabins at night and beg the slaves to tell them stories. Harris perceived these stories as metaphors for how the slaves used their wits to get what they wanted out of their masters every time -- and that's how he wrote them. These "Uncle Remus" stories, as he called them (the prime storytelling character being Uncle Remus) were a huge hit, so much so that a New York editor turned them into a book. The book was a worldwide sensation, influencing writers such as Mark Twain, Beatrix Potter, and Rudyard Kipling. Most importantly, the Uncle Remus books shifted attention of American belles-lettres from New England writers and New England stories to the South and Southern stories. Thus Joel Chandler Harris became the first widely acclaimed Southern writer, and the Uncle Remus stories, the first wildly popular Southern literature. So I argue that Joseph Addison Turner -- in modeling Addison and teaching Harris to write the Addisonian style and exposing him to the slave stories -- really was the father of Southern literature after all, as he had so earnestly wished to be. He just didn't live long enough to see it.”

* * *

Christina Littlefield, Pepperdine University, has been promoted to Associate Professor and granted tenure. She reports that thanks to the Rising Scholars grant, her work continues on a project looking at the muckraking of social gospel leaders in England and the United States.

* * *

Linda J. Lumsden in May 2018 was promoted to full professor at the School of Journalism, University of Arizona.

* * *

Jennifer Moore, University of Minnesota at Duluth, was selected to participate in the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Scholars program "Visual Culture of the American Civil War and Its Aftermath." This is a two-week summer institute (July 9-20, 2018) in New York City. Part of the description from the web site: "The institute will focus on the era’s array of visual media—including the fine arts, ephemera, photography, cartoons, maps, and monuments—to examine how information and opinion about the war and its impact were recorded and disseminated, and the ways visual media expressed and shaped Americans’ views on both sides of and before and after the conflict. Participants will hear lectures by noted historians, art historians, and archivists and attend hands-on sessions in major museums and archives."

* * *

Lori Amber Roessner, University of Tennessee, and Brian Creech’s, Temple University, “Declaring the Value of Truth: Progress-era Lessons for Combatting Fake New,” recently was published in Journalism Practice. Roessner and Jodi Rightler-McDaniel’s, South College, have published an edited volume, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Political Pioneer of the Press: Her Voice, Her Pen, and Her Transnational Crusade for Social Justice, in Lexington Books’ “Women in American Political History” series in July. The volume features the work of notable AEJMC history division members such as Norma Fay Green (Columbia College), Joe Hayden (Memphis) Jinx Broussard (LSU), Chandra Clark (Florida A&M), and Kathy Roberts Forde (UMass-Amherst). Special thanks to series editors Pam Parry (Southeast Missouri State) and Dave Davies (University of Southern Mississippi).

* * *

The Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama in June approved the “David Sloan Journalism Graduate Student Endowed Scholarship.” The university president wrote, “Because of David Sloan, our deserving students have been provided opportunities that otherwise may not have been possible.” The scholarship will be offered for the first time for the 2018-19 academic year. Dianne Bragg and Rick Bragg initiated the effort to establish the scholarship as well as the fund-raising efforts to support it. Sloan taught at Alabama for 28 years before retiring in 2011.

* * *

Dane S. Claussen, editor of the Intelligencer, effective July 16, resigned his position as James Pedas Professor of Media, Communication and Public Relations (full professor rank) and Executive Director of the James Pedas Communication Center, at Thiel College, where he had been since July 2015. He may or may not stay full-time in higher education, so stay tuned. In any case, Claussen continues as an irregular Visiting Professor of International Journalism at Shanghai International Studies University and Editor of the Newspaper Research Journal.

St. Peter’s Palmegiano named 2018 Kobre Award Winner

Dane Claussen — Sat, 21 Jul 2018 20:08:57 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association has announced Dr. Eugenia M. Palmegiano, emerita faculty in the St. Peter’s University Department of History, as the recipient of the 2018 Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism History.

Palmegiano, a lifetime member of AJHA, was nominated by Dr. Wm. David Sloan with additional letters of support from 18 distinguished members of the American Journalism Historians Association, including former AJHA presidents and Kobre Award winners.

“I am honored to have been chosen as the recipient of the 2018 Kobre Award and shall do my best to live up to the high standards set by my predecessors,” Palmegiano said. “I see this award as an opportunity to publicize the fine work of my colleagues in the American Journalism Historians Association, especially at this critical moment in press history.”

The Kobre Award recognizes individuals with an exemplary record of sustained achievement in journalism history through teaching, research, professional activities, or other contributions to the field of journalism history. Palmegiano’s accomplishments in the field of history are many and varied, as are her contributions to the organization. She’s written six books, one monograph, and dozens more refereed articles, books chapters, book reviews, and conference presentations.

Palmegiano has served as AJHA president and twice been a member of the AJHA board of directors. During her first term on the AJHA Board in 1996, Palmegiano worked with then AJHA president Tom Heuterman to establish AJHA as an affiliate society of the American Historical Association.

Since 2016, Palmegiano has funded the American Historical Association’s annual prize for best journalism history book. Palmegiano also funds the annual AJHA award for best research paper on international/transnational journalism history.

UW-Madison Doctoral Student Widely Advised to Seek Out AJHA

Dane Claussen — Tue, 10 Jul 2018 03:48:21 GMT

By Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen

University of Wisconsin at Madison

Becoming a media historian was not part of my plan as an undergraduate. As a journalism major, I had my sights set on magazine writing, and pursued that dream with dogged determination until my senior year, when I decided somewhat on a whim to write an undergraduate honors thesis. The topic was celebrity gossip columns in the first half of the 20th century – a subject I had longed harbored an intense interest in. Given the freedom to spend my time reading about Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, I poured myself into the project. By the time I had finished, I knew that I needed to change course, and started the process of applying for graduate programs specializing in media history.

When I entered the graduate program at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, I knew what to expect. My undergraduate mentor and graduate advisor, James L. Baughman, had encouraged me to reach out to many individuals in the field for their advice, and to get a sense of what it would take to be a successful media historian. Get ready for long hours in the library and sitting in front of a microfilm reader, they said. Make friends with archivists, they advised. Read the acknowledgment sections of books you like, they noted. Be ready to be surprised and challenged by what you find when researching, they warned. Go into your projects with open eyes, and be open to have your assumptions tested. And get ready for some curve balls.

They also warned me that media history – and the study of any historical field – can be a lonely pursuit. The long hours in the library, in front of books and in front of the microfilm reader, is isolating. Finding colleagues and collaborators that shared your love of history was key to success. During our check-ins, Prof. Baughman pushed me to maintain connections with others in the field. He was quick with contacts to reach out to based on my current interests or questions I had about the historiography of a topic. I leaned on this network for input and guidance that helped shape my research questions and projects and helped me grow as a scholar.

Several pointed me toward AJHA. The organization strongly supported graduate students and would be a great venue to present my research and ideas. Importantly, they noted, I could meet other graduate students and scholars like myself – individuals passionate about journalism and history, and ready with tips on archive collections, databases, and secondary reading. And I’d be able to find a group that could empathize with the arduous process of writing historical research and of being the lone historical wolf in a journalism and mass communication department. With this advice in hand, I steadily followed my expected path in graduate school. I wrote a thesis, finished coursework, and started prepping for my preliminary examinations.

But graduate school often comes with twists and turns that can be hard to navigate, no matter how prepared you are. It threw me a curve ball the spring before I was to begin prepping for my preliminary examinations, when Prof. Baughman passed away unexpectedly. As the dust began to settle, and I realized what I had lost in terms of an advisor and mentor, I realized how important the network of support I had been building would be. Without a media historian in the department, I would need to rely even more heavily on those outside my program.

At my first AJHA conference, I initially felt intimidated. Here was a room of scholars whose books and articles I had read, who taught media history courses at universities and colleges across the country, and had won awards for their research and teaching. And there I was, a graduate student and the lone representative from the University of Wisconsin, wondering how to go up and introduce myself. But within the first few moments I immediately felt at ease. Everyone I met was friendly and eager to chat about all topics related to media, journalism, and history. And more important for me as a graduate student, they were incredibly interested in what I was working on and ready to offer feedback.

AJHA has been incredibly valuable for me because it has helped find a network of individuals passionate about what I study. It has helped me connect with other graduate students in the field, and also provided a model of what to do as a professor. And at a time where I felt lost and untethered in my own program, it provided me with a number of new history mentors whose camaraderie has provided the support to drive me toward completing my dissertation.

_________________________________________________

Cieslik-Miskimen is a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, completing her dissertation examining the impact of modernity and progress on the conception of community and identity in a small city, via its print communication channels.

Politico Covers Castro's Relationship with US TV Journalist

Dane Claussen — Tue, 10 Jul 2018 03:16:04 GMT

(Editor's Note: The Revolution was televised, but not this part..... Thanks to Mark Feldstein, University of Maryland--College Park, for bringing this to our attention.)

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/04/20/cuba-fidel-castro-affair-lisa-howard-218007

President's Column: No Usual Summer in the USA

Dane Claussen — Tue, 10 Jul 2018 02:57:32 GMT

By Dianne Bragg

University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa

My thoughts for this particular column were pretty straightforward.

It’s July, but it feels like August.

Soon, though, it will be October and we will be wearing jackets in Utah.

A quick reminder to check the AJHA website for convention details.

A hopeful note that some of us will be together in D.C. for AEJMC.

And, oh yes, best wishes for a happy 4^th of July.

Just a usual mid-summer laundry list.

But, the usual this summer has changed.

When a man armed with a gun chose to murder five people at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md., what has become usual hit really close to home for many of us.

The gun violence in our country has taken on surreal proportions, with no sign of it abating any time soon. It has become our usual.

The vilification of journalists has reached extraordinary heights.

The Oval Office historically has not always been pleased with the press, despite what is written in the Constitution. This is not the first time those who hold power have gone after journalists who try to hold them accountable.

At some point, though, in the 21^st century, it would seem that our leadership would condemn violent rhetoric in no uncertain terms. But, they do not. This, too, has become our usual.

As a columnist I follow wrote last week, we seem to forget that words matter.

Might this murderer have picked up a gun no matter what? Maybe.

Or, did the constant barrage of words calling journalists evil, unpatriotic, criminal, and “fake,” along with encouragement for physical violence against them, possibly push him over the edge? This, too, is our usual.

What do we tell our students who are learning the journalism craft?

How do we teach them to do their jobs as they withstand such an environment?

I have a son whose first journalism job was with a Maryland newspaper and who now works for another paper in the area. We all have friends or family in the field. What do we say to them? How do we support them in this new usual?

As historians, we try to pay attention as we look to the past to help us navigate the present. And, for an example of what we hold dear, we need look no further than the Capital Gazette staff who, while in shock and grief, put out their paper.

I think no matter how bleak it may seem, our best journalists will continue to stand up, call out questions and speak the truth. That is our usual.

Because, in the end, the pen really is mightier than the sword.

AJHA Seeks Nominations for 2nd VP and Three Board Positions

Dane Claussen — Thu, 07 Jun 2018 01:34:03 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association is seeking nominations for three board positions and the office of second vice president.

Please confirm the candidate's willingness to serve before sending the nomination to Nick, and if possible, you should send a brief bio of the candidate.

Deadline for nominations is 5 p.m. Aug. 15. Nominations may also be made from the floor.

Journalism History’s First Michael S. Sweeney Award Goes to Brigham Young University Scholar for Article on the New York Times’ ‘Zipper’ in Times Square

Dane Claussen — Sat, 02 Jun 2018 05:35:22 GMT

Dale L. Cressman, associate professor of communication at Brigham Young University, has won the first annual Michael S. Sweeney Award for his scholarly article in Journalism History, “News in Light: The Times Square Zipper and Newspaper Signs in an Age of Technological Enthusiasm.”

The award, which honors the best article published in the quarterly journal over the past year, was created by the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) to honor the outgoing editor.

Mike Sweeney, since 2012 editor of the independent peer-reviewed journal at Ohio University, announced two years ago that he wanted to turn over Journalism History to the Division and to a new editor. The reason was two-fold, he told the division with frankness: he was being treated for a Stage IV cancer and the journal’s self-publication was no longer financially sustainable.

Sweeney, who was also the incoming head of the History Division at the time, appointed an ad hoc task force to examine having the Division take over the journal. The mission that Sweeney initiated has now cleared the way for the Division to publish the journal for its nearly 300 members and institutional subscribers. The Division has also named the next editor, Gregory A. Borchard of the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

In appreciation of Sweeney’s tenure as editor and his actions to ensure the journal’s future, the Division created the Michael S. Sweeney Award. The editor, in this case Sweeney himself, nominates four or five top articles from four issues over a recent 12-month period. The winner is selected from among the nominated articles by the Division’s three officers and is honored with a plaque at the AEJMC conference in August.

The other nominees for this first award were Juanita Darling, for “Jewish Values in the Journalism of Alberto Gerchunoff”; Michael Fuhlhage, for “To Limit the Spread of Slavery: A Boston Journal Correspondent’s Multiple Roles in the Kansas Free State Movement”; and Debra Reddin Van Tuyll, for “Protecting Press Freedom and Access to Government Information in Antebellum South Carolina.”

Cressman’s winning article, “News in Light,” traces the evolution of signs posted outside newspaper buildings, notably in New York City, feeding a public appetite for major news events. Electricity and technological advances, under competitive pressure among newspapers, led in 1928 to the “moving letter” sign around the New York Times building known as “The Zipper.” Cressman uses archives from The New York Times to document fights over the patent, but also theorizes that this history prefigured TV news consumption in the way it transformed readers into a collective audience.

The Division officers, Doug Cumming, Erika Pribanic-Smith and Teri Finneman, were impressed by the article’s insight, scholarship and readability.

Cressman, who earned his Ph.D. at the University of Utah, was formerly a television news editor and producer in Salt Lake City, Green Bay, Wis., and Waco, Texas, and an editor at the Canadian Broadcasting System.

Shumate Named AJHA's Web Editor

Dane Claussen — Mon, 21 May 2018 22:08:20 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association Board of Directors has appointed Rich Shumate to the position of Web Editor.

Shumate will assist with the AJHA website over the summer and will take over the Web Editor position officially in October.

An award-winning journalist and media history scholar, Shumate is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism & Broadcasting at Western Kentucky University.

Andie Tucher Named Recipient of 34rd Annual Covert Award

Dane Claussen — Sat, 12 May 2018 22:29:27 GMT

The annual Covert Award in Mass Communication History has been won by Andie Tucher, a Columbia Journalism School professor who directs its Communications Ph.D. program. Tucher won the 34^th annual award for “‘I believe in faking’: The Dilemma of Photographic Realism at the Dawn of Photojournalism,” Photography & Culture, 10:2 (June 2017), 1-20.

The piece was selected from 8 articles nominated. The judges commended Tucher for her “spectacular” scholarship on an important topic, supported by “deep research and original analysis.”

The award, endowed by the late Catherine Covert, a professor of public communications at Syracuse University and former head of the AEJMC History Division, goes to the article or chapter in an edited collection that represents the year's best essay in mass communication history. It is presented by AEJMC's History Division.

The Covert Committee includes some long-time members, among them Covert’s colleagues, as well as the current and past heads of the History Division. Committee members this year were: Douglas Cumming, Washington and Lee University; Kathy Roberts Forde, University of Massachusetts; Richard Kielbowicz, University of Washington; and Nancy Roberts, Chair, State University of New York at Albany.

The History Division will present the $500 award to Tucher at its Members' Meeting at the annual AEJMC convention in August, this year in Washington, D.C.

AEJMC History Division Names 2018 Book Award Winner

Dane Claussen — Sat, 12 May 2018 22:25:48 GMT

The 2018 AEJMC History Division Book Award, honoring the best journalism and mass communication history book published in 2017, has been won by Fred Carroll for Race News: Black Journalists and the Fight for Racial Justice in the Twentieth Century (University of Illinois Press). Carroll is a lecturer in the Department of History and Philosophy at Kennesaw State University, where he teaches courses in U.S. history and African-American History.

A panel of three distinguished media historians chose Race News from a field of 29 entries. Race News is an exhaustive archeological dig that reveals the ways that ideological, political, and commercial dynamics of progressive politics shaped how black journalists reported news. The judges praised Carroll’s scholarship and accessibility, saying that Race News “should appeal to anyone with an interest in black culture, dissident and mainstream journalism, and the social and political forces that shaped the American Century.”

Carroll, who will receive a plaque and a cash prize, has been invited to speak about his work during the History Division members’ meeting on Tuesday, August 7 from 6:45 to 8:15 p.m. at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication convention in Washington, D.C.

New Editor chosen for the journal Journalism History

Dane Claussen — Sat, 12 May 2018 21:57:57 GMT

http://aejmc.us/history/new-editor-will-lead-journalism-history/

AJHA Announces 2018 Blanchard Dissertation Prize Winners

Dane Claussen — Tue, 01 May 2018 21:16:41 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association has named the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Kathryn J. McGarr, formerly of Princeton University, as the winner of its annual Margaret A. Blanchard Doctoral Dissertation Prize.

AJHA has granted the Blanchard Prize to the best doctoral dissertation dealing with mass communication history annually since 1997. “I'm always amazed at the diverse possibilities that can be included under the broad umbrella of media history,” Jane Marcellus, chair of the Blanchard Prize Committee, said. “The Blanchard Dissertation Prize competition continues to bring in excellent work from students at top universities, including those whose Ph.D.s--like our top winner--are not in journalism and mass communication per se but whose work intersects with the field. The members of the committee work carefully and diligently to evaluate entries; they deserve our thanks.”

McGarr and three runners-up will present their research at AJHA’s Annual Convention Oct. 4-6 in Salt Lake City. McGarr’s dissertation, “Gentlemen of the Press: Post-World War II Foreign Policy Reporting from the Washington Community,” was chaired by Julian Zelizer at Princeton.

Joining McGarr will be Jeremiah Favara and Thomas Schmidt, both of the University of Oregon, and Willie R. Tubbs, formerly of the University of Southern Mississippi, now at the University of West Florida. Favara completed “Recruiting for Difference and Diversity in the U.S. Military” under the direction of Carol Stabile. Schmidt’s “Rediscovering Narrative: A Cultural History of Journalistic Storytelling in American Newspapers, 1969-2001” was chaired by Gretchen Soderlund, and Tubbs’ “Forward Myth: Military Public Relations and the Domestic Base Newspaper 1941-1981” was chaired by David R. Davies.

McKerns Research Grant Application Deadline Fast Approaching

Dane Claussen — Fri, 27 Apr 2018 18:55:09 GMT

Scholars interested in the American Journalism Historians Association’s annual Joseph McKerns Research Grant Awards have until June 1 to submit all required documents to the appropriate committee. McKerns grants are intended to provide research assistance and to recognize and reward the winners. Up to four grants for up to $1,250 each will be rewarded upon review and recommendation of the Research Grant Committee.

All current AJHA full members with a minimum of three years' membership at the time of application are eligible. However, the applicant must be the principal investigator of the research project and the research project must be related to mass media history. Awardees are expected to continue their membership through the grant period, and to submit a report discussing the method, findings, complications, and significance of their research to the organization’s newsletter, the Intelligencer, by Sept. 1, 2019.

To be considered for a McKerns grant, AJHA members must submit:

• An application form.

• A one-to-three-page overview of the project, including a budget (which should include a listing of amount and sources of other support, if appropriate), timelines, and expected outlets for the research.

• If appropriate, an Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval from the applicant's university.

• A shortened curriculum vitae (no more than three pages). Grant applications must be submitted via email to Research Grant Committee Chair Erin Coyle at ekcoyle@lsu.edu. Materials may be submitted as PDF files or Word documents.

Deadline Approaching for National Convention Papers, Panels, Research in Progress

Dane Claussen — Fri, 27 Apr 2018 18:49:57 GMT

The deadline for all submissions is June 1, 2018. Authors may submit only one research paper, as well as a single research in progress about a significantly different topic. Authors are also eligible to participate in a single research panel. Research paper entries must be no longer than 25 pages of text, double-spaced, in 12-point type, not including notes. The Chicago Manual of Style is recommended but not required.

The Research in Progress category is for work that will not be completed before the conference. For research in progress submissions, authors should send a blind abstract of the study. The abstract should include a clear purpose statement as well as a brief description of your primary sources. Abstracts must be no longer than two pages of text, double-spaced, in 12-point type, with 1-inch margins, excluding notes. Primary sources should be described in detail in another double-spaced page.

Preference will be given to panel proposals that involve the audience and panelists in meaningful discussion or debate on original topics relevant to journalism history. Preference also will be given to panels that present diverse perspectives on their topics. Panel entries must be no longer than three pages of text, double-spaced, in 12-point type, with one-inch margins. Authors of accepted papers and research in progress, as well as panel participants, must register for the convention and attend in order to present their research.

Research papers should be emailed to ajhapaper@gmail.com, panel proposals to ajhapanels@gmail.com, and research in progress proposals to ajharip@gmail.com. Full details of all convention competitions can be found at https://ajha.wildapricot.org/call2018.

Columbia Journalism Review: "Historians are a great resource. Journalists, be sure to give them credit"

Dane Claussen — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 17:55:40 GMT

https://www.cjr.org/criticism/historians-journalists.php

Call for AJHA's Rising Scholars Nominees

Dane Claussen — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 17:57:18 GMT

American Journalism, the official journal of the American Journalism Historians Association, announced Wednesday that it is seeking applications for the annual Rising Scholar Award.

The award is intended to provide research assistance of up to $2,000 for a junior faculty member who has not yet achieved tenure. The proposed research project must be related to media history, but all methodological approaches are welcome. Applicants must be current AJHA members at the time the proposal is submitted. Proposals may be for sole-authored or co-authored work. If two or more individuals apply together, the award amount will be shared. The award is not intended for dissertation completion research, and undergraduate and graduate students are not eligible.

To be considered, applicants must submit:

• A cover letter with name and contact information for applicant(s).

• A three-to-five-page prospectus of the project that describes the topic and justifies its contribution to the historiography of the mass media.

• An itemized budget of no more than one page. This budget should include what, if any, additional funding sources will be used.

• If appropriate, the applicant should include the Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval from the university.

• A list of possible publication venues for the finished project.

• A letter of support from the applicant’s department chair or dean.

• A curriculum vitae of no more than three pages.

The application deadline is June 1, and proposals should be submitted to Vanessa Murphree, School of Mass Communication and Journalism, 105-C College Hall, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS 39406; or via e-mail to vanessa.murphree@usm.edu.

Digital Tools for Oral History Workshop

Dane Claussen — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 01:08:29 GMT

We are excited to announce our 2018 offering in our advanced online oral history workshop series, Sharpen Your Skills: Advanced E-Workshops. “Digital Tools for Oral History” will focus on a selection of innovative options and applications available to the twenty-first century oral historian. BUIOH Director Stephen Sloan and Senior Editor/Collection Manager Steven Sielaff will discuss software and web platforms (most of which are free/open source!) that will enable you to accomplish and enhance your project goals of preservation, access, curation, and dissemination. This workshop is be a single three-hour session on May 23 from 10:00am to 1:00pm CDT and costs $75.

To register for this workshop, follow this link: https://www.baylor.edu/oralhistory/index.php?id=936083

Contact Info: Stephen Sloan, Institute for Oral History, Baylor University

Contact Email: stephen_sloan@baylor.edu

URL: https://www.baylor.edu/oralhistory/index.php?id=936083

CFP: The Fifties and Pop/Visual Culture: Film, Television and Beyond

Dane Claussen — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 01:05:53 GMT

We invite presentation proposals for The Fifties and Pop/Visual Culture: Film, Television and Beyond Conference, to be held at Texas Christian University (Fort Worth, Texas) November 9-10, 2018.

The conference organizers are seeking historically and theoretically intriguing contributions that explore any noteworthy aspect(s) of popular and/or visual culture during the 1950s, whether in the United States or elsewhere, in relation to cinematic, televisual, and other types of media offerings.

Participants are encouraged to interpret the conference theme quite broadly and innovatively. Possible topics may include (but are certainly not limited to) advertising images and strategies, atomic age depictions, Beat writers, changing traditions and value structures, CinemaScope, cold war culture, containment strategies, desegregation, Elvis Presley, ethnic sitcoms, fashion trends, films noir, James Dean, juvenile delinquency, Levittowns, Lucille Ball, Marilyn Monroe, McCarthyism, men in gray flannel suits, mid-century icons and stars, normative gender roles and expectations, the nuclear family, science fiction movies, the studio system, technological innovations, television’s early years, variety shows, UFO scares, and saying what couldn’t be said.

We encourage submissions from scholars, educators, and students at all levels, and from disciplines including art, communication, cultural studies, film and video studies, history, journalism, LGBTQ studies, literature, media studies, music, political science, popular culture, sociology, television studies, and women’s studies, among others.

Given adequate participant interest and high-quality submissions, we are hoping to publish selected papers (with author’s permission) in a special collection of essays pertaining to the conference theme.

Please e-mail presentation proposals containing (a) a one-page abstract with complete contact information (name, institutional affiliation, e-mail address, and contact telephone number) and (b) a one-paragraph author biography to Professor Kylo-Patrick Hart (k.hart@tcu.edu) on or before Friday, August 3, 2018.

Decisions regarding the status of submitted proposals will be made and communicated as quickly as possible following the submission deadline, and certainly no later than August 17, 2018. For specific inquiries prior to submitting a proposal, please contact Dr. Hart at your convenience by e-mail (k.hart@tcu.edu).

Contact Info: Kylo-Patrick R. Hart, Department of Film, Television and Digital Media, Texas Christian University

Contact Email: k.hart@tcu.edu

CFP: War/After War: Memory, Fear, Indifference

Dane Claussen — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 01:02:41 GMT

(Rutgers University; New Brunswick, NJ, October 4-5)

War as memory. The fear of war. War as experience. How does culture mark its relationship to organized violent conflict?

In 2018, Rutgers’ Nineteenth Century Workshop will address the long-lasting effects of war on nineteenth-century literature and culture. It is a topic we take to be both urgent and of particular scholarly interest to students of the era.

This year marks the anniversary of the end of the war to end all wars, an epochal struggle with relatively little presence in current popular memory. But this is just one instance where the preoccupation with a military conflict, like its neglect, is in itself a complex cultural matter. The recent and ongoing controversy over the fate of memorials dedicated to the losing side in the American Civil war, the paucity of discussion of the continuing military engagements involved in what has been called the war on terror, and the recent re-awakening of structures of thought and behavior reminiscent of the Cold War—all of these phenomena remind us that what we call victory, loss, and the commemoration of state violence are seldom settled matters.

The military struggles that define the nineteenth century as a period—the revolutionary violence in America, France, and the Caribbean in the late 18th century and the first global conflagration in the early 20th— are at once political events establishing new social arrangements, and cultural ones provoking reflection, memory, and debate.

And yet, the place of military conflict in the cultural imagination varies strikingly depending on specific national traditions. European wars look different from the vantage point of the far reaches of Empire, as does the struggle over New World territory from the perspective of the enslaved or the newly emancipated. The nationalisms that emerged all over the world in the period bore a complex relationship to both colonial expansion and domestic revolt. As none of England’s many nineteenth-century wars took place on its soil, the involvement of the general population was intermittent and highly mediated. By contrast, a civil war that caused the death of more Americans than any foreign struggle explicitly structures the study of nineteenth-century American literature and culture, installing a sharp break in the middle of the century and recasting narratives of national and regional belonging on either side of this divide.

We welcome papers from all humanistic disciplines that address how war has shaped our understanding of the nineteenth century and its legacy. Topics may include: the feelings of war; the role of knowledge, information, and ignorance in shaping the experience and memory of war; the ethics of violence; the language of conflict; the temporality of war; and the politics of remembrance. We are also interested in the role of military conflict in shaping the experience of peace, including questions of complicity and resistance.

Essays will be circulated in advance to all participants; the workshop format will permit the focused discussion of these essays across two days of convivial conversation. Workshop participants will include nineteenth-century scholars from various fields—history, art history, the history of philosophy, and a broad range of modern literatures—at Rutgers and in the greater NY/NJ area. The workshop will cover the travel and housing expenses of those chosen to present their work.

Applications should be addressed to Jonah Siegel and sent to treesh@sas.rutgers.edu by Tuesday, May 1; please use the subject line “Nineteenth-Century Workshop 2018” to ensure your application arrives at the proper destination. Applications should include a description of the proposed paper (1-2 pages) and a brief cv (no more than 3 pages); they will be evaluated by an interdisciplinary group of scholars. Applicants will be notified by mid-May if they will be included in the program

Contact Info:

Proposals to: treesh@sas.rutgers.edu.

For information: jsiegel@rci.rutgers.edu

Contact Email: treesh@sas.rutgers.edu

URL: http://britishstudies.rutgers.edu/

CFP: The Press and the Vote (National U. of Ireland, November 2018)

Dane Claussen — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 01:00:32 GMT

Tenth Anniversary Conference, National University of Ireland, Galway, 9-10 November 2018

‘The gallery in which the reporters sit has become the fourth estate of the realm’ wrote Thomas Babington Macaulay in 1843. The role of the press in informing or influencing, misleading or educating voters has been debated before and since Macaulay’s statement. In 2018 the question of the role and influence of the established press in referendums and elections is as relevant as ever. Marking the centenary of the 1918 general election in Britain and Ireland, 2018 presents a pertinent point to examine these questions.

Held in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, the 1918 general election was the first under the Representation of the People Act where franchise, with some limitations, was extended to women over thirty and men over twenty-one. In Britain it was a successful election for the wartime coalition government and saw a significant increase in Labour’s share of the vote, though not seats. In Ireland there was a landslide victory for Sinn Féin, who largely wiped out the Irish Parliamentary Party, and went on to form the abstentionist First Dáil. It also saw the first election of a woman to the Westminster parliament, though as a Sinn Féin candidate Countess Markievicz did not take her seat. The parties and perspectives involved in the election all had their supporters and critics in the press: the establishment as represented by the coalition, the Labour movement, the spectrum of radical and socialist organisations, Irish nationalism and the women’s suffrage movement.

The Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland (NPHFI) invites papers that interrogate the press and the vote from a range of disciplinary perspectives. The focus of papers should be on print media and / or its intersection and interaction with other forms of media insofar as they relate to the history of print.

Papers are not required to specifically address Britain or Ireland, or the 1918 general election; they may address any historical period, up to and including the present day, and any geographical region or regions. Topics that may be addressed include, but are not limited to:

The press as an institution of electoral democracy.
The press and electoral propaganda and disinformation.
The press in landmark votes and referendums.
The press and post-war elections.
The press and the extension or restriction of franchise.
The press and women’s suffrage.
The Vote as an instrument of social change for the women’s suffragist and labour press.

To submit a proposal please email an abstract of no more than 250 words to the NPHFI secretary, Dr James O’Donnell, at nphficonference@gmail.com.

Abstracts must contain a clear title and present clearly the main thesis / argument proposed. Each abstract must also include name(s), affiliation, institutional address and email address(es) of the author(s).

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 7 June 2018.

The Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland seeks to achieve gender balance on its conference panels and welcomes proposals from researchers of all career stages working in academia, media, and in professional organisations.

Hosted by the Moore Institute in association with the Centre for the Investigation of Transnational Encounters (CITE) and the Irish Centre for the Histories of labour and Class (ICHLC), and with thanks to the support of Gale Primary Sources.

New Summer Workshops: Oral History Summer School 2018

Dane Claussen — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 00:55:54 GMT

Oral History Summer School was established in Hudson, New York, in 2012, as a rigorous training program to help students from varied fields––writers, social workers, radio producers, artists, teachers, human rights workers––make use of oral history as an ethical interview practice in their lives and work. OHSS has two workshop this spring/summer which are now accepting applications.

Full information about OHSS and the workshops can be found, below:

Oral History Summer School is a cross-disciplinary program in Hudson, New York that offers training in oral history methodologies and documentary approaches. We host foundational workshops as well as advanced training on focused topics such as memory loss, mixed ability interviewing, song collection, family history, and trauma narratives/testimony. Oral History Summer School is offering two new workshops in Upstate New York (Hudson), this spring/summer.

Experimental Ethnographies: Oral History Remixed (May 15-24, 2018)

Instructors: Suzanne Snider (Oral History Summer School), Todd Shalom (Elastic City), Michael Garofalo (Storycorps), LJ Amsterdam (Ruckus Society)

Oral History Intensive + Oral History & Care (June 18-29, 2018)

Instructors: Suzanne Snider (Oral History Summer School), Ry Garcia-Sampson (Warren Alpert Medical School, Brown University), Daniel Cogan (NP, Aspire Health)

Additional workshop details and application forms can be found, here

Email: info@oralhistorysummerschool.com
website: www.oralhistorysummerschool.com

*Because summer is a busy season, upstate, OHSS has reserved a number of housing options well below market rate; early applicants will have widest range of affordable options.

CFP: Roy Howard Symposium, Indiana University

Dane Claussen — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 00:53:49 GMT

The Indiana University Media School is organizing a symposium around the launch of the fully digitized collection in IU’s Roy W. Howard Archive. This influential journalist and newspaper publisher ran the United Press and the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain in the first half of the twentieth century, and IU has housed a substantial collection of his papers since 1983. The collection is being digitized and will be available for online viewing and research this year.

To celebrate this rich resource, the Media School will host a symposium for researchers, archivists, journalists and others interested in Howard’s legacy, the broader history of twentieth century journalism, and the increasing availability of digitized archival sources for historical research.

The symposium will be in October 2018 on IU’s beautiful Bloomington, Indiana, campus and will feature paper sessions, a roundtable discussion on archives and digitization, and a showcase panel of senior scholars who have used the Howard Archive. The symposium is funded by generous support from the Scripps Howard Foundation and the Howard family.

Read the full paper call and other details at the symposium website: http://mediaschool.indiana.edu/royhowardsymposium/

What I Did in Rwanda: How I Used the McKerns Research Grant

Dane Claussen — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 02:12:31 GMT

By Will Mari, Northwest University

On a warm June morning in 2017, I found myself standing in a small classroom in the green foothills of Kigali, Rwanda, teaching students about American journalism history.

I got there partially thanks to the AJHA's generous Joseph McKerns Research Grant, which I received in the fall of 2016. It helped to subsidize what had originally been intended as a fact-finding trip for a research project. That project was supposed to have been an oral-history of the English-speaking newspapers in the land-locked, mountainous east African country.

When I arrived in mid-May, however, I quickly realized that the very large scope of my project, and the political sensitivities of conducting it before the country’s upcoming elections, made my first idea unlikely, and looked for other ways to spend my time there.

Fortunately, I was soon contacted through a close colleague, about a summer teaching opportunity for Ejo Youth Echo (EYE), a nonprofit that trains high-school and college students in media work. EYE receives both local, regional and some international funding, including from the German government, and produces programs for the Voice of America. The Cold War history of this latter organization is something I’m intrigued by, especially its role in American media engagement in the developing world during that era, and its connections to local broadcasters and producers such as EYE.

When the volunteers at EYE asked me to co-teach a summer class on the history of American journalism, and a parallel class on media writing, the timing and connection to my own interest thus worked out well.

As EYE is also interested in cultivating critical-thinking and media-literacy skills, I focused on retooling my courses in these topics for Rwandan students. I taught about 10-12 students three times a week in the mornings, at EYE’s studio in Kigali, for a month beginning in early June.

The students, who ranged in age from their late teens through their mid-twenties, about half men and half women, were attentive and engaged, especially with the history part of the class. Several were studying journalism at local colleges and universities. Most of them were also actively volunteering to produce radio content for EYE.

Truthfully, I learned as much from them as they did from me, if not more. While at first shy, they soon opened up and asked me and my fellow instructor to coffee after we were finished around noon each day, and liked to ask questions about how journalism works, or doesn’t work, in the U.S. We, in turn, asked them about their lives and aspirations, and about how journalism functions in Rwanda and East Africa. As I rode the back of a moto (motorcycle taxi) to the nonprofit’s house-classroom in the mornings, and then in the afternoons afterward, I felt at turns excited and intimidated: teaching students in another culture and through a language barrier helped me learn to slow things down, provide more context, and listen better (something I’m still working on).

The second half of the course, on the basics of media-writing and AP style, was more challenging. We had the students write basic news and features stories, and practice interviewing techniques. Because many of them were working or attending other classes, or just weren’t used to some of my presumptions about length and number of sources, for example, the results were uneven. If I was to teach the class again, I might either spend more time on shorter, in-class assignments to prepare them for the longer stories, or double-down on the media-law and history-side of the course. I’d also assign more videos to watch, or shorter reading assignments.

Ultimately, however, I am grateful for the opportunity the McKerns Grant provided: to learn more about how other places “do” their journalism and teach it to the next generation. I also made some valuable future connections for what I hope to be a history of the VOA in the developing world. I should thank Michael Fuhlhage, the AJHA's research chair, for his encouragement to pursue this alternative path for the grant, and the AJHA itself, for affirming the role of media-history and journalism-education around the world.

______________________________________________________

Will Mari is an assistant professor at Northwest University (Kirkland, Wash.) and AJHA's Membership co-chair and social-media coordinator

Doctoral Student Patti Piburn Reflects on Meeting Real (AJHA) Historians

Dane Claussen — Tue, 10 Apr 2018 20:20:35 GMT

A Graduate Student Testimonial

By Patti Piburn

Trepidation. That’s what I felt as I boarded a plane at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport heading for Little Rock, Ark. I was going to present a paper at the American Journalism Historians Association conference. I had a mix of business casual in my carry-on and a mix of excitement, fear and anxiety in my heart. I didn’t know what to expect. How was I going to fit in with all the “real” historians attending the conference? What had I gotten myself into?

I had a similar feeling after graduation when I was driving to New Mexico to start my first job as a reporter. Everything I owned was packed in a U-Haul moving truck. I had just finished a B.A. in broadcast journalism and a B.S. in Political Science at Arizona State University. Now it was time to put all that learning to work. Time to practice journalism, in a newsroom with “real” reporters. What had I gotten myself into? In spite of my trepidation, I found a supportive, nurturing group of journalists in New Mexico and a welcoming community. It was a sort of boot camp experience, and as rookie reporters, we bonded in our struggles.

That same feeling came back to me in 2006 when I walked into a classroom of college students for the first time as a lecturer. After ten years practicing journalism in a newsroom, here I was practicing teaching journalism in a classroom. Once again, I found a supportive, nurturing group of colleagues who helped me find my footing as an instructor. And, a welcoming campus community at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Much like my first year reporting in New Mexico, and true to the university’s motto, teaching was certainly a “learn by doing” experience for me.

In 2016 I walked into an ASU classroom with that same anxious, excited, and fearful feeling. I had quit my job at the local NPR affiliate station where I lived in California, agreed to teach for Cal Poly online, packed up everything I owned, and there I was back in Arizona. I looked around the room at my fellow Ph.D. students wondering once again, what had I gotten myself into? In my cohort I found a supportive, nurturing group of friends, and a welcoming community at the Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

There I sat on the plane taking another step in my journey, feeling anxious, fearful and excited all at once. That familiar feeling of trepidation. I had never done any historical research until I wrote the paper I would be presenting in Little Rock. The moment I arrived at the check-in desk at the hotel, I realized AJHA is a friendly and welcoming community. I met a diverse array of supportive and nurturing scholars and Ph.D. students. There was so much experience packed into one place. That feeling of what have I gotten myself into quickly evaporated.

From the paper presentations, panel discussions and social gatherings, the fabulous dinner at the Clinton Presidential Library, to the tour of Little Rock High School, it was an invaluable week. I couldn't have found a more welcoming or supportive group of people, I mean historians. “Real” historians. What I aspire to be.

2018 AJHA Call for Papers, Panels and Research-in-Progress

Dane Claussen — Fri, 06 Apr 2018 03:44:28 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association invites paper entries, panel proposals, and abstracts of research in progress on any facet of media history for its 37th annual convention to be held Oct. 4-6, 2018, in Salt Lake City, Utah. More information on the 2018 AJHA convention is available at https://ajha.wildapricot.org.

The deadline for all submissions is June 1, 2018.

The AJHA views journalism history broadly, embracing print, broadcasting, advertising, public relations, and other forms of mass communication that have been inextricably intertwined with the human past. Because the AJHA requires presentation of original material, research papers and panels submitted to the convention should not have been submitted to or accepted by another convention or publication.

RESEARCH PAPERS

Authors may submit only one research paper. They also may submit one Research in Progress abstract but only on a significantly different topic. Research entries must be no longer than 25 pages of text, double-spaced, in 12-point type, not including notes. The Chicago Manual of Style is recommended but not required.

Papers must be submitted electronically as PDF or Word attachments. Please send the following:

An email with the attached paper, saved with author identification only in the file name and not in the paper.

A separate 150-word abstract as a Word attachment (no PDFs) with no author identification.

Author’s info (email address, telephone number, institutional affiliation, and undergraduate student, graduate student, or faculty status) in the text of the email.

Send papers to ajhapaper@gmail.com.

Authors of accepted papers must register for the convention and attend in order to present their research.

Accepted papers are eligible for several awards, including the following:

David Sloan Award for the outstanding faculty research paper ($250 prize).

Robert Lance Award for outstanding student research paper ($100 prize).

Jean Palmegiano Award for outstanding international/transnational journalism history research paper ($150 prize)

J. William Snorgrass Award for outstanding minority-journalism research paper.

Maurine Beasley Award for outstanding women’s-history research paper.

Wally Eberhard Award for outstanding research in media and war ($50 prize).

Research Chair Erin Coyle (ekcoyle@lsu.edu) of Louisiana State University is coordinating paper submissions. Authors will be notified in mid-July whether their papers have been accepted.

PANELS

Preference will be given to proposals that involve the audience and panelists in meaningful discussion or debate on original topics relevant to journalism history. Preference also will be given to panels that present diverse perspectives on their topics. Entries must be no longer than three pages of text, double-spaced, in 12-point type, with one-inch margins. Panel participants must register for and attend the convention.

Panel proposals must be submitted electronically as PDF or Word attachments. Please include the following:

A title and brief description of the topic.

The moderator and participants’ info (name, institutional affiliation, student or faculty status).

A brief summary of each participant’s presentation.

Send proposals to ajhapanels@gmail.com.

No individual may be on more than one panel. Panel organizers must make sure panelists have not agreed to serve on multiple panels. Panel organizers also must secure commitment from panelists to participate before submitting the proposal. Moderators are discussion facilitators and may not serve as panelists. Failure to adhere to the guidelines will lead to rejection of the proposal.

Panelists may submit a research paper and/or research in progress abstract.

Tracy Lucht (tlucht@iastate.edu) of Iowa State University is coordinating the panel competition. Authors of panel proposals will be notified in mid-July whether their panels have been accepted.

RESEARCH IN PROGRESS

The Research in Progress category is for work that will NOT be completed before the conference. Participants will give an overview of their research purpose and progress, not a paper presentation, as the category’s purpose is to allow for discussion and feedback on work in progress. RIP authors may also submit a research paper on a significantly different topic.

For research in progress submissions, send a blind abstract of your study. Include the proposal title in the abstract. The abstract should include a clear purpose statement as well as a brief description of your primary sources. Abstracts must be no longer than two pages of text, double-spaced, in 12-point type, with 1-inch margins, excluding notes.

Primary sources should be described in detail in another double-spaced page.

Entries that do not follow these guidelines will be rejected.

The AJHA Research in Progress competition is administered electronically.

Proposals must be submitted as PDF or Word attachments, saved with author identification ONLY in the file names and NOT in the text of the proposal.

Each proposal must be submitted as an attachment, with author’s info (name, project title, telephone number, email address, institutional affiliation, and student or faculty status) in the text of the email.

Send research in progress proposals to ajharip@gmail.com. Authors will be notified in mid-July whether their proposals have been accepted.

Authors whose work is accepted must register for and attend the convention.

Keith Greenwood (greenwoodk@missouri.edu) of University of Missouri is coordinating the Research in Progress competition.

News about Our Outstanding AJHA Members!

Dane Claussen — Fri, 06 Apr 2018 03:39:45 GMT

The board of trustees at Albright College approved the promotion of Jon Bekken to full professor in January 2018; the promotion will take effect with the Fall 2018 semester.

Joel J. Campbell and Kristoffer D. Boyle, Brigham Young University School of Communications, published “Artemus Ward: The Forgotten Influence of the Genial Showman’s Mormon Lecture on Public Opinion of Mormons in the United States and Great Britain,” in The Journal of Popular Culture, October 2017 (Vol. 50, Issue 5, pp. 1107-1126).

Caryl Cooper, Alabama, and Aimee Edmondson, Ohio, met up at the University of Alabama where Cooper gave a civil rights history tour to Edmondson’s Ohio students as part of Edmondson’s Civil Rights & Media class. Edmondson took her students on a week-long civil rights tour through the South during Spring Break and Cooper gave a tour of the key civil rights history sites at Alabama. Edmondson notes that she and Cooper met through AJHA, and Ohio and Alabama came together to learn/teach some history!

David Copeland was named Elon University’s sixth Distinguished University Professor in a ceremony in November 2017. The award is given to senior university faculty upon occasion by the university’s president who solicits nominations from the faculty to honor teaching, scholarship, leadership, and service to the Elon University community. Elon was founded in 1889.

David Dowling, associate professor at the University of Iowa, is author or co-author of five recent or forthcoming articles. They are: Dowling, David. “Emerson in Media Studies and Journalism” in Approaches to Teaching Emerson’s Essays and Other Works, ed. Sean Meehan and Mark Long. Modern Language Association, (in press) 2018; Dowling, David. “Emerson’s Newspaperman: Horace Greeley and Radical Intellectual Culture, 1836-1872” Journalism & Communication Monographs 19.1 (Spring 2017); Dowling, David. “Banned in Britain: Marilynne Robinson’s Radical Environmental Journalism,” under review at Literary Journalism Studies; Subin Paul [student author] and David Dowling, “Ghandi’s Newspaperman: T.G. Narayanan and the Quest for an Independent India, 1938-1946,” (in press) Modern Asian Studies; and David Dowling and John Haman [student author], “New Horizons for TeachingJournalism History: A Multimedia Approach” American Journalism 34.3 (2017): 353-362.

Kate Dunsmore, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, Fairleigh Dickinson University, is now Director of the department's MA in Communication Program.

Michael Fuhlhage was awarded the Bernard Brock Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Communication for 2017 by the Department of Communication at Wayne State University, where he is assistant professor.

Former AJHA President and Founding Member Mike Murray was voted UM Board of Curators' Distinguished Professor Emeritus by the four-campus University of Missouri governing board, meaning he will retain his office on the St. Louis campus and also continue teaching one section of "Media History.” Mike was honored by UM System President Mun Choi -- with family members at a MU vs. Florida game. He also recently published the 5th edition of Media Law & Ethics (New York: Routledge / Taylor & Francis, 2018) along with long-time co-author Roy L. Moore, plus J. Michael Farrell and Kyu Ho Youm (Oregon).

Teresa Styles, Morehouse College, was a panelist at the Georgia Bar & Media Judiciary Conference in Atlanta titled, “Georgia Judges, Journalists and Lawyers And the First Amendment.” Panelist Tony Maddox of CNN International, Kevin Riley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Kevin Sack of The New York Times joined Styles on the topic of the “Cultural Challenges to the First Amendment: The Next Generation, Hate Speech and Fake News.” The moderator was Ron Thomas of Morehouse College.

Ronald R. Rodgers, Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator, Department of Journalism, University of Florida, is publishing this month his long-awaited book, The Struggle for the Soul of Journalism: The Pulpit versus the Press, 1833-1923. The publisher, the University of Missouri Press, writes, “Ronald R. Rodgers examines several narratives involving religion’s historical influence on the news ethic of journalism: its decades-long opposition to the Sunday newspaper as a vehicle of modernity that challenged the tradition of the Sabbath; the parallel attempt to create an advertising-driven Christian daily newspaper; and the ways in which religion—especially the powerful Social Gospel movement—pressured the press to become a moral agent. The digital disruption of the news media today has provoked a similar search for a news ethic that reflects a new era—for instance, in the debate about jettisoning the substrate of contemporary mainstream journalism, objectivity. But, Rodgers argues, before we begin to transform journalism’s present news ethic, we need to understand its foundation and formation in the past.”

Call for Authors: Civil War & Reconstruction Press in Midwest and Far West

Dane Claussen — Fri, 06 Apr 2018 03:24:03 GMT

Although the American Civil War has received extensive scholarly attention, surprisingly little scholarly work has been devoted to western newspapers and their experiences with secession, the war and the start of the Reconstruction era.

Professors Debra Reddin van Tuyll and Mary (Cronin) Lamonica are producing a two-volume edited work on the topic, and we need a few more chapter authors. One volume examines the press of the Midwestern region and the second book examines the far West. The volumes, collectively, will cover an area stretching from Ohio (considered the frontier at the time of the war) to the states and territories on the Pacific Coast.

Midwestern editors and their western counterparts were not immune from the war or its impact. A number of skirmishes and some battles occurred across the frontier. Southern sympathizers abounded, and recruiters for the Union and Confederate armies ranged across the western states and territories, looking for hale and hearty men to serve. Oklahoma, Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio had to deal with both Confederate supporters and Federal recruitment and military incursions. Mining camps throughout the Rocky Mountain frontier had similar problems, with law enforcement often having to separate Northern and Southern miners.

The volumes also will examine home front issues. Western migration continued, towns were established and mining camps were booming. But the onset of war also meant shortages of supplies in frontier communities. Because western states and territories sent units to fight in the war, newspapers had to serve audiences anxious for war news. And, most publishers had to provide that news without a dedicated corps of reporters.

Midwestern and western editors also faced problems meeting that demand due to the lack of communication infrastructure. Without railroads and telegraph lines in much of the western United States, news, whether war-related or political, was slow to reach western editors. Editors faced equal difficulty in getting their frontier concerns to politicians and military officials back east.

This two-volume series will examine the Midwestern states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri in Volume 1. Volume 2 will focus on the far western states and territories, including the Dakotas, Oregon, California, Texas, Washington (which included Idaho and some of Montana), Utah, New Mexico, Nebraska, and Kansas. (Indian Territory did not have a press during the war years, although it will be mentioned throughout the book as several battles occurred there, and Native American families were devastated physically and emotionally by the war).

The volumes focus primarily on Union-supporting states and territories, with the exception of Texas and the divided state of Missouri. Supporters and opponents of the Union and of the Confederacy lived in the Midwest and the far west, a reality that led to lively politics, confusion and fear (at times), skirmishes and battles, and lively editorial practices.

The two-volume set will be arranged thematically and will roughly parallel the work of Debra Reddin van Tuyll’s 2012 work, The Confederate Press in the Crucible of the American Civil War. Van Tuyll’s work was grounded in the notion that press function is determined by its political and social environment. Additionally, just as the press is influenced by its society, it influences its society to develop politically, socially, and economically in particular ways.

Van Tuyll’s book offered a thematic history of the Confederate press as an important social structure in the nascent Southern slave republic. In that book, then, van Tuyll looked at the social, political, economic and legal environment of the Confederate press. Additionally, she explored who was reading the newspapers that southern journalists were producing, as well as who those producers were.

The new two-volume work examines the social, economic, political, cultural, and intellectual history of the Midwestern and western press during the Civil War. The work should be grounded in primary sources, including archival material such as letters, diaries, newspaper business records (when they can be found), readership and advertising records (when they can be found) as well as the newspapers themselves. It will be important that the book examine how western editors covered both the war and home front issues and that looks at the public’s responses to the war. Therefore, the editors encourage authors to examine primary source material from citizens, politicians, business leaders and members of the press to provide as well-rounded a view of news and information from 1860 through Reconstruction as possible.

The public’s response is particularly important, because as historian Alice Fahs noted in her work, The Imagined Civil War: Popular Literature of the North and South, 1861-1865, the press, collectively, helped shape a cultural politics of the war.

The two-volume set will be a scholarly, yet readable work that reaches a wide audience. Authors’ work should be completed by November 2019. A panel presentation at either AJHA or the Symposium on the Nineteenth-Century Press, the Civil War and Free Expression in Chattanooga will be planned, as well. The authors anticipate finding a university press for this work—perhaps Oxford University Press, Oklahoma, Texas, Washington, or even the University of California Press. A full prospectus is available from either editor. Email us at DVANTUYL@augusta.edu or mlamonic@nmsu.edu.

Spring 2018 President's Column: A Month for Marches

Dane Claussen — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 03:16:23 GMT

By Dianne Bragg

March is one of those months that is filled with surprises. Often, the weather this time of year leaves us with one foot in spring and another still in winter. Our northern friends have been hit by weekly snowstorms and here in the South tornadoes have already left their destructive signature on several communities, including the campus of Jacksonville State University in Alabama. Fortunately, despite the extensive damage to the campus and student housing, no one was seriously injured because students were away on spring break.

Even so, March offers the promise of April, Spring and better days ahead. I would propose that it is the same with the state of journalism. As our country faces new political crises almost daily, it is the journalists who remain on the front line. Sometimes that means actually being at a march or protest and recording events for today and tomorrow. For us, as journalism historians, it often means looking to the past so we can make sense of the present, or maybe just offer another perspective. Too often, the average citizen (whoever that is) does not understand how our past informs our present. And, it is likewise with many of our students.

In the midst of the turmoil at many of our schools and across our country, there have been cries for curtailing speech or limiting speakers’ access to campuses. Although the fear is understandable, it is a moment of concern, one that calls into question our understanding of the First Amendment and what it means to allow space for the speech we hate. Within that debate, there has even been some criticism of students and their role in protests at their schools. Although we have historic student speech cases like Tinker, Frazier and Hazelwood to offer some guidance, particularly on high school campuses, we are left to debate what actually constitutes “legitimate pedagogical concerns.”

A recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education questioned whether those of us in education are doing all we can to ensure that students, faculty, and administrators understand their rights and responsibilities. In “The Crisis of Civic Education,” Derek Bok, president emeritus of Harvard University, asserted that there is much more we could do to prepare our students for the challenges of living in a democracy. Bok suggests that we are requiring less of students in areas of critical thinking, American government, and news literacy. I agree with him. Instead of broadening our students’ views, schools too often try to create an insular environment, often under the guise of safety and legal concerns. We are all too familiar with the phenomenon of “helicopter” parents. It would seem, though, that many of our schools are becoming “helicopter” institutions, often at the behest of parents, politicians, and even political news commentators. Taking such a stance falls far short of our duties to help our students on their way to becoming fully participatory members of a democratic society.

And, as often happens, it is journalism historians who are able to shed insight on what has come before. In the midst of the student anti-gun “March for Our Lives” protests, more than one “adult,” over numerous media platforms, has seen fit to deride the protestors as being too young, disrespectful, and ill-informed. Slogans such as “Walk Up” not “Walk Out” have made the rounds. To be frank, I am not even sure I know what that one means. But, these young people have not been deterred, even as they have been the focus of ugly innuendo.

It is not the first time this has happened and, as fate would have it, Linda Brown died recently. Brown was 76 when she died in Kansas, but she was a Topeka third grader when her father tried to enroll her in an all-white school, a move that set off the events leading to the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

Recently, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County men’s basketball team stunned the NCAA tournament when it became the first 16^th seeded team to defeat a number one team. There is more to this school, though, than their basketball program. UMBD’s president, Freeman Hrabowski III, grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, and participated in a Civil Rights Children’s Crusade in 1963. Hrabowski, all of 12 years old, found himself face to face with the infamous Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor, who spat in Hrabowski’s face and sent the young boy, along with many other children, off to spend five nights in jail. Hrabowski has acknowledged how this event shaped him and impacted his career in education.

History is all around us and it is our job as journalism historians and educators to bring such stories to light. They are pieces of history that could easily find their way into any classroom discussion, regardless of the course subject. Our students are our future, and the sooner they learn to use their First Amendment right to speak up and, if necessary, walk out, the better we all are for it.

Today, we are again watching young people cut their teeth on their civics lessons, and I, for one, think the future will be better for it.

CFP: Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression

Dane Claussen — Wed, 21 Mar 2018 01:38:20 GMT

Call for Papers: Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression

November 8–10, 2018

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Deadline: August 27, 2018

Dr. David Sachsman

George R. West, Jr. Chair of Excellence in Communication and Public Affairs, Dept. 3003

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

615 McCallie Ave.

Chattanooga, Tennessee 37403-2598

(423) 425-4219, david-sachsman@utc.edu

www.utc.edu/west-chair-communication/symposium/index.php

Marshfield (OR) Sun Printing Museum Opens Newspaper Repository

Dane Claussen — Wed, 21 Mar 2018 00:57:52 GMT

A newspaper repository has opened at the Marshfield Sun Printing Museum in Coos Bay, Oregon, reports the Spring 2018 issue of Oregon Historical Quarterly, journal of the Portland-based Oregon Historical Society.

Lionel Youst's short article reports that the repository features a 100-year print run (1907-2007) of the daily Coos Bay Times and its successor, the Coos Bay World. The repository also includes incomplete runs of local weekly newspapers: Coast Mail, Marshfield Sun, Empire Builder, and the weekly editions of the Southwestern Oregon News and Coos Bay Times.

Youst estimates that the collection is comprised of 30,000 newspaper issues or about 300,000 pages of newsprint.

He recounts that in 1906, local business people bought two weekly newspapers, the Coast Mail and the Marshfield Advertiser and merged them together to form the daily Coos Bay Times. The Times belonged to the Associated Press and later also United Press International.

"For more than twenty years, until December 31, 1927, the Coos Bay Times was owned, published and edited by brothers Michael and Dan Maloney. Michael had worked for prominent newspapers in the East, knew the business and transformed the newspaper. A painted sign on their office window said, 'Independent and Unafraid.' This was a message from the Catholic Maloney brothers to the Ku Klux Klan, which was quite strong in 1920s Oregon and was supported by the rival Southwestern Oregon Daily News," Youst writes.

In 1930, Sheldon Sackett bought the Coos Bay Times. He also owned part of the McMinnville (OR) Telegraph Register and the Oregon Statesman in Salem, and later owned several radio stations and weekly newspapers in Oregon, Washington state, and California.

Youst calls him "volatile, dynamic, but eccentric," and quotes a local journalist who, in 1974, wrote that Youst pursued an "extremely personal, often brilliant, journalistic adventure."

Youst also points out, "In addition to the newspaper repository, it [Marshfield Sun Printing Museum] preserves the plant and equipment of the last handset newspaper in Oregon and one of the last in the United States. It [museum] is open Memorial Day to Labor Day, Tuesday through Saturday, 1 to 4 p.m., and other times by appointment. For information, contact the repository curator [Youst himself], (541) 267-3762, lionel@wildblue.net, or the Coos Bay Area Visitor's Center at (541) 269-0215."

Blanchard Prize Winner Reflects on Formulating Ideas for His Media History Research

Dane Claussen — Tue, 20 Feb 2018 22:28:35 GMT

(Editor's Note: The Intelligencer asked Dr. Matthew Pressman, recipient of AJHA's Blanchard Prize for best dissertation to tell us more about how and why he chose his doctoral dissertation topic, why it's important and interesting, and what he's working on now.)

By Matthew Pressman

Generating ideas has never been my strong suit. When I worked at Vanity Fair, I always dreaded editor-in-chief Graydon Carter’s monthly call for story ideas from all staffers. Each time, I tried to pitch at least one investigative article, one column, and one spotlight (250 words accompanied by a photo). But it was a rare occurrence for me to be satisfied with my “ideas memo”—it was even rarer for one of those ideas to make it into the magazine.

As a historian, I still struggle with idea generation, but it’s a different kind of challenge. Although the pressure is less constant, the stakes are higher—especially when the idea is for a dissertation or book. A research project like that is a multi-year commitment that can have a tremendous influence on career prospects.

Mulling over ideas for my dissertation as a second-year graduate student in 2012-13, I wasn’t thinking strategically about it. All I knew was that I wanted to fill a gap in the scholarship about a big, broad topic in American journalism history. I landed upon the question of how and when the mainstream press became contemporary—that is, when it adopted the values and practices that most people associated with it at the turn of the 21^st century. The eventual result was my dissertation, “Remaking the News: The Transformation of American Journalism, 1960-1980,” which I am proud to say won the AJHA’s Blanchard Prize last year.

As I worked to refine my dissertation topic, I didn’t think much about how it might relate to the issues of the day. Having spent the previous eight years in magazine and online journalism, it felt indulgent to be able to write about something that wasn’t pegged to the latest news. Besides, as a grad student in history, I wanted to avoid the sin of “presentism.” But it turns out that my topic—changing journalistic values at a time when traditional media faced unprecedented criticism, and when technological and cultural shifts threatened newspapers’ economic survival—was quite relevant in 2016 (and remains so today).

I’m glad that’s the case. For one thing, it probably helped me get a contract to adapt my dissertation into a book, which is due out this fall (tentatively titled On Press: The Liberal Values that Shaped the News, to be published by Harvard University Press). But more importantly, it forced me to think about how the history I’m writing can help inform our understanding of the present. And it will, I hope, enable me to participate in the ongoing public discourse about journalistic values and the press’s role in society.

When casting about for my second book project, therefore, I expressly sought out ideas that would fill a gap in the scholarship and have some contemporary relevance. I think I’ve found one. I am in the early stages of researching a history of the New York Daily News in the mid-20^th century. Considering that it was the highest-circulation newspaper in American history (over 2 million copies daily, over 4 million on Sundays), remarkably little has been written about it—there is a yawning gap in the scholarship. Plus, the paper’s coverage in those days reflected a nationalistic, right-wing populist viewpoint that bears striking similarities to that of President Donald Trump and many of his supporters. It’s a history that can help us better understand the present.

However, it isn’t enough for a research topic to be underexposed and relevant; it also has to be feasible. And for a historian, that means primary sources must be available. Researching my dissertation spoiled me, in a way. I used the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times as my two case studies. The voluminous, meticulously catalogued records of both newspapers are held in archives (the Huntington Library and the New York Public Library, respectively), and the back issues are entirely digitized and easily available via ProQuest (via subscription). Moreover, since I was writing about relatively recent history, I was able to conduct oral history interviews with many of the journalists who worked at those two papers during the 1960s and 70s.

The Daily News will present a greater challenge for research. Archival materials from the paper’s history are scarce, and they are scattered in multiple collections throughout the U.S. The back issues are not digitized, and very few libraries have the microfilm in their holdings. But I really like this idea, and given how rarely that happens, I’m sticking with it.

P.S. If any AJHA-ers have leads/suggestions on Daily News research material, I’m all ears!

___________________________________________________________________________

Dr. Matthew Pressman is an assistant professor of journalism at Seton Hall University. He earned his Ph.D. in history from Boston University.

AJHA Member News & Notes

Dane Claussen — Thu, 15 Feb 2018 03:15:30 GMT

Reed W. Smith of Georgia Southern University recently has published his new book, Cecil Brown: The Murrow Boy Who Became Broadcasting’s Crusader for Truth (298 pages, $39.95 softcover, ISBN 978-1-4766-7202-1 Ebook ISBN 978-1-4766-3088-5 2017) The son of Jewish immigrants, war correspondent Cecil Brown (1907–1987) was a member of CBS’ esteemed Murrow Boys. Expelled from Italy and Singapore for reporting the facts, he witnessed the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia and the war in North Africa, and survived the sinking of the British battleship HMS Repulse by a Japanese submarine. Back in the U.S., he became an influential commentator during the years when Americans sought a dispassionate voice to make sense of complex developments. He was one of the first journalists to champion civil rights, to condemn Senator McCarthy’s tactics (and President Eisenhower’s reticence), and to support Israel’s creation. Although he won every major broadcast journalism award, his accomplishments have been largely overlooked by historians. This first biography of Brown chronicles his career in journalism and traces his contributions to the profession.

* * *

Patrick C. File, University of Nevada at Reno, on Sept. 30 was awarded the Nevada Press Association's "First Amendment Champion" Award for his work organizing and providing expertise for a student press rights bill enacted by the state legislature. He also recently has published two journal articles:

Patrick C. File, “A History of Practical Obscurity: Clarifying and Contemplating the Twentieth Century Roots of a Digital Age Concept of Privacy” Journal of Media Law & Ethics Vol. 6, no. 1/2 (2017): 4-21.

Patrick C. File, “Retract, Expand: Libel Law, The Professionalization of Journalism, and the Limits of Press Freedom at the Turn of the Twentieth Century” Communication Law & Policy Vol. 22, Issue 3 (2017): 275-308.

* * *

Fred Carroll's Race News: Black Journalists and the Fight for Racial Justice in the Twentieth Century was published by the University of Illinois Press in November 2017. Race News examines the commercial black press’s contentious working relationship with the alternative black press and its thorny interactions with a repressive federal government and hostile white media. Fred explains how shifting toleration of progressive politics reconfigured how black journalists wrote and covered the news. Carroll is a lecturer at Kennesaw State University.

* * *

Christopher B. Daly of Boston University in early December published a chapter in American Literature in Transition, 1920-1930 (Cambridge U Press). It is on the most popular columnists of the 1920s, Will Rogers.

A second edition of his journalism history book, Covering America (UMass Press), was published on Jan. 31, 2018. It has a new final chapter that brings the story up to election night, 2016.

His new book from Routledge, The Journalist's Companion, was has been scheduled to be released in February 2018. It is intended as a "sword and a shield" for working journalists and journalism students. It's a pocket-sized compendium of materials that are inspiring, humorous, and practical.

Finally, he informs us that "some time in the spring, I will be appearing in a documentary titled, 'Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People.' A new biographical interpretation, it will appear as an episode in the 'American Masters' series on PBS."

CFP: Public Relations History Conference (Abstracts Due March 1)

Dane Claussen — Thu, 15 Feb 2018 03:12:47 GMT

Academics, practitioners and research students are invited to submit competitive abstracts for presentation of papers or works-in-progress at the Public Relations History Conference to be held in Portland, Oregon, August 1-2, 2018. The scope of the conference covers public relations history in all its aspects, including corporate, non-profit, governmental and political communications, as well as publicity and propaganda in their various forms.

The conference is organized by the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication and will be held at the School’s George S. Turnbull Center in downtown Portland.

SUBMISSIONS

Papers for presentation at the conference will be selected, via peer review, on the basis of abstracts of approximately 1,200 words in length, including references. The abstract should express the purpose, method, findings, implications/limitations and originality of the study in a narrative style. Author and affiliation details should be printed on a separate sheet, and the author(s) should not be identified in the abstract.

Abstracts must be presented in Microsoft Word, 12-point font size, single spacing with 1-inch margins in standard, letter-size format.

Finished manuscripts of selected papers are to be submitted using APA citation style. The MS of 3,000 to 6,000 words, plus references, must be presented in MSW format, in 1.5 line spacing and 12 point font size, with 1-inch margins in standard letter-size.

IMPORTANT DATES

Submission of abstracts: March 1, 2018

Acceptance notification (by email): The week of April 1, 2018

Registration opens: March 1, 2018

CONFERENCE VENUE

The UO School of Journalism and Communication in downtown Portland is housed at the George S. Turnbull Portland Center, providing an exciting urban environment within the media capital of the state. Located in the White Stag Block of Portland’s historic Old Town Chinatown district, the center is within convenient walking distance of the train station, local hotels and restaurants, and downtown Portland.

Downtown Portland boasts an amazing array of attractions, including an outstanding collection of cast iron and terra cotta architecture, the largest new-and-used bookstore in the world, a nationally acclaimed art museum, and a vibrant culinary community.

Outstanding public art, dozens of urban parks and greenspaces, a lively downtown, and a world-class transportation system are just a few of the many reasons to visit this jewel of the Pacific Northwest.

To submit an abstract and for more information, see the conference Website at: https://prhc.uoregon.edu. You may also contact conference organizers, Professors Pat Curtin (pcurtin@uoregon.edu) and Tom Bivins (tbivins@uoregon.edu).

Chasing History: Dissertation Research as Unique Experience

Dane Claussen — Thu, 15 Feb 2018 03:01:04 GMT

By Elisabeth Fondren
Ph.D. Candidate in Media & Public Affairs, Louisiana State University

Who would have thought? On a late August night, I was chasing run-off chickens that were supposed to be sleeping in the front yard of my Airbnb cottage. Someone had left the gate open and the chickens had wandered off into the street. Thankfully, the Palo Alto moon was a bright one that night. I caught them all, feeling thrilled.

This year has also been thrilling in other ways. While I am working on my dissertation – an institutional history of German wartime media governance – I often reflect on the places I was able to visit for my research, and the memories I made.

Funding for travel, conference participation and research trips can be a headache, especially for mass communication graduate students. In fact, the participation in national conventions, let alone archival research, often depends on whether our departments and universities will support these trips. I know that AJHA’s support of graduate students’ work – through peer-reviewed comments, encouragement, research paper awards, and helping to pay for travel costs – has been instrumental in my professional development and research.

At LSU, Dr. Erin Coyle first told me about AJHA and the warm, collegial atmosphere that especially welcomes graduate students and young scholars. After my participation in two conferences in Little Rock and St. Petersburg, I completely agree with her. And I am already looking forward to presenting my paper on “the laws of propaganda” with my committee chair John Maxwell Hamilton at the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference in New York City in March 2018.

This last fall, I taught an undergraduate class in American media history. Throughout the semester, we explored how a historical perspective can help to provide context for the current state of media, the pressures on free speech (from government, industry, economy, culture) and the ethical challenges of journalists. Both Dr. Coyle and Dr. Broussard guided me when it came time to write my syllabus, conceptualize assignments, and they shared their expertise with my students in class. One of my favorite days was introducing the students to working with primary sources and historical artifacts. The vast collection at LSU’s Hill Memorial Library allowed us to take a first-hand look at Louisiana’s diverse press during the American Civil War. The students analyzed personal letters, advertisements, Louisiana partisan editorials, stories written on the Union occupation of New Orleans, news printed on ornate wallpaper, and French and German immigrant papers.

For my dissertation research, I was fortunate to spend three months in Germany to work at various political and diplomatic archives in Berlin, Potsdam and Freiburg. The archival sources on government plans for propaganda and censorship in Germany between 1914 and 1918 were overwhelming. One highlight was finding an unopened letter from 1917, sent by a German correspondent in China who was writing to the German foreign office about the “success” of their propaganda strategies abroad. “These are the fun moments,” said the friendly man at the Foreign Office Archive’s reference desk. I watched him cut through the wax stamp, and he let me open the 100-year old brown letter.

I also had the opportunity to work at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution Library and Archives this summer. This archive is a terrific resource for scholars researching political history, war, propaganda, and peace in the 20^th and 21^st centuries. The collection features international and U.S. records from both World Wars as well as the Cold War period. During my time at the Hoover Archives, I reviewed papers by U.S. diplomats and journalists working for the government as well as materials of the Captured German Records.

January, for a final trip for my dissertation, took me to the Library of Congress and the National Archives in Washington D.C. where I worked on U.S. World War I records. I would like to encourage other graduate students to seek funding opportunities and fellowships (many organizations advertise these up to a year in advance) through their institutions, doctoral summer schools, national organizations and archives.

I have been fortunate that LSU’s Manship School of Mass Communication and other institutions have provided me with these opportunities. Thank you very much to the American Journalism Historians Association and all members for your sincere support, interest, encouragement, and review of graduate students’ research and their teaching development.

___________________________________________________________

Fondren won the Jean Palmegiano Award for Outstanding International/Transnational Journalism History Research at the AJHA annual convention in Little Rock in 2017. She was awarded the Wally Eberhard Award for Outstanding Research in Media and War, and the Robert Lance Memorial Award for the Outstanding Graduate Student Paper at the AJHA annual convention in St. Petersburg in 2016.

Oral History Interview with Kathleen Endres

Dane Claussen — Thu, 15 Feb 2018 02:51:22 GMT

This story is the first in a series of three oral histories conducted by the Oral History Committee in 2017.

By Teri Finneman

Kathleen Endres once received one of the greatest Christmas gifts ever for a journalism historian.

Concerned about how late she was staying at the library, her parents bought her a microfilm machine to have at home.

“What a thoughtful gift,” she said.

Since then, she’s added to her home collection a microfiche machine no longer wanted by a library, thereby creating a true historian haven.

Endres, who won AJHA’s Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2017, is a distinguished professor at the University of Akron and one of three members chosen in 2017 by the Oral History Committee for in-depth interviews.

Endres has a special fondness for AJHA, of which she’s been a member for 35 years. The academic conference was her first, and she still recalls her excitement when she learned such an organization existed.

“I thought that was really cool because that [being a journalism historian] was what I wanted to be when I grew up,” she said. “I mean, truly, that’s all I wanted to be when I grew up.”

She submitted a paper on abortion advertising, received an acceptance and “the rest is history.” She’s attended almost every convention since and served in various leadership positions within the organization. This includes serving on the board and committees and organizing auctions and historic tours.

She thinks AJHA plays an important role in supporting media history.

“I think it’s a really important forum for people to discuss ideas and cooperate with each other, give each other support, bring a new generation of journalism historians in, support these new people, support journalism history in general,” Endres said.

Endres is originally from Toledo, Ohio, and attended college at the University of Toledo. She received her master’s degree from the University of Maryland and her Ph.D. from Kent State.

Her journalism career focused on business reporting for publications such as Datamation magazine and Rubber & Plastics News.

She made the transition from industry to academia due to her love of research. Throughout her career, she has written or edited six books and one monograph, as well as numerous peer-reviewed articles.

“I love history, and it’s really interesting because when I was working on my Ph.D., which is in history, I had always planned on being a journalism historian – much to the chagrin of my adviser and many of my teachers. They thought I’d be better off in history,” Endres said.

Endres started out studying the history of business journalism and trade publications, but also has conducted research related to women and to magazine history. Recently, she’s focused on the release of her documentary, “BLIMP! Sports, Broadcasting and the Goodyear Airship.”

She thinks there’s been a recent renewal of interest in history by the public and has been pleased to see the level of enthusiasm among her students. From her own days as a student until now, she’s come to appreciate the amount of concentration and time required to do history well.

For Endres, winning AJHA’s lifetime achievement award was a tremendous honor from a group of peers who have become like family.

“This is my academic home,” she said, adding a touch of humor: “I know where all the skeletons are here, or many of them.”

Stay tuned for the next interviews in this year’s series with Bernell Tripp and Jinx Broussard.

Amber Roessner's Remarks on Receiving AJHA's Teaching Award

Dane Claussen — Thu, 15 Feb 2018 02:32:54 GMT

Editor's Note: Dr. Amber Roessner of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville received AJHA's annual teaching award at the AJHA convention in Little Rock in October 2017. Reprinted below are her remarks at the time:

I am truly honored to receive the American Journalism Historians Association’s National Award for Excellence in Teaching. To be mentioned in the same breath as past recipients, whom I hold in high esteem and count as my pedagogical mentors, is a mark of distinction that I will always treasure.

In many respects, I have developed my style of teaching based upon the models of the individuals, whom I encountered here at AJHA and as a student at the University of Georgia. They all share one thing in common—they all seek to passionately impart to every student that they encounter the influence of the histories of journalism, media, and mass communication on our ways of life by creating authentic communities of learning.

My mentors taught me to create authentic community by sharing their passions, and that’s one goal that I always have sought to emulate. Many of our students have missed the boat when it comes to developing a desire to be critical thinkers and lifelong learners. We must, of course, meet our students where they are, but we should greet them with enthusiasm. We all know that journalists and all mass communications professionals play instrumental roles in our culture—as watchdogs, as storytellers, as keepers of memory, as liaisons between various publics, and as media historians and educators, we perform a crucial role in sharing with our students how our pasts inform our present circumstances and our future prospects. As my mentor, Janice Hume, puts it in her undergraduate history of mass communications’ syllabus: “understanding [past] challenges will help us face our own.”

It seems that we are faced with a great many challenges in our world today, and it would be easy to ourselves become indifferent or apathetic. I urge you today to reject that impulse and to instead take advantage of the opportunities that have been afforded to you as educators, such as the one that was afford to me in 2012 when Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s great granddaughter reached out to the University of Tennessee for help in honoring the pioneer social justice crusader. That plea for help spurred myself and my students at the University of Tennessee to launch the Ida Initiative, an interdisciplinary project to foster research about the life, work, and legacy of Wells-Barnett and other like-minded social justice crusaders by scholars and students of communication and history, and served as the inspiration and foundation for a forthcoming edited volume from Lexington Books about Wells-Barnett.

I also would encourage you to achieve excellence in teaching by heeding some basic advice: Never stop learning, even from your students. This lesson became manifest to me just this summer when I learned that one of my former graduate students, who has a little girl about the age of my son Joseph, was diagnosed with stage-four brain cancer. Over the last few months, I have watched with what can only be described as a profound sense of agony and admiration as Josh has battled his illness. Agony for the pain that he and his family have continued to endure and admiration for his determination to finish his research at the University of Tennessee—to share the histories that have moved him with a new generation. So today, I leave you with perhaps the most important lesson that I’ve learned as a professor—strike that—as a human: may we all be a bit more like Josh, may we, in the words of Gandhi: “Live as if [we] were to die tomorrow. Learn [and, in turn teach] as if [we] were to live forever.” Thank you, Josh, for teaching me this lesson, and thank you, AJHA, for this award that I will always hold near and dear to my heart.

Final Note: If you would like to contribute funds toward this graduate student’s medical expenses as he battles brain cancer, consider donating through https://www.youcaring.com/joshhodge-882854

Winter 2017-18 President's Column: History in the Making

Dane Claussen — Thu, 15 Feb 2018 02:27:14 GMT

History in the Making

By Dianne Bragg

Like most of you, which is why we are members of AJHA, my mind often turns to the historical importance that might be attached to current events. By nature, historians notice places and dates and ponder their historical significance. It is virtually impossible for us not to consider the past when we are perusing the present. We are not alone, though, in our predilection for doing so. It even happens in popular culture.

Recently, when Britain’s Prince Henry of Wales, affectionately known as Harry, and his bride-to-be, Meghan Markle, announced that their marriage would occur on May 19, 2018, Twitter went into a flutter over the significance of the date. Was it just coincidence that May 19 also happened to be the date that Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII, lost her head in 1536? Did anyone tell the couple about the historical significance of the day? Should they change the date? If they ever had a daughter, would they dare name her Anne? The questions flew.

We find ourselves, for whatever reason, looking to the past to offer some possible explanation or significance for the present. Events do not happen in a vacuum and historians often find themselves in the position of answering questions of how and why we have come to a particular point politically, socially, or culturally. Although those answers are not always clearly defined, we make it our life’s work to do our part in mining the fields of history and seeking context for today.

On December 20, 2017, AJHA member Jon Marshall of Northwestern University wrote a column that appeared on the Washingtonpost.com site as part of its “Made by History” project. Marshall’s piece about the Post’s Watergate investigation examines links between the Trump administration’s hostility toward the press and the Nixon administration’s similar behavior. Marshall details an error made by the Post’s Bernstein and Woodward team and highlights errors that have made recent headlines. Marshall notes the process the Post and its editors used to ensure the accuracy of their reporting and how today’s journalists should emulate that work, despite the intense time pressures that now exist in today’s news cycle.

We look to the past in order to move forward into the future. Likewise, as I begin my tenure as president of AJHA, I look to the past for my inspiration and guidance. AJHA has been fortunate to have had so many esteemed leaders who have given so much to make this organization the beacon of journalism history this it is today. I am both honored and daunted to follow in their footsteps. As we closed out 2017 and embark on 2018, I wish for you all a Happy New Year and great success in whatever historical sleuthing endeavors you might undertake in the coming months. And, as always, I am excited to see what AJHA members have to offer in helping us to explain the historical implications of the world around us.

Debra Hale-Shelton Remark's on Receiving AJHA's Local Journalist Award

Dane Claussen — Wed, 14 Feb 2018 07:38:32 GMT

(Editor's Note: Debra Hale-Shelton of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette was one of two recipients of AJHA's Local Journalist award at the AJHA's annual convention in Little Rock in October 2017. She was gracious enough to share her prepared remarks with the Intelligencer's readers.)

Thank you, Donna. And thank you to the American Journalism Historians Association. I am truly grateful and honored by this award.

I want to thank a few other people, too.

—Like Dorothy Stuck. She gave me my first job as a teenager at the weekly Marked Tree Tribune in northeast Arkansas. She was one of the few editors I’ve ever known who actually did stop the presses. That was on June 6, 1968, the day Robert Kennedy died from an assassin’s bullet. Mrs. Stuck quickly typed an editorial. I still remember the headline, “As a Nation Thinketh….”

—A few years later, a legendary and often combative Arkansas journalist gave me my first full-time job at The Associated Press in Little Rock. His name was John Robert Starr. And if he were here today, he might take credit for my being an aggressive reporter. I shall not forget the time he called me into his office in the '70s. I was in my 20s, naive and totally unaware of anything remotely amiss in Mr. Starr’s life. He told me I was not being aggressive enough when I questioned newsmakers. I disagreed. He said, “OK, ask me a tough question.” Out of nowhere, I said, “Have you ever had an affair?” He stared at me, was silent a few seconds and then said I could leave. He never answered my question.

My AP job later took me to Atlanta, Louisville and Chicago, where I spent most of my adult career. That’s where I interviewed a young Donald Trump when he and other USFL team owners were trying to save the dying league. The most remarkable thing about that interview is that an AP editor even saw fit to send me to cover a USFL meeting. I’m not a sports buff. I mean I get the Cubs and the Bears mixed up. The next most interesting thing is that I forgot about meeting Trump until a sports writer reminded me a few years later.

For some reason, I’ve never been easily intimidated by the rich or the powerful. In the early '80s, I was working the desk at the Little Rock AP on a Friday night. If you know anything about Arkansas, you know that newsrooms are incredibly busy during football season.

Earlier that day, I had called a young Bill Clinton who was trying to regain Arkansans’ favor and return to the governor’s mansion. I was working on a story about him and the death penalty, a topic almost as controversial in Arkansas as prep football. About 9:30 that night, Clinton called me back.

“I can’t talk to you now,” I told him. “It’s prep football night.”

“That’s OK,” he said. “You can call me later.”

“Well, it’s going to be late,” I said. Maybe 11or 12.”

About midnight, I called him back. He answered the phone and my questions.

Yes, I’ve been around long enough to remember when Clinton sported an Afro hairdo, Hillary wore UFO-style glasses and Clinton’s first PR man was the only one he could afford then — his younger brother Roger, Arkansas’ version of the late Billy Carter.

When I look back on my decades in journalism, a few events stand out. Among them were my interviews with former President Carter, an incredibly humble man; a bizarre conservation I had with the late Ann Landers when she endorsed masturbation as safe sex; and Michael Jackson’s breaking into a song as he testified during a plagiarism trial in Chicago in the 1980s.

But the story that lingers with me the most was among my first. It happened in 1972 when a young Air Force lieutenant was shot down over North Vietnam. I interviewed his family by phone. For years, Steve Musselman of Texarkana was listed as missing in action. Not long ago I began thinking about the people I’ve written about and sometimes forgotten about. So, I did a Google search of Musselman’s name. On July 7, 1981, Hanoi returned his and two other servicemen’s remains, incomplete and packed in separate, small wooden boxes.

So, to you my colleagues, I want to stress that our stories, no matter how serious, controversial or humorous, are about real people. We may forget many of the people we write about. But they will always matter. And their stories may well go on long after we are done with them.

I also want to say thank you to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and its readers. Without them, I would have no job. Without good editors, I would have not had the guidance or editing I often needed. I specifically thank Walter Hussman, Nat Lea, David Bailey, Danny Shameer, Steve Goff and former editor Heidi White. I offer a special thank you to the late Bill Simmons, who more than once put me in my place when I was starting out at the AP and who recommended me for this job.

Finally, I want to thank my wonderful parents Al and Dorothy Hale, my husband Huey and my daughter Annie for their support and understanding of the words, “I’m working late. We’ll fend for ourselves tonight.”

AHA's Pacific Coast Branch Reaches Out to AJHA

Dane Claussen — Sun, 28 Jan 2018 03:00:45 GMT

Greetings! Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Michael Green, and I'm the new executive director of the Pacific Coast Branch of the AHA and an associate professor of history at UNLV (where years ago I was a student of Barbara Cloud, and now I'm a friend of Greg Borchard!). The PCB-AHA is the branch for everybody west of the Mississippi, in 22 states and four Canadian provinces--if you have members who live out this way and belong to the AHA, they are also members of the PCB, so, just as you're an affiliated society with the AHA, we're part of the same family. We wanted to reach out to you to say hello, let you know we're here, and offer an opportunity for collaboration.

The PCB-AHA holds an annual conference. This year it's at Santa Clara University, August 2-4. We would like to invite you to submit a panel or two for inclusion in our program. We especially welcome involvement by junior and non-tenure-track faculty, and graduate students. Anyone can participate as long as s/he is an AHA member at the time of our conference, regardless of affiliation or location.

We hope this will interest you, and that it marks the beginning of a long and fruitful partnership. If you have any questions, please email back. Either way, please let us know as soon as possible if you would like to be part of our conference program--time flies! We hope to see you and/or members of your organization in Santa Clara. Thanks!

Best,

Michael Green, Department of History,

University of Nevada-Las Vegas

Nominations Call for AJHA Annual Awards

Dane Claussen — Tue, 23 Jan 2018 22:28:39 GMT

The Sidney Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism History

The organization's highest honor recognizes individuals with an exemplary record of sustained achievement in journalism history through teaching, research, professional activities, or other contributions to the field of journalism history. Award winners need not be members of the AJHA. Nominations for the award are solicited annually, but the award need not be given every year. Those making nominations for the award should present, at the minimum, a cover letter that explains the nominee's contributions to the field as well as a vita or brief biography of the nominee. Supporting letters for the nomination are also encouraged.

Distinguished Service to Journalism History Award

The Distinguished Service to Journalism History Award recognizes contributions by an individual outside our discipline who has made an extraordinary effort to further significantly our understanding of, or our ability to explore, media history. Nominations are solicited annually, but the award is given only in exceptional situations. Thus, it is not given every year. Those making nominations for the award should present, at the minimum, a cover letter that explains the nominee's contributions to the field as well as a vita or brief biography of the nominee. Supporting letters for the nomination are also encouraged.

For a list of previous winners, see the AJHA website, https://ajha.wildapricot.org/kobre

The deadline for both awards is Sunday, May 13, 2018. Please send all material via email to:

Mike Conway

Indiana University Media School

mtconway@indiana.edu

Blanchard Dissertation Prize Nominations due February 1.

Dane Claussen — Mon, 22 Jan 2018 05:08:50 GMT

The deadline for submitting nominees for the 2018 AJHA Margaret A. Blanchard Doctoral Dissertation Prize is Feb. 1.

Eligible works shall include both quantitative and qualitative historical dissertations, written in English, which have been completed between Jan. 1, 2017, and Dec. 31, 2017. For the purposes of this award, a "completed" work is defined as one which has not only been submitted and defended but also revised and filed in final form at the applicable doctoral-degree-granting university by Dec. 31, 2017.

To be considered, please submit the following materials in a single e-mail to the address below:

A cover letter from the applicant containing complete (home and work) contact information (postal addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses). The letter should express a willingness, should the dissertation be selected for a prize, both to attend the awarding ceremony and to deliver a public presentation based on the dissertation at the 2018 American Journalism Historians Association Annual Convention 4-6 October 2018 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
A letter of nomination from the dissertation chair/director or the chair of the university department in which the dissertation was written.
A single PDF containing the following (with no identifying information):
A 200-word abstract.
The dissertation table of contents.
A single chapter from the dissertation, preferably not exceeding 50 manuscript pages (not including notes, charts or photographs). The chapter should, if possible, highlight the work’s strengths as a piece of primary-sourced original research.
In a separate PDF but in the same e-mail, a blind copy of the complete dissertation.
To be considered, all identifying information—including author, school, and dissertation committee members’ names—must be deleted from items 3 and 4 above.

Nominations, along with all the supporting materials, should be sent to AJHAdissertationprize@gmail.com.

More information about the Blanchard Prize can be found on the AJHA website.

50 Years in Agenda Setting Research: Past and Future Perspectives Conference

Dane Claussen — Mon, 15 Jan 2018 06:02:08 GMT

50 Years in Agenda Setting Research: Past and Future Perspectives Conference
July 18-21, 2018
University of Colorado Boulder — College of Media Communication and Information

2018 marks the 50-year anniversary of the hallmark 1968 Chapel Hill study where agenda-setting research as we know it was born. This initial study, a collaboration between Max McCombs and Donald Shaw, has given birth to thousands of subsequent inquiries spanning a wide array of academic disciplines and media contexts.

To celebrate agenda setting’s important role in mass communication theory, the College of Media, Communication and Information at the University of Colorado Boulder invites graduate students and faculty alike to attend a three-day conference focused on past, present, and future applications of the theory.

Join us as we celebrate the original theorists and trace the development of agenda setting. All scholars conducting contemporary research rooted in agenda setting are encouraged to attend. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to: need for orientation, network agenda setting, agenda building and agenda melding. New media applications of agenda setting, such as studies of fake news and computational propaganda, are also encouraged.

Honored guests include the seminal theorists: Dr. Maxwell McCombs, Dr. Donald Shaw and Dr. David Weaver. In addition, the conference will be chronicled by The Agenda-Setting Journal, with editor Dr. Salma Ghanem attending. All presenters will be encouraged to complete their work and submit it to a special issue of The Agenda Setting Journal dedicated to the conference. Top work from the conference will receive expedited consideration for publication in the journal. The conference will be highlighted by a plenary panel led by McCombs, Shaw, Weaver and Ghanem.

The conference will include a refereed paper session. To be considered, authors should submit an extended abstract of no more than 750 words (not including references) detailing the proposed study. Works in progress will be considered, but preference will be given to abstracts with a clear path to completion (e.g., data, clear research questions, initial analyses). Abstracts should include background information on the author(s), including an abbreviated bio that describes research that relates to agenda setting. Please submit your proposal as a PDF to the e-mail address christopher.vargo@colorado.edu no later than Monday, February 1, 2018. Drs. McCombs, Shaw and Weaver will review the submitted abstracts.

This conference provides an intimate opportunity for all participants to engage in conversation and debate. Events scheduled include: paper presentations, panel sessions, brainstorming (future research) sessions and round-table discussions. Conference admission fee includes breakfasts, lunches, and welcome dinner.

To register, visit: http://www.cvent.com/d/dtqqzd

For questions contact: christopher.vargo@colorado.edu

Important dates

Deadline to submit abstracts: February 1, 2018
Acceptance Notification: March 1, 2018
Deadline to register with a presentation: May 1, 2018
Conference: July 18-21, 2018

Cost of Attendance

Faculty – $225,Present & Attend; $175 Attend Only
Students - $150, Present & Attend; $75 Attend Only

Van Tuyll, Bulla Assume Editorship of Southeastern Review of Journalism History, former Atlanta Review of Journalism History

Dane Claussen — Sat, 09 Dec 2017 00:21:17 GMT

See http://jagwire.augusta.edu/archives/49646

American Historical Association announces first winner of journalism history award

Dane Claussen — Wed, 15 Nov 2017 18:47:52 GMT

The American Historical Association has announced its first winner of the Eugenia M. Palmegiano Prize, which honors the best book about journalism history. The first award will be presented in January to Amelia Bonea, author of “The News of Empire: Telegraphy, Journalism, and the Politics of Reporting in Colonial India, c. 1830-1900.”

Last year, the AHA announced it would begin recognizing outstanding scholarship in the area of journalism history and chose to name this newly minted prize after Palmegiano. Palmegiano served as president of the American Journalism Historians Association from 1998-99 and worked for many years to have journalism history recognized within the AHA, one of the world’s largest and most recognizable academic organizations.

The AHA will award the Palmegiano Prize each January. Submissions for the 2019 Palmegiano Prize are due in May. For more information on submissions, visit the Palmegiano Prize page on the AHA website.

AJHA recognizes top papers from its 2017 convention

Dane Claussen — Wed, 15 Nov 2017 18:43:15 GMT

Scholars representing universities from across North America were recognized for their work on research papers at the American Journalism Historian’s Association’s annual convention in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Teri Finneman of South Dakota State, won the Wm. David Sloan Award for Outstanding Faculty Research Paper for “‘The Greatest of Its Kind Ever Witnessed in America’: The Press and the 1913 Women’s March on Washington.” The runners-up in that category were Charles Lewis of Minnesota State University for “This Means War: A Case Study of Caustic Political Copy in the Frontier Press of Minnesota, 1857-1861”; John Coward of the University of Tulsa for “Indian Ideology in The Warpath: Lehman Brightman’s Red Power Journalism”; and Candi Carter Olson and Erin Cox of Utah State University for “A Mighty Power: The Defenses Employed by Utah’s Women Against Disenfranchisement by the EdmundsTucker Act of 1887.”

The Robert Lance Award for Outstanding Student Research Paper went to Vicki Knasel Brown of the University of Missouri-Columbia for “Commercial and Religious Press Coverage of the Mormon Struggle in Missouri, 1831-1838.” The runners-up were Bailey Dick of Ohio University for “Faith as the Basis for Radical Vision: The Reporting of Dorothy Day as a Catalyst for Social Movement"; Thomas Schmidt of the University of Oregon for “The Narrative Turn in American News Writing: How Newspapers Adopted Narrative Journalism in the Late 20th Century”; and Patti Piburn of Arizona State University for “Discovering the Arizona Republican Newspaper, 1896-1898: Yellow Journalism in America’s Territorial Press.”

Finneman also won the Maurine Beasley Award for Oustanding Paper on a Women’s History Topic with runner-up honors to Carter Olson and Cox as well as Dick. Erika Pribanic-Smith of the University of Texas-Arlington and Jared Shroeder of Southern Methodist University also received runner-up honors in this category for “Manifestos, Meetings, and Mother Earth: Emma Goldman's No-Conscription League and the First Amendment in 1917.”

Lewis won the J. William Snorgrass Award for Outstanding Research on a Minorities Topic. Coward earned a runner-up as did Jason Peterson of Charleston Southern University “Mississippi’s Forgotten Son: Billy Barton and his Journalistic Battle for Redemption in the Closed Society” and Felecia Jones Ross of The Ohio State University for “In Plain Sight: How the African-American Covered Extraordinary Women as Figures in the Community.”

The Wally Eberhard Award for Outstanding Research Paper in Media and War went to Pat Washburn and Mike Sweeney of Ohio University for “Grand Jury Transcripts in the Chicago Tribune’s 1942 Espionage Act Case: What Is Missing Is Significant.” The runners-up were Dominique Trudel of University of Montreal for “Revisiting the Origins of Communication Research: Walter Lippmann’s WWII Adventure in Propaganda and Psychological Warfare”; Pamela Walck and Ashley Walter of Duquesne University for “Soaring Out of the Private Sphere: How Flyin’ Jenny and Her Comic Strip Helped Pioneer a New Path for Women’s Work During World War II”; and Scott Morton of Catawba College for “Hanoi Hannah and the Anti-War Movement: How the American Print Media Covered a Female Enemy Radio Propagandist Who Exploited U.S. Societal Unrest During the Vietnam War.”

Elisabeth Fondren of Louisiana State University won the Jean Palmegiano Award for the Outstanding Research Paper on International/Transnational Journalism for “Publicizing Tragedy: The Sinking of the Lusitania As an International News Story.” Brendon Floyd of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville received the runner-up for “The Worst Kind of Democrats This Side of Hell”: John Daly Burk, the United Irishmen, the Federalist Party, and American Identity in the Early Republic.”

Three new members elected to AJHA Board

Dane Claussen — Wed, 15 Nov 2017 18:41:22 GMT

Three new members were elected to serve three-year terms on the Board of Directors of the American Journalism Historians Association during its 36th Annual Convention in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Joining the board are Dr. Candi Carter Olson of Utah State University and Sonny Rhodes of the University of Arkansas-Little Rock. Dr. Kathy Bradshaw of Bowling Green State University was elected to a full term on the board, after finishing out the remainder of a vacant term.

“AJHA has felt like family since my first conference,” Olson said of her election. “I'm pleased to have the opportunity to give back to the organization and help it to envision a future where journalism history is a vital and important part of the educational endeavor at all levels."

Bradshaw, who has also been serving as AJHA’s representative to the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, said she is “'honored and thrilled to have been elected to the AJHA Board of Directors."

"AJHA is special to me because members are fine historians with industry backgrounds who are engaged with the present,” Bradshaw said. "There are special moments every year at AJHA, and I'm happy to be able to contribute to maintaining the foundation for those special moments."

Rhodes, who served as one of the hosts for the 2017 Annual Convention, said being selected for the board “was both humbling and extremely gratifying.” “Whenever I'm with fellow AJHA members, I feel like I'm at a family reunion—a happy family reunion,” Rhodes said. “I learned some things from helping host the Little Rock conference, and I hope to use that knowledge to help plan future conferences. I'd especially like to look at creative ways to help finance those gatherings and to improve student attendance at them.”

Buckman visits Albuquerque's Ernie Pyle Home and Library

Dane Claussen — Sun, 29 Oct 2017 17:22:31 GMT

By Robert T. Buckman

One reason I drove to the SPJ convention in Anaheim this year was to scratch some things off my bucket list, including Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument on the Arizona-Mexico border and the Ernie Pyle Home and Library in Albuquerque, N.M.

I have shared by email with my friends, on the anniversary of his death, the dispatch I used to read every year to my feature writing classes on the Death of Capt. Waskow. In more recent years, I’ve also read his dispatch from the Normandy beachhead just after D-Day.

Photos here (TO COME) show the house he built in 1940 for him and his wife, Geraldine, or Jerry, but he spent little time in it. Later that year, Scripps-Howard sent him to England to cover the German blitz. After the U.S. entered the war, as you know, he accompanied the troops as what today would be called an embedded reporter—first to North Africa, then Sicily, then Italy, where he wrote the Waskow dispatch, then to France, where he finally burned out and came home on leave in September 1944. A few months later, though, he went to the Pacific to cover the war against the Japanese. He was killed by a Japanese machine gun on April 18, 1945, on the tiny island of Ie Shima, off the coast of Okinawa.

His wife, who suffered from mental illness, died seven months after he did. They were childless, and in 1948 the house was donated to the city, which made it a branch library. It is tiny, two bedrooms, 1,145 square feet. Besides library books, it contains a good deal of Pyle memorabilia, as you will see, including his handwritten last dispatch, to mark the surrender of Germany, which was then imminent but he was killed three weeks before it happened. It was found in his pocket. Zoom in on the piece of paper in his typewriter. It’s the Normandy dispatch.

He received the Pulitzer Prize for war reporting in 1944.

Outside, in the side yard, is a marble monument. You’ll recognize what’s inscribed on it. So you see, I wasn’t the only one affected by his emotive prose. The death of Capt. Waskow also appears as a scene in the 1944 movie, “The Story of G.I. Joe,” in which Burgess Meredith plays Pyle and a very young Robert Mitchum plays Waskow.

If you’re ever in Albuquerque, it’s worth a visit, even if it isn’t listed in the Albuquerque tourist guide I picked up at the New Mexico welcome center on I-40. It’s located at 900 Girard SE, just nine blocks south of Central Avenue, which is also Historic Route 66. It has strange hours: Closed Sun-Mon, open 10-6 Tue, 11-7 Wed, 10-6 Th-Sat. Take a bookmark home as a souvenir; I brought several extra for some of my alumni.

If you go in the evening, when you’re done go back to 3222 Central SE and have a brew or two at Kelly’s Brewpub, located in an old car dealership and decorated with Texaco signs and Norman Rockwell reproductions.

___________________________________________________

Robert T. Buckman recently retired as associate professor of journalism at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.

CFP: The Southeastern Review of Journalism History

Dane Claussen — Sun, 29 Oct 2017 17:04:02 GMT

The Southeastern Review of Journalism History (Debra Reddin van Tuyll, editor-in-chief, and David W. Bulla, managing editor; Leonard Teel, editor emeritus) is a peer-reviewed journal inviting research papers on any facet of U.S. and international journalism history. The Review, founded by Dr. Leonard Teel at Georgia State University (as The Atlanta Review of Journalism History), sees journalism history broadly and will consider all forms of mass communication that have had impact on any area of journalism’s past. Topics in past editions have included column writing, coverage of major topics and events in national and international history (such as civil war, economic policy, frontier society, immigration, national liberation, racism, and slavery), muckraking, reporting arts, leisure, and sports, sensationalism, and travel writing, among others.

The Review encourages both undergraduate and graduate students to submit papers that they have presented at mass communication conferences. Such conferences include American Journalism Historians Association, AEJMC, AEJMC History/AJHA Joint Conference, ICA, Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression, and regional or mid-winter AEJMC conferences.

This is a call for submissions for our Spring 2018 edition. Submissions are due by Dec. 15, 2017, at midnight EST. Papers should be double-spaced in 12-point Times New Roman font, with endnotes, and submitted in Microsoft Word format. Please limit article size to 7,500 words (25 double-spaced pages in 12 Times New Roman), not counting the title page, abstract, and endnotes. Use of the Chicago Manual of Style is highly recommended but not required. Please included the following:

An email with the attached paper, with the author’s name, the date, and her/his affiliation.

In the attached paper, please include the title page, a 200-word abstract, body of the paper, and endnotes.

Also include the author’s information (email address, telephone number, institutional affiliation, student or faculty status) in the text of the email.

An undergraduate student submitting a paper needs to also send a statement that her/his paper has been presented at a research conference (confirmation email or PDF of a conference program will do).

The journal is also accepting book reviews of recently published books. Reviews should be no more than 1,000 words in length and focused on books that deal with some aspect of journalism history.

Editors Debra Reddin van Tuyll and David W. Bulla of Augusta University are coordinating paper submissions. Authors will be notified in mid-February whether their research papers have been accepted for publication in the Spring 2018 edition of the journal.

For submission of a research paper, please email Dr. van Tuyll at:

dvantuyl@augusta.edu

For submission of a book review, please email Dr. Bulla at:

dbulla@augusta.edu

CFP: 3rd annual Transnational Journalism History conference

Dane Claussen — Sun, 29 Oct 2017 17:01:22 GMT

Deadline: February 1, 2018

The third annual conference on Transnational Journalism History is seeking papers that deal with any aspect of the history of journalism and mass communications that transcends national borders.

This year’s conference will be June 1-2, 2018, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada at Concordia University.

The conference is sponsored jointly by the journalism and mass communication programs at Concordia University, Dublin City University and Augusta University.

Conference planners have one book underway from the 2016 inaugural conference (presently in the proposal stage). The work deals with the Irish Diaspora press. As second book, tentatively titled A Handbook of Transnational Journalism History, is planned from the second and third conferences, and we have one publisher who has already expressed interest in receiving a proposal for this book.

For the 2018 conference, we are particularly looking for papers that offer definitions, methodologies, theories, and case studies of transnational journalism history. Papers should be able to be presented within 20 minutes, so around 10 to 15 pages. Papers of up to 25 pages, not including footnotes, will be accepted as well, but the presentation of the paper cannot exceed the 20-minute limit. Abstracts of 250 words are also accepted for research-in-progress.

Papers may be submitted in French, but presentations will need to be given in English.

Papers and abstracts should be submitted to Debbie van Tuyll (dvantuyl@augusta.edu) by February 1, 2018. Submissions will be double-blind reviewed.

Work presented at this conference will be considered for publication in a Handbook of Transnational Journalism History. Any questions may be addressed to Debbie van Tuyll or Mark O’Brien (mark.obrien@dcu.ie). This conference is sponsored by Concordia University (Montreal, Quebec); Dublin City Univeristy (Dublin, Ireland); Augusta University (Georgia); and the University of Groningen (Netherlands).

Lerner on his "The Other New Journalism" and the Dawn of the "Big Important Book"

Dane Claussen — Mon, 09 Oct 2017 03:57:41 GMT

Editor’s Note: Marist College professor Kevin M. Lerner presented his paper, “The Other New Journalism: David Halberstam, J. Anthony Lukas, and Reported Narrative in the Dawn of the Big Important Book,” at May's International Association of Literary Journalism Studies conference held in Canada. The Intelligencer asked Dr. Lerner to tell us more about how and why he started researching this topic, and why this research is important and interesting for himself and our field.

By Kevin M. Lerner, Marist College

While I was working in the New York Public Library archives and records division, gathering material for what would become my dissertation (and later the basis for my current book manuscript), I came across a letter of recommendation in the editorial papers of the New York Times. Typed on an electric typewriter with a janky “a” key that repeated almost every time the author touched it, and all in lowercase, with x’s through mistakes, the letter recommended a young Baltimore Sun reporter named J. Anthony Lukas:

lukas (who is a friend of mine, so be warned) is just what every young newspaperman ought to be. he is very very bright, and he has a high s ense of the profession and integrity, and unlike xxxxxx many bright young guys he has been a nd is willing to do the harder part of the profession—the dirty legwork part. so he is aavery finished and versatile reporter. he is aa guy who has always had his eye on foreign cities but he has also realized that xxxx the way to get there is to do aa good job covering tough local stories. [sic]

The management at the Times would take the advice of this letter’s author, despite his lack of typing skill, and bring Tony Lukas on as a reporter—and it was good advice. Lukas won a Pulitzer Prize at the Times for his story about a woman named Linda Fitzpatrick who lived a drug-fueled life in Greenwich Village in contrast to the Greenwich, Connecticut of her upbringing. His recommender was David Halberstam, who had known Lukas since the two of them worked together at The Harvard Crimson.

I was digging around in Tony Lukas’s personnel file because I was writing my dissertation about (MORE), an anti-establishment journalism review that Lukas would found in 1971. The letter of recommendation had some very small use for me in the dissertation project, but it kindled another idea which would have to wait until I finished and filed and had time to devote my brain to something else. So I did something that is likely familiar to almost any historian who has worked in an archive and I filed away that idea for later.

That was how I came to work on the project that became “The Other New Journalism: David Halberstam, J. Anthony Lukas, and Reported Narrative in the Dawn of the Big Important Book,” which is still very much a work in progress, and which I presented at the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies conference in Halifax last May. I am interested in two interlinked ideas here which fit into the larger arc of my ongoing research agenda.

First, I want to investigate the informal networks of journalists that influence how journalism is practiced. There has been much work on the institutions of journalism, but I want to know more about the history of these backchannels, where journalists exchange ideas about doing journalism, but also get each other jobs or connect each other to editors for freelance work. It seems to me that these networks have an outsized influence that has been undervalued in research. I hold that there is, in fact, a group of elite journalists, many of whom know each other, who operate at the highest levels of the profession and determine much about the standards that other practitioners will be held to.

Secondly, and more importantly, I am investigating the intellectual history of journalism, and at the same time, the history of intellectual journalism. In other words, I am interested in the way that ideas about what constitutes journalism have changed over time, and also the ways that journalism interacts with the broader history of ideas. That’s where the subtitle—and the working thesis—for the present study come in.

Halberstam and Lukas overlapped at The Times with Gay Talese, the elegant and self-aware stylist of nonfiction prose who left daily newspapers to become a part of that loosely affiliated group of like-minded writers known as the New Journalists. And while there are piles of book and papers about the flashy New Journalism, I would argue that the focus on New Journalism has distracted from another movement that was developing at the same time, at the hands (and typewriter fingers) of journalists such as Lukas and Halberstam: a journalism that takes the idea of narrative seriously, but puts even more of an emphasis on reporting. (Halberstam, I’m beginning to discover, required a lot of editing.)

I’ve been calling this genre the “Big Important Book,” and I believe it is one that continues to influence the intellectual life of the United States far more than the occasional masterpiece of nonfiction prose. These are the books that show up on The New York Times list of best books of the year; the books that get their authors invited onto Fresh Air to talk to Terry Gross. They’re well-written, but mostly they are well-reported, and full of intriguing ideas. They’re Big Important Books.

Tony Lukas published five books, four of which I would classify as BIBs. One of them, Common Ground, told the story of the school integration busing crisis in Boston and won him his second Pulitzer and is still in print more than three decades after its publication. David Halberstam published… a lot of books, at least ten of which could be BIBs. And they are merely representative of forty years of journalists doing the same sort of quiet, but important work. Needless to say, there is a lot to read, and while the initial study will probably stop at the coincidence of these two friends working the genre, I don’t know exactly how far this project will go.

As I said, this is a work in progress, but the reading list is one that I look forward to tackling.

______________________________________________________

Kevin M. Lerner is assistant professor of journalism at Marist College. He is also editor of the Journal of Magazine & New Media Research, published by the Magazine Media Division, Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication. His scholarly research concentrates on the history of American journalism, with a focus on the 1970s, alternative forms of journalism, press criticism, and anti-intellectualism in the press. He is completing a book on the history of (MORE), an anti-establishment journalism review.

Call for Entries: Best Journalism & Mass Communication History Book

Dane Claussen — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 16:34:31 GMT

The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication is soliciting entries for its annual award for the best journalism and mass communication history book of 2017.

The winning author will receive a plaque and a $500 prize at the August 2018 AEJMC conference at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, D.C., where the author will give a short talk about the experience of research and discovery during the book’s composition.

The competition is open to any author of a media history book regardless of whether he or she belongs to AEJMC or the History Division. Only first editions with a 2017 copyright date will be accepted. Edited volumes, articles, and monographs will be excluded because they qualify for the Covert Award, another AEJMC History Division competition.

Entries must be received by February 2, 2018. Submit four copies of each book -- along with the author’s mailing address, telephone number, and email address -- to:

John P. Ferré, AEJMC History Book Award Chair

Department of Communication

310 Strickler Hall

University of Louisville

Louisville, KY 40292

Please contact John Ferré at 502.852.8167 or ferre@louisville.edu with any questions.

The Varying, Unpredictable Role of Media History in US History Museums

Dane Claussen — Sat, 30 Sep 2017 05:23:32 GMT

By Dr. Dane S. Claussen, Intelligencer Editor

Visits to more museums around the USA continue to show the varying ways and varying degrees to which media history can be and sometimes is incorporated into history museums.

In July, I finally had the opportunity to visit the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. For those who have never heard of it, Eastern State was once the most famous and most expensive prison in the world, as well as having been, from sometime after its founding in 1829, the world’s largest and most modern prison (and the model for 300+ other prisons around the world). Visiting it now, as a US National Historic Landmark, it is a crumbling ruin and the fact that it continued to be used until 1971 surely is a major embarrassment for the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

As it turns out, between navigating and absorbing the cell were Al Capone stayed in, the synagogue, a temporary art exhibit, and much more, visitors find an exhibit of the Eastern Echo, the prison newspaper from 1956 to 1967. “The articles range from essays on prison life to the ranking of Eastern State’s football, baseball, and basketball teams. Numerous articles on Eastern State’s hospital and medical staff reflect how central medical services had become within this institution.”

For information on the museum, see: https://www.easternstate.org/

Also while in Philadelphia: many people know about the recreation of Benjamin Franklin’s printshop in Philadelphia (http://www.benjamin-franklin-history.org/printing-house/) but one should also see the printing office of Edes & Gill, which has authentic equipment and historically accurate reproductions, plus top-notch employees giving excellent talks, near the Old North Church. See: http://oldnorth.com/printing-office-of-edes-gill/.

In Richmond this summer, I had the opportunity to visit the American Civil War Museum (https://acwm.org/), which is, at least for the time being, housed next door to the so-called Confederate White House. The Virginia Commonwealth University medical school and hospitals continue to expand and the museum building will be torn down, with its contents moved to another site a couple of miles away, while the Confederate White House obviously stays where it is—a huge inconvenience for tourists.

In any case, again I went snooping for media history. A Civil War museum should be a goldmine of media history: they can include copies of newspapers, magazines and photographs from the time, perhaps biographies and artifacts from journalists who covered the war, etc. The reality is something different. On display is one envelope mailed (without stamps) by the Petersburg (VA) Daily Express & Weekly Express, one envelope mailed with two Confederate postage stamps from the Montgomery (AL) Advertiser, an “extra” edition of the Charleston (SC) Mercury that is a broadside announcing “The UNION is DISSOLVED!”, a couple of newspaper clippings, the January 17, 1863, issue of the The Southern Illustrated News (featuring a large woodcut of a startlingly young-looking Robert E. Lee), a bodice sleeve pattern made from the page of an 1864 New Orleans Picayune, and a “Richmond Bread Riot” woodcut from the May 3, 1863, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated. And that is all! Not a very impressive showing of media/journalism history, but then the entire museum is, in many ways, not very impressive considering its name, age, location, and potential importance.

In contrast, a goldmine of media history is the new National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian Institution (https://nmaahc.si.edu/). Plan ahead or pay a scalper for a supposedly free ticket to the museum; when I was there in early July, tickets were already all gone through the end of November! (Paying a well-established scalper who advertises every day on Craigslist was worth every penny.) In any case, this museum has it all when it comes to media: the African American press, how African Americans were covered by the dominant media, African Americans in movies, television, and radio—even a set from Oprah Winfrey’s talk show. Where does one start?

Perhaps in more or less chronological order, as the museum does, which means starting at the lowest level underground and working your way up. I may not have seen all exhibits in exactly the order intended by the curators—there’s one floor where exhibits in one room are in a huge circle and other exhibits are in various rooms and hallways leading from the circle—but I’ll give it my best shot. An “early” exhibit shows a photo of William Lloyd Garrison, his watch, and of course describes his paper, The Liberator. However, no photo or copy of the paper is on display, which is rather odd: copies of The Liberator are scarce but not rare. Even I own a couple copies that did not cost me a lot (granted, they are not in excellent condition!). But next is Frederick Douglass, with a copy his The North Star newspaper. A little later, we see a page from Frank Leslie’s Illustrite Zeitung, the German language paper, featuring an engraving of Hiram Revels, the USA’s first African American US senator, and then a copy of Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s book, Lynch Law in Georgia.

Next comes a one frame exhibit called “The Black Press.” It shows the flags (front-page nameplate), with or without headlines form the Chicago Defender (two), California Eagle, and Richmond Planet, plus photos of the Eagle and Planet’s offices. It doesn’t make much of an impression, but it’s not the last we see of the Defender in particular. A little while later we see Defender publisher Robert Abbott’s desk and information about Pullman porters distributing his newspaper on the railroads, one cause of African Americans’ great northern migration. A free-standing exhibit case offers “Printing for Progress,” with copies of The Messenger, Alexander’s Magazine, Competitor, Opportunity, and other African-American magazines.

An exhibit titled, “The Battle Over Lynching” includes reproductions of newspaper clippings and an editorial cartoon, though difficult to impossible to figure out exactly where they were published, followed soon by an exhibit noting how The Crisis responded to African Americans serving in World War I. Next, a 1919 Chicago Daily Tribune front page blares, “RIOTS SPREAD, THEN WANE” about race riots, then we are confronted with an April 1929 copy of Kourier Magazine, official organ of the Ku Klux Klan, then a 1918 Chicago Defender front page covering various hot topics, and then a 1921 copy of The Afro American about the Tulsa Race Riot. A 1940s article from the Chicago Defender illustrates African American women organizing against sexual assaults.

Media history picks up later with a 1969 issue of Negro Digest, a 1970 issue of Black Creation, a 1976 issue of Black World, a famous 1977 issue of Ebony with Alex Haley and African very distant relatives on the cover, and an undated The Black Scholar. Later, there’s mainstream media coverage of African Americans: an undated Playbill (on the cover: Colored Girls Who have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf), a 1974 TIME with the cover story “Middle-Class Blacks,” and the 1969 Newsweek issue with “Report from Black America.” Then there's a 1968 issue of Jet, a 1973 issue of Ebony with “The Black Middle Class,” a 1968 LIFE issue with a crying black child cover photo, and Newsweek’s 1970 issue with “The Black Mayors: How Are They Doing?”

But before get to the Playbill and other magazines, we are off to African Americans in film and television, which fills several rooms: Sidney Poitier, Fred Williamson, Richard Roundtree and, of course, Amos ’n’ Andy, and much, much more. After going by the Oprah Winfrey TV set, we get to see a small exhibit on African American community radio, then Essence’s 2011 special issue on “Hot Hair.”

African-American achievements in education, military or business are illustrated in part by an old Harper’s Weekly cover, The Teacher magazine from 1948, and a 1973 Black Enterprise issue.

Just when you think you have seen all you will see about media and journalism, the museum pays particular tribute to several individual journalists: the Nashville Banner’s Robert Churchwell, Provincial Freeman (Canada) editor/publisher Mary Ann Shadd Cary (an American), Dudley Randall’s Broadside Press company, Ebony magazine, and The Pittsburgh Courier’s Charles “Teenie” Harris. These are nicely accompanied by a “The Power of the Press” exhibit highlighting the Philadelphia Tribune.

African-American achievements in sports are given plenty of attention, and those exhibits include the April 1968 Esquire magazine feature Muhammad Ali shot by arrows like Saint Sebastian and Althea Gibson on the cover of a 1967 Sports Illustrated.

When I was there, a separate area only for media exhibits (entirely photographs and videos) featured “Everyday Beauty” photographs, but also photography artifacts such as a stereoscope, a 1920s vintage photojournalist's camera, and other items.

I recommend the museum highly for all of these reasons and more (although I won’t soon forget the jam-packed exhibit spaces or the grossly overpriced food in the cafeteria). It’s not often we see so much media history content in a museum that is not media-oriented and has no shortage of other items to show.

(Editor's Note: This is the second in a series of occasional articles about media history's role in museums and history books.)

_________________________________________________________

Claussen is Editor of The Intelligencer and the James Pedas Professor of Media, Communication & Public Relations/Executive Director, James Pedas Communication Center, Thiel College, Greenville, Pa. Regardless of what he might say or write about them, he enjoys visiting any and all museums in the USA and abroad.

CFP: Northern Irish Press in the 20th Century

Dane Claussen — Sat, 30 Sep 2017 05:14:55 GMT

An exciting publishing opportunity has arisen as part of the three-volume Edinburgh University Press, History of Newspapers and Periodicals in Britain and Ireland 1650-2011 (general editors, Martin Conboy and David Finkelstein). The third volume of this work, co-edited by Professors Adrian Bingham and Martin Conboy of the University of Sheffield, coves the period from 1900-2017: "Power, Popularization and Permeation." It is for this volume that we invite proposals for a chapter concerning the Northern Irish Press in the twentieth century.

The chapter would be a maximum of 7,000 words all-inclusive and could incorporate one or two "case studies" of particularly important people, institutions or titles to fit with the format of the series. If you can commit to the project we would need an initial confirmation, along with an outline of 300-400 words outlining how you would approach the topic and a minibiography of 100 words. We envisage that final chapters would be completed in time for submission to EUP by April 2018, so this represents an intense but rewarding challenge for an established or emerging scholar in this field. We hope that this timeframe will enable the chapters to draw on significant fresh insights and therefore constitute original research. Please bear in mind that even at the synopsis stage we are keen to stress aspects of newspaper and periodical publications from across Britain and Ireland so please do try where appropriate to incorporate in your synopsis some sense of how you will capture the flows of information between the constituent nations.

Please send proposals and bios via email to the volume's editorial assistant, Christopher Shoop-Worrall: cworrall1@sheffield.ac.uk

The deadline for proposal submission is the 27th October 2017.

Mueller on “A True Insight into a Cavalryman’s Life”: George Armstrong Custer as Literary Journalist

Dane Claussen — Sat, 30 Sep 2017 05:03:45 GMT

Editor’s Note: University of North Texas professor James E. Mueller presented his paper, “‘A True Insight into a Cavalryman’s Life’: George Armstrong Custer as Literary Journalist,” at the recent International Association of Literary Journalism Studies conference held in Canada. The Intelligencer asked Dr. Mueller to tell us more about how and why he started researching this topic, and why this research is important and interesting for himself and our field.

By James E. Mueller, University of North Texas

Once considered an American hero, George Armstrong Custer’s name can’t even be used to sell frozen custard.

This past summer Sonic made the mistake of using the Civil War cavalryman and Indian fighter to hawk a new dessert. A commercial promoting the frozen custard featured some slightly funny banter between its usual pair of comedic actors, one of whom had dressed up as Custer and thought the general’s real name was Custard. The actor was dressed in Custer’s Civil War uniform—the one he wore for four years in the fight to preserve the Union and end slavery. No matter. Custer’s subsequent service on the frontier during America’s postwar Westward expansion has become the symbol for all the wrongs done to Native Americans, and he must be banished from polite society as anything other than a bad example. Sonic is based in Oklahoma, which has a large Native American population, and protests were swift and effective. Sonic pulled the ad and apologized two days after it started running.

Custer, of course, had his faults, and the treatment of Native Americans by the federal government was often cruel and dishonorable. But historical figures should be more than one-dimensional caricatures for modern Americans to use as emotional punching bags. We live in a highly divisive age where more and more people seem to look at their fellow citizens as either villains or heroes rather than as human beings who have a mix of good and bad in their character. This attitude has spilled into history, and we’re in danger of losing a balanced view of the story of the country.

Finding balance in the story of Custer’s life is one of the main reasons I’m writing a biography of him. It might seem an odd choice for a journalism historian, but one of the reasons that Custer was so famous in his time was his success as a writer and a self-promoter. Custer had a side career as a journalist and was his own press agent, cultivating journalists and giving them great copy. My presentation on Custer’s writing to the International Association of Literary Journalism Studies is one part of that biography, which is tentatively titled Custer’s Ambitious Honor: A Life of Service and a Lust for Fame. The book is the natural culmination of research I’ve been pursuing for almost 25 years.

So much of research is prompted by a combination of luck, opportunity and necessity. When I started the Ph.D. program at the University of Texas, I discovered Custer’s headquarters during his Reconstruction service had been in a building that is now part of the UT campus. UT has a wonderful collection of historical Texas newspapers. I needed a paper for my Southern history class. I cranked the microfilm to find out how newspapers in a Rebel state had covered the death of a Yankee hero at the Little Bighorn, especially a hero who had enforced Reconstruction in 1865 and 1866. Texas papers, almost exclusively Democrat, supported the Democrat Custer, saying he was a gallant soldier defeated because of the perfidy of the Republican President U.S. Grant, who had denied him the troops he needed.

I presented the paper at AJHA, where I received encouragement to pursue the topic. I did, writing enough papers and articles to lead to a book, Shooting Arrows and Slinging Mud: Custer, the Press, and the Little Bighorn. The book won a couple of awards, including finalist for best nonfiction book from the Western Writers of America. While writing Shooting Arrows, I naturally had to do a lot of research on Custer the man. I found that in contrast to the received history that he was a born soldier, he had first wanted to be a teacher and had continued that interest and a variety of others throughout his brief 36-year life. In fact, his first professional job had been as a teacher in a one-room school house in Ohio, and he entered West Point with the idea that he would pursue a career in education after a few years in the Army. Custer was also passionate about politics, and he considered running for Congress immediately after the end of the Civil War. He accompanied President Andrew Johnson on a campaign trip in 1866, and continued to associate with politicians and political journalists for the rest of his life, sometimes to the detriment of his military career. He loved the theater, and his best friend was the famous actor Lawrence Barrett. Custer himself engaged in amateur theatrics at his various military posts, and at the time of his death had signed to go on a speaking tour with the same agency that hosted Mark Twain. Of interest to journalism history—Custer was a writer, authoring a bestseller about his experiences on the frontier called My Life on the Plains, as well as numerous magazine and newspaper articles.

The theme that unites the various aspects of Custer’s life is a passion for artistic creative endeavors, whether performing, teaching or writing. The skills required for each profession were useful for all of the others, and his military career, too. For example, teaching requires a theatrical presence in the classroom as well as the creativity and writing skills of crafting lessons. Teaching was also an important skill for Custer’s military career as he had to spend a significant time training recruits during the Civil War and in the frontier Army. On the other hand, the artistic side of his nature—his artistic ego—sometimes got in the way of his military career. His need for attention and recognition caused him to ignore or disobey the orders of his superiors in the Army and the civil government. In his personal attitude toward government, Custer was raised as a fierce Jacksonian Democrat who believed in the greatness of America. He served his country with distinction, yet his artistic ego was constantly battling with his sense of duty. He wrote for newspapers and magazines even when it might have been more prudent to focus on his military career.

What kind of a writer was Custer? I think he was a literary journalist, and that’s why I presented my preliminary ideas to the conference. Many of his biographers are critical of Custer’s style, claiming it was written in the wordy Victorian manner that is difficult for modern readers to enjoy. Frederick Van de Water, who wrote the debunking biography Glory-Hunter, said Custer “never met an adjective he didn’t like.” Louise Barnett wrote a much more favorable biography called Touched by Fire, yet claimed Custer’s writing was too formal, like military reports.(1)

However, after reading all of Custer’s Civil War reports, I think his military writing was decidedly informal at times, appearing to be composed by someone who was striving to be a writer. Custer’s official reports often featured a dramatic flair in what was, after all, supposed to be a government record with all the excitement that term conveys. Custer described an attack as a mix of blue uniforms contrasting with a “mass of glittering sabers” that was “one of the most inspiring as well as imposing scenes of martial grandeur ever witnessed upon a battle-field.”(2) A sergeant who was killed was “the bravest of the brave,” an officer was wounded when a bullet “carried away the end of his thumb,” and the Rebels when defeated turned into “a panic-stricken, uncontrollable mob” in which “entire companies threw down their arms, and they appeared glad when summoned to surrender.”(3)

It’s no surprise the Custer agreed to write for newspapers and magazines when editors asked him for accounts of his activities on the Plains. He also regularly wrote hunting stories for the sporting magazine Turf, Field and Farm under the pen name “Nomad.” But his most famous work was a series of articles for Galaxy magazine—a sort of Atlantic Monthly of its day—that was turned into a book called My Life on the Plains, or Personal Experiences with Indians. The 7^th Cavalry’s Captain Frederick Benteen famously called Custer’s book “My Life on the Plains,”(4) and Colonel William B. Hazen, who Custer had criticized in the book, privately published a rejoinder pamphlet called “Some Corrections of ‘My Life on the Plains.’”(5) But no less a personage than William T. Sherman, general of the army, wrote Custer that he and everyone in his family had read the book with “deep interest.” Sherman told Custer that “your articles on the Plains are by far the best I have ever read.” Sherman noted that he had received “hard knocks” from writing his own Civil War memoir but encouraged Custer to write one because it would be a valuable contribution to history.(6) Custer was at work on that memoir when he was killed at the Little Bighorn.

For the literary journalism presentation I re-read closely My Life of the Plains, looking for how it fit literary journalism standards. Custer’s writing was similar to the sketch journalism of Mark Twain, which is considered one of the precursors of literary journalism.(7) Custer’s work includes many humorous vignettes, and in contrast to his current reputation as an egotistical maniac, he sometimes made himself the butt of the joke. In an episode often quoted in Custer biographies, Custer left his column to hunt. He got caught up in the chase and pursued a buffalo until he was out of sight of the column and the bugler he had brought along. When Custer had run it down and was about the kill it with his pistol, the buffalo turned to gore his horse. The horse veered sharply. Custer instinctively grabbed for the reins with his gun hand. He accidentally shot his horse in the head, killing it instantly. Custer was thrown over his horse’s head, and as he was flying through the air he wondered what the buffalo would do to him when he landed. It merely snorted and sauntered off, leaving Custer alive but alone in enemy territory with no horse and no idea where his troops were. He started walking in what he thought was the right direction, and fortunately for him ran into his command instead of enemy warriors. The tale was funny and dramatic, yet not designed to frame Custer as a hero.

Custer’s intense involvement in the stories he told is a hallmark of literary journalism--immersion. Of course, as a cavalry officer Custer had little choice but to be immersed in Indian warfare, but his descriptions were so vivid that they brought the reader with him on the frontier. In one chapter, Custer described his terror when approaching an Indian village at night. The Army wanted to negotiate with the tribe, so he and few of his men left the main command and dismounted when they found the village. As they walked toward the tepees, they called out but got no answer other than the barking of camp dogs. Custer freely confessed that only pride kept him from turning around and running back to his horse. It turned out that the Indians had abandoned the village out of fear of the cavalry, but it was an anecdote that captured the uncertainty of Plains warfare.

Although the book was largely a war story—an account of Custer’s participation in a couple of campaigns in 1867-68—he also wrote in great detail about geography, animals, Native culture and the interplay of all three as they contributed to the way people lived on the frontier. This “thick description” is another key element of literary journalism. Instead of merely writing that the Indians used smoke signals, Custer described what type of wood they used and how they held the blanket over the fire to create just the right sort of smoke. He explained the importance of ponies to the Plains Indians and why their speed and endurance made them superior to the Army’s horses. The ponies, he wrote, could survive on cotton wood bark when there was no grass. Indians would cut the wood into four-foot strips and toss them to the horses, who would hold them down with their hooves and gnaw them like a dog would a bone.

Custer used a variety of other literary journalism techniques like scene-by-scene construction, dialogue and a focus on ordinary people to enliven his narrative. It’s not necessary to go into all of those examples here other than to conclude that Custer developed his own distinct voice while writing his Plains stories. He created an authorial character who had the interests of a scientist in observing his world, was passionate about his military duty and yet was able to laugh at himself and his mistakes. He wrote from a distinct point of the view—that of the ordinary cavalryman. (The title of the presentation comes from Custer’s own description of his book.) He was frustrated at the government’s mad policy of simultaneously feeding and arming the tribes yet demanding the Army fight them when they used those arms on civilians. He also railed against newspaper editorials that claimed the Army wanted war. No one who ever had to go to war, particularly the guerrilla style of warfare on the Plains, would seek a war, Custer wrote. The collected stories in My Life on the Plains struck a note with his contemporaries, who he was able to take to the frontier with him through the power of his writing.

What can journalism historians take from this research? It suggests that when studying literary journalists, historians should not focus solely on full-time reporters. Soldier-journalists such as Custer produced a lot of copy in the 19^th century, and we are seeing a rebirth of that in today’s military with soldier-bloggers like Colby Buzzell, who took us to the front lines in Iraq with a “milblog” that led to his book My War: Killing Time in Iraq.

As for my own research, Custer’s writing career will be an important part of an effort to tell the story of his life and how it contributed to the national story. In Custer’s own time, his death was the subject of jokes within weeks of the Little Bighorn, as I related in a chapter on humor in Shooting Arrows and Slinging Mud. One newspaper even called his death “Sioux-icide.” Some blamed Custer for the defeat, others wrote that his attack was what most officers would have done under the same circumstances. But the consensus was that despite the outcome of the battle, he died in the service of his country. Americans in 1876 seemed to have a more balanced view toward their heroes than we do today. I hope this research can make a contribution in that direction.

(1) Frederic F. Van De Water, Glory-Hunter: A Life of General Custer (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1988) 227; Louis Barnett, Touched by Fire: The Life, Death, and Mythic Afterlife of George Armstrong Custer (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996), 365.

(2) John M. Carroll, Custer in the Civil War: His Unfinished Memoirs (San Rafael, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1977), 35.

(3) Ibid., 46.

(4) Robert M. Utley, Cavalier in Buckskin: George Armstrong Custer and the Western Military Frontier (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988), 54.

(5) Ibid., 125.

(6) (Marguerithe Merington, ed., The Custer Story: The Life and Letters of General George A. Custer and His Wife Elizabeth (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1994), 244.

(7) Norman Sims, True Stories: A Century of Literary Journalism (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2008), 44-45.

____________________________________________________________________

James E. Mueller, Ph.D., is Professor and Interim Associate Dean, Mayborn School of Journalism, University of North Texas.

President’s Column: Join us for the President’s Panel in Little Rock

Dane Claussen — Fri, 29 Sep 2017 05:26:15 GMT

By David Vergobbi with Ross Collins, Debra Van Tuyll, Patrick Cox.

At this time of political and societal upheaval, I’m reminded of a chapter I wrote a few years ago. So I ask you to consider two scholars named Alex separated by 174 years.

As he traveled around the United States in the early 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville, a French aristocrat with liberal leanings, observed how ideas and aspirations diffused among America’s social and economic groups. He believed identifying the methods of diffusion would explain what political and economic aims each group would pursue, what institutions they would establish and operate, and with what success. He paid little attention to government separation of powers and much attention to which social groups might sustain a democratic outlook. In his considerations, Tocqueville became one of the first observers to recognize the press as a powerful force for promoting and sustaining democracy.

“[The press’s] influence in America is immense. It causes political life to circulate through all parts of that vast territory,” he wrote in 1835’s Democracy in America. “Its eye is constantly open to detect the secret springs of political designs and to summon the leaders of all parties in turn to the bar of public opinion.” Tocqueville argued that the press “rallies the interests of the community round certain principles and draws up the creed of every party; for it affords a means of intercourse between those who hear and address each other without ever coming into immediate contact.”

As he reviewed the state of American news media in 2009, our second Alex, Alex S. Jones, an American journalist with democratic concerns now at Harvard, also observed how ideas and aspirations diffused among America’s different social and economic groups. Jones did pay attention to government separation of powers, and he reinforced a long-held belief in the United States that the news media exist as the public’s check and balance on its political system by diffusing “accountability news.”

“Traditional journalists have long believed that this form of fact-based accountability news is the essential food supply of democracy and that without enough of this healthy nourishment, democracy will weaken, sicken, or even fail,” he wrote in Losing the News: The Future of the News that Feeds Democracy (2009). “[T]his core of reported news has been the starting place for a raucous national conversation about who we are as a people and a country.”

The similarity of Tocqueville and Jones’s comments — separated by nearly two centuries — reveals how deeply the perception of the press as democratic catalyst is embedded in American political thought. J. Herbert Altschull called it “The Democratic Assumption.” “Indeed,” Altschull wrote in Agents of Power (1984), “we can say with a large measure of certainty that one of the primary assumptions held by the American citizen is that democracy thrives in part because of the information disseminated by the news media.” Altschull himself italicized his words to drive home their significance. This assumption considers the news media “indispensable to the survival of democracy.” Political scientist Timothy E. Cook showed us in Governing with the News (1998) that even politicians accepted the Democratic Assumption to the point of planning their campaign and governance strategies based on voter media consumption.

And, yet, today “politicians and opinion-leaders, led by the president of the United States himself, have seriously questioned the need for the press,” reports AJHA 2^nd Vice-President Ross Collins. “They show skepticism of a presumption that, after more than two centuries, professional journalists ought to continue to play a central role in American democracy. Debates over the credibility and basic veracity of legacy journalism have spilled down from the politicians’ rhetoric and into day-to-day rumblings around the country at most levels, and in most venues — social media to television commentary. People in general are questioning journalism, perhaps more than they have ever before.”

“Or perhaps not more than ever before,” Collins continues. “Because the one aspect to this central discussion of journalism in democracy that is usually missing is the historical perspective.”

Agreed, argues AJHA Board Member Debra Van Tuyll.

“Given that most Americans have scant knowledge of their own history, much less global history, historical context is vital to providing full, fair, and accurate coverage that gives readers/viewers/listeners/surfers what they need — and have a right — to know,” says Van Tuyll. Plus, “given that history is susceptible to being used and manipulated in the service of those who neither understand it nor value it, historians have an ethical obligation to speak out to correct the record when it is presented in a way that cherry-picks facts, exaggerates, indulges in flag-waving, or offers half-truths and obfuscation.”

Such an ethical obligation directly serves our organizational principles, as well, says AJHA veteran Patrick Cox.

“AJHA members can provide a valuable public service during these fractious times by providing historical perspectives on present events to a much broader audience than our membership and our respective educational institutions — for media professionals, educators at all levels, business and nonprofit organizations, and the public,” explains Cox. “Many AJHA members are doing this at the local, regional and national level. [AJHA can] establish and maintain an easy-to-use online resource for identifying and contacting AJHA member historians who can provide their insight and expertise.”

Establishing such an online resource is exactly the focus of this year’s President’s Panel at AJHA’s national convention in Little Rock titled “Journalism History News Service: A series of historical perspectives on contemporary journalism.”

Ross, Debbie, Pat and I will propose a series of member-produced public essays, editorials, and podcasts on historical topics that could illuminate today’s divisive news media discussions. These essays would appear on the association’s website, on social media, as live online chats, and as articles circulated widely to the legacy press. The service would also offer an online resource of Distinguished Media History Leaders — historians available to speak, collaborate, consult and provide historical context on issues involving press freedom, civil rights, and other relevant issues of the day. The goal is to proliferate a national understanding of and need for our two Alex’s “fact-based accountability news” and to revitalize a Democratic Assumption that the news media are indeed “indispensable to the survival of democracy.”

Join us. Provide your input. And together let’s build an effective AJHA service.

Rivas-Rodriguez Reflects on the Voces Oral History Research Summer Institute July 10-14 in Austin

Dane Claussen — Fri, 29 Sep 2017 03:37:59 GMT

By Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez

Seventeen researchers – professors, graduate students and one librarian – participated in the inaugural oral history training institute at the University of Texas at Austin campus.

The researchers came from Maine, New Jersey, Idaho, California, Ohio, Vermont, Tennessee, Alabama, and of course, Texas – and their research interests were as varied as their provenance. Two were from Maine, one a chemistry professor, the other a Spanish professor, hoping to learn enough to begin an oral history project in Chile on health practices. Another was from Idaho, who had applied (and later won) a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities on Latino artists in her state. Two were AJHA professors, George Daniels (University of Alabama) and Melita Garza (Texas Christian University), who wanted to learn more about oral history interviewing techniques and how they differed from journalism practices. Both of are active in the Trailblazers of Diversity in Journalism and Mass Communication Oral History Project (http://bit.ly/2vXQMgJ), a program of the AEJMC.

I organized the institute – recognizing a need to train academics to do oral history. I’ve been doing oral history since 1999 when I founded what is now the Voces Oral History Project. I’ve been teaching oral history and incorporating it into books since then. (I also head of the Trailblazers Oral History committee.) I recruited Todd Moye, a history professor at the University of North Texas, and the former director of the Tuskeegee Airmen Oral History Project. Todd and I served as lead instructors.

Our applicants were required to write a statement of purpose, telling us what they wanted to learn. To the degree we could, we incorporated that into our curriculum.

Archivist Lisa Cruces, of the University of Houston, took the institute because she has worked with the end product: the actual recordings from oral history interviews. And she wanted to learn more about the process at the front end.

George Daniels immediately applied what he learned at the institute to his own research: “Since the weeklong summer experience, I have prepared two abstracts of my research and submitted to conferences, one of which was accepted for presentation.”

Daniels will use his new understanding in “developing a community-based partnership that will utilize the oral historical method to preserve the history of a local middle school that is closing in 2018.

“Take a semester-long graduate seminar and roll it into five days-- That's what the summer Institute is,” Daniels said.

And Melita Garza later said the institute added “new dimensions of skills, understanding, and excitement” to her oral history work.

“The institute offers a top-flight curriculum and the chance to work with amazing scholars from around the country,” Garza said in an email. “You will be inspired.”

The dates for this summer’s institute will be announced in October; with the applications process opening in early December. Cost will be $750, including a light breakfast and lunch. Access to inexpensive dorm housing is available. Further information will be available at: vocessummerinstitute.org. Questions may be directed to: voces@utexas.edu.

American Journalism Announces Winner of 2017 Best Article Award

Dane Claussen — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 02:18:26 GMT

In a year in which the term “fake news” has become part of the vernacular, an article exploring late 19th and early 20th Century America’s obsession with “news fakes” proved the best of a strong field of articles in American Journalism.

Justin Clark, an assistant professor of History at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, was named the winner of American Journalism’s annual Best Article Award for “Confronting the ‘Seeker of Newspaper Notoriety’: Pathological Lying, the Public and the Press, 1890-1920.”

“As I am so regularly impressed by the scholarship in American Journalism, I was happy that the article was accepted for publication—and thrilled when I learned it had won the journal's annual Best Article prize,” Clark said. “The article was accepted in the spring, and by autumn, fake news had become a national preoccupation. I can’t say that I saw that coming. Still, it's a reminder that, however much it has evolved since the late 19th century, professional journalism is as susceptible to crisis as any other modern institution. I am grateful for the recognition.”

Clark will receive a plaque and a $250 prize from American Journalism, a peer-reviewed quarterly and the official publication of the American Journalism Historians Association. "Justin's article was not only original and rigorous, but the editorial board believed it made a real contribution to the scholarship of media history," Ford Risley, editor of American Journalism, said. "I agree wholeheartedly."

American Journalism names Littlefield 2017 Rising Scholar winner

Dane Claussen — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 02:15:31 GMT

Quality research about the relationship between journalism and the Social Gospel recently netted Pepperdine University’s Christina Littlefield American Journalism’s 2017 Rising Scholar Award.

Littlefield’s project, “Promulgating the Kingdom: Social Gospel Muckrakers,” addresses 19th century Christian and secular social reformers' use of the press to agitate for change. “It's impossible to describe my reaction in mere words,” Littlefield said. “I had applied for some three years in a row, so to actually win it came as a delightful shock, followed by a huge sense of joy and validation that the leaders at AJHA saw the value and uniqueness of my work. I am delighted they saw the worth of researching the religious muckrakers who worked alongside the secular muckrakers.”

Littlefield will be recognized with a $2,000 award at the AJHA National Convention, which will occur in Little Rock Oct. 12-14. The Rising Scholar Award winner is chosen annually by the editors of American Journalism, a peer-reviewed quarterly and the official publication of the American Journalism Historians Association. The award is designed for scholars who show promise in extending their research agendas.

“The proposal was original, detailed, beautifully written, and addressed a relatively unexplored area of journalism history,” said Vanessa Murphree, associate editor of American Journalism and an associate professor at The University of Southern Mississippi. “Her work fills a void in journalism and Christian history as it seeks to illuminate the presence of social gospel muckrakers and their relationship and alignment with other muckrakers.”

Mentorship Shapes Grad Student's Own History as He Heads to First AJHA Conference

Dane Claussen — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 20:45:51 GMT

By Steven Listopad

With all due credit to Graham, Barth and countless others, the first person to introduce me to “journalism is the first rough draft of history” was my long-time adviser, mentor and friend Dr. Ross Collins.

As a young adult, I was intent on pursuing a career in journalism and media. I wanted to report, write and enter a profession that I saw as adventurous. I did not, at the time, reflect too much on the scope of the discipline beyond education and professionalization.

As an undergraduate and graduate student in the mass communication program at North Dakota State University, Dr. Collins quickly relieved me of my narrow goals. In his discussions on media history, Dr. Collins made visible the quantum entanglements of events, past, present and future, and opened my eyes to the larger world of academic study.

I took time off between my master’s degree and Ph.D., working full time as a journalism professor and student media director at the University of Jamestown. I returned to my studies at NDSU, again having the timeless knowledge of Dr. Collins’ support. I also found another mentor, Dr. Elizabeth Crawford, to expand my base of support and field knowledge.

Together Drs. Collins and Crawford have helped shape who I am as a scholar and student of history. Under Dr. Collins, historical research was central to my thesis on The Village Voice’s role in community building, and to my ongoing project on Native American newspapers’ roles in community building. Under Dr. Crawford, historical research is central to my professional passion--the relationship between the student press and the First Amendment.

Prior to 1988, few questioned the negotiated autonomy the student press received from the First Amendment, seemingly cemented in the 1969 Supreme Court’s Tinker decision. Then, after the Court’s misguided Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier decision, the new status quo of unmitigated censorship authority quickly replaced any institutional or cultural memory of a time when student journalists were afforded a measure of protected freedom to express themselves in student publications. Now, only 30 years later, a free student press is mostly viewed as a gift to be given, not a right to be exercised.

In 2013, my students at the University of Jamestown and I turned a class project into what has become the national grassroots legislative campaign to protect student journalistic expression. New Voices U.S.A. (www.newvoicesus.com) has resulted in six states adopting new legislative protections for student journalists since 2015. I have been so fortunate to work with so many passionate influential people on this endeavor.

My contribution to New Voices was informed and enhanced by my mentors and their investment in me. They provided me the tools to look outside of the present and to identify the events in time that are connected to the way things are now. In joining the American Journalism Historians Association, I have discovered a family of scholars who share that historical appreciation for journalism and media. The research journal, Community Discussions, and support network have all been so valuable. And, as a life-long North Dakotan, I have especially enjoyed the recent work Teri Finneman has done on preserving the voices of important journalists in our state through multimedia and film.

Now that I am a faculty member at Henderson State University, just a short drive from Little Rock, I look forward to finally participating in my first AJHA conference. I am also honored to be moderating a panel with fellow graduate students on another past time, international journalism. The panel, “Thinking internationally: Research opportunities connecting media history in the U.S. and abroad,” is at 11:20 a.m., Thursday, Oct. 12.

The mentorship that I received from journalism and media historians helped me understand that “journalism is the first rough draft of history.” But that mentorship also concretely shaped my history.

_________________________________________________________

Steven Listopad is Lecturer/Student Media Adviser at Henderson State University, Oslo Program Director for ieiMedia, and a New Voices Advocate for New Voices U.S.A.

A Noiseless Flash and its Aftermath

Dane Claussen — Sat, 09 Sep 2017 22:30:37 GMT

Editor’s Note: University of Maine professor Josh Roiland presented his paper, “Hidden in Plain Style: The Anti-Bomb Politics of John Hersey’s Hiroshima,” at the recent International Association of Literary Journalism Studies conference held in Canada. The Intelligencer asked Dr. Roiland to tell us more about how and why he started researching this topic, and why this research is important and interesting for himself and our field.

By Josh Roiland, University of Maine

The lasting image from my first reading of John Hersey’s classic Hiroshima is his description of the Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto reaching down to help a blast victim. Tanimoto grabs the woman “by the hands, but her skin slipped off in huge, glovelike pieces.” The verb slipped. The adjective glovelike. Together they created an aqueous revulsion that still attends each reading.

Hiroshima was part of Tom Connery’s “Literary Journalism in America” graduate course at the University of Saint Thomas. It was my first semester in the English master’s program, and I remember being repulsed, if not exactly moved, by the story. I was more interested in the fact that Hersey traveled back to Japan 40 years after the piece first ran in The New Yorker, to report on the fates of the six survivors he profiled in 1946.

When I read the story again, several years later, it was in preparation for teaching my own version of “Literary Journalism in America.” This time I was struck by the story’s clinical and antiseptic feel. Yes, the gory details still stood out, but the text was, in many ways, boring. Hersey overwhelmed readers with precise measurements, exact times, and arcane details. Trapped within this barrage of facts, the characters seemed not so much heroic as fated. I wondered and worried how I was going to teach this landmark work or journalism. As far as pedagogy goes, standing in front of students pleading Isn’t this horrific? wasn’t much of a plan.

That question, however, was canny. It led to two more questions that subsequently animated my teaching and, eventually, my research on the text.

Why is it terrible?

How does it work?

I’ve taught Hiroshima eight times. The first five as part of the SAGES writing program at Case Western Reserve University, then twice more as a visiting professor in the Department of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and finally once as an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Maine. In each class, we spent the first of our four days cataloging reactions to the text and the passages that produced them. Students are always shocked, disgusted, and riveted. They’re awed by the enormity of the catastrophe. They’re sickened by the graphic descriptions. They’re captivated by the stories of resilience. Each time I would ask them why they were so moved, and each time they exclaimed: “The story!”

The unanimity and repetition of that answer increasingly left me unsatisfied. I understood being stirred by the ghastly content of Hersey’s text, but what about Hiroshima’s form? The story, they would often say, speaks for itself. This answer both made sense and was completely unsatisfying. Hersey’s narrative is so plainly drawn and utterly compelling that it feels as though it always existed just that way. But, of course, it didn’t. No story ever speaks for itself. In class I would push back: all stories—including Hiroshima—are constructions, and our job is to figure out how it is constructed, then determine the effect of that particular composition. In time, that became my job outside of the classroom as well.

On the second day of class discussion, I start to push back. I ask: Does the text express a point of view? Does Hersey offer his thoughts, either explicitly or implicitly, on the usage of the bomb? I introduce secondary articles for historical and theoretical context. We discuss Hugh Kenner’s “The Politics of Plain Style” and an excerpt from Phyllis Frus’s The Politics and Poetics of Journalistic Narrative. Students are moved by Kenner’s refutation that “a man who doesn’t make his language ornate cannot be deceiving us.” Maybe there’s something more going on here, they think. They are less persuaded (and, in fact, often annoyed) by Frus’s theoryspeak when she adduces that due to a nonfiction writer’s lack of reflexivity, a reader’s “response is reduced to a narrow emotional range, and we do not experience the subjectivity of another, for the text (with its repetition of universal truths and reified, historical facts) confirms the naturalized view we already hold, the world we recognize as ‘actual.’” What?, they ask. The first couple times I taught that text I joined the students in their puzzlement, but every semester when I explained Frus’s argument I found myself more and more persuaded.

In addition to those two works of literary theory, we read three works of historiography: an 11-page excerpt from Ben Yagoda’s About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made that offers both a brief biography and a behind-the-scenes exploration of Hersey’s reporting and writing process; the corresponding chapter from Norman Sims’s seminal True Stories: A Century of Literary Journalism; and Kathy Roberts Forde’s award-winning article, “Profit and Public Interest: A Publication History of John Hersey’s ‘Hiroshima.’” Forde, a friend and mentor, chronicles in meticulous and captivating detail how “[n]o other publication in the American twentieth century was so widely circulated, republished, discussed, and venerated.”

After a while, all these passages and the articles that contained them, looked like puzzle pieces.

Forde’s article, however, was the kicker. It spurred me to put the puzzle together: “Hiroshima”’s recognition was immediate and its reach, vast. Aided by a press release announcing its publication and advanced reviews, when The New Yorker hit newsstands on August 29, 1946, the magazine sold its entire 300,000 non-subscription run in an hour. ABC radio staged a somber four-night reading of the text for a national audience. Alfred A. Knopf almost instantaneously published the article in book form. The Book-of-the-Month club selected Hersey’s story and sent a free copy to its more than half-a-million subscribers.

The question that frustrated me over and over was: Why?

As I later wrote:

“Hiroshima” was released less than five years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which killed 2,386 Americans. Upon entering World War II, the United States forcibly relocated and incarcerated more than 110,000 Japanese-Americans living along the Pacific Coast. The last internment camp, at Tule Lake, California did not close until March 21, 1946. A virulent anti-Japanese sentiment still coursed through American culture after the war ended. So then, how did a story rooted in empathy for the Japanese cause publishers to, as Forde put it, “largely disregard commercial imperatives to provide as many Americans as possible with vital information and a forum for debate about the unsettling moral, political, and social realities of atomic warfare and the new atomic age.”

The more I taught the text, the more I thought I figured out that very basic question.

The answer, I believed, was that Hersey’s lack of reporting transparency, absence of rhetorical reflexivity, and plain compositional style made his rendering of such a distasteful moral act palatable for large numbers of American readers.

I was writing my dissertation while I taught most these classes. Moved by the work of James Carey, Barbie Zelizer, and Michael Schudson, I wanted to figure out the democratic significance of literary journalism in America. Hiroshima was not part of my study, but my scholarship informed my teaching, which, in turn, informed later scholarship. When I floated my ideas in the classroom, however, students were not swayed. In fact, some were offended. Hersey’s story was so meaningful to them that to suggest an alternative understanding was to impugn on their critical sensibilities.

At the end of every semester, I ask students to rate all our primary texts on a scale of 0-10 based on how much they “liked” each piece. It’s a fun exercise that also offers me some unscientific data about what and how I’m teaching. In each of the eight semesters that I’ve taught “Literary Journalism in America,” Hiroshima’s average rating came in above 8.5, which always made it one of the three highest-rated stories out of the more than 35 that we read in class. The text’s popularity mirrored the honor bestowed by esteemed journalists and NYU professors who, in 1999, named the story the most important work of journalism of the twentieth century.

The push back from the students proved to be good practice for when I eventually presented the paper at a conference.

After a half-dozen courses, I felt I had my argument pretty-well mapped out. I had a hypothesis, some convincing examples, and an explanatory theoretical framework. These elements were enough to run several successful classes and prod students to consider Hiroshima in new and uncomfortable ways. But they were not enough for an article. So I spent last summer researching and re-reading. I went through the text page-by-page and created thematic taxonomies, then populated those categories with extensive examples. The puzzle grew larger and larger. And then I assembled it.

If research papers have nut grafs, this would be mine:

Hersey establishes his authority through an unrelenting presentation of precise times and measurements. He employs an unadorned style of writing that garners readers’ trust by abandoning rhetorical flourishes. He pulls readers along through a looping, nonlinear narrative with constant temporal transitions that seemingly link the stories together. Hersey further enhances the narrative by hiding his reporting via conventional attribution. A result of taking the marks off his reporting is a presentation of characters that appear representative of Hiroshima’s victims, when, in fact, they display religious and occupational characteristics familiar to most western audiences. Hersey uses a limited-omniscient point of view for much of the story, which removes direct agency from the events and replaces it with a more dramatic emphasis on fate. He plays down the political and militaristic context rendering the events in a cultural vacuum. Finally, there are several key moments in “Hiroshima” where Hersey betrays his plain style by deploying figurative language that directly editorializes his disdain for the bomb.

I presented the paper at the twelfth annual meeting of the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies (IALJS) in Halifax, Nova Scotia in May 2017. Relative to AJHA, this association and its attendant conferences are small. Approximately 75 presented at IALJS-12. It felt like half of them came to our panel, “Content, Form, and Time: Style as Argument,” which also featured Christopher Wilson (Boston College) discussing Calvin Trillin’s New Yorker murder stories and David Dowling (University of Iowa) presenting his award-winning paper on Marilynne Robinson’s radical environmental journalism.

I expected there to be some opposition in the audience. I was taking on a canonical writer, after all, as well as some canonical takes. If my students were bothered by my reading of Hiroshima, surely scholars who had vested interests in the text would also disagree with me.

They did.

(Readers can watch the panel and the feisty question and answer session here.)

Some believed I was unfairly critical of Hersey and his journalistic decision-making process. I explained that I was not—in the paper, anyway—offering a value judgment on Hersey’s reporting and writing choices, but rather noting that all choices have an effect; therefore, it was important to understand how Hersey’s choices positioned readers, then and now, to encounter the text in particular ways. (That said, I didn’t help my case by adding that I personally felt Hersey’s lack of transparency and reflexivity was compositionally manipulative.)

Other scholars questioned my use of the term “political,” wondering if I was suggesting that Hersey was either partisan or agenda-driven. I explained that I was using John J. Pauly’s conception of “politics” as “the realm of symbolic confrontation in which groups of citizens organize, enact, and negotiate their relationships with one another.” Moreover, I was not making any claims, nor am I interested in Hersey’s intention or agenda. Rather, I wanted to explore the effects of the choices that he made in his text.

An ancillary question attended these points: So what? Several scholars pointed out that Hersey’s text had been effective because the world had not experienced any atomic warfare after the publication of this influential account. I believe it is reductive to make such a correlation. Global politics are a volatile and complicated crucible, and to suggest that any one text—no matter how profound—ever has such direct influence is, I believe, simplistic. Moreover, the fact that civilization has thus far staved off nuclear annihilation really has nothing to do with my argument.

As the Q+A concluded I tried to emphasize this point: all styles are political—even (or, especially) a plain style. Such a statement, however, is not analogous to saying that Hersey had a political agenda or intended to smuggle a message into his text. Intention has nothing to do with it. Rather, saying the style is political acknowledges that all reporting and writing decisions have consequences for readers; our job as scholars is remove our value judgment about those decisions and instead highlight and understand those consequences.

I titled my essay “Hidden in Plain Style” to draw attention to the style’s subtlety. Although the approach is unadorned, direct, and simple, Hugh Kenner called it “the most disorienting form of discourse yet invented by man.” And once one notices it, the style is impossible to unsee. Yet for more than 70 years, most of the popular and scholarly criticism of Hiroshima has focused not on the story’s form, but rather on its content. There is good reason for this attention: the subject matter is literally (and thankfully) unparalleled. But that focus has also prevented us from understanding precisely how the story works. It’s not enough to note that Hersey travelled to Japan and bore witness to the effects of the first ever detonation of an atomic bomb on civilization. Scholars must account for the fact that he constructed a story based on what he saw and whom he talked to, and then chose to tell that story in a very particular way. The hope is that my article creates a space to start that discussion.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Josh Roiland is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Maine. His article, “Hidden in Plain Style: The Anti-Bomb Politics of John Hersey’s Hiroshima,” has been accepted by Journalism History pending minor revisions. His essays and criticism are available at www.joshroiland.com

Nominees Announced For 2017 AJHA Elections

Dane Claussen — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 21:32:27 GMT

This year’s call for nominations yielded a diverse pool for leadership positions in our organization. Two AJHA members have been nominated to fill the slot of 2017-2018 2nd VP, and three members were nominated to fill three three-year terms on the Board of Directors.

Here’s a little bit of information about each nominee (listed in alphabetical order, by position).

Donna Lampkin Stephens (University of Central Arkansas, Conway, Ark.) has been nominated for the position of 2^nd VP. Stephens joined AJHA as a graduate student in 2008, where she won the Robert Lance Memorial Award for Outstanding Student Paper for one of her assignments in Dave Davies’ Historical Methods class at the University of Southern Mississippi (“The Conscience of the Arkansas Gazette: J.N. Heiskell Faces the Storm of Little Rock.”). Since then, she has attended conferences in Raleigh, New Orleans, St. Paul, Oklahoma City, St. Petersburg and Little Rock. In New Orleans, she presented her dissertation, “’If It Ain’t Broke, Break It’: How Corporate Journalism Killed the Arkansas Gazette,” which earned honorable mention for the Margaret A. Blanchard Dissertation Prize. It was published by the University of Arkansas Press in 2015. She has participated in panel discussions and served on the Public Relations and History in the Curriculum committees and has been a reviewer for American Journalism. Stephens is transitioning off the AJHA board after a three-year term and is one of the local hosts for the Little Rock conference. She holds undergraduate and master’s degrees in Journalism and English from the University of Arkansas, an M.Ed. in special education (Teaching Visually Impaired Children) from UA-Little Rock, and a Ph.D. in Mass Communication (History and Law) from the University of Southern Mississippi.

Amber Roessner (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) has been nominated for the position of 2^nd VP. Roessner joined AJHA as a graduate student in 2006. In her time with the organization, she has served in numerous roles—as the member and chair of the AJHA Graduate Committee (2007-2011), as the chair of the Elections and Nominations Committee (2011-present), as a conference reviewer (2010-present), as a member of the Blanchard Doctoral Dissertation award committee (2013-2016) and the AJHA Book Award Committee (2011-2014). She also served on the Board of Directors 2013-2016. Roessner has published one book and 12 refereed articles, including three that appeared in American Journalism, where she has served as a manuscript reviewer on numerous occasions. Much of this research was presented at AJHA, where she has been honored with AJHA’s William Snorgrass Memorial Award and honorable mention for the David Sloan Outstanding Faculty Paper Award and the Robert E. Lance Award. Roessner recently was honored with the 2017 AJHA Award for Excellence in Teaching, with American Journalism’s 2014 Rising Scholar Award, and with AJHA’s 2011 Joseph McKerns Research Grant Award. Roessner is an associate professor of journalism and electronic media at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; she received her Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee in 2010. Her research interests include twentieth century U.S. political communications and race and gender politics in American culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

David O. Dowling (University of Iowa, Iowa City) has been nominated to serve on the board of directors. Dowling has been a member of AJHA since 2014. Dowling has served as a referee for Research Paper Submissions for the 2016 and 2017 Annual Conferences and on the American Journalism Editorial Board since 2016. Two of his articles, one on the ideological convergence of Margaret Fuller and Herman Melville in the periodical press, and the other on multimedia approaches to teaching journalism history, have been published (the latter in press) in American Journalism. His presentations on radical nineteenth-century intellectual culture in mainstream press was presented at the 2014 and 2015 AJHA Annual Conferences prior to inclusion in “Emerson’s Newspaperman: Horace Greeley and Radical Intellectual Culture, 1836-1872,” J&C Monographs spring 2017. In 2016, he presented his research on Indian journalist T.G. Narayanan, the figure responsible for publicizing the revolutionary vision of Mahatma Ghandi. This research is currently under review at Modern Asian Studies.

Dowling, an associate professor and director of undergraduate studies in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Iowa, is the author of six books and numerous articles on digital media and journalism history. His research on publishing industries and cultural production has appeared in Literary Journalism Studies, Genre, Convergence, Digital Humanities Quarterly, Journalism & Communication Monographs, and elsewhere. His current book project is titled, Immersed: Narrative Journalism in the Digital Age.

Keith Greenwood (Missouri, Columbia) has been nominated to serve on the board of directors. He has been a member of the American Journalism Historians Association since 2005. He has served AJHA as a member of the Nominations and Elections Committee and as a current member of the Board of Directors. He also manages the website of the AEJMC history division.

He is an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism where he is part of the photojournalism and journalism studies faculty groups. He teaches History of Photojournalism as well as graduate seminars on photography in society and research methods. His research on the history of photojournalism has included the study of individual photographers. His research also includes visual framing analysis of news photographs and adoption of technology in photojournalism.

Sonny Rhodes (University of Arkansas, Little Rock) has been nominated to serve on the board of directors. He has been a member of the American Journalism Historians Association since 2005. He has attended a number of AJHA national conferences since then, given that AJHA is, by far, his favorite organization. Having a strong commitment to service, he has served AJHA by reading numerous papers submitted for presentation at annual conferences. He also has served the organization by reviewing papers submitted for publication in American Journalism and by writing book reviews for the journal. Since early 2016 he has aided in planning for the 2017 national conference in Little Rock.

Additional nominations can be made from the floor during the election that will be held during the annual convention in October. Please remember that any nominee must have been a member of AJHA for at least one calendar year immediately preceding the date of the election. No more than one person from an institution can serve on the Board of Directors at one time; individuals from the same institution may serve on the Board of Directors and in the Presidency or Vice-Presidency, concurrently. Dues paying AJHA members unable to attend the conference are eligible to vote. They should send their name, email address, and intent to vote online to AJHA Nominations and Election Committee Chair Amber Roessner (aroessner@utk.edu) no later than midnight Sept. 31. After elections are held on Saturday, October 14, at the 35th annual AJHA convention in Little Rock, current 2^nd VP Ross Collins (North Dakota State University) will become 1^st VP, and current 1^st VP Dianne Bragg (University of Alabama) will become president for 2017-2018.

Hale-Shelton wins AJHA's 2017 Local Journalist Award

Dane Claussen — Tue, 05 Sep 2017 23:25:28 GMT

A reporter from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette whose work has exposed judicial and higher education corruption will soon be honored by the American Journalism Historians Association. Debra Hale-Shelton, who joined the Democrat-Gazette in 2004, will receive AJHA’s 2017 Local Journalist Award at the organization’s annual convention, which will be held Oct. 12-14 in Little Rock.

“Every year AJHA honors a journalist in our convention city who has repeatedly ensured that the public interest is served by governmental, societal and corporate institutions,” Dave Vergobbi, AJHA President and a University of Utah professor. “We are indeed pleased to so honor Debra Hale-Shelton this year in Little Rock, because her career exemplifies the vital role of journalism in a democracy.”

Hale-Shelton has reported stories that led to the resignations of two University of Central Arkansas presidents, and she reported extensively on a judicial corruption probe. Hale-Shelton previously worked more than 20 years for The Associated Press. She has interviewed former Presidents Carter and Clinton, the late advice columnist Ann Landers, a young Donald Trump, death-row inmates and the suspected Tylenol killer.

"Debra Hale-Shelton is, perhaps, the best reporter in Arkansas,” said Donna Lampkin Stephens, Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of Central Arkansas. “The epitome of journalism's watchdog role, she is a dogged, determined journalist who has uncovered a number of cases of wrongdoing and been the catalyst for correcting them. I hope my students grow up to be just like her."

Hendrik Michael on Researching Elizabeth Jordan's Establishment of the Literary Journalism Genre at Pulitzer's World

Dane Claussen — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 04:24:28 GMT

Editor’s Note: University of Bamberg doctoral candidate Hendrik Michael presented his paper, “The World’s ‘True Stories of the News’ and the Commodification of Literary Journalism Before 1900,” at the recent International Association of Literary Journalism Studies conference held in Canada. The Intelligencer asked Mr. Michael to tell us more about how and why he started researching this topic, and why this research is important and interesting for himself and our field.

By Hendrik Michael

University of Bamberg

The mission statement of the International Association of Literary Journalism Studies broadly defines literary journalism to be “journalism as literature.” It is a genre of nonfiction writing that combines discursive strategies and research practices of traditional journalism with storytelling techniques more commonly associated with fiction.

Interrelations of literature and journalism are historically varied and complex. The historical roots of literary journalism have been traced back to the advent of mass media in the 16^th century. Since then the genre has been adopted in different journalism cultures across the globe and has gone by various names. Its best known practitioners arguably are the so-called New Journalists of the 1960s and 1970s. But this period, which many regard as the genres most prominent phase, marks just one heyday in the genre’s checkered history. Thomas Connery, among others, argued that Pulitzer’s New Journalism of the 1880s and 1890s marked the first most prominent phase of the genre in mainstream journalism. Only recently, Robert Alexander called literary journalism “a genre whose time, once again, has come.”

The continuous re-emergence of literary journalism makes the genre an interesting subject to study changes of media, journalism and culture. My field of research focuses on the formation phase of modern journalism in the late 19^th century and explores the role of literary journalism within this process.

One of the most active fields of research in the genre has been author studies. By pointing out commendable examples of literary journalism, researchers attempt to build a canon. However, with respect to the 19^th century, this canon aims mainly at the upper echelons of journalism. It includes better-known journalistic and literary writers. Notably, Richard Harding Davis, Stephen Crane, Abraham Cahan, Jack London, Upton Sinclair, Theodore Dreiser, to name a few, are all male. Only recently research on women journalists attracted wider interest.

Through Karen Roggenkamp’s research on women journalists of the period I came across Elizabeth Jordan’s journalistic work for Pulitzer’s The World: “The True Stories of the News,” a popular reportage series that was a stepping stone for Jordan’s later career in journalism and as a novelist.

Although less recognized as part of the canon, I realized that the “True Stories of the News” could reveal important aspects of journalistic story-telling in urban mass periodicals and the significance of literary journalism in this context. Roggenkamp kindly sent me a handful of facsimiles and during a research trip to Minneapolis, I was able to get hold of the full series through the University of Minnesota Library in 2015.

Here, I want to briefly outline why I believe that The World’s “True Stories of the News” is an example for the initial commodification of literary journalism in mass periodicals. By the term commodification I mean the implementation of literary journalism as a marketable good in mass journalism. My analysis followed a heuristic approach that differentiates three dimensions: media messages, media agents and media organizations.

As regards media organizations, I considered the newspaper’s hierarchies, its resources such as money, staff, information technology, and informal competencies, and furthermore its production routines of news-gathering and processing. With respect to media agents it proved helpful to look at journalists’ working methods and job conditions, as well as personal experience and biographies. I believe these intervening factors shaped the message level, meaning the narrative form and content of a journalistic genre. With respect to narrative form I differentiated between the components voice, character, time and space.

Let me start on the message level by outlining the form and content of the series. The “True Stories of the News” appeared regularly in The World for about half a year between November 1890 and May 1891. More than 90 articles were published in this period of time. Often the series was printed in the section “Metropolis Day by Day” on page 9. The articles ran over about a third of a newspaper page. Their layout was characteristic for the New Journalism of Pulitzer’ World with screaming headlines, bold leads and sub-headings.

Stories dealt with curious events like a freak-show, intrigues in upper-class circles, or curious events from other parts of the country. But by and large the topics focused on the life of the lower classes and immigrants. None of the articles had a byline. Only through autobiographical claims do we know that Elizabeth Jordan authored all of the articles.

Recurring topics from the lower strata of New York social life were court cases, tragic events in the life of immigrants and workers, visits to the city’s institutions, and accounts of the day-to-day chasm between cultures. Thereby “True Stories of the News” fit into the routine local reporting of the New York press. Evident is a tendency for personalization and tapping into social issues as regards housing, health-care and immigration in a rapidly changing urban environment. Interesting is the fact that the series selected events and situations that had been previously reported as small news items. The marginal thereby became relevant and received public attention.

With regard to narrative form an analysis of journalistic voice yield interesting results. My findings show that voice is quite ambiguous in the series. Less than a fifth of sampled articles feature a homodiegetic narrator (someone who is part of the story). Most articles feature a heterodiegetic narrator (someone who is not directly linked to the story). Events are often told from a limited epistemic and emotional perspective. This figural perspective is sometimes identified as a “World reporter” or a “World man,” only in three instances “a female reporter.” Another dominant feature of voice is the presence of an omniscient narrator, someone who seems to tell and comment the story from an elevated position.

In contrast, only 15 or so stories feature a homodiegetic narrator. Direct evidence for a homodiegetic narrator appears in the reportage, “Only a Case of Mumps” and “The Happiest Woman in New York.” In both texts, personal and spatial deixis can be detected, which establishes a direct reference between narrator and story. In “Only a Case of Mumps,” the narrator, although covert in most of the story, speaks up to demand better health-care: “[This] hospital is a necessity. I have advocated it for years. So has Dr. Jacobi.“

Overall, the analysis of narrative voice shows that even though most articles have a male figural focalizer or an omniscient narrator, the narratorial perspective, referring to attitudes and ideology, is still identical between a heterodiegetic and a homodiegetic narrator.

This means, Jordan, then unknown to be the author of all texts, deliberately manipulated the narrative situation. Obviously this created variation from story to story and possibly contributed to their relative longevity. On the other hand, Jordan indirectly manipulated her readers, too. By creating a narrative ambivalence she strengthened the collective public voice of The World, while also creating an overlap between this collective voice and the individual voice of the seldom present women reporter.

Overall, results of my textual analysis suggest that characteristics of literary journalism were successfully adapted to a feature series in the context of New York’s mass print market. To understand how a Elizabeth Jordan was able to establish the genre in form and practice, I want to point out some aspects about the media organization and its journalistic agents.

It must be acknowledged that publishing became less profitable at the end of the 1880s. Market competition forced papers to invest more in new technologies and expand their correspondent networks while advertising revenues stalled. This resulted in soaring news-gathering costs while the market grew more and more saturated.

To balance spending, labor costs for the city staff was cut drastically. Even the biggest papers like The World, while still expanding their staff, cut employment costs. Their local reporting still kept up in quality because editorial resources and news-gathering routines were bound to relatively flat hierarchies. The moderating influence of managing editor John A. Cockerill in the newsroom was already recognized by contemporaries. His regime still allowed for innovative practices to be realized. The innovation of stunt reporting can be considered an example of this.

While providing chances for women to make a career in journalism that wasn’t confined to the “Women’s Pages,” editors certainly exploited new women reporters, sending them on sometimes dangerous assignments to get a “fresh” reaction about deplorable conditions in the big city.

Informal feedback was established to keep staff motivated and channel the production process towards editorial goals. Such feedback consisted of an internal credit system, displaying specific journalists’ ‘model stories’ for a week in the newsroom.

On the agent level this fired up job competition. Bear in mind that, around 1890, about 100,000 people wanted to make a career in journalism, meaning if you underperformed you were given the boot pretty quickly. In addition the role of women journalists was constantly under attack by male colleagues. In her autobiography, Elizabeth Banks pointed out the growing competition among newspaper women as well.

To establish her position in the journalistic field, Jordan had to take a risk and escape the woman’s page duties, quitting her job at Peck’s Sun in Milwaukee and moving to New York.

She benefited from The World’s internal credit system. Her reportage “The Death of Number 9,” left a footprint and became The World’s “model story.” This emboldened Jordan to solidify her role by asking the managing editor to give her an extensive assignment just as Bly had three years earlier with her undercover reporting from Bellevue Asylum. Therefore Jordan’s “True Stories of the News” was surely a “task with entrepreneurial nature” as Alice Fahs pointed out. It competed with stunt-reporting and investigative reporting done by other women reporters.

Jordan’s job writing the series was most challenging. In order to crank out two to three pieces a week, researching, meeting sources and writing meant working up to 18 hours a day. Her task was slavishly “done on time and space specifications” as Jordan recalled in her autobiography. In addition to gathering information and writing up stories, Jordan also was responsible for editing and laying out the Sunday edition of the paper. But this meant Jordan had achieved a solid standing within the newspaper’s institutional hierarchy.

Therefore, the presence of the male reporter in many stories may indicate that she also had the authority to coordinate research. Jordan may have made use of her better editorial position and relied on organizational routines of information gathering to delegate rookie reporters to visit a scene and provide their impressions in short-hand. For Jordan, this meant filtering the information and channeling it into stories, based on the facts gathered on the scene by somebody else.

On the other hand, this freed Jordan to investigate other cases in depth and write stories about the fate of individuals such as Annie Meyer, who had been secluded to her bedroom for 18 years due to illness. Karen Roggenkamp referred to this case in particular to illustrate how Jordan later on transformed these factual stories into very popular fictional stories about the world of journalism.

In this respect, one can definitely conclude that Jordan differed from other newspaper women with her work on “True Stories of the News.” Her status was indicated by earning higher wages than some male colleagues − $30 per week. Lincoln Steffens, in contrast, paid his reporters a meager $15 a week at the Commercial Advertiser. Most female journalists earned only a “delightfully erratic income,” as a contemporary essay about women journalists made clear.

Thus Jordan also helped to create what Alice Fahs called “an important new social space within the pages of the newspaper.” On the one hand, this was meant to be an interactive, participatory space: in “True Stories of the News” readers were invited to interact with the newspaper by tipping stories, seeking advice, and using the paper as their public forum. On the other hand, the series also created a new representational space that included women as emancipated subjects of the social world, not only as women reporters but also as heroines of news stories.

Working with the resources provided by The World Jordan achieved to make “True Stories of the News” highly compatible with the general wave of human-interest that swept urban mass periodicals in reviews, urban sketches, advice columns, interviews, profiles and other features − a phenomenon that Thomas Connery coined as a “paradigm of actuality.” The “True Stories of the News” became a successful product because it complied with a double-principle of journalistic production. The stories helped reduce complexity of the urban life world and engage readers, but also save resources and make profit in a time of increased market competition and saturation.

Thereby the feature series is an interesting case for historical genre studies:

First, it shows that while media systems and societies change overtime, the content and form of literary journalism has remained relatively stable. A research focus on the first prominent phase of literary journalism in American journalism, the triumph of the popular press in the 1880s and 1890s, reveals how the genre offered journalists very effective strategies to process information efficiently.

Second, the “True Stories of the News” prove that literary journalism cannot be merely evaluated from an aesthetic perspective but research should take into account the institutional conditions that allowed fostering a “humanistic approach” to news-writing, as Norman Sims has called it repeatedly.

Third, with respect to contemporary developments and challenges in journalism, an in-depth look at the commodification of literary journalism during the 1880s and 1890s may help us understand how specific genres offer the necessary stability to information processing in a time of New Obscurity, to borrow a phrase by Jürgen Habermas. Rudolf Stöber explains this necessity through biological analogy. He wrote just as “without stability in the reproduction process of genetics, the genes would go astray, without stability in communication, the same will happen to societies.”

_______________________________________________________

Hendrik Michael is a doctoral candidate in the Institute of Communication Studies at the University of Bamberg (Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg), Germany.

CFP: "Media Representation of Race and Sex in the Long Civil Rights Movement"

Dane Claussen — Mon, 21 Aug 2017 03:31:32 GMT

Call for Conference Papers

"Media Representations of Race and Sex in the Long Civil Rights Movement"

Southern Historical Association 84^th Annual Meeting

Birmingham AL; November 8-11, 2018

This panel is seeking to bring together scholars who are working on topics that explore media representations of race and sex in the Long Civil Rights Movement using social, cultural, and legal history perspectives. My paper for the panel examines newspaper coverage of a 1963 rape case involving a black teenager, a white woman, and a Japanese woman in Lynchburg, Virginia. The case garnered local and regional attention from Movement supporters who understood Lynchburg papers' coverage of the case as the reworking of the "black beast rapist" narrative, especially in the midst of local tensions between black and white city residents over civil rights campaigns.

This panel encourages paper proposals that consider how southerners – particularly black southerners – conceived of and contested raced and sexualized images, rhetoric, and ideas of difference in the Jim Crow South through the lens of media coverage. New work on cases such as the Scottsboro Nine, Martinsville Seven, and Emmett Till cases are also welcome as well as scholarship that uncovers new histories and voices relating to the panel theme.

Interested individuals should submit a brief paper description (up to 150 words) and a brief author biography to Samantha Bryant at sbryant21@huskers.unl.edu by September 1, 2017.

Contact Info: Samantha Bryant, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Contact Email: sbryant21@huskers.unl.edu

Amber Roessner wins AJHA 2017 National Award for Excellence in Teaching

Dane Claussen — Sat, 19 Aug 2017 23:54:21 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association’s Education Committee has named Dr. Amber Roessner of the University of Tennessee as the winner of its 2017 National Award for Excellence in Teaching.

"I am truly humbled and honored to receive the American Journalism Historians Association's National Award for Excellence in Teaching," Roessner said. "To be mentioned in the same breath as Betty Winfield, David Sloan, Leonard Teel, Janice Hume, Earnest Perry and the other past recipients, whom I hold in high esteem and count as my pedagogical mentors, is a great privilege and a mark of distinction that I will always treasure. In many respects, I have developed my teaching style based upon the models of these wise pedagogues, who seek to passionately impart to every student that they encounter the influence of the histories of media, journalism, and mass communication on our ways of life."

Roessner, who joined the University of Tennessee School of Journalism & Electronic Media faculty in 2010, teaches a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate classes in the areas of mass communication history, writing and journalism. She’s even taught a seminar on hiking and the history of the Great Smoky Mountains.

"We received excellent nominations for this award, so the selection was not easy," Dr. Kaylene Armstrong, chair of the education committee, said. "However, we were pleased to select Amber Roessner for this honor. The judges noted the solid support in the letters of recommendation written on her behalf, her integration of experiential learning and her commitment to interdisciplinary work as just a few of the strengths she has as an educator that make her so deserving of this award."

CFP: Digital Journalism Journal To Publish Special Issue, "Journalism History through Digital Archives"

Dane Claussen — Thu, 17 Aug 2017 04:30:00 GMT

Digital Journalism

Special Issue Call for Papers: Journalism History through Digital Archives

Deadline: 15 September 2017

http://explore.tandfonline.com/pages/cfp/rdij-special-issue-journalism-history

While analytical methods have been steadily developing in relation to research on journalism in its various live digital forms (e.g. news websites, twitter, and Facebook) there has been less focus on developing research on and related methodologies for journalistic productions accumulating in digital archives. While such inventories hold great potential for researchers of journalism history they also pose a set of challenges.

The amount of material raises questions of selection, data clean-up, meta-data availability and the ensuing possibilities of search and analysis. Linked to this, the possible malleability of access, retrieval and analytical procedures is challenging, as this requires new digital skills, products and collaborations. Yet, the amount of material and avenues of access and analysis simultaneously open a range of possibilities for investigating vast amounts of data across former barriers (e.g. media platforms or archives) and this allows for re-visiting of old questions as well as developing new ones.

Against the background of such wider issues this special issue elicits papers that do journalism history through digital archives in various geographical, cultural and temporal contexts. While such ventures necessarily raise theoretical and methodological questions the call is for contextual reflections rather than generic discussions of the potential and problems of digital archives. Following this, submissions can — but do not have to — engage with journalism history projects

across media platforms and/or (former) technologies
across long time periods, geographies, cultures and/or archives
that draw on layout and textual forms (in a wide sense of that term)
that correlates with other types of (public) digital data (e.g. migration, BNP etc.)

In relation to the journalism history projects papers may in various degrees reflect on

methodological and theoretical issues
the politics of archiving
computational analysis in relation to contextual and qualitative studies.
issues arising from collaborative research across disciplinary and institutional boundaries
research infrastructures for the utilization of digital archives
the constitution of archived digital objects and its relations to the historical artifacts and what this means for the writing of journalism history

Submissions

Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words to guest editor Henrik Bødker (hb@cc.au.dk) no later than September 15, 2017. Selected authors will be invited to contribute by January 15 (2018). A maximum 8,000-word paper (including references, tables, etc.) will be considered for publication, subject to double blind peer-review.

Timeline:

Abstracts to guest editor: September 15, 2017

Authors notified: October 1, 2017

Full papers for peer review: January 15, 2018

Reviews to authors: March 15, 2018

Revised full papers: April 15, 2018

Editorial information

Guest Editor: Henrik Bødker, Aarhus University (hb@cc.au.dk)

http://explore.tandfonline.com/pages/cfp/rdij-special-issue-journalism-history

Conference Announced: "Good, Fast, Cheap: Printed Words & Images in America Before 1900."

Dane Claussen — Thu, 17 Aug 2017 04:24:33 GMT

The Center for Historic American Visual Culture at the American Antiquarian Society and the American Printing History Association are hosting a joint conference on October 6-7, 2017 at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts. Registration is now open for "Good, Fast, Cheap: Printed Words & Images in America Before 1900."

This conference will explore the production, distribution, reception, and survival of printed words and images in America to 1900. In an era in which the process of design had not been separated from production, the purpose of the conference is to explore the inter-relation between composition, design, and printing processes. In the face of the familiar constraints of deadline and budget, early American printers used the materials and equipment at their disposal to design and produce necessary items in the service of democracy, education, science, commerce, entertainment, and the arts.

Their inventiveness and problem solving often resulted in work ranging from the pedestrian to the sublime, and that might, when considered carefully, offer lessons for today's communications environment. How can the past inform the present and the future? How can the study of continuity and change through printing history inform contemporary design?

Contact Info:

Laura Wasowicz

Curator of Children's Literature

American Antiquarian Society

185 Salisbury St.

Worcester, MA 01609

Contact Email:

lwasowicz@mwa.org

URL:

http://www.americanantiquarian.org/apha-and-chavic-conference

AJHA Seeks 2nd VP and Board Candidates

Dane Claussen — Thu, 17 Aug 2017 04:19:59 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association is seeking nominations for three board positions and the office of second vice president.

Board members serve for three years and are expected to attend board meetings at the annual convention.

The 2nd VP, under normal circumstances, rises to the presidency in two years, then serves on the board for an additional two years. A nominee to the Board of Directors or to any of the other Officer positions must have been a member of the AJHA for at least one calendar year immediately preceding the date of the election. No more than one person from an institution can serve on the board at one time.

Please confirm the candidate's willingness to serve before sending the nomination to Amber, and if possible, you should send a brief bio of the candidate.

Deadline for nominations is 5 p.m. Sept. 1. Nominations may also be made from the floor during the 2017 conference in Little Rock, Ark.

Hrach Wins AJHA Book Award

Dane Claussen — Thu, 17 Aug 2017 04:17:12 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association has selected Thomas J. Hrach as the winner of its 2017 Book of the Year Award for his 2016 work, “The Riot Report and the News: How the Kerner Commission Changed Media Coverage of Black America.”

Hrach will receive his award and discuss his research during a special session at the 36th annual AJHA Convention, to be held Oct. 12-14 in Little Rock, Ark.

“I am honored and grateful that my colleagues who study journalism history have chosen to recognize my work,” Hrach said. “I have enjoyed being a member of the AJHA and the support I have received from the members is appreciated.” Hrach is associate professor and graduate coordinator in the Department of Journalism and Strategic Media at the University of Memphis.

In researching this book, Hrach relied upon original documents from the 1968 Kerner Commission at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas, documents about Otto Kerner from the Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Ill., and interviews with people willing to share their memories of the commission’s work. Citing his concerns about “the future of journalism as a profession in our current economic and political climate,” Hrach said he hoped his book will show the importance of professional journalism.

“Journalism is as important as ever,” Hrach said, adding he hoped his book would show “the power of good, quality journalism to improve the lives of people in a democratic nation.”

Gerl On Her Research on Collier's Magazine Covering the Cold War

Dane Claussen — Thu, 17 Aug 2017 04:04:58 GMT

Editor’s Note: Ohio University Prof. Ellen Gerl presented her research-in-progress, “Operation Eggnog: Collier's 1951 Narrative Issue Takes on the Cold War,” at the recent International Association of Literary Journalism Studies conference held in Canada. The Intelligencer asked Prof. Gerl to tell us more about how and why she started researching this topic, and why this research is important and interesting for herself and our field.

By Prof. Ellen Gerl

I came across Collier’s special October 27, 1951, issue, “Preview of the War We Do Not Want,” while looking for examples of nuclear doomsday narratives. I planned to expand some previous research on the St. Louis Citizens Committee for Nuclear Information, a group whose newsletter story about their city post nuclear bombing was picked up in the Saturday Review and other national media. But I dropped that research idea. The Collier’s issue was just too interesting: three hundred pages of fact-filled reportage about a hypothetical World War III; bylines of Edward R. Murrow, Red Smith, Marguerite Higgins and others; and the in-house codename Operation Eggnog. Although a secret code name was reason enough to investigate, I also noticed that the issue’s editor was Cornelius Ryan, who would go on to write the non-fiction bestseller The Longest Day and whose papers happened to be located at Ohio University, my academic home.

Unfortunately, my elation over visiting an archive that didn’t require travel funds was short-lived. The collection lacked material from Ryan’s tenure at Collier’s. But Crowell-Collier Publishing Company correspondence held at the New York Public Library’s archives showed how editorial staff shaped the issue. Over ten months, Ryan traveled to Europe and across the United States to cajole writers to participate. At their New York offices, editors debated how the fake war would start, who should write about women, and whether they might convince Winston Churchill to pen a story. In all, the magazine spent an extra $40,000 on articles, sold double a normal issue’s advertising and printed an extra half million copies.

Historian Frank Luther Mott wrote that the magazine’s “motives were patriotic,” and letters I read indicated that the U. S. State Department unofficially supported the project. It also seems some Collier’s editors disliked the U. S. policy of containment, favoring a conquer communism head-on strategy. The editors’ note in the front of the issue described their big, and not-very humble, goals: “(1) to warn the evil masters of the Russian people that their vast conspiracy to enslave humanity is the dark downhill road to WW III; (2) to sound a powerful call for reason and understanding between the peoples of the West and East--before it’s too late; (3) to demonstrate that if The War We Do Not Want is forced upon us, we will win.”

Robert E. Sherwood, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former director of the Office of War Information, wrote the issue’s introductory article. When he turned in his manuscript, he commented to editors that he thought his piece should be “coldly factual as possible,” not sensational, so that the reader would think: “God this is it! This is precisely what can happen.”

My IALJS presentation focused on the markers of literary journalism within the issue such as concrete details, cinematic scenes and emotional appeals. The issue also raised the question of what role truthiness plays in “hybrid” texts that mix facts and fiction. Scholar Annjeanette Wiese’s work was helpful here. I also discussed the mechanism of transportation in literary narratives, that is, the extent to which readers’ beliefs are affected when they become lost in a text. I found recent work on transportation and persuasion by researchers Timothy C. Brock, Melanie Green and Karen Dill fascinating on this subject.

Overall, I suspect that readers did not suspend belief as much as they wanted to believe that democracy would always prevail.

I am uncertain where to take this research next, but there’s much here to mine: Cold War propaganda, ethical issues, 1950s-style fake news. I’d be interested to hear from AJHA members who are Cold War media historians, which I am not.

The only disappointing research finding? The codename Operation Eggnog, the editors noted, was just a meaningless moniker for “easy office identification.”

_______________________________________________________________

Prof. Gerl is Associate Professor, E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, Ohio University.

Swanberg on Her Research on John Hersey and Hiroshima Eyewitness John A. Siemes, S.J.

Dane Claussen — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 01:26:24 GMT

Editor’s Note: University of Arizona Prof. Susan E. Swanberg, J.D., Ph.D., presented her paper, “Writing While Under the Influence: John Hersey and the Writings of Hiroshima Eyewitness John A. Siemes, S.J.,” at the recent International Association of Literary Journalism Studies conference held in Canada. The Intelligencer asked Dr. Swanberg to tell us more about how and why she started researching this topic, and why this research is important and interesting for herself and our field.

By Prof. Susan E. Swanberg

University of Arizona

"If ever there was a subject calculated to make a writer overwrought and a piece overwritten, it was the bombing of Hiroshima; yet Hersey's reporting was so meticulous, his sentences and paragraphs were so clear, calm, and restrained, that the horror of the story he had to tell came through all the more chillingly." ‘John Hersey’ (obituary) The New Yorker (1993)(1)

John Hersey’s Hiroshima is a compelling masterpiece, a tour de force no less terrifying and moving than the day it was published in the August 31, 1946 issue of The New Yorker magazine.(2)

The lore associated with the writing of Hiroshima is fascinating. New Yorker editor, William Shawn, apparently suggested that Hersey write about Hiroshima and Hersey modeled the book’s outline on the structure of Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey – which Hersey read while in sick bay in the belly of a boat on its way to the vanquished city.(3)

The provenance of Hiroshima tempts a curious reader to reconstruct Hersey’s creative path from journalist, to fiction author (A Bell for Adano), to author of Hiroshima. Hersey’s New Yorker obituary described him as a novelist and a teacher but “above all a reporter.”(4)

How did Hersey move with such fluidity between fiction and nonfiction? The evolution of an author’s voice is at the crux of the creative process.

Voices of the Atomic Age

I became fascinated with Hersey’s best-known work as I researched another important voice of the Atomic Age – William Leonard Laurence, the New York Times science journalist who was embedded for four months with the War Department, ostensibly as the Manhattan Project’s “historian.”(5)

After reading Laurence’s Pulitzer Prize-winning accounts of the development and use of the atomic bomb, I picked up Hiroshima, which I reluctantly admit I’d given only a desultory reading when in high school.

I read Hiroshima, read several of Laurence’s books, then read Hiroshima again. I realized that both Laurence and Hersey mentioned a Jesuit mission within Hiroshima proper and a Jesuit novitiate at Nagatsuka, several miles outside the Hiroshima city limits. Names of Jesuits associated with the mission and the novitiate were mentioned in the works of both authors. It didn’t take long for me to identify and locate the writings of Father John A. Siemes, S.J. – pivotal influence on both Laurence and Hersey.(6)

Father Siemes

Father John A. Siemes was a German Jesuit priest, born in Cologne in 1907 and ordained in 1937. A professor at Tokyo’s Catholic University, now known as Sophia University, Siemes taught philosophy and published a number of scholarly works. After the bombing of Tokyo Siemes moved, along with a number of his students, to the novitiate at Nagatsuka.(7,8)

On August 6, 1945, when the bomb struck, Siemes was at the novitiate on the outskirts of Hiroshima. After the bombing, Siemes filed an eyewitness report with the Vatican. A version of Siemes’ report was reprinted, with the permission of the Vatican magazine, Jesuit Mission, in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Siemes’ report began as follows:

Up to August 6th, occasional bombs, which did no great damage, had fallen on Hiroshima. Many cities roundabout, one after the other, were destroyed, but Hiroshima itself remained protected. There were almost daily observation planes over the city but none of them dropped a bomb. The citizens wondered why they alone had remained undisturbed for so long a time. There were fantastic rumors that the enemy had something special in mind for this city, but no one dreamed that the end would come in such a fashion as on the morning of August 6th.(9)

Siemes continued:

"August 6th began in a bright, clear, summer morning. About seven o'clock, there was an air raid alarm which we had heard almost every day and a few planes appeared over the city. No one paid any attention and at about eight o'clock, the all-clear was sounded."(10)

******

"Suddenly-the time is approximately 8: 14-the whole valley is filled by a garish light which resembles the magnesium light used in photography, and I am conscious of a wave of heat. I jump to the window to find out the cause of this remarkable phenomenon, but I see nothing more than that brilliant yellow light. As I make for the door, it doesn't occur to me that the light might have something to do with enemy planes…. I am sprayed by fragments of glass. The entire window frame has been forced into the room. I realize now that a bomb has burst and I am under the impression that it exploded directly over our house or in the immediate vicinity."(11)

Siemes’ report continued in the same dry, clinical tone. He recounted a procession of injured people from Hiroshima up the valley to Nagatsuka, the gathering of survivors in Asano Park in Hiroshima, the recovery of frail Father Kleinsorge from the ruins of the Jesuit mission in Hiroshima and the journey of Kleinsorge and his Jesuit colleagues back to the novitiate.

Although Hersey’s account focuses on six hibakusha (bombing survivors), only one of whom, Father Kleinsorge, is a colleague of Siemes, Hersey’s account reflects the somber but chilling tone of Siemes’ report. Many whispers of Siemes’ report appear in Hiroshima, including the following items:

"A rumor was going around that the Americans were saving something 'special' for the city of Hiroshima."(12)

"The flash produced by the bomb was like a giant photographic flash."(13)

"Mr. Fukai, secretary of the diocese, fled in despair back to the burning city and was never seen again."(14)

"A group of sick, burned horses stand and wait on the Misasa Bridge with their heads hanging."(15)

"Father Kleinsorge encountered 22 victims whose eyes had melted from the blast."(16)

Stronger than a whisper is the material Hersey quoted from Siemes’ report at pages 89-90 of the first Vintage Books paperback edition of Hiroshima:

"Father Kleinsorge and the other German Jesuit priests, who, as foreigners, could be expected to take a relatively detached view, often discussed the ethics of using the bomb. One of them, Father Siemes, who was out at Nagatsuka at the time of the attack, wrote in a report to the Holy See in Rome: 'Some of us consider the bomb in the same category as poison gas and were against its use on a civilian population. Others were of the opinion that in total war, as carried on in japan, there was no difference between civilians and soldiers, and that the bomb itself was an effective force tending to end the bloodshed, warning Japan to surrender and thus to avoid total destruction. It seems logical that he who supports total war in principle cannot complain of a war against civilians. The crux of the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even when it serves a just purpose. Does it not have material and spiritual evil as its consequences which far exceed whatever good might result? When will our moralists give us a clear answer to this question?'”(17)

The Crux of the Matter

The tone and tenor of Hiroshima resemble the tone and tenor of Siemes’ report. Horrifying and noteworthy vignettes recounted by Siemes are put to stunning use in Hiroshima. Although it is true that many of the Jesuits must have observed the same events as Father Siemes, and that Hersey undoubtedly interviewed more than one of the priests, the impact of Siemes’ report on Hersey’s Hiroshima is apparent.

Soon I plan to visit Yale University’s Benecke library where I will peruse the Hersey archives and, hopefully, gain a better understanding of the process Hersey used to identify his Hiroshima interviewees. There are secrets I would like to unravel.

At this point, I can add two stories to the Hiroshima lore. First, Hersey was so impressed by Siemes’ words that the author adapted and used some of the priest’s language when he gave out autographs.(18,19) An exemplar of one of these autographs appears in Figure 1. [Figure 1 to be posted soon--DSC]

The second bit of lore is this: in trying to uncover what happened to Father Siemes in his later years, I found a newspaper article that mentioned the date of the priest’s death. I was so stunned that I had to do some fact checking, so I contacted Father Francis Britto, S.J., a younger colleague of Siemes, who verified that Father Siemes died on August 6, 1977 – Hiroshima Day.(21)

Notes

(1) “John Hersey,” Obituary. New Yorker, April 5, 1993, 111. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1993/04/05/john-hersey

(2) John Hersey, “Hiroshima,” New Yorker, August 31, 1946, 15.

(3) Ben Yagoda, About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made (New York: Scribner, 2000), 185-186.

(4) “John Hersey,” Obituary. New Yorker, April 5, 1993, 111.

(5) Susan E. Swanberg, “Half Life: Examining the Nuclear Narrative of William L. “Atomic Bill” Laurence, New York Times Science Journalist and Propagandist for the Atomic Age,” (unpublished manuscript, August 1, 2017), Microsoft Word File.

(6) Father John A. Siemes S.J., “An Eye-Witness Account of Hiroshima,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 1, no.11, (1946): 2-6. There are a number of versions of Siemes’ report. While the Bulletin indicates that this version was “reprinted by permission of The Jesuit Mission,” there are slight variations between the Bulletin and Mission versions.

(7) William L. Laurence, Dawn Over Zero (New York: Knopf, 1946), 245.

(8) Francis Britto, S.J., e-mail message to author, January 21, 2017.

(9) Siemes, “Eye-Witness Account of Hiroshima,” p.1.

(10) Ibid.

(12) Ibid.

(13) Hersey, “Hiroshima,” p.3

(14) Ibid., 14.

(15) Ibid., 29.

(16) Ibid., 43.

(17) Ibid., 51.

(18) Ibid., 89-90.

(19) Interestingly, Father Siemes appears in an American propaganda film made after the bombing of Hiroshima. “The Atom Strikes!” features a cameo appearance of Father Siemes about 16 minutes into the film. “The Atom Strikes!” can be accessed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpZBSXuJ5yc

(20) I presented some of the information in this essay at the IALJS meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia in May of 2017. Upon discussing my presentation with a female colleague sitting next to me in one of the sessions, she happened to mention that Father Siemes’ “crux of the matter” quotation sounded like words Hersey used in his autographs. I regret to say that I do not know the name of this colleague, but would like to acknowledge the role she played in my discovery that Hersey adopted Siemes’ language and used it in his autographs. If you read this and identify yourself, kind colleague, I will acknowledge you properly. Thank you!

(21) Francis Britto, S.J., e-mail message to author, January 21, 2017.

Dr. Kathleen Endres Named Recipient of 2017 Kobre Award

Dane Claussen — Sun, 30 Jul 2017 00:11:59 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association has announced Dr. Kathleen Endres, distinguished professor at the University of Akron, as the recipient of the 2017 Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism History. Endres, who joined the Akron faculty in 1987, has written or edited six books and one monograph, penned numerous peer-reviewed articles, and contributed to the advancement of journalism history through participation in seminars and workshops.

This honor is one of many Endres has received during her 35 years of association with AJHA. “As a graduate student, I gave my first scholarly paper at the AJHA convention at Southern Methodist University in 1982 …” Endres said. “And who was on the teaching panel? Sidney Kobre. I was a graduate student from Kent State's History Department then, who didn't really know a soul in the Journalism History community. “I found a home at that convention. Over the years (should I say decades?), I've met so many wonderful friends through AJHA, got so much encouragement for the work I was doing, learned so much in the paper sessions, panels and RIBs, and had an enormous amount of fun. And so this Sidney Kobre award means so much to me -- as does AJHA.”

The Sidney Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism History is the American Journalism Historians Association's highest honor. The late Dr. Sidney Kobre was a renowned media historian who served as a professor at Florida State from the 1940s through the 1970s and penned 16 books in his illustrious career. The Kobre Award recognizes individuals with an exemplary record of sustained achievement in journalism history through teaching, research, professional activities, or other contributions to the field of journalism history.

Fitzgerald on The Continuous Line: Visualizing the History of American Literary Journalism

Dane Claussen — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 21:55:27 GMT

Editor’s Note: Jonathan Fitzgerald presented his paper, “Visualizing the History of American Literary Journalism,” at the recent International Association of Literary Journalism Studies conference in Canada. The Intelligencer asked Mr. Fitzgerald, a doctoral candidate in English at Northeastern University, to tell us more about his research, especially why it is important and interesting.

By Jonathan D. Fitzgerald, Northeastern University

I came to study the history of American literary journalism the way, I think, many newcomers to the field do: through the scholarship and writing of Norman Sims. Sims has written several books on the genre, including True Stories: A Century of Literary Journalism (2007). In the opening pages of the book’s second chapter, “Sketches and Innovation,” about the nineteenth century origins of literary journalism, Sims writes, “Tracing the history of literary journalism backward from the twentieth century into the 1800s, I find that it vanishes into a maze of local publications.” And, on the next page, he continues, “Looking for literary journalism in the nineteenth century seems daunting.”

Even before I had any real vested interest in the nineteenth century origins of literary journalism, this read, to me, as a challenge. The history “vanishes?” The task is “daunting?” This is basically fuel for my scholarship. But, at the time, as I was just at the very beginning of my PhD program, I felt certain that my interests lay in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, so I put Sims' challenge aside.

It wasn’t long, however, before the challenge crept back into my field of view. A perfect storm of events, including being hired as a research assistant for the Viral Texts Project, which uses computational methods to identify frequently reprinted (viral) texts in nineteenth century newspapers, and reading for a comprehensive exam on the history of literary journalism scholarship, revived the challenge. In my reading, I reencountered Sims' assertion that literary journalism’s history “vanishes into a maze of local publications,” while simultaneously gaining unprecedented access to those local publications through the Viral Texts Project. In that moment, I became a de facto nineteenth centuryist.

As I began to comb nineteenth century newspapers for the roots of literary journalism, another challenge arose: how to connect those early examples of the genre to contemporary works. Here, another pillar of literary journalism studies, Thomas Connery, proved instructive. In A Sourcebook of American Literary Journalism, Connery writes of literary journalism’s history, “the line from the nineteenth through the twentieth century is continuous.” He theorizes that while the line is continuous, there are distinct periods throughout the two centuries in which literary journalism rises and falls in popularity. There are peaks around the fin de siècle, in the late 1930s and early ’40s, again in the ’60s and ’70s, and finally in the ’80s.

In an effort to test Connery’s theory, I set out to visualize the history of literary journalism using methods from the digital humanities. To do so, I assembled a corpus of bibliographic entries related to the genre from Norman Sims’ bibliographies from both True Stories and Literary Journalism in the Twentieth Century, two bibliographies published in Literary Journalism Studies, and the table of contents of Kevin Kerrane and Ben Yagoda’s anthology The Art of Fact. In all, the corpus includes around 600 bibliographic entries, split almost evenly between primary and secondary sources. Once assembled, I used regular expressions–basically advanced search queries–to derive pertinent information such as author name, date of publication, and title of each work. I assembled this data into a database and added a column indicating the author’s gender.

Using this data, I was able to create interactive data visualizations, including a timeline of the history of literary journalism and a bar graph that shows the number of publications by author’s gender. I published the data in tabular format alongside the visualizations to a website at http://ljbib.jonathandfitzgerald.com.

Indeed, the timeline confirms Connery’s notion of the “continuous line,” complete with the peaks and valleys representing the genre’s rise and fall through time. The bar graph showing publications by gender, too, is instructive. It shows a great disparity between the number of publications by men and women over the past 150 years of literary journalism’s history. The lack of women writers, particularly in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, represents not an actual dearth of women writers, but indeed a major oversight by scholars of literary journalism. My research into the nineteenth century shows not only that women writers were increasingly prolific, but that they were actually instrumental in the formation of what would become literary journalism. To that end, my in-progress dissertation, titled “Setting the Record Straight: Women Literary Journalists Writing Against the Mainstream,” seeks to restore women writers from the nineteenth century to our collective memories, and to show how their legacy persists throughout the genre’s history.

I intend to update the database with the results of my research, and I provide a link on the website for other scholars who notice omissions to contact me as well.

Kansas State seeks Director for A.Q. Miller School of Journalism & Mass Communications

Dane Claussen — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 20:33:16 GMT

Jean Folkerts advises:

The Director of the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Kansas State University resigned mid-year, and I took over January 1 as Interim Director. We now are advertising for a permanent director.

K-State’s program is one of the oldest accredited programs in the nation. We adopted a new curriculum this year that will go into effect in Fall 2018. It combines public relations and advertising into a strategic communications focus and emphasizes a cross-platform journalism focus. I think the curriculum is progressive and will have great results both in recruiting students and in placing students in jobs. We also are instituting a new Honors Program. This fall we will be revamping the master’s degree curriculum.

This would be a great opportunity for someone who wants to be in administration and who could build a record of accomplishment here over the next few years. We have about 500 majors and 25 faculty. We also serve about 50 agricultural communications majors and 50 minors. This is a program that has undergone a major shift, with several faculty leaving/retiring. We have hired four new faculty this year, including a new director for the Journalism Education Association, a national organization of high school journalists and teachers. We’re very excited about the new hires, and there will be an opportunity for a new director to do some more hiring. We’re also spearheading a building campaign.

We could certainly use a historian on the faculty!

http://careers.k-state.edu/cw/en-us/job/501565/assoc-profprofdirector

Spring 2017 President's Column: Historical Serendipity in Little Rock

Dane Claussen — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 05:14:48 GMT

by Dave Vergobbi, AJHA President

With registration now open for our 2017 AJHA national conference I’m even more excited about visiting Little Rock and Arkansas. Especially when I found personal connections through historical serendipity.

My Italian great-grandparents arrived in what’s now known as the Silver Valley of North Idaho in 1889. They had seven children by 1910 when “The Great Fire” swept through the region burning about three million acres in northeast Washington, northern Idaho and western Montana. The fire killed 87 people, mostly firefighters, and is considered, geographically, to be the largest in U. S. history. As late as the 1970s the mountains of my hometown remained barren, the result of zinc and lead refinery pollution preventing re-growth from the fire.

Having lived through the Great Fire, my grandfather told me numerous stories. Many of them revolved around a Polish-heritaged forest ranger named Ed Pulaski. The Polish part of Pulaski was important to me because my father had married a first-generation American of Polish descent from Massachusetts. And now I find Pulaski the Pole connects me in spirit to Little Rock, Arkansas.

Edward Crockett “Ed” Pulaski, born in Seneca County, Ohio, was a miner, railroader, and rancher before he joined the U. S. Forest Service in 1908 and was posted to Wallace, Idaho. During the Great Fire, Pulaski was supervising a 45-man crew just south of Wallace on Placer Creek when fire exploded the drought-dried conifers surrounding them, trapping the men. But Pulaski knew the area, and he knew fires. Leading his crew into an abandoned mine tunnel he told them to hit the ground and held them under gunpoint, threatening to shoot anyone who left. Five men and two horses died of smoke inhalation that day, but Pulaski saved the other 40. The National Register of Historic Places now calls it the Pulaski Tunnel, with a commemorative hiking trail to honor Pulaski and the Forest Service firefighters.

But the deaths sat hard with Ed Pulaski and he did something about it, inventing the Pulaski tool. A Pulaski looks like a long-handled double-headed ax with one side turned 90 degrees into a hoe. It’s the standard tool for wild land firefighting because it can be used to both dig and chop, the perfect implement for creating firebreaks in any terrain. My Grandpa and Dad always carried one in their vehicles, as I do today.

Ed Pulaski also claimed to be, and apparently was, a collateral descendant of the Polish Count Casimir Pulaski. Now here’s a fascinating man. Born in Warsaw in 1745, the Count became a military commander in Poland who fought against Russian domination, lost, and was exiled. Benjamin Franklin suggested that a certain fledgling nation could use his military expertise. Pulaski emigrated and reported to George Washington on Franklin’s recommendation. Before he received his commission as an officer, Pulaski engaged the British in 1777 at the Battle of Brandywine near Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. His actions, organizing scattered Continental Army troops into a charge that ensured the army’s retreat, saved Washington’s life. As a reward, Congress commissioned Pulaski a brigadier general in the Continental Army cavalry, Pulaski’s specialty. Now known as one of the fathers of the U. S. Cavalry, Pulaski reorganized it and wrote the first regulations of its formation. His actions on both the northern and southern fronts of the Revolutionary War brought him recognition and fame. To the end a cavalryman, Pulaski died leading a daring charge during the Battle of Savannah in 1779. He was just 34 years old.

The United States has commemorated and celebrated Count Pulaski in a great variety of ways, including monuments, statues, memorials, memorial days, squares, streets and even a postage stamp. Thanks and praise was as recent as 2009 when President Barack Obama signed a joint resolution of Congress conferring honorary U. S. citizenship on the Count, only the seventh such occurrence in history. And while Casimir Pulaski never married and had no direct descendants, his collateral descendant Ed gave him another lasting monument, the Pulaski Tool.

But one more honorific caught me about the Count. The Count became a county. As our friend Wikipedia has it, “The county is named for Count Casimir Pulaski, a Polish volunteer who saved George Washington’s life during the American Revolutionary War.” Approaching 400,000 people, it’s the state’s most populous county. It also holds the largest city, county seat, and state capital, all rolled into one place called Little Rock. No wonder Ed claimed kinship.

Find your historical serendipity that connects you with Little Rock, Arkansas, and join us October 12-14 for the 36^th Annual AJHA National Convention. The historic tour this year visits the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site, “infamous for its place in the history of school desegregation as nine African-American teenagers attempting to attend school faced angry mobs in September 1957.” We also journey to the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, “an African-American fraternal organization founded in 1883 that interprets Arkansas’s African-American history from 1870 to the present.” And don’t forget our gala dinner will be held at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library. Besides serendipity, you can find all the convention information on our AJHA website, including registration. See you in Little Rock.

____________________________________________

Editor's Note: More serendipity is that my (Dane Claussen) great-grandmother's second husband, named Jones, a miner from Ireland, is supposedly buried in Wallace, Idaho, although none of us are quite sure where.

Newspaper Histories as Marketing Devices: When Newspapers Publish Their Own

Dane Claussen — Wed, 05 Jul 2017 00:14:50 GMT

By Dane S. Claussen, Thiel College

How newspapers tell their own histories has been a minor interest of mine for a long time. A few readers of The Intelligencer might remember my article, “Otis did not found L.A. Times, and Taylor did not found Globe,” in the Spring 2006 issue (Vol. 40, Issue 3) of Clio Among the Media, published by the AEJMC’s History Division. There, as the headline indicates, I cited numerous examples in which newspapers had recently made inaccurate claims in news or feature articles about who founded their newspaper. Also, Joseph Medill did not start the Chicago Tribune and James McClatchy did not start the Sacramento Bee (a lie that started with his sons, not a sloppy journalist 100 or 150 years later), and so on. At least The New York Times never claims it was started by Adolph Ochs, perhaps because he bought it 45 years later!

On June 4 this year, the Eugene (Ore.) Register-Guard published a special 150th anniversary issue, with its history spread and sprawled out among three sections that include plenty of advertising. A friend passed it along to me, as he knows my interests and he and I are both University of Oregon graduates who have some experience with the newspaper (he a lot more than me, as I lived in Eugene only three years and he has lived there the overwhelming majority of his 60-plus years).

The Register-Guard holds many distinctions for those of us from Oregon who studied and/or practiced journalism. It is the Register-Guard that has won many state overall excellence awards over the Portland Oregonian, the (Baker) family newspaper in the medium-sized city beating the Advance Publications (Newhouse) metro daily year in and year out. It is the Register-Guard that was by far the best designed Oregon newspaper, and one of the USA's best, when I first saw it in the 1970s. It was the Register-Guard that for decades (has?) had the highest newspaper salaries in Oregon (probably due to its unions) and forced the non-union, anti-union Oregonian to more or less keep up or probably lose some or most of its best employees to the small newspaper down I-5. It was the Register-Guard whose long-time managing editor, Barrie Hartman (one of the few top execs at the paper in the last 90 years who was not a Baker), was very well respected and whose wife, Mary Hartman, was a long-time University of Oregon journalism professor and executive director of the state high school press association (from whom I took a course).

The Register-Guard had (and has?) the respect of Oregon journalists, journalism professors and journalism students in ways that The Oregonian (where I was an intern in 1983 and where many of my friends have since worked at some point) never did. When, in the 1980s, the Register-Guard employed a receptionist/operator with an accent that made the paper’s name come out, “Eugene Register-God,” it was only slightly humorous.

Anyway, in June the Register-Guard went all out with the broadsheet two-section special issue (plus special front page on the main section). And it gets off to a rather shaky start. It claims that the front page has been designed to look like it did in 1930, but the effect is only partially successful, most notably with the 1930s Eugene Register-Guard flag (which is called “nameplate”) and two one-column stories at left and right with three- and four-deck, all caps headlines followed by three-deck upper-and-lower dropheads. But the page is dominated by a large circa 1910 photo of the Daily and Weekly Guard building, something you would not have seen in 1930.

The first section covers the first 80 years (1867-1947) of the Register, Guard, and Register-Guard. An introductory piece on the second page, written by Editor Mark Baker of the owning family, is romantically headlined, “A story of hope, challenge, and survival.” Well, that’s one way to put it.

The first page, covering 1867 to 1877, is headlined, “Several Eugene papers had short-lived histories,” which tells you only part of that period’s story. Yes, five Eugene newspapers did not last long: Eugene City News (an election year paper in 1856), The Pacific Journal (founded 1858), The People’s Press (founded 1859), State Republican (founded 1862) and the Union Crusader (founded 1863). The Oregon State Journal did better (1864-1909). The special section does not point out that such a history is not unusual, except perhaps so many newspapers starting in a city that did not yet have even a railroad (1871) or the university (1876). (In fact, Eugene had only 1117 residents as of the 1880 US Census.) As for The Guard, started 1867, it had five different owners (each owner an individual or partnership, making eight different publishers), in its first 11 years. Hope and challenge indeed, but not much survival.

What is one to make of this historical section characterizing “most local news stories” as being like an 1867 advertorial for Lager Beer Saloon? It is unclear whether the reader is literally supposed to think that most items that looked like news were, in fact, ads (and the typical reader needs background/context for that) and/or that the newspaper had little if any real journalism, or if the special section writer did not realize the Lager Beer Saloon piece is an advertorial and not a news story at all.

But the most perplexing point on this page is its assertion that the Guard, not founded until more than two years after the Civil War, “supported the rights of Southern states to own slaves and editorialized that freeing them was an unwise thing to do.” (Note that as of the Guard’s founding on June 1, 1867, the 13th Amendment already had been ratified, and 21 states had already ratified the 14th Amendment, with more about to.)

The current newspaper comes into better focus on the 1877-87 page, as we find out that the Guard’s sixth owner, Ira Campbell, bought it at 22 in 1878 and owned it for 26 years until he died of a stroke at age 48. We find out that in 1884, Silas Yoran, then 49, launched the Eugene City Register, and that both the Guard and Register became dailies in the 1890s while the Oregon State Journal remained a weekly until it folded. We also find out that the Guard was Democratic while both the Journal and Register were Republican papers.

The 1877-87 page is headlined, “UO’s first graduating class: five students,” and illustrated with a period photo of the UO’s first two buildings (the 1876 Deady Hall and 1877 Villard Hall), despite the University of Oregon playing no role in the newspapers’ histories.

The 1887-97 page switches emphases from the newspaper’s history to Eugene’s history, focusing on a big flood in 1890, Pres. Benjamin Harrison’s stop in Eugene on May 5, 1891 (when 2000 people showed up to greet him but he never publicly appeared), the UO football team’s first victory in 1894. Almost incidentally mentioned are that the Register was taken over by Yoran’s sons (“after their father left to run a shoe store and work as a bank vice president”), that the Yorans took the paper daily in 1895, then sold it to three Eugene printers, the Register went back to weekly in 1896, then daily again in 1898. Meanwhile, the reader has learned nothing about Campbell’s ownership during those 10 years and very little about his first nine years (1878-1887).

The section’s 1897-1907 page attempts to tie the Eugene Daily Guard to Yellow Journalism by extensively recounting the paper’s coverage of a murder and the primary murderer’s execution in 1899. The section is careful to say that such coverage “perhaps reflect[s] the sensational yellow journalism” and asserts that "Readers were surely riveted” by the stories but, frankly, it’s a little bit of a stretch, the story starting with a “creepy” rhyme notwithstanding.

This part of the history also notes that the Eugene papers got linotypes during 1897-1907, “allowing an entire line of hot metal type to be set at once.” Unfortunately, the section has never pointed out that previously type was set by hand one letter at a time, a fact that we cannot assume the casual reader would know. This section points out that the Guard then cost $6 per year for delivery five days a week, although what the newspaper(s) cost during most other earlier and later periods goes unsaid. But we do find out that Charles Fisher bought the Guard in 1906, and that Fisher knew what he was doing based on previous experience in Oakland (Ore.), Roseburg (Ore.) and Boise (Idaho). That supposedly was also true of Campbell, although we haven’t been given enough detail to tell. The 1897-1907 section, and also the 1907-1917 sections, tell us nothing at all about the Register, nor any more about the Oregon State Journal’s 1909 demise.

The 1907-1917 page focuses heavily again on Eugene’s development and thus the stories the Guard was covering, with only the bare bones about what was going on at the Guard itself: Fisher sold it in 1913 to E.J. Finneran and bought Salem’s Capital-Journal newspaper, but Finneran essentially went bankrupt in 1916, and the Guard was run by a receivership for three months until Fisher bought it back. But he apparently stayed in Salem until 1919, appointing the Register’s news editor (and former Guard advertising manager) Joseph Shelton to run it in the meantime.

The 1917-1927 pages start with Eugene’s history during the period, then quickly move to the question of how Fisher editorialized against the Ku Klux Klan (which in the 1920s essentially ran the government of Oregon, the state where it was illegal for black Americans to live until 1926) at the same time evidence showed he was a KKK member! The section’s author asks, “Could Fisher have joined the Klan to keep an eye on them?” Apparently no one knows.

In any case, Fisher sold the Guard in 1924 to Paul Kelty, a long-time editor at The Oregonian (and nephew of its editor, Harvey Scott) who previously had worked at the Portland Telegram and the Los Angeles Examiner. But Kelty was not a good fit for Eugene, and in 1927, he sold it to the current owners’ patriarch, Alton Baker Sr. from Cleveland (and son of the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s president). Baker paid just under $100,000, or about $1.3 million in 2017 dollars.

The 1927-1937 pages do not explain why a daily newspaper with a daily competitor, in a city of perhaps 16,000 people, was worth almost $100,000 in 1927, or even more so, in the 1927-37 section, why the Register was worth $244,000 (about $3.5 million now) when Baker bought in November 1930. (In this history, the Register disappears into the Guard without the reader ever finding out much at all about it, not even why its name came first in the new one.) The section does admit that the Register price was “steep” and the acquisition “risky,” and that salaries were twice cut 10% between 1931 and 1933 to keep the now Register-Guard afloat. (Perhaps this is the Baker third generation way of admitting that their grandfather grossly overpaid.) Oddly, the section does not mention the October 1929 stock market crash and coming Great Depression, or that the US newspaper industry already had been consolidating for about 15 years.

The 1937-1947 page is almost entirely about Eugene and Oregon history, not the newspaper’s, with the exception of Alton’s sons, Alton Jr. (“Bunky”) and Ted, joining the newspaper staff in 1946 and “soon” thereafter, respectively, and that Ted Baker became an important Eugene philanthropist.

Which tells you just about everything you need to know about the 1947-2017 section of this special issue of the Eugene Register-Guard: a puff piece in which it is not clear that the Baker family gives credit to anyone but themselves for the newspaper’s last 70 years, with the exceptions of long-time editor Bill Tugman, Don Bishoff, and several (ex-)staffers who eventually won Pulitzer Prizes. The section never admits or even hints that anyone in the Baker family ever made any mistake (although noting that former Oregonian publisher N. Christian Anderson III lasted only six months in 2015 as Register-Guard publisher comes close). The woman who answered the phone, “Eugene Register God,” is not mentioned, nor is Barrie Hartman, who went on to be editor and editorial page editor of the Boulder (Colo.) Daily Camera for 18 years (1983-2001).

Claussen is Editor of The Intelligencer and the James Pedas Professor of Media, Communication & Public Relations, Thiel College, Greenville, Pa. Regardless of what he might say or write about them, he appreciates newspapers that recognize and commemorate their own histories.

Media History Often Plays a Marginal Role in US Museums

Dane Claussen — Sat, 01 Jul 2017 05:59:41 GMT

By Dane S. Claussen, Thiel College

Over the years I have become interested in how media history emerges in spaces, especially but not only museums, in which it is treated as incidental and/or merely illustrative of other history. I first became interested in the phenomenon of media history being right in front of one’s face, but ignored anyway, more than 20 years ago when I seriously sought to find out how much importance rural sociologists gave to small-town weekly newspapers in their analyses of rural life.

It turned out: not much. In rural sociology books going back about 90 years from the mid-1990s, rural sociologists often wrote a chapter about churches, a chapter about schools, a chapter about town government, a chapter about the Grange Hall, etc., but nary a word about a small town’s newspaper or small town newspapers generally. Here was the kicker: in many cases, rural sociologists had used the bound volumes and sometimes other records of a small-town newspaper as a major source for their books while never mentioning in their book and articles that the small-town newspaper was of any importance to its town.

My recent visit to the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museum in Fremont, Ohio, provides one example of this phenomenon. The Hayes museum proudly boasts that it was the first US presidential library, although visitors to the museum and Hayes house do not see anything that resembles one. In any case, the museum and library’s formation were led from start to finish by Hayes’ son, Webb Hayes, and one might expect that the museum would be overflowing with items that belonged to Rutherford, his wife, his parents, etc.

But from the very beginning of the exhibits, the viewer is struck by originals and copies (normally photographic) of paper, paper, and more paper: broadsides, flyers and, most notably, newspaper and magazine covers, interior pages, and especially cartoons and other illustrations. There’s the April 3, 1877, New York Graphic illustration of Hayes guiding a woman labeled “South” to shake hands with a woman named “North.” There’s the Feb. 23, 1881, Puck illustration of William Henry Vanderbilt, Cyrus Field and Jay Gould literally pulling the strings of the railroad, telegraph and banking industries. And many, many others. And yet, not only does the Hayes museum offer no context about news media’s explosion in illustrations at that time, but it doesn’t even bother to tell visitors what kind of role media played in either Hayes’ political career or the role media played in politics generally in the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s. This omission could lead the visitor to imagine everything from media then playing a major (even decisive) role to the media being of no importance other than a source of beautiful and/or clever illustrations.

Another museum that I recently visited is the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. This one also is curious in various ways. The Museum building itself is very large and contains entire airplanes, entire trains, an entire house, dozens of automobiles, and hundreds of other items, including plenty of farm machines and much industrial machinery that one probably must be both a historian and an engineer to fully appreciate. Naturally, I was on the hunt for newspaper industry items—a Mergenthaler linotype would be at home there, as would a set of pre-linotype type cases, a stereotyping machine, a stat camera, or any number of other items (any of which would have been more interesting than dozens of other machines at the Ford Museum). What did I find? One hand-operated printing press inside, one outside, and nothing else. I confess that I was not familiar with the item on display: “Foster’s Printing Press, about 1853. This printing press turned the commonly accepted image of a press upside down. Instead of a lever pressing the paper down on the inky type, this press pushed the inky type up to the paper. It didn’t look like a printing press should look and printers were skeptical. They didn’t buy many.”

But considering: the equipment-heavy nature of the newspaper industry; the newspaper industry’s role in politics, economics, etc.; the newspaper industry was for many decades one of the country’s largest employers; the industry produced larger than life characters such as Horace Greeley or William Randolph Hearst; etc., one printing press at the Ford Museum and another one in Greenfield Village is not much. (Granted, the Ford Museum also underrepresents the histories of the typewriter, radio, and the postal service. But it does not underrepresent all communication technologies: one big display case shows off nearly 50 telephones, while other areas display a variety of televisions over time and early computers.)

Like the Hayes museum, however, the Ford Museum liberally uses the news media to illustrate exhibits of other industries’ technologies and products. In the museum’s political section, three color Harper’s Weekly covers from 1865 and 1866 illustrate former slaves becoming indentured workers; a full-color illustration from an 1862 Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly illustrates the Civil War; and the February 1932 Labor Defender cover shows the Scottsboro Boys.

Elsewhere in the museum, a negative (white type on black background) image of an 1855 Providence Daily Journal illustrates an exhibit on engineer George Corliss’s patent battles; a World War I vintage Popular Mechanics magazine cover shows a then-new tank; a March 3, 1927 cover of the original Life magazine shows the Roaring Twenties lifestyle; issues of Sports Illustrated, Popular Mechanics, LIFE, Rod & Custom from around 1960 illustrate that era; and the first 1984 issue of MACWORLD magazine helps with an exhibit on Apple’s founding.

The Greenfield Village adjacent to the Henry Ford Museum is a collection of period and replica buildings that have been moved there from other places, several hundred miles in many cases. Visitors can wander around it all day, riding in old Ford cars, interacting with docents in and out of costume, eating and more. Highlights for me included Henry Ford’s boyhood home, the Wright Brothers’ boyhood home, Thomas Edison’s laboratory buildings, Noah Webster’s last house and Harvey Firestone’s boyhood house. Greenfield Village is thus impressive in many ways, but surely the most famous open-air museum in the USA is Colonial Williamsburg. And both it and Greenfield Village were founded decades after Oslo’s Norsk Folkemuseum and Stockholm’s Skansen (each of which I have been lucky enough to visit).

Greenfield Village includes the Printing Office & Tin Shop, but it’s something of a botch—the building is clearly explained as having been built in 1933, but its exhibits include everything from noting Ben Franklin’s 18th-century printing business to a mid-19th century Washington hand press (not still used in 1933). Certainly Greenfield Village does not include a newspaper office the way that other open-air museums do, from Old Town San Diego State Historic Park (San Diego Union) to the Ohio Village at Columbus’s Ohio History Center.

All in all, the Ford Museum and Greenfield Village give the impression that the entire publishing and printing industry, let alone the journalism profession, has played a minor role at best in US history—whether political, economic, technological or what.

So imagine my surprise when I skimmed through a copy I bought of the 2006 book, Henry’s Attic: Some Fascinating Gifts to Henry Ford and His Museum, by Ford R. Bryan (Wayne State University Press). In addition to a full chapter on photographic equipment, the book contains a full chapter titled “Communications Equipment.” Detailed and illustrated are: Edison’s Printing Telegraph Transmitter, Cable Sheathing Machine, Edison’s Printing Telegraph Receiver, Edison’s Quadruplex Telegraph, Replica of Bell’s First Telephone, Sectional Model of a Telephone, Edison’s Carbon-Transmitter Chalk-Receiver Telephone, Telephone Switchboard, Telephone Desk Set, Wireless Telegraph Key, Wireless Spark Transmitter, Marconi Wireless Receiver, Replica of Home Wireless Set, De Forest’s “Singing Arc” Radio Transmitter, Low Frequency Radio Receiver, Atwater Kent Radio Receiver, RCA Radio Receiver, Steinmetz’s Portable Radio Receiver, “Majestic” Radio Console, High Altitude Shortwave Radio, Early Transistors, Early Television Apparatus: Jenkins’s Scanner and Baird’s Receiver, Facsimile Transmission Equipment, and Early Television Camera and Monitor. As far as I could tell, very few of these items are currently on public display at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village.

(Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of articles about media history's role in museums and history books.)

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Claussen is Editor of The Intelligencer and the James Pedas Professor of Media, Communication & Public Relations, Thiel College, Greenville, Pa. Regardless of what he might say or write about them, he enjoys visiting any and all museums in the USA and abroad.

From the AJHA Vault: A History of the AJHA Dissertation Award

Dane Claussen — Thu, 29 Jun 2017 03:56:20 GMT

By Erika J. Pribanic-Smith, University of Texas-Arlington

Julie Hedgepeth Williams holds the distinction of receiving the first AJHA Dissertation Award, presented at the 1997 national conference in Mobile, AL. Williams wrote her dissertation entitled “The Significance of the Printed Word in Early America: Colonists’ Thoughts on the Role of the Press” at the University of Alabama, under the direction of Wm. David Sloan.

Patrick Washburn said he proposed the dissertation award in 1996, at the first meeting he attended as a member of the AJHA board of directors. At the time, Washburn headed the graduate program in journalism at Ohio University and was chairing several historical dissertations. He hoped that the award would attract newly minted faculty to AJHA.

“It would be a way to keep adding young members to the association rather than the membership simply getting older and older,” Washburn said.

Washburn headed an ad hoc committee to investigate the award processes of other academic societies and propose a structure for AJHA’s award. Washburn said he suggested two primary things: giving the dissertation award at a convention time slot with no competing events on the program and giving a cash award to the winner.

“It would underscore the fact that AJHA considered this a major award,” he said.

Washburn credited David Abrahamson of Northwestern University with making the dissertation award session a major highlight of the annual convention. Chair of the Dissertation Award Committee for 20 years before handing the reins to Jane Marcellus (Middle Tennessee State) in 2016, Abrahamson made several decisions that defined the award.

He solidified the judging process, appointing as jurists faculty members from schools without doctoral programs to avoid bias. He decided against ranking the honorable mentions to emphasize the importance of each dissertation. He created a special printed program just for the dissertation session, and he made sure to acknowledge the faculty members who chaired the dissertations.

“I and others who chaired dissertations that were honored appreciated that acclaim,” said Washburn, who has mentored three award winners and one honorable mention.

Abrahamson said the process for submitting and judging dissertations has remained basically the same since the beginning. Two juries review portfolios consisting of an abstract, table of contents, and sample chapter to arrive at the four finalists, and then they review the full dissertations of the finalists to decide on the winner. The committee receives, on average, 12 nominees per year, though Abrahamson said it has considered as many as 23 dissertations in one competition.

“My recollection is that we received 11 entries the first year, which was really reassuring because when we set up the prize, we had no idea how it would be received,” Abrahamson said.

Williams, who had been a member of AJHA since 1992, said that Sloan told her about the award and encouraged her to enter.

“It seems David (Sloan) and AJHA go hand in hand,” Williams said. “I feel like he directed me with the idea of further AJHA papers from dissertation chapters in mind.”

Sloan said that Julie had demonstrated she was serious about history while working on her master’s thesis on the colonial South-Carolina Gazette, and he commended her excellence as an historian—both as a thorough researcher and a talented writer.

Williams presented her work at the Mobile conference along with three honorable mentions: David Domke, whose dissertation advisor was Hazel Dicken-Garcia (University of Minnesota); David Mindich, who wrote his dissertation under Carl Prince and Mitchell Stephens at New York University; and Doug Ward, whose mentor was Maurine Beasley at the University of Maryland.

Beasley has advised three dissertation award winners and six honorable mentions. She said that in addition to enhancing AJHA’s reputation as a worthwhile organization, the award helps keep journalism history a viable element in journalism and media education.

“It aids in establishing journalism history as a contemporary means of scholarly inquiry,” she said.

Sloan added that the award encourages more student interest in becoming historians, which in turn encourages more involvement in AJHA. Washburn noted that no other organization gives a journalism history dissertation award, so AJHA’s award remains important.

Those who have advised multiple award-winning dissertations said that the award did not influence how they advised their students—they always mentored their students to exhibit the qualities that are the hallmark of the award. Beasley and Sloan both said they always have placed a strong emphasis on using primary source material. Advisor of two winners and an honorable mention, Sloan also stressed the importance of selecting a significant topic.

Over the past 20 years, 56 advisors have mentored 81 students to Dissertation Award honors. Among the most prolific mentors was Margaret “Peggy” Blanchard at the University of North Carolina, who advised the 2003 winner as well as honorable mentions in four competitions. One of her advisees, Mark Feldstein, suggested that AJHA name the award after Blanchard.

The dissertation award has been called the Blanchard Prize since 2003. Abrahamson said that Blanchard was quite ill at the time—she died in 2004.

“As it turns out, Mark had been one of her last doctoral students and was quite passionate about the renaming and its timing,” Abrahamson said. “Given Peggy’s status among media historians, the renaming passed unanimously after a brief discussion.”

Other North Carolina faculty have continued Blanchard’s legacy. In total, nine UNC graduates have earned AJHA dissertation awards and honorable mentions—including two honorable mention recipients this year. Southern Mississippi also has produced several honorees, thanks largely to the mentorship of David Davies. Davies, who won the award for his dissertation under Sloan in 1998, has advised five honorable mention recipients.

For a full list of previous winners, including links to the dissertation award session programs for each year since 1998, visit ajha.wildapricot.org/Blanchard

2nd Annual Media History Engagement Week Reached 40,000+ Twitter Followers

Dane Claussen — Fri, 23 Jun 2017 02:34:16 GMT

By Teri Finneman, South Dakota State University

The second Media History Engagement Week attracted participants from 13 states and Sweden in the #headlinesinhistory Twitter discussion during the first week in April.

The week to recognize media history was the work of a subcommittee of members from the AEJMC History Division and AJHA who want to bring more national publicity to our work.

Throughout April 3-7, our members and their students across the country (and world) tweeted #headlinesinhistory to share historical news stories and special class projects about journalism history.

The Twitter initiative resulted in 330 posts from 110 people, reaching 40,288 Twitter followers. Watergate and World War I were the most tweeted topics. Most of the participants (64%) were women.

You can view the discussion here: https://tinyurl.com/ycvx3zal.

Member News for Second Quarter 2017

Dane Claussen — Fri, 23 Jun 2017 02:18:16 GMT

In April, Paula Hunt was presented with the University of Missouri Distinguished Dissertation Award, a campus-wide honor that recognizes exceptional original scholarship and research at the doctoral level. Hunt’s dissertation chair was Earnest Perry, associate dean for graduate studies at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Starting in Fall 2017, Hunt will be a postdoctoral teaching fellow at Utah State University.

Maddie Liseblad recently received a Teaching Excellence Award from Arizona State University’s Graduate and Professional Student Association. Liseblad was given the award for her efforts teaching copy editing.

Texas A&M University Press has published Jim Startt’s book, Woodrow Wilson, the Great war, and the Fourth Estate.

AJHA Intelligencer Editor Dane S. Claussen, Thiel College, has been appointed to the Research Committee of the 13th World Media Economics & Management Conference, to be held May 6-9, 2018, in Cape Town, South Africa. The Research Committee will choose, in a two-step process in August 2017 and January 2018, which papers will be presented at the conference. Claussen is a former Head of AEJMC’s Media Management, Economics & Entrepreneurship Division. The three other US scholars chosen for the 2018 Research Committee are: Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, University of Florida; Richard Gershon, Western Michigan University; and Kent Wilkinson, Texas Tech University. The Committee’s 14 other members are from various other countries, including three from South Africa and two from the United Kingdom.

Why mentorship matters—-for both tenured and junior faculty, alike

Dane Claussen — Fri, 23 Jun 2017 02:11:23 GMT

By Will Mari, AJHA membership co-chair, and the membership committee

During my first AJHA convention in North Carolina, in October 2012, Jim McPherson paid for one of my dinners.

He then made sure I met a bunch of senior scholars, and then, if that wasn’t enough kindness for one weekend, fed me again when I missed my flight and had to spend an extra night in Raleigh. Jim, who will be retiring soon from Whitworth University, continued to mentor me as I finished my dissertation at the University of Washington and started my first full-time academic job at Northwest University.

But his care and concern were and are not the exception: Carole O’Reilly at Salford University in the UK, Ross Collins at North Dakota State University, Betty Winfield, professor emerita from the Missouri School of Journalism, Michael Fuhlhage at Wayne State, Stephen Banning at Bradley, Candi Carter Olsen at Utah State, Katherine Edenborg at the University of Wisconsin-Stout … I can definitely go on … these people have all mentored me in ways big and small.

Indeed, we are all at least partially the result of a vast collection of folks who have influenced, encouraged, and welcomed us in mentoring relationships within the academy.

But mentorship goes horizontally, too, from peer-to-peer.

Scholars such as Nick Hirshon at William Patterson, Teri Finneman at South Dakota State and Will Tubbs at the University of West Florida—these peers have all mentored me. Whether it’s through listening conversations, reading over drafts, comparing research notes or connecting me to archives and collections, these younger fellow mentors have already had a crucial impact on my work and sanity.

As a member of AJHA, you have the opportunity to mentor junior scholars, but also peers. Research and teaching in media history can be a sometimes lonely mission—but mentoring up, down, and across draws us into a bigger community of scholars from varying fields, departments, universities and countries. It enhances our work, and makes us better colleagues at our home institutions.

It’s more important than ever to mentor someone, or graciously let yourself be mentored, in this age of global change and connections.

Recently, I met a media historian from France, François Robinet, who encouraged me to spread the word about the Société pour l'Histoire des Médias. Robinet, the chair of the history department at the University of Versailles, believes that there should be stronger ties between French, British and American media-history scholars. I agree.

We should be ready to extend our mentoring and our reception of mentoring across national borders. Ultimately, we’ll all benefit from a more mentored academic world.

If you have questions or suggestions for the membership committee, or are interested in getting connected to a mentee or mentor, please email me at william.mari@northwestu.edu. And follow AJHA’s Twitter account at @AJHAsocial to get connected to fellow scholars there.

AJHA announces 2017 Blanchard Doctoral Dissertation Prize Winner

Dane Claussen — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 18:57:16 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association announced Dr. Matthew Pressman as the winner of the annual Margaret A. Blanchard Doctoral Dissertation Prize.

Pressman, an assistant professor of journalism at Seton Hall University, completed his dissertation at Boston University under the direction of Dr. Bruce J. Schulman.

Pressman’s dissertation, “Remaking the News: The Transformation of American Journalism, 1960-1980,” focused on the evolution of the journalistic concepts of newsworthiness, objectivity, and the role of media in relation to the empowered.

“I’m greatly honored that the scholars on the Blanchard Prize committee selected my dissertation as the winner,” Pressman said. “As a relative newcomer to academia, it’s extremely gratifying to have senior scholars in the journalism-history field recognize my work. I’m currently adapting my dissertation into a book (to be published in 2018 by Harvard University Press), and winning this award gives me further inspiration to make that book as good as it can possibly be.”

Pressman and three honorable mention recipients will present their research at the AJHA’s 2017 National Convention in Little Rock, Arkansas, this October.

Those earning honorable mention were:

Dr. Lorraine Ahearn of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for “Narrative Paths of Native American Resistance: Agency and Commemoration in Journalism Texts in Eastern North Carolina, 1872-1988” (Chaired by Dr. Barbara Friedman).

Dr. Denise Hill of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for “Public Relations, Racial Injustice, and the 1958 North Carolina Kissing Case” (Chaired by Friedman).
Dr. Rianne Subijanto of the University of Colorado at Boulder for “Media of Resistance: A Communication History of Anti-Colonial Movements in the Dutch East Indies, 1920-1926” (Chaired by Dr. Janice Peck).

The Margaret A. Blanchard Doctoral Dissertation Prize, given for the first time in 1997, is awarded annually for the best doctoral dissertation dealing with mass communication history. An honorarium of $500 accompanies the prize, and a $200 honorarium is awarded to each honorable mention.

Graduate Student Testimonial: AJHA provides a valuable network of great mentors for graduate students

Dane Claussen — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 04:24:28 GMT

By Maddie Liseblad, Arizona State University

I knew by age six I wanted to be a journalist. By that time, I was publishing my own newspaper, complete with pretty awful drawings to accompany my stories. And my stories, yeah, not so sure there were really what you would call articles. But, I had a fantastic mentor – my neighbor Jan. Every day Jan would walk by my house with his dog, and as often as I could, I would join them. During these walks I interrogated poor Jan about being a journalist and about life in general. Jan told my mom I was going to be a journalist for sure because I certainly knew how to ask questions. Little did he know back then that, fast forward some twenty years or so, Jan was going to be training me to take over his newspaper editor role.

I’ve had many mentors throughout my life, fantastic people who have encouraged and supported me, but also not been afraid to provide constructive criticism. I wouldn’t be who I am today without their guidance. There’s my Swedish teacher in high school, Gertrud, who encouraged me to explore my creative writing voice. There’s Lee, my first television news manager who showed me what kind of a boss to strive to be. There’s Ingmar, who showed me that public relations really isn’t the dark side. And then there’s Dean, my undergrad journalism professor. Dean is the reason I am where I am today, pursuing my Ph.D. at Arizona State’s Cronkite School.

I think it’s important for all of us to have mentors to help guide us, to steer us in a good direction. For me, switching gear and entering academia late in life has been kind of daunting. I have found I have a passion for historical research. I probably enjoy it so much because in a way, I still get to be a journalist and tell a story. I enjoy the hunt for that obscure piece of evidence, that primary source that has been forgotten. There’s great satisfaction in bringing history to life again. And I have found many kindred spirits in AJHA members and a support system I think is pretty unique.

As a graduate student, my experience with AJHA is that it is an incredibly welcoming organization. I was told before I attended my first AJHA convention that I was going to enjoy the experience, much more so than any other convention I had been to. And that certainly turned out to be true. The setting is more intimate and we all share a deep passion for history. There’s a connection from the get-go that is very inclusive and special.

While it was certainly intimidating to walk up to senior scholars whose work I greatly admire and whose footsteps I’d like to follow, the setting and atmosphere at the convention made it fairly easy. And you know what? Those senior scholars all turned out to be fantastic. They were very willing and eager to share their experiences and knowledge. I was treated as a valued colleague, rather than “merely” a graduate student.

I can’t say enough good things about the people I have encountered through AJHA. They have helped me in several different ways, everything from pulling reading material for my comprehensive exams to telling me which archive to find what in. I have never once been turned down, even when I have had complex questions or requests.

Within AJHA, I have found not only one, but a whole network of journalism history mentors. And furthermore, I have found colleagues and friends. I don’t regret for one moment that I joined and got involved with AJHA as a graduate student. What I do regret is that I didn’t do it sooner.

Maddie Liseblad is the chair of the Graduate Student Committee. If you are a graduate student and have questions about AJHA, please contact her at MaddieL@asu.edu.

Garza researching oral history of civil rights reporting beyond the racial binary

Dane Claussen — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 04:17:25 GMT

By Teri Finneman, South Dakota State University

Oral History Committee member Melita M. Garza of Texas Christian University is featured this month in the spotlight on members’ oral history projects. Garza describes her project below:

"With the help of a $1,500 Dean’s Research Grant from the Bob Schieffer College of Communication, my goal is to develop an oral history project and undergraduate research course that would examine the role journalists have played in chronicling movements for social change beyond matters of black-and-white. My project seeks to illuminate the role of journalists in civil rights reporting across fault lines of race, gender, geography, generation, and class.

"In this way, the project would contribute to the idea of the U.S. civil rights movement as “long and wide” rather than constrained to a racial binary, the geography of the South, and the time period of the 1950s and ‘60s. The traditional binary view, which historian Charles Payne called “the Montgomery to Memphis Framework,” is increasingly being challenged by scholars such as Mark Brilliant, who propose a Long and Wide Civil Rights Movement model to more accurately and comprehensively capture the conflicts and accomplishments of movements for equal rights.

"Historians have long followed the trail of journalist coverage of the Civil Rights Movement, looking among other thing, at their role as “sympathetic referees” in the black freedom struggle. As this project looks more expansively at the journalistic role in the nation’s freedom struggles, I seek answers to questions such as: How did the reporters’ background, training, and personal and journalistic outlook play into their news coverage of various struggles for civil rights not typically included in the broader accepted narrative? How did journalists report across ethnic, racial, economic, and other differences? How were their efforts accepted in the newsroom and community at large?

"This project attempts to answer these and other questions through oral history interviews with journalists across the fault lines and fissures that the late journalist Robert C. Maynard so eloquently spoke to. I’m kick-starting the project by attending Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez’s Voces Oral History Summer Research Institute this summer at the University of Texas at Austin."

CFP: BLOCKS PLATES STONES: Matrices/Printing Surfaces in Research and Collections (London, 21 Sept. 2017)

Dane Claussen — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 04:08:57 GMT

Deadline: 30 June 2017, via http://bit.ly/BlocksPlatesStones-Submit

Details: http://bit.ly/BlocksPlatesStones

Keynote Roundtable: Dr Richard S. Field (Yale), Prof. James Mosley (Institute of English Studies), Dr. Ad Stijnman (Leiden), and Prof. Michael Twyman (Reading)

Call For Paper Abstracts & Poster Abstracts:
The material turn in fields that rely on historical printed matter has led to interest in how those texts and images were—and are—produced. Those objects, including cut woodblocks, etched and engraved metal plates, and lithographic stones, could be fundamental to research. Tens of thousands survive from the last 500 years, but the vast majority are inaccessible because they do not fit into the cataloguing structures and controlled vocabularies used by the libraries, archives and museums that hold them. Those that are accessible tend to be under-used, as few researchers are equipped to understand them or communicate about them across disciplinary boundaries. Even the most basic term is debated: in book research, a matrix is the mould for casting pieces of type; in art research, each resulting type is a matrix (and the sheets printed from them are the multiples). As new possibilities to catalogue and digitize these artifacts are revealing their research potential, it is essential to establish how they can best be made available and how they can be used in research.

This deeply interdisciplinary conference will survey the state of research into cut woodblocks, intaglio plates, lithographic stones, and other matrices/printing surfaces. It will bring together researchers, curators, librarians, printers, printmakers, cataloguers, conservators, digital humanities practitioners, and others who care for or seek to understand these objects. The discussion will encompass all media and techniques, from the fifteenth century through the present. Please submit abstracts for papers (20 minutes) and posters (A1 portrait/vertical) by 30 June 2017 at http://bit.ly/BlocksPlatesStones-Submit.

Location: (Senate House, London; reception at British Academy)

Funder: This event is part of a 12-month British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award, ‘The Matrix Reloaded: Establishing Cataloguing and Research Guidelines for Artefacts of Printing Images’, http://bit.ly/BARSEAMatrixReloaded. The discussions will support the creation of a research network to distill a single, interdisciplinary best practice from existing standards across disciplines and heritage collections and produce a program to train researchers to engage with matrices/printing surfaces.

Contact Info: Dr Elizabeth Savage (Institute of English Studies)

URL: http://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/events/conferences/blocks-plates-stones-conference

AJHA Call for Nominations to the Board of Directors

Dane Claussen — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 04:04:26 GMT

The American Journalism Historians Association is seeking nominations for three board positions and the office of second vice president. Board members serve for three years and are expected to attend board meetings at the annual convention. The 2nd VP, under normal circumstances, rises to the presidency in two years, then serves on the board for an additional two years. A nominee to the Board of Directors or to any of the other Officer positions must have been a member of the AJHA for at least one calendar year immediately preceding the date of the election. No more than one person from an institution can serve on the board at one time. To make nominations and to vote in an election, an individual must be a member of AJHA.

Those who wish to nominate candidates may do so by sending an
email with the nominee's name, contact information and affiliation to
election and nominations committee chair Amber Roessner,
University of Tennessee, ataroessne@utk.edu. Please confirm the candidate's willingness to serve before sending the nomination to Amber, and if possible, you should send a brief bio of the candidate.

Deadline for nominations is 5 p.m. August 26. Nominations may also be made from the floor.

CFP: Media History & Democracy manuscripts for Media and Communication journal

Dane Claussen — Wed, 31 May 2017 16:03:39 GMT

Media and Communication's Volume 6, Issue 1
Title: Media History and Democracy
Editor: David W. Park (Lake Forest College, USA)
Deadline for Abstracts: 30 June 2017
Deadline for Submissions: 30 September 2017
Publication of the Issue: March 2018

Information: The journal Media and Communication hereby announces a thematic issue (to be published in 2018) dedicated to the topic of media history and democracy. Democracy, in its many guises, has long been an influential concern for media historians. The emphasis on democracy in this thematic issue is intended to link up with media histories that take on the intersection of democracy and media as understood through any one of a number of lenses. The issue of democracy brings this thematic issue in contact with numerous approaches to media history. Authors will find connections to be made between democracy and concerns for: history of technology, social history, cultural history, political history, the history of social networks, intellectual history, and more. Democracy need not be conceptualized as a formal political system for this thematic issue, and many authors may find it fruitful to consider the multifarious aspects and meanings of democracy as they reflect on how they might draft a submission to this thematic issue. Media and Communication is an international journal, and we are particularly interested in programming a thematic issue that features historical scholarship from around the world, including manuscripts that address transnational communication flows. This thematic issue of Media and Communication would be a good match for articles addressing the following topics:

The history of democratic ideals in the development of media technology;
Considerations of democratic formations as they relate to journalism history and historical understandings of the role of journalism;
Histories of media as they relate to political activism;
The history of alternative and independent media outlets as they relate to democratic processes;
The history of public service broadcasting and its applications worldwide or transnationally;
Histories of media reform movements;
Treatments of the history of literacy and its political meanings;
Internet histories as they relate to citizenship or democracy;
The historical roles of interpersonal communication and social networks as they relate to democracy;
The history of media policies and regulation designed to arrange for (or thwart) democratic communication;
Historical themes concerning the relationship between capitalism and democracy.

Instructions for Authors: Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal’s instructions for authors (http://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/pages/view/forauthors) and to send their abstracts (about 200–250 words, with a tentative title and reference to the thematic issue) by email to the Guest Editor (Dave Park: park@lakeforest.edu) by 30 June 2017.

Oral History Training Set for San Francisco, June 27-30

Dane Claussen — Wed, 31 May 2017 15:58:40 GMT

Voice of Witness' 7th Annual Amplifying Unheard Voices Oral History Training will take place from June 27-30, 2017 at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, led by Education Program Director Cliff Mayotte and Erin Vong.

This unique four-day training highlights the power of personal narrative and provides educators, storytellers, and social justice advocates with the tools to conduct oral history projects in their classrooms and communities.

Workshop participants engage in an interactive process that introduces the skills, ethics, and social significance of creating oral history, as exemplified by Voice of Witness and other leading practitioners in the field.

This training is geared towards new and experienced practitioners from a variety of backgrounds, disciplines, and community settings. Past participants have included high school teachers, university professors, advocates, journalists, artists, and more.

During the training, participants will:

Conduct and share an oral history interview

Explore various media in relation to "amplifying" oral history narratives

Hone transcribing and editing skills

Read and discuss narratives from the Voice of Witness book series

Work in small groups to discuss ideas related to oral history projects, lessons, and units

Work with members of the Voice of Witness staff and prominent local oral history educators

Have an opportunity to explore the permanent collections of the Asian Art Museum

Time: 9:00am to 4:00pm daily
Location: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco at 200 Larkin St, San Francisco, CA 94102
Tuition: $250-500 (sliding scale)

Date: June 27-30, 2017

LAST DAY TO REGISTER IS JUNE 10, 2017

Check out our website for more information: http://voiceofwitness.org/education/amplifying-unheard-voices/

Contact Info:

Erin Vong, Education Associate at Voice of Witness

Contact Email:

erin@voiceofwitness.org

URL:

http://voiceofwitness.org/