Intelligencer

Intelligencer is a blog featuring thoughtful essays on mass communication history teaching and research as well as highlighting the work of our members.

To suggest an essay, contact us at ajhaconvention@gmail.com.

PDFs of the Intelligencer in its previous newsletter form can be found at the Intelligencer archive. Visit the News page for press releases on the organization's activities.

  • 23 Jan 2021 4:51 PM | Erika Pribanic-Smith (Administrator)

    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.


  • 23 Jan 2021 4:46 PM | Erika Pribanic-Smith (Administrator)
    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.

  • 23 Jan 2021 4:33 PM | Erika Pribanic-Smith (Administrator)


    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

  • 23 Jan 2021 4:19 PM | Erika Pribanic-Smith (Administrator)

    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

  • 18 Dec 2020 4:49 PM | Erika Pribanic-Smith (Administrator)

    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 AJHAthe 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 officialswhoever 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.

  • 18 Dec 2020 4:20 PM | Erika Pribanic-Smith (Administrator)

    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.

  • 18 Dec 2020 3:42 PM | Erika Pribanic-Smith (Administrator)


    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 90th 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.

  • 18 Dec 2020 3:37 PM | Erika Pribanic-Smith (Administrator)

    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.

     

  • 18 Dec 2020 3:35 PM | Erika Pribanic-Smith (Administrator)

    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.

  • 03 Sep 2020 9:11 AM | Melony Shemberger

    (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.

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