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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

• 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. 

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. 

• 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.

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.

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.  

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 

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.