Author: Michael Fuhlhage, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Wayne State University

Title: Rewriting the Chicano Image: Domingo Nick Reyes’s Battle Against Media Stereotypes

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to illuminate the career of Domingo Nick Reyes, whose work on behalf of Mexicanos, Chicanos, and more generally people of Spanish descent put him into multiple categories that include media worker, media activist, and media scholar. Reyes first made a national name for himself by campaigning to remove from broadcast advertising a pistol-brandishing, corn chip-thieving Mexican cartoon character voiced by Mel Blanc and animated by Tex Avery called the Frito Bandito in the 1960s. His advocacy for fair representation of Hispanics was a hallmark of his ascent from local radio disc jockey, reporter, and talk show host after serving in the Army, where he got his GED, to media consultant for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and special assistant to the secretary of the Navy for minority affairs and director of military equal.

Author: Rachel Grant, Associate Professor, University of Florida, and Kelsy Ann Adams, Graduate Student, University of Florida

Title: Decolonizing Caribbean Queer Histories: The Gay Freedom Movement’s The Jamaica Gaily News, 1977-1984

Abstract: During the 1960s, the Caribbean nation of Jamaica faced a turning point in its history. The country gained independence from British colonial rule, yet the presence of coloniality of power and knowledge persisted within their society. Coloniality refers to perpetual patterns of power that define culture, labor, and knowledge production, which have emerged from colonialism. The Gay Freedom Movement in Jamaica (GFM) was formed in September 1977 as the first movement in the English-speaking Caribbean to seek rights for LGBT people. The purpose of this paper is to uncover the Jamaica Gaily News newspaper, the first anglophone gay publication produced by the Gay Freedom Movement and its advocacy through a post-colonial lens. By tracing Jamaica’s post-colonial past through the 1970s gay rights movement, this study expands research of queer advocacy media from a decolonializing perspective.

Author, Bradley Hamm, Professor, Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, and Charlotte Che, Graduate Student, Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

History of an Idea: The Serious Obstacles to Agenda-Setting Research in its First Decade 

Abstract: This study examines the first decade of agenda-setting research and the significant challenges faced by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw in their efforts to establish their concept as an important area of media effects research. Despite its ultimate acclaim as one of only 14 “milestones in mass communication research” in the 20th century, the emergence of agenda setting was slow, difficult and sometimes discouraging. The initial 1968 study was rejected as a conference paper and published only four years later. Yet it ultimately became one of the most cited articles in the history of journalism and communications research. Their 1972 study was finally published as a book five years later and sharply criticized in a Journalism Quarterly book review. Understanding the first decade offers important insight into how this idea developed and the resilience and confidence the authors showed in their work despite the challenges.

Author: Kaelyn L. Hannah, Graduate Student, Elliott School of Communication, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, United States

Title: Too Loud for a Lady: Anna E. Dickinson and the Politics of Madness

Abstract: This study examines the forced institutionalization of Civil War Era orator Anna E. Dickinson and how 19th century media narratives shaped her public downfall. Using historical analysis of newspapers, legal records, and personal correspondence from 1891-1893, the research reveals how powerful women were silenced for defying gender norms. Once respected as a national heroine, Dickinson was later framed as delusional and unstable, a portrayal driven by sensationalist headlines and uncritical reporting. The media not only justified her confinement at Danville State Hospital for the Insane, but erased her legacy, portraying her dissent and poverty as madness. Drawing on the concept of institutional gaslighting and gendered media framing, this paper argues Dickinson’s treatment reflected cultural discomfort with outspoken women. Her legal fight to reclaim her voice highlights the long-lasting impact of media misrepresentation and the societal tendency to punish defiant women.

Award: Maurine Beasley Award for outstanding women’s history research paper

Author: Nicholas Hirshon, Faculty, William Paterson University 

Title: “Gone to Pot”:Newsday’s Framing of Marijuana Use by the 2002 New York Mets

Abstract: Newsday broke a front-page story in 2002 revealing marijuana use by players on the New York Mets. The exclusive coverage, promoted with the headline “Gone to Pot,” included lurid reports of marijuana smuggled into the clubhouse in peanut butter jars and a photograph of pitcher Grant Roberts smoking from a bong. The framing invoked lingering stigma around marijuana and reflected long-standing journalistic instincts to police the morality of athletes held up as role models. But the public reaction revealed more skepticism than outrage. Fans and other journalists—including Newsday’s own columnists—questioned whether marijuana still warranted a scandal. Drawing on period reporting and oral history interviews, this study situates Newsday’s coverage within a century of American marijuana journalism and examines a moment when the drug’s moral framing in sports media began to lose its cultural force.

Author: Paulette D. Kilmer, Ph.D., Emeritus Faculty

Title: “Grimm” Stories: News and “Folk” Tales in the Nineteenth Century Press

Abstract: When Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm read a brief clipping about a disturbing tots’ game, they recalled hearing their mother tell the same story to warn them about the hazards of play. The Grimms added “Children Playing at Slaughtering” to their collection of fairy and folktales (1812/1815). These German historians of language believed the oral tradition of narratives passed from one generation to the next contained the roots of “poesie,” the poetic expressions that universally unite humanity into a linguistic family of meaning and values. They documented motifs that appeared in lore from diverse nations. Later, C.G. Jung, Stith Thompson, and Joseph Campbell also investigated shared paradigms that connect the world in a web of stories. The Grimms’ prolific body of work matters to historians interested in transnational journalism because they offered theoretical perspectives on the osmosis of plot patterns across cultures divided geographically and from one form of popular culture (oral performance) to another (songs and newspaper items).

Author: Timothy Klein, Lecturer, Wenzhou-Kean University

Title: McClure’s Magazine and the Populist Movement

Abstract: In the 1890s, while Populist reformers and anti-Populist conservatives attacked each other in the press, writers for McClure’s Magazine—the premier reform publication of the Progressive Era—largely stayed on the political sidelines and rejected the “unpleasant” struggle for power. Populists and Progressives had similar reform goals, similar opponents, and eventually much of the Populist agenda was assimilated into the Progressive movement of the early 1900s, but in the 1890s the way the two groups of reformers talked about the issues facing the nation were strikingly different. This article examines this fracture among Gilded Age reformers by analyzing the way McClure’s Magazine wrote about reform and politics during the Populist movement. While McClure’s has been given a leading role in the Progressive Era, little is known about how this premier Progressive publication wrote about the Populists and reformer in the decade before the Progressive era. The way McClure’s journalists wrote about the Populists gives us clues as to why Populists and Progressives were fierce opponents instead of allies for reform in the 1890s. 

Author: Anna E. Lindner, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Communication & Media, Nazareth University

Title: A Microtextual Approach: Theories and Methods for Studying Enslavement and Colonialism in Communication, Media, and Journalism History

Abstract: This paper details the microtextual framework that I developed from theories and methods from history, communication, media studies, cultural studies, and linguistics. With the aim of critically examining distortive discourses, I first address researcher positionality; the difficulties posed by translating across languages; and the discursive violence against racialized and gendered bodies contained in archival materials preserved by and for colonial regimes. I then demonstrate the utility of the microtextual approach by applying it to examples from my dissertation on colonial discourses on Black rebellion in mid-nineteenth-century Cuba. Informed by historical inquiry, literary approaches, and rhetorical analysis, this framework is particularly helpful for media, communication, and journalism historians who want to center Black, Indigenous, and other dispossessed groups in their scholarship but are only able to find colonial, imperial, and otherwise problematic archival materials as evidence, and therefore need a model for dissecting, understanding, and challenging distortive discourses.

Award: Jean Palmegiano Award for outstanding transnational journalism research paper

Author: Thérèse L. Lueck, Ph.D., Professor Emerita, The University of Akron

Title: An Essay on the Enfranchisement of American Women: Considering the Journalistic Context

Abstract: Enfranchising American women was a cultural milestone, yet despite signaling women’s advancement into the public sphere, the unceremonious federal enactment reified the traditional status of women. How the story of American woman suffrage was told, received, and remembered has cultural implications that reach far beyond 1920. Press coverage from the final state ratification on August 18 to the federal enactment of August 26 exerted a significant impact on cultural history. This essay explores press culture to identify the power of the news construction that provided the context into which the proclamation of the 19th Amendment was delivered. The view through the prism of history reveals that a dialogue not conducive to disrupting the power dynamic of culture provided context for an enactment that preserved the status quo. It further suggests the event as a significant piece of a pattern of disruption and suppression that resonates more than a century later.

Runner up: Maurine Beasley Award for outstanding women’s history research paper

Author: Joel Moroney, Ph.D. Student, University of Tennessee, and Lori Amber Roessner, Faculty, University of Tennessee

Title: That Textbook Needs a Rewrite: Exploring the Treatment of Investigative Reporting in Journalism History Textbooks

Abstract: Considering the critiques of Carey, Schudson, and Nerone, this manuscript examines a corpus of twelve journalism and media history textbooks written over the last century to gain insight into how they treated investigative journalism, also known as detective reporting, watchdog journalism, reform journalism, and muckraking. Drawing upon discourse analysis, the co-authors identified the following three themes— the content of the form, which considered the overdetermination of treatment by textbook authorship, structure/form and historic moment; toward a troubleshooting manual, which considered how textbook authors have tended to mythologize and oversimplify a handful of moments of investigative journalism; and rewriting our history, which considered how women and people of color have been written into more recent histories and how textbook authors have struggled to offer stories of the past that inform our present moment.

Author: Paul Myers, PhD Student, University of Missouri, and Lisa M. Parcell, PhD, Faculty, Wichita State University

Title: A service to the public: Radio’s early efforts at educational programming

Abstract: Throughout the 1920s and into the early 1930s, the public disagreed as to whether radio should be for profit, with sponsors and advertising supporting mostly entertainment programming, or as a public good, supported by the government and designed to uplift the public through educational, enlightening, or cultural programming. Radio was an ongoing experiment, trying to find the right balance between programming people wanted and a funding model they would tolerate. Although entertainment programming was by far the most popular, educational programming in various forms maintained a constant presence as a service to listeners. Educational programing covered a wide gamut, including weather and market news for farmers, news, university courses, religious programming, children’s shows, and home economics programs. Government agencies funded and created some of these programs, while other programs were created and sponsored by branded products as advertising agencies and companies felt their way through this new media.

Author: Jason Peterson, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, University of South Carolina-Beaufort

Title: Rebel With a Cause: Jimmie Robertson’s Tenure as Editor of The Mississippian, 1961-1962

Abstract: In 1961, Jimmie Robertson defeated Billy Barton in the election for the editorship of The Mississippian, the student newspaper at the University of Mississippi. After being misidentified as a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Barton endured a nine-month long smear campaign by the state Sovereignty Commission to prevent the suspected integrationist from becoming editor of the paper. While successfully ostracizing Barton, it was Robertson who emerged as an ideological antagonist within Mississippi’s segregationist borders. A pupil of Hodding Carter, Jr. of the Delta Democrat-Times, Robertson would go on to use his editorial platform to advocate for the elimination of the state’s unwritten law prohibiting collegiate teams from participating in integrated competition, attack the practices of the Sovereignty Commission, and lead the student newspaper’s coverage of the attempted integration of the university by James Meredith. While the student editor never used civil rights or integration as justification for his positions, Robertson was subjected to unrelenting ridicule from state politicians, columnist Tom Ethridge of the Clarion-Ledger, and the Rebel Underground, an anonymous newsletter funded by the Citizens’ Council. This paper examines Robertson’s editorship of The Mississippian during the 1961-1962 academic year. While few journalists spoke out against the Closed Society, Robertson’s bold commentary made the Ole Miss student one of the more progressive journalistic voices in the Magnolia State, professional or otherwise.

Runner-up: David Sloan Award for outstanding faculty research paper

Author: Teresa Puente, Assistant Professor, California State University, Long Beach

Title: Paving the Way for Latinos in the Media

Abstract: The California Chicano News Media Association (CCNMA) was founded in 1972 in Los Angeles at a time when Latinos and other underrepresented communities were advocating for their civil rights. This is the oldest regional organization of journalists of color in the United States and their programs and conferences paved the way for more Latinos entering the journalism profession. At the time it was founded, Latinos were less than one percent of journalists in the United States. Their early mission was to raise scholarship money for journalism students. It would evolve to bring more Latinos into the journalism profession with job fairs and job banks and to foster their professional development. It also has advocated to improve news media portrayals of Latinos. Its board members were instrumental in the creation in 1984 of the first national professional association for Latino journalists called The National of Association of Hispanic Journalists.

Author: Felecia Jones Ross, Faculty, The Ohio State University

Title: The Attempted Rescue of Ensign Jesse L. Brown: A Model of Interracial Cooperation During the Korean War

Abstract: This research compares Black and mainstream newspaper coverage of white Lt. Thomas J. Hudner’s failed attempt to rescue Ens. Jesse L. Brown, the first Black naval aviator, who had crash landed in enemy territory during the Korean War. Hudner would receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for his efforts. The 2022 movie, Devotion, portrayed this act of interracial camaraderie that had occurred during the first war in which troops were desegregated. The study found that Black newspapers covered Brown’s career from the moment of his commission, his death and his posthumous honors. Mainstream newspapers tended to give attention to Brown and the rescue attempt upon the announcement of Hudner’s selection for the medal of honor and in their coverage of ceremonies honoring Brown decades later. This research highlights the historic role the Black press has held in recording the achievement of Blacks in real time.

Award: J. William Snorgrass Award for outstanding minority-journalism research paper

Author: Rich Shumate, Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Title: Taking It to the Screen: How JFK’s Live TV Press Conferences Created A New Paradigm for the Bully Pulpit

Abstract: This paper examines how President John F. Kennedy took the presidential bully pulpit into the modern age with regular, live, televised press conferences during his time in office from 1961 to 1963, a strategy based on his perceived mastery of a new and powerful communications medium and a belief that putting him front and center could bolster his political standing and advance his policy goals. The paper explores how Kennedy used the televised encounters with reporters to respond to events, offer explanations to the public, build support for legislative initiatives, make issues salient, speak to international audiences, and portray himself as a statesman. It also examines how his televised press conferences contributed to the increasing centralization of power in the American presidency.

Award: David Sloan Award for outstanding faculty research paper

Author: Lisa Gibbs, Graduate Student, University of West Florida, and Willie R. Tubbs, Associate Professor, University of West Florida

Title: To Victor goes the Myth: Japanese and American Contextualizations of Pearl Harbor

Abstract: This research paper explores 20th-century Japanese and American narratives surrounding the attack on Pearl Harbor and analyzes the role public relations and mass media played in helping the people of both nations contextualize the event in both real-time and popular memory. Using oral histories from people who experienced Pearl Harbor through mass media, the study compares two narratives while offering insight into the effects of various forms of communication and psychological phenomena, such as self-serving justification, that cause discrepancies in war-related narratives.  Evidence suggests that, while both peoples accepted popular narratives as fault-free during the war years, Japanese narratives tended to be more nuanced and less trusting of government sources in retrospect.

Author: Pamela E. Walck, Faculty, Duquesne University

Title: Julia B. Jones: The Courier’s ‘First Lady of Journalism’

Abstract: Debutant dances, bridge parties, romantic getaways. These were not the breaking news stories that paperboys could shout out headlines for on the smokey street corners of Pittsburgh. Nor did such stories win its author esteemed journalism awards. But the content—largely published on the Women’s Pages of the Pittsburgh Courier—did make Julia B. Jones a national name in Black households across the United States while driving subscriptions that pushed the weekly’s circulation past its competitors by the mid-twentieth century. This examination of Jones’s news work not only fills gaps in the historic record beyond “the big names” in African American journalism but also reveals the meaningful content the Courier’s Women’s Pages contained on a weekly basis. Jones’s columns, written with a frankness that challenged the mores of the day, propelled her into becoming the Courier’s first female city editor and ultimately the First Lady of Journalism.

Runner-up: J. William Snorgrass Award for outstanding minority-journalism research

Author: Ashley Walter, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Saint Louis University

Title: The Reluctant and the Excluded: How 1970s Print Sex Discrimination Lawsuits Fostered Solidary, Tensions, and Fragmentation Inside U.S. Newsrooms

Abstract: Beginning in 1970, women sued for equal rights at the Washington Post, Associated Press (AP), New York Times, New Haven Journal-Courier, Detroit News, Reader’s Digest, Time, Life, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, and Newsweek. The suits settled of court and resulted in the hiring and promotion of more women. Solidarity—or the lack of it—played a major factor in why some people did not become involved in sex discrimination suits throughout the 70s and 80s. As a result, a lack of solidarity stymied diversity efforts across the journalism industry. But the fragmentation came from different avenues: those who were reluctant to join and those who were altogether excluded. This paper examines how women of different classes, ages, and races converged and diverged to form large coalitions to fights against discrimination in some of the largest newsrooms in the United States by relying on oral histories, legal documents, memoirs, and newspaper articles.

Author: Ken J. Ward, Faculty, Pittsburg State University

Title: Mapping a Movement: Imagining the Socialist Community of the Appeal to Reason

Abstract: The Appeal to Reason was a socialist newspaper published from the small, isolated town of Girard, Kansas, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One of the most influential alternate newspapers in American history, the Appeal had hundreds of thousands of subscribers and was read by many more. This project seeks to understand the socialist world defined within its pages—the places that comprise that world and their characterizations. Using the lens of Benedict Anderson’s “imagined community,” this research applies a mixed-methods approach that combines quantitative and qualitative methods to bring together geospatial data and narrative historical analysis. The result is a unique understanding of the reality presented by the Appeal to its readers. This project offers suggestions to other media historians on the utility of both Anderson’s concept of imagined community as well as geospatial analysis in their research.

Panels

Title: The Journalist as Advocate: A Tradition, Not a Transgression

Moderator: Aaron Atkins, Assistant Professor, Weber State University                                

Abstract: Advocacy journalism is often viewed with skepticism in mainstream discourse, framed as

incompatible with journalism norms of neutrality. This presentation challenges that assumption,

arguing that advocacy and information are not mutually exclusive but are coexisting functions

that have long defined journalism’s role in society. Far from being a deviation, advocacy

journalism is a vital and recurring thread in a proactive media landscape. Drawing on three case

studies—Radical American magazine’s use of historical narrative to support labor reform,

People’s Songs Bulletin’s integration of music and journalism as tools for social advocacy, and

the contemporary revival of the Black press’s historical role in amplifying marginalized voices

during episodes of racial violence—this panel traces how advocacy journalism has consistently

emerged at pivotal moments of social and political transformation. These examples show how

journalists have used their platforms not only to inform the public but also to challenge power

structures and promote social change.

     By exploring both traditional and alternative media spaces where advocacy journalism

appears, this presentation underscores its historical continuity and ongoing relevance. As its

appears, this presentation underscores its historical continuity and ongoing relevance. As its

forms evolve alongside media technologies and cultural contexts, its core mission endures: to

inform, engage, and advocate. Rather than being an exception, advocacy journalism is a

foundational practice that reflects journalism’s deeper commitments to truth, justice, and civic

responsibility.

Panelists:

 This presentation will explore how Radical American magazine used history for advocacy, especially for labor reform.

This presentation will survey several articles from The People’s Songs Bulletin as an example of the intersection of music, journalism and advocacy.

This presentation reframes advocacy not as a departure from journalistic principles but as a foundational element of journalism’s public mission.

Title: A Journal Process Primer to Honor the Memory of Pam Parry

Moderator: Dianne Bragg, The University of Alabama

Abstract: This panel originated as an idea to honor Pam Parry’s work with AJHA and as a recent editor of the AEJMC History Division publication, Journalism History. Pam’s devotion to journalism history and her desire to always “get it right” made working with her an experience where authors, reviewers, and co-editors felt supported and encouraged. Even so, Pam (like all editors) faced challenges, some of which came about because many did not understand the hurdles the editorial staff often encountered. This panel hopes to offer guidance and direction to help those planning to either submit their work to a journal or to review for one. Anyone who worked with Pam knows how her attention to detail dovetailed with her desire to produce work that was worthy of our field. We hope this panel will encourage others to submit their work to journals and to also to be of service to them.  

Panelists:

• Amber Roessner, Current editor of American Journalism and University of Tennessee Faculty 

Roessner will discuss the vision of this journal, the role of the advisory committee and editorial team, the review process and how it develops and implements special issue calls.

• Debra Reddin van Tuyll, editor -in-chief of the Southeastern Review of Journalism History and Professor Emerita from Augusta University. 

Reddin van Tuyll will explain the journal’s publishing mission to encourage students to get involved in research. She will also cover how reviewers can better understand what kind of criteria should be used for student work.

• Cristina Mislan, associate editor of Journalism History and faculty at the University of Missouri.

Mislan will discuss the journal’s review process and its ongoing focus to encourage more international/transnational and critical/cultural submissions.

• Jennifer Moore, inaugural winner in 2021 of the AEJMC History Division’s Top Review Award and faculty member at the University of Minnesota Duluth. 

Moore will share best practices for reviewing article submissions and offering constructive feedback to help authors prepare their work for conference presentations or the journal editorial process. 

Title: Free Speech on the Frontlines: Examining the Foundations for Fairness

Moderator: Dianne Bragg, University of Alabama

Abstract: This panel will examine the historical roots of today’s free speech rights, as they pertain to

students, the press, and libraries. Today’s free speech landscape in the United States is fraught

with ambiguity and is facing an onslaught of attacks. This panel will examine how free speech

rights have developed in these areas and what challenges are likely to lie ahead.

Panelists: 

• A.J. Bauer, University of Alabama Faculty                                          

Bauer will discuss how the Fairness Doctrine, a mid-20th Century federal broadcast regulation, set broader political discourse including expectation of balance and marketplace notions of freedom of expression.

• Emily Erickson faculty at California State University, Fullerton                                         

Erickson will discuss the Supreme Court’s student speech cases and their stunning failure to address the pressing issues educators have faced since the earliest days of the internet.

• John Szabo, City Librarian, Los Angeles Public Library 

Szabo will discuss the challenges to intellectual freedom that libraries and librarians across the country are facing such as book banning and digital equity.

Title: Guardians of Our History: Tactics Historians Can Use to Safeguard and Preserve the Untold Stories of Our Past

Moderator: Pamela Walck, Associate Professor, Duquesne University

Abstract: In an era where the historic contributions of women, people of color and the LGBTQ+

community are literally being erased from federal and state websites in the name of

counterattacking “wokeness,” what are tangible steps historians can take to preserve and protect

the stories of people who have made an indelible impact on journalism and media history? This

panel will explore ways members of the AJHA community are safeguarding these stories for

future generations—both in their research and in the classroom. This discussion will also

challenge fellow scholars to consider ways they can become guardians of their own history by

considering ways to preserve their own research for future generations.

Panelists:

• Ashley Walter, Assistant Professor at St. Louis University

Beyond the Traditional Archive: Researching Women’s Lives When Records Are Silent.

• Chelsea Reynolds, Associate Professor at Arizona State University

History Happening Now: The Symbolic Annihilation of the Queer Internet (algorithmic censorship)

• Mike Conway, Indiana University-Bloomfield, Professor

"Get Your Own Damn Coffee:” Preserving the Legacy of Marilyn Schultz, the woman who took on NBC and won.

• Marquita Smith, Associate Professor at the University of Mississippi.

Footnotes No More: Resurrecting Black Women’s Media Histories from the Margins.

Title: The Presidency and the Press

Moderator: Christina Littlefield, Associate Professor of Communication and Religion, Pepperdine University, 

Abstract: Donald J. Trump’s second administration has ramped up his first administration’s

already unprecedented efforts to ostracize the mainstream press and amplify the news

organizations that aided his agenda, including banning the Associated Press, taking

over the White House Press Pool, and suing news organizations he doesn’t like.

However, U.S. presidents have always had a tense give-and-take with the press and

utilized the media for their own ends. This panel will consider this history across three

presidents spanning four decades to place the Trump administration’s attacks in greater

historical context. Each panelist has recently published a book-length project related to

the presidency and the press.

Panelists:

• Thomas A. Mascaro, Professor Emeritus, Bowling Green State University

Mascaro will review recently released primary documents that reveal the depth of anti-media resentment within the Nixon administration, as well as attacks on public institutions, including academe.

• Diane Winston,  Knight Chair in Media and Religion, University of Southern California,

Winston’s paper will look at key examples of how Reagan used the news media to promote political and economic policies in line with conservative evangelicalism.

• Jon Marshall, Associate Professor, Northwestern University

Marshall will review materials in George W. Bush’s presidential archives that show how Bush made a concerted effort to make talk radio hosts feel welcomed at the White House.  

Title: Forging Our Legacies, Navigating the Future: Covering AAPI Communities with Accuracy at the Intersections of Our Histories. 

Moderator: Noah Arceneaux, Professor, San Diego State University

Abstract: The Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) published our book “Intersections:

A Journalistic History of Asian Pacific America” in partnership with UCLA’s Asian

American Studies Center in March 2025. This book was developed out of a need for

more accurate and nuanced representations of Asian American and Pacific Islander

(AAPI) communities, and points to untold narratives of AAPI journalists’ work defining

and covering key moments in history. With “Intersections,” we aim to fill a gap in

curriculum, disrupting and questioning how AAPIs have historically been

misrepresented and marginalized within the dominant narrative since their first arrivals

in the United States.

Panelists   

• Naomi Tacuyan Underwood, AAJA Executive Director
• Leezel Tanglao, Assistant Managing Editor, The Dallas Morning News
• Amy Wang Manning, Senior communications Specialist, Oregon Health & Science University
• Arnold Pan, Editor, UCLA Asian American Studies Center 

Panel Title: Re-Politicizing the Archive: Just One More Assault on Marginalized History?

Moderator: Michael Fuhlhage, Wayne State University

Abstract: Many media historians, particularly those concerned about the history of

identity-based inclusion and exclusion, have focused their research on absences and silences in

the archive and have viewed doing history as an opportunity to acknowledge and document what

was missing, obscured, or unspoken in the record. Those absences and silences usually are

implications of relations of power, such as institutional racism or historical marginalization.

Now, however, we have executive orders mandating the removal of identities and their histories

from museums, websites, libraries, and federally subsidized research. The ideological battles

over archives and who will lead them and fill them with content are no longer subtle or

incidental. The brazenness of the erasure seems to be the point. This raises questions about what happens when we are ordered to un-see and un-know history that is already documented in archives and other public spaces and may even be understood as collective memory. Some of those questions are:

• Do we as historians recalibrate our mission and our purpose to continue doing history

during this period of erasure?

• For historians of the press, which often focuses on the history of the already published

record, do our priorities and methodologies change?

• Will the historical newspapers and archives of the non-white presses become forbidden

history? Will doing this history, previously elevated as an ethical priority, become radical

or outlaw history?

This is a deeply perilous juncture for non-white historians of marginalized presses who now

confront new paradigms of research exclusion. Despite previous celebrations of diversity in

AJHA and elsewhere, many colleagues still struggle to legitimize their research. Too often the

blind review process critiques scholarship about nonwhite journalists as “niche,” requiring authors to demonstrate the relevance of their contributions to a normative canon that positions them as “Other.”

As our discipline confronts the current top-down erasures of history, we must remember that the

history under assault was always provisional. This is true even within academia where dynamics

of power and privilege have continued to delegitimize histories of the nonwhite presses.

Members of this panel, all of whom have published history about marginalized journalism and

institutional racism in the American press, will conduct a roundtable discussion of the current

archival politics and invite the audience to help chart a path forward for AJHA.

Panelists:

• Mellita Garza, University of Illinois

How have paradigms, binaries, and uncritical examinations of media history and journalism created cavities in the archives, that in turn have devalued research related to journalism of marginalized groups?

• Celeste Gonzalez de Bustamente, University of Texas

Gonzales de Bustamente will discuss her work with university libraries and community organizations to support and uplift archives for pedagogical projects and journalism and media research.

• Melissa Greene-Blye, University of Kansas

Greene-Bly will discuss why it is important to support scholarship and efforts aimed at growing the archival record of Native media, specifically Native-led initiatives doing that important work.

• Gwyneth Mellinger, James Madison University

Positing a Black-white binary in journalism activates other paradigms of exclusion and marginalizes the many other presses that are neither black nor white. Must histories of some marginalized journalists minimize others? Do mandated erasures of nonwhite history alter these paradigms?

Title: The Mic Drop: Tracing the History of Black Journalists in Broadcast & Radio

Moderator: Felecia Jones Ross

Abstract: Mass communication and journalism studies researchers tend to focus more on African Americans and their representation within broadcast and print stories (Dixon, 2008; Walker & Boling, 2022). However, a few significant studies identify Black journalists’ roles, practices and values in the field. Broadcast is the largest area where minority journalists are employed (Bramlett-Solomon et al, 2025; Weaver et al., 2019). But Newkirk (2000) and Greenwell (2020) focused on race and television and conducted studies to capture the experiences of African American broadcasters —both in front and behind the airwaves. On and off-air journalists and producers reported they had to push against long standing hegemonic narratives about racial hierarchy, Black inferiority, and stereotypes in television and radio media. This panel uncovers the histories of Black public access television, Black radio and podcasts and the future roles of Black news anchors in the post-racial society.

Since the 1970s, Black American journalists and community members have used public-access cable television to educate, express their culture, and empower their communities. While significant research has documented Black participation in broadcast media, there is still much to discover about how cable television provided new opportunities for media ownership and community programming. This study examines examples of Black community-centered programs produced during the 1980s and ‘90s heyday of public access television. Despite many public access programs fading away, their legacies persist today, as seen in Philadelphia, where Black journalists utilize digitized media infrastructure to foster civic engagement and community news. Understanding these practices reveals the longstanding impact of public access media in empowering Black communities over the past fifty years.

Panelists:

• Antoine Haywood, Assistant Professor, University of Florida

This research discusses legacies of Black public-access cable television.

• Robin Sundaramoorthy, Assistant Professor, Lehigh University

This research compiles and presents comprehensive Black radio ownership data from 1968-1978, data that sheds new light on this pivotal period when new broadcast policy measures drastically changed the radio landscape.

• Ivy Lyons, Graduate Student, University of Maryland

This research focuses on three feminist podcasts providing audiences with nuanced views of political issues that hosts and producers regard as especially relevant to Black queer people and Black feminist women.

• Denetra Walker, Assistant Professor, University of Georgia

Discusses the histories of Black television journalists including Max Robinson, Gwen Ifill and Lester Holt. This work helps to capture how their stories and experiences are essential to the foundation of journalism, past and present.

Title: American Journalism panel: Media History that Speaks Back in Moments of Crisis

Moderator: Rachel Grant, Associate Professor, University of Florida 

Abstract: Journalism and Media History Matters. It matters now more than ever. We must not only continue to share whole truth[s] about the past, but we must also be willing to speak up in this moment where we find history under attack. We must speak truth to power. We must continue to advocate for history in the curriculum, but we can’t stop there. We must consider ways to reach broader audiences, reach them where they are, with radical context. We must be accessible to be heard. We must be willing to speak back to forces that threaten the people’s history, our First Amendment and academic freedoms, and our democracy. If we don’t speak up and back now, who will? This panel will offer insight into media history that speaks back to industry authorities and political actors in moments of crisis. It will consider how research collectives and histories of the first amendment, legacy media, advocacy journalism, the alternative press, and social justice movements can offer insight into how to speak back to demagogues and to navigate moments of constitutional crises in our democracy. 

Panelists:

• Erin Coyle,  Associate Professor, Arizona State University

This presentation will discuss a few key examples and invite audience participation as to how journalists and journalism educators can defend rights that are essential in a democratic society.

• Kim Gallon, Associate Professor, Brown University

Black Press and the Democratic Imagination: A 200-year History of the Black Press.”

• Kevin Lerner, Chair and Associate Professor, Marist

“Journalism History When Institutions Falter: The Alternative Press during and Ebbing of Confidence in the Media”

• Jane Marcellus, Independent Scholar, Tennessee 

“Political Mimesis as Feminist Strategy: How the National Woman’s Party Pushed Back against Section 213 of the 1932 Federal Economy Act” 

President’s Panel Title: The Press and Politics in an Age of Autocracy

Moderator: Debra Reddin van Tuyll

Panelists: