Awards

Go to: Kobre Award | Dissertation Prize | Best American Journalism Article | Book Award
McKerns Grants | Research Paper Awards

National Award for Excellence in Teaching and American Journalism Rising Scholar Award: Tracy Lucht

Tracy Lucht (Iowa State) will receive two awards at the convention.

The National Award for Excellence in Teaching honors a college or university teacher who excels at teaching in the areas of journalism and mass communication history, makes a positive impact on student learning, and offers an outstanding example for other educators. An honorarium of $500 accompanies the prize.

Lucht received the award during the awards luncheon on Thursday, Oct. 8. Read the press release.

AJHA's quarterly academic journal American Journalism presents the Rising Scholar Award to recognize the achievements and potential of an untenured scholar.

Lucht will use the $2,000 research funding for a project entitled "Soloists or Members of the Choir? Professional Networks in the Careers of Midwestern Women Broadcasters."

This year's award is funded by a gift from Stan Cloud in honor of his wife, the late Barbara Cloud, an early member and former president of AJHA.

Lucht received the award during the general business meeting on Saturday, Oct. 10. Read the press release.

Sidney Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement: Mike Sweeney

AJHA's highest honor, the Kobre Award recognizes individuals with an exemplary record of sustained achievement in journalism history through teaching, research, professional activities, or other contributions to the field of journalism history.

This year's Kobre Award recipient is Mike Sweeney (Ohio University).

Sweeney received the award and delivered brief remarks during the awards luncheon on Thursday, Oct. 8. Read the press release.

Margaret A. Blanchard Dissertation Prize: Carrie Teresa

Since 1997, AJHA has presented the Blanchard Prize for the best doctoral dissertation dealing with mass communication history completed during the prior calendar year. Carrie Teresa completed her dissertation, “Looking at the Stars: The Black Press, African American Celebrity Culture, and Critical Citizenship in Early Twentieth Century America, 1895-1935,” at Temple University under the direction of Carolyn Kitch.

The following scholars earned honorable mention for their dissertations:

• Sid Bedingfield (University of South Carolina; director, Kathy Roberts Forde)
• Kevin Lerner (Rutgers University; director, David Greenberg)
• Robert J. Woodruff (University of Maryland; director, Maurine Beasley)

All four award recipients discussed their work in a special session on Friday, Oct. 9. Read the press release.

Best American Journalism Article: Mike Conway

The Best Article Award honors research published in American Journalism within the last year that is original, rigorous, and makes an outstanding contribution to developing scholarship in the field of journalism and mass communication history.

This year's recipient is Mike Conway (Indiana University), for “The Origins of Television’s ‘Anchor Man’: Cronkite, Swayze, and Journalism Boundary Work.”

Conway received the award during the general business meeting on Saturday, Oct. 10. Read the press release.

AJHA Book of the Year Award: Meg Lamme

AJHA's Book of the Year Award recognizes the best book in journalism history or mass media history published during the previous calendar year.

This year's recipient is Margot Opdycke Lamme (University of Alabama) for Public Relations and Religion in American History: Evangelism, Temperance, and Business (Routledge, 2014).

Lamme received the award and discussed her research during a special session on Saturday, Oct. 10. Read the press release.

Joseph McKerns Research Grants

Joseph McKerns Research Grants provide funding of up to $1,250 per person for media history research projects while recognizing and rewarding the winners.

Following are this year's winners, announced during the general business meeting on Oct. 10:

“Curbs on Crime Reporting after Sheppard v. Maxwell: The Free Press-Fair Trial Controversy in 1966 and 1967,”  Erin K. Coyle, Assistant Professor, Louisiana State University

“The Espionage Conviction of Kansas City Editor Jacob Frohwerk: ‘A Clear and Present Danger’ to the United States,” Aimee Edmondson, Associate Professor, Ohio University

“Journalism for Social Justice: A Cultural History of Social Movement Media from ‘Common Sense’ to #occupy,” Linda Lumsden, Associate Professor, University of Arizona

“Birth of a Notion: Journalistic Objectivity and Racial Politics,” Gwyn Mellinger, Associate Professor, Xavier University

Research Paper Awards

During the general business meeting on Oct. 10, the following researchers received awards for their papers presented at the convention in Oklahoma City:

Maurine Beasley Award For the Outstanding Paper on a Women’s History

Winner: Tracy Lucht, Iowa State University, “From Sob Sister to Society Editor: Dorothy Ashby Pownall’s ‘Feel for the Game’ of Journalism”

Runner-up: Ellen Gerl, Ohio University, “Out of the Back Rooms: Physician-Publicist Virginia Apgar Makes Birth Defects a Popular Cause”

J. William Snorgrass Memorial Award for the Outstanding Paper on a Minorities Topic

Winner:  Kim Mangun, University of Utah, “The National Newspaper Publishers Association: Seventy-five Years of Advocacy” 

Runner-up: Sheryl Kennedy, University of Southern Mississippi, “From the Fields into the World: How Women at Bennett College Discussed Race, Politics and Community Building in their Student Run Campus Newspaper from 1931-1939” 

Wally Eberhard Award for the Outstanding Paper on Media and War

Winner: W. Joseph Campbell, American University, “Picture Power? Confronting the Myths of ‘Napalm Girl’”

Runner-up: Steve Holiday, Texas Tech University, and Dale Cressman, Brigham Young University, “The Sacred Circle: Mutualism Between World War II Photojournalists and Photo Editors”

Robert Lance Memorial Award for Top Grad Student Paper

Winner: Nicholas Hirshon, Ohio University, “One More Miracle: The Groundbreaking Media Campaign of John ‘Mets’ Lindsay”

Runner-up: Sheryl Kennedy, University of Southern Mississippi, “From the Fields into the World: How Women at Bennett College Discussed Race”

Runner-up: David Forster, Ohio University, “Horace Greeley and the Bailing of Jefferson Davis”

Runner-up: Tae Ho Lee, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “Radical Reconstructionism in North Carolina, 1869-1871: A Case in the Public Relations History of the University of North Carolina, the Forgotten Ideal of the ‘People’s University’”

Wm. David Sloan Award for Top Faculty Paper

Winner: Tracy Lucht, Iowa State University, “From Sob Sister to Society Editor: Dorothy Ashby Pownall’s ‘Feel for the Game’ of Journalism”

Runner-up: Kim Mangun, University of Utah, “The National Newspaper Publishers Association: Seventy-five Years of Advocacy”

Runner-up: Erika Pribanic-Smith, University of Texas at Arlington, “Political Papers and Presidential Campaigns in the Republic of Texas, 1836-1844”

Runner-up: Cayce Myers, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, “Publicists in U.S. Public Relations History: An Analysis of the Representations of Publicists in the American Press, 1815-1918”