2024 AJHA abstracts

James Gordon Bennett and His “Fleet of News Boats”

Robert Gibney
Retired professional

Abstract: Frederic Hudson, writing in Journalism in the United States, from 1690 to 1872, omitted a pivotal chapter in the history of American journalism when he recalled the role of the Sandy Hook pilot boats in the New York Herald’s famous “fleet of news boats.”  In 1837, James Gordon Bennett, proprietor and editor of the Herald, seized an unexpected opportunity to recruit those boats in order to break the sixpenny papers’ monopoly on the foreign news.  Hudson marked that coup as the real beginning of the Herald’s career as a great newspaper, but he didn’t tell the story behind it.  He also perpetuated a fiction that Bennett began in 1837 to obscure his moves during his news-boat war with the monopoly papers.  The purpose of this paper is to fill in some of the story behind Bennett’s great coup and uncover Hudson’s little joke.  25 pages, 91 notes

The Dean of Scribes: The poetry of Amsterdam News’s Romeo Dougherty

Brian Carroll, Ph.D.

Professor of Communication, Berry College

Abstract: Black sportswriters of the twenties, thirties, and forties frequently and regularly wrote poetry to season and spice their weekly columns in the Black press. This paper is part of a larger effort to recover the more literary contributions of these Black press writers, beginning with Romeo Dougherty of the Amsterdam News. Not only should the long-time sports and theater writer be celebrated for his poetry, but as a wordsmith of dazzling diversity and uncommon intelligence, Dougherty should be considered an important contributor to and participant in the Harlem Renaissance. Born in St. Thomas, the Virgin Islands, in 1885, Romeo Lionel Dougherty wrote during baseball’s pre-segregation era from his considerable perch at the influential Amsterdam News. For more than twenty-five years, Dougherty served as an editor and writer at the paper, covering and directing coverage both of sports and the performing arts, much of that time also working as an event promoter. Dougherty was also a mentor to another renowned Amsterdam News sportswriter, Dan Burley, with whom Dougherty shared so much in common. A caustic critic of black baseball’s administration but a breathless enthusiast of sporting endeavors, Dougherty’s writing fit the age: colorful, intertextual, and, above all, freshly original. 

Creating Their Own Mass Medium:  Suffragist (and Anti-Suffragist) Postcards

Julie Hedgepeth Williams

Faculty, Samford University

Abstract: In the early 1900s, people in favor of woman suffrage embraced the popular craze of postcards, transforming the cards into an ad hoc type of mass medium, albeit sent person to person rather than distributed to a subscriber list.  Suffrage organizations printed a wide array of postcards, which could be bought inexpensively and then sent for a penny.  This research argues that suffrage postcards not only became a mass medium as judged by sheer numbers sent out with similar messages, but that they also adopted the familiar formats of newspapers of the day – editorial opinion, political cartoons, comics, photographs, and news – into the postcard format.  These abundant postcards were apparently effective, as anti-suffragists answered with many postcards of their own.  Postcards had the advantage of bringing the message directly, so that recipients couldn’t turn past suffrage-related pleas in the newspaper.

The Reality of a Pseudo-Event: Gone With the Wind Premiere, 1939

Award: Robert Lance Award for outstanding student research paper

Alexia Little

PhD student, University of Georgia

Abstract: Answering a call for historical research inclusive of perspectives beyond journalism alone, this study explores press coverage and film studio public relations of the 1939 Gone With the Wind premiere in Atlanta, Georgia, to challenge Daniel Boorstin’s conceptualization of a pseudo-event. Textual analysis illuminates how Atlantans publicized their present and past through an entirely mediated event, one lucrative for outsiders and vitally important to the Southern city in its self-promotion and social, economic, and cultural relations. These real relations, amplified through the visibility of a highly anticipated Hollywood premiere as captured in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer publicity, reflected extant tensions of race and definitions of the South during and after the Civil War, conditions that permeated pre-World War II Atlanta as the city sought its place on the national stage. The premiere illuminated the capacity for material negotiation of social conditions with tangible implications for life in the Jim Crow South, not unreality.

Ireland’s ‘Bloody Sundays' and The Pittsburgh Catholic, 1920 and 1972

Mark Holan
Independent journalist/historian

Abstract: This paper explores how the weekly Pittsburgh Catholic newspaper reported—or ignored—two of the most violent episodes in twentieth century Irish history. The Catholic, and Pittsburgh, had strong ties to Ireland through immigration. Both events—in November 1920 in Dublin, and in January 1972 in Londonderry, Northern Ireland—came to be known as “Bloody Sunday.” This paper examines the Catholic’s news sources, editorial opinions, and efforts to connect events in Ireland to its Pittsburgh readers. For context, it also considers and compares how the city’s secular dailies and other U.S. Catholic press covered both Bloody Sundays. The paper details how the Catholic improved its coverage of the 1972 event but maintained the same robust support for its Irish coreligionists as in 1920. It recommends further research about how the sectarian and secular press covered both periods of unrest in Ireland, as well as contemporary conflicts. 

Suits or Hippies:  The Contrasting Ideology and Communication Techniques of Students for a Democratic Society and the Yippies

Ryan Busillo
Graduate Student, The New School for Social Research

Abstract: This analysis contrasts the communication techniques and ideologies of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Youth International Party (Yippies). Primary source documents, speech transcripts, and prior scholarship were all examined for this research. Each organization employed divergent communication techniques which often put them at odds. SDS often favored speeches, written communication, and protests led by relatively clean cut students. The Yippies were led by counter cultural figures whose protests were aimed at television audiences. This divergence in communication strategy was found to be directly related to the ideology of each respective organization, particularly their theories of change and their target demographics. The wave of student activism which came to prominence in spring 2024 demonstrates the need for more inquiry into the communication techniques used by student and youth movements.

Depictions of Paleontology in Three Major American Newspapers in the 1990s

Eric Boll

PhD Student, Ohio University E.W. Scripps School of Journalism

Abstract: Paleontology experienced a popularity spike in the 1990s with the Jurassic Park films breaking film records and bringing dinosaurs to the forefront of the public consciousness. Paleontology grew rapidly as important specimens were found and improving technology revolutionized the field. This study documents which topics within paleontology the media reported on the most and what news values drove this reporting. Additionally, this study analyzes the occurrence rate of a few common tropes, metaphors and mistakes often associated with paleontology within news articles. This project examines USA Today, The New York Times, and The Associated Press’s coverage of paleontology due to their status as being amongst the largest news organizations and running of wire services. This study applies the revised news values proposed by Harcup and O’Neill to gauge which news values were used when covering paleontology and to determine if these revised news values are applicable to science journalism.

From John Muir to a Sports Editor Turned Natural Resources Reporter:

The Milwaukee Journal As An Unexpected Cradle of American Environmental Journalism

Suzannah Evans Comfort, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, The Media School Indiana University

Abstract: The Milwaukee Journal was the first American newspaper to name an environmental journalist to its ranks in 1956, well before the national environmental movement of the later 1960s. This essay uses archival research to examine how and why the Journal, a newspaper experiencing boom times, and Wisconsin, a rapidly industrializing state with a history of environmental degradation, became a national leader in environmental newsmaking. It demonstrates that a constellation of influences, including political structures, intellectual leadership, and newsroom culture, combined to allow Russell Lynch, the newspaper’s sports editor, to become the country’s first natural resources reporter. 

The Awful and Impressive Example: Wife Beaters and the Whipping Post in American Newspapers, 1904-1906

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

Eduardo Morales

Master’s student, University of Georgia

Abstract: Drawing on feminist theory, this study examines how newspapers covered the use of a whipping post to punish wife beaters in the early 20th century. A discipline favored by President Theodore Roosevelt in his annual address to Congress in 1904, the whipping post was a hot topic of discussion nationwide about ways to stem domestic violence. Employing a thematic analysis of articles from 204 newspapers in 36 states and the District of Columbia, this study identified four themes — women are to blame for what happened, corporal punishment is archaic, wife beaters must be severely punished, and it’s one big joke — in newspapers during a critical time in women’s struggle for equal rights. Journalists were universal in their disgust for wife beaters, but this paper contends the media was more concerned about the sanctity of marriage than the welfare of women, who in many instances were not believed.

Addressing the ‘Error of our Ways’: Metajournalistic Discourse, the Rise of Ombuds, and the Defense of Truth in American Journalism’s Late High-Modern Era (1961-1980)

Amber Roessner, Ph.D

Professor, School of Journalism and Media, University of Tennessee-Knoxville

Brian Creech, Ph.D. (corresponding author)

Professor and Chair, Department of Journalism and Communication, Lehigh University

Abstract: Engagement with and the defense of the truth has long been a part of journalism’s professional culture, where demonstrating the value of truth and explicating the practices involved in the production of truth in various arenas of public discourse are a key aspect of journalism’s professional ethos across its history. This paper considers metajournalistic discourse surrounding the emergence of the omsbud role in American journalism as moment where key ideals around the value of truth and its production were made practicable and intelligible. As the omsbud office became a normalized fixture within the field of journalism, throughout the 20th century, it put into practice key ideas that augment the value of truth: transparency, accountability, and the perspective of the audience. At the same time, we argue, the role embodies the news industry’s capacity to largely regulate and manage itself. 

“My whole perspective had been changed…my life was changed:”

Four American World War II correspondents and MacArthur’s Return to the Philippines

Madeleine Liseblad

Faculty, California State University, Long Beach

Abstract: The World War II academic literature is filled with information about correspondents and battles. However, the bulk is focused on the European Theater and famous names. This research examines the lesser analyzed Pacific Theater and the fate of Clete Roberts with the Blue Network, Asahel “Ace” Bush with the Associated Press, Stanley Gunn with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Houston Chronicle, and John Terry with the Chicago Daily News. All received Purple Hearts, yet academia has largely ignored them. The study centers around Clete Roberts, reaching crescendo with the October 25, 1944 Japanese bombing of Tacloban on Leyte in the Philippines. Roberts survived, but Bush, Gunn, and Terry did not. The study discusses the realities of being a war correspondent in the Pacific Theater, dealing with censorship, filing stories, covering General Douglas MacArthur, and trying to survive in one of the war’s toughest theaters.

“Worst Foot Forward”: The Absence of Stories about Rape During the Vietnam War 

Yasmeen Ebada

PhD student, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

Abstract: Sexual violence against Vietnamese women by American soldiers during the Vietnam War was common practice. Despite its extensive coverage of the war, the New York Times from 1965 –1970, dismissed stories regarding American soldiers’ rape of Vietnamese women and girls. Rape was mentioned rarely in news pieces and mostly as an aside. Even when reporters started to become critical of American involvement in Vietnam, specifically after exposing two events that changed public opinion about the war—the Tet Offensive and the My Lai massacre—that still did not increase journalists’ coverage of stories about rape. Ironically, the second-wave feminism movement did not push female journalists to write about rape either. Additionally, this research suggests that perhaps rape was not an important part of the Vietnam War story because feminists did not pay attention to addressing and criminalizing rape of women in conflict until the 1990s.  

“A Different Type of Woman”: A History of Fundamentalist Baptist Women’s Magazine Christian Womanhood, 1974-2022

Karlin Andersen Tuttle
Adjunct instructor, Penn State

Abstract: Christian Womanhood launched in 1975 as a monthly newspaper published by and for women in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) movement. Editor Marlene Evans started the publication to inform and encourage women abiding by the IFB’s litany of deeply conservative beliefs and rules. While never surpassing 10,000 subscribers, Christian Womanhood was published by one of the largest megachurches in the United States in the late twentieth century, the First Baptist Church of Hammond in Indiana. This previously untold history is supported by a close reading of 382 issues of Christian Womanhood, an oral history interview with its current editor, and supplemental publications by First Baptist staff members. This project explores the paradox Christian Womanhood created as a space for women to voice their hopes, concerns, and questions while uplifting the IFB’s patriarchal and restrictive teachings. Ultimately, this history contributes to a larger understanding of alternative women’s magazines published in the late twentieth century.

White Press, Black Church: Colorblind Rhetoric, Alternative Media, and the 1968 Summer of Crisis in Churches of Christ

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

Paul A. Anthony

Ph.D. candidate, American Religious History at Florida State University

Abstract:In 1968, Churches of Christ underwent a convulsive debate about race relations within the predominantly Southern conservative movement. Then, just as quickly as it had begun, the debate quieted, and the group largely returned to the status quo. This paper shows how the rise of alternative media briefly forced establishment editors and publishers into a debate they had long forestalled. More specifically, it describes the events that roiled Churches of Christ in 1968 and how they were reported by both traditional and alternative media within the movement: the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and famed preacher Marshall Keeble, two race relations workshops, and unusually frank discussions of race from younger activists both White and Black. But this paper also shows how White conservative “editor-bishops” responded with spiritualized individual colorblind rhetoric that reflected and anticipated similar strategies within Southern politics and American evangelicalism more broadly. 

Soft News, Commercialism, and Faith: Religion in Pathé and Paramount Newsreels, 1920-1957

Award: David Sloan Award for outstanding faculty research paper 

John P. Ferré 

Faculty, University of Louisville

Abstract: This paper explores how newsreels, the primary medium for using moving pictures to report news before television reached the majority of American households, presented religion to US film audiences. Using the online Sherman Grinberg Film Library of Pathé and Paramount newsreels, this study examines 477 newsreels about religion from 1920 until 1957, by which time most movie theater newsreels had been replaced by television news. Understanding that their goal was to entertain rather than provoke, Pathé and Paramount made newsreels about religion that informed moviegoers without stirring controversy. Pathé and Paramount presented religion that they thought that moviegoers wanted to see: soft news items from America and western Europe that featured the good activities of white, male Protestants. Religion in newsreels provided moviegoers with soothing soft news designed to perform the priestly function of commercialism without venturing into prophetic struggles of dynamic faith.

Rebel in a Chinatown: the legacy of Yellow Seeds and their newspaper in Philadelphia’s Chinatown 

Darren Chan
PhD Student, Klein College of Media and Communication Temple University

Abstract: Influenced by the events on their school campuses and across the country, Yellow Seeds was founded in Philadelphia as a progressive student organization, and the group played an important role during the Save Chinatown movement. Despite being active for less than a decade, Yellow Seeds produced the only bilingual newspaper for the Chinatown community in the 1970s. The self-titled publication not only helped promote Yellow Seeds’ effort in community outreach, but it also offered a more nuanced picture of the power dynamics in Chinatown during that period. Using Yellow Seeds as an example, this paper argues for the value of ethnic dissident press as a tool to present a comprehensive picture of the community it serves. Looking at the entire known publication of Yellow Seeds, this paper discusses how its coverage and position have reflected the issues within the community, including the fight to save community spaces, the presence of multiple neglected groups, and the uneasy relationship between Yellow Seeds and other community institutions. 

Missed Opportunities: Military Publications, Public Information, and the Vietnam-Era Service of Bob Kalsu and Rocky Bleier

Award: Wally Eberhard Award for best historical research paper on media and war 

By Willie R. Tubbs

Associate Professor of Communication, University of West Florida

Abstract: Although the Vietnam War is correctly remembered as one during which the bulk of celebrities and well-known athletes did not serve and, in some cases, became the most outspoken critics of America’s involvement in the Indo-Pacific, there were notable exceptions. Pittsburgh Steeler legend Rocky Bleier sustained a significant injury in battle and Bob Kalsu, the rookie of the year for the lowly 1968 Buffalo Bills, became the only active professional athlete killed in action during that or any American war from 1970-2004. This paper examines the extent to which military and civilian presses covered the training and service of professional athletes during the Vietnam War. The argues a comparative lack of coverage was attributable to the secretive way leaders sought to engage in the war, the distinct cultural landscape of the Vietnam era, and the speed at which recruits were sent to war. 

The journalistic creed upon decolonization: The case of The Palestine Post

Award: Jean Palmegiano Award for outstanding transnational journalism research paper

Gilad Halpern

PhD student, Department of Communication, University of Haifa

Abstract: A central mission of modern journalism is to hold power to account. To what changes and alterations is this mission subjected when the nature of power changes radically? Such change is constituted upon decolonization, with the transition from imperial rule to national sovereignty. This article takes for a case study The Palestine Post newspaper upon the transition from the British Mandate of Palestine to Israeli statehood, in 1948. The Palestine Post, an English-language daily, was set up with the explicit aim to promote a Zionist agenda among British decision-makers. When the goal was met and a Jewish state was formed, the paper had to reevaluate its professional course and its relationship with the new regime that was, this time, its own. Using archival material and published content, this article looks at the internal debate that ensued among the paper's editorial staff, and the different directions in which this moment of reckoning played out on the paper's pages.    

Seventeen Magazine, 1990-2010: Constructions of Teenage Girlhood in the Third Wave and Postfeminist Eras 

Margarita Artoglou

Graduate Student, Temple University 

Abstract: Though the 1990s ushered in the third wave of feminism, the era also saw the response of a postfeminist sensibility that, scholars argue, can be seen within the media texts of the time aimed at women. This paper explores Seventeen magazine between 1990 and 2010 to interrogate its content to see whether postfeminist messages can be found within its pages. I argue that in the 1990s, Seventeen’s editorial content did much more to support the inner lives of teenage girls than did its later issues in the 2000s, challenging the notion that mainstream 1990s female-centric media was hegemonic in their postfeminist attitudes. In this paper, I identify examples of feminist messages in issues of Seventeen in the 1990s, as well as trace the later emergence of postfeminist attitudes in late 2000s-era Seventeen in the context of the magazine’s acquisition by Hearst and changing editorial goals. 

“Sepia Queen of Ice”: News Coverage of Pioneering Black Ice Skater Mabel Fairbanks

Carolina Velloso
Faculty, Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

Robin Mazyck Sundaramoorthy
Student, Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

Abstract: Mabel Fairbanks, who skated professionally in the 1940s and 1950s, is considered a trailblazing figure for mastering a sport that was expensive to learn and not welcoming to people of color. Of African American and Indigenous descent, Fairbanks faced racism throughout her career and was barred from official skating events and competitions and from trying out for the U.S. Olympic team. Despite her status as a pioneer, Fairbanks has not gained widespread recognition. Had it not been for the Black press, Fairbanks might have been forgotten completely. This paper uses a rich collection of archival materials to reconstruct Fairbanks’s life and career, focusing on the news coverage she received from the Black press. It illuminates the central themes of this coverage, namely criticism of her lack of opportunities and comparisons to both White figure skaters and other Black athletes, to underscore her contributions to the sport of figure skating.

Amplifying Agnew: How Outside Groups Strengthened the Vice President’s Attacks on Journalism

Thomas A. Mascaro

Professor Emeritus, Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

Abstract: The 1969 speeches by Vice President Spiro T. Agnew that vilified journalists have been well covered in the literature. This paper delves into the history of organizations and groups outside the White House that strengthened Agnew’s criticisms, including, surprisingly, academe. It addresses academic responses to Agnew’s speeches, how the Nixon administration monitored aspects of the anti-Vietnam War movement, creation of the Vanderbilt Television News Archive to prove “liberal bias,” and how Accuracy In Media (AIM) established criteria for what anticommunists and conservatives deemed “news.” The paper concludes with a statement about the hypocrisy of the Nixon-Agnew administration going after journalism in light of Nixon’s efforts to scuttle LBJ’s peace initiative of 1968.

What Civil Rights Acts? The Times-Picayune’s Strategic Editorial Silence on the Signing of the Monumental Federal Bills 

Bala James Baptiste, Ph.D.

Professor of Mass Communication, Miles College

The Times-Picayune, founded in 1837, supported slavery, negative stereotypes of black people, and racial segregation. While the newspaper published news articles concerning the five Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts enacted between 1957 and 1968, it practiced strategic editorial silence, the intentional omission of commentary on an issue of importance. The paper did not publish an editorial concerning the new federal law and how the legislation might affect New Orleanians. Among reasons a newspaper enacted editorial silence included concealing the editors’ opinion or avoiding potential retribution, among others. Notwithstanding, the newspaper failed to provide readers with guidance, background, or analysis.

Gay News, Straight Facts: How the Alabama Forum Covered HIV Tests during the AIDS Crisis (1981-1993)

Connor Todd
Journalism MA Student, University of Alabama

Abstract: During the AIDS crisis, The Alabama Forum, the state’s longest running LGBT newspaper, acted as a watchdog against the misuse of HTLV-III HIV tests, breach of informed consent standards, and what it deemed inhumane segregation of Alabama prisoners who tested positive for HIV antibodies. Its position at centers of gay life across Alabama like gay-owned businesses, bars, and civic organizations made it uniquely suited to keep LGBT Alabamans aware of their rights.  As an activist publication with limited resources, The Forum oftendid not adhere to journalistic standards of source attribution, independence, and impartiality. Although The Forum took a strong editorial stance against HTLV-III testing, it showed journalistic integrity by advising readers on how and where to be safely and anonymously tested. It took strong editorial stances and relied on a network of gay civil liberties organizations for much of its content, which meant that The Forum was beholden to the narratives of the organizations supplying it copy. The Forum reported on several important pieces of HIV testing legislation that limited the rights of Alabamans, but it failed to see them to their conclusions. Had it done so, it may have influenced them, or otherwise acted as a catalyst for greater media attention. Despite its shortcomings, The Alabama Forum was a vital resource for LGBT Alabamans seeking about AIDS legislation in Alabama. It fostered the growth of Gay identity in Alabama, and likely saved countless lives through its AIDS reporting. 

Field of Protests and Politics: How the Women of the Negro Leagues Infuse Uniform Style into Baseball

Lisa D. Lenoir, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Indiana University Bloomington, The Media School

Abstract: The purpose of this essay explores the ways the Black press featured the stories of the Negro League players and their style, which serves as a point of protest and politics. Of particular interest will be of three women who played in the 1950s—Toni Stone, Mamie “Peanut” Johnson, and Connie Morgan and their coverage in The Indianapolis Recorder and Pittsburgh Courier. These players challenge the hypermasculine space of a gender-neutral, child’s game and disrupt hegemonic norms of femininity. Their style, demonstrated through their athleticism and attire, speaks to how Black women sought to use these sartorial tools to demonstrate their inclusion in an American cultural pastime. A multimodal textual analysis of newspapers archives reveals the ways the Black press participated in gendering woman players, backgrounding their athleticism, and foregrounding their appearances. The three players tried to counter these depictions and used their image and skills to overshadow biased characterizations. 

The Journalism of Theodore Roosevelt and the Populists

Timothy Vest Klein

Professor, Wenzhou-Kean University

Abstract: Whether Populism and Progressivism were compatible or antagonistic depended on whether their shared policy goals, or their separate group identities were salient—on this question, journalism and political communication played a critical role in focusing the reformers’ attention. This article attempts to understand why Theodore Roosevelt, the leader of the Progressives, clashed with rural Populists in the 1890s. Roosevelt’s journalism and politics exemplified the broader Progressive impulse of pragmatic professionalism. Roosevelt—like many other Progressives—believed that the “best people” or highly educated experts from elite families should rule. This view him at odds with the grassroots Populist movement. The article also shows how Roosevelt’s style of political rhetoric, and his career-long critique of sensational journalism that inflamed public opinion, clashed with the Populists’ political rhetoric.

Propaganda for the Cure: United States San Mags at the End of the Sanatorium Era

Ross F. Collins

Faculty, North Dakota State University, Fargo

Abstract: Publications that address matters of public health may flow from a variety of sources. Seldom are they produced by patients themselves. An exception is the production of tuberculosis sanatorium magazines during the first half of the twentieth century. This research relies on primary sources to evaluate the content of two of the largest sanatorium magazines in the United States at the end of the sanatorium era. The research concludes that those who produced the magazines tried to manage the two common emotions of long-term patients, despair and hope. Editors also tried to reach beyond the facilities in an attempt to counter the stigma of tuberculosis and promote better health practices. Most sanatorium magazines, as well as the institutions themselves, came to an end with the discovery of a multidrug treatment that could cure the disease. In 2022, however, tuberculosis worldwide was still the most common infectious killer after COVID-19.

The 1986 Mass Resignation of Journalists in Spanish-Language TV News: Revisiting the SIN Mutiny and the Triumph Journalists Claimed

Craig Allen

Associate Professor, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State University

Abstract: Despite unrest in newsrooms that identified journalism in 2020s, little is known about the conditions that occasion newsroom protest and whether protesting journalists succeed.  In the fall of 1986, management’s firing of a news division president that triggered the resignations of thirty-three network news personnel debilitated the Spanish-language network Univision, then known as the Spanish International Network (SIN).  It likely was largest the mass resignation ever to occur in a U.S. newsroom.  Archive documents and the recollections of participants enable the first detailed account of the SIN mutiny.  The news director was fired for protesting management’s decision to convert SIN News into a propaganda vehicle for the Mexican government.  The resignations forced management to reverse its decision and rescind outside takeover of the SIN newsroom.  Review of the episode suggests that to wage successful protest journalists must meet three conditions: a clear issue, a victimized journalist who others can rally around, and an expectation of continued employment.

The Manzanar Free Press: Managed Democracy

River Gracey

Doctoral Student, Grady College of Mass Communication and Journalism, University of Georgia

Abstract: The Second World War consisted of the most destructive and unthinkable acts capable of human civilization. The most often remembered acts of hostility come from countries like Germany with the holocaust, and Japan with their war crimes against countries like China. While the allied powers were no doubt fighting against a moral evil, it did not stop them in their own acts of immoral and highly questionable actions. One of those actions, was the treatment and incarceration of people of Japanese Ancestry in the United States. In what was framed as a necessary action during times of wartime, was a decision based on prejudice and wartime hysteria. The WRA would see to the relocation of over 100,000 Japanese Americans in relocation camps all along the western parts of the United States. Those camps would give birth to new communities that had schools, jobs, public goods, and even newspapers. The WRA allowed newspapers to exist in these camps as they thought it would be an effective way to create the image of democracy while their liberties were stripped away. One of the most successful and consistent papers was that in the Manzanar camp. This paper looks to have a closer examination of the Manzanar camp’s newspaper, and how it portrayed many distinct aspects of Japanese American life during the Second World War. 

The First Pages of Southern Queer Liberation

Bella Farris

Graduate student, University of Georgia

Abstract: A narrative analysis of two early Southern queer newspapers, The Barb and Our Own Community Press, revealed four major themes in first-page coverage. Both newspapers were published once a month. A total of 39 pages of The Barb were examined from 1974 to 1977. A total of 35 pages of Our Own Community Press were examined from 1978 to 1980. The analysis revealed themes of national community, Southern community, policy/politics, and church. 

No antidote for Bad Polls: The New York Times’ Commitment to Shoe-Leather Journalism in Reporting the 1956 Presidential Campaign

W. Joseph Campbell, PhD

Professor Emeritus of Communication, American University

Abstract: Exasperated by the failure of pollster forecasts in presidential elections, the New York Times in 1956 sought to assess public opinion in a weeks-long exercise in on-the-ground reporting, or what nowadays would be recognized as “shoe-leather journalism.” A participating reporter declared the undertaking “a new departure in journalism.”

As this paper discusses, the experiment was no rousing success. The Times’ fieldwork failed to capture the magnitude of President Dwight Eisenhower’s reelection in his rematch against Democrat Adlai Stevenson. The Times dispatched teams of reporters to twenty-seven pivotal states and concluded Eisenhower would win in 1956 but not match the sweep of his victory four years earlier. In fact, Eisenhower easily exceeded the dimensions of his 1952 triumph.

The Times’ heretofore forgotten, yet noteworthy, experiment offers a revealing vantagepoint for considering the appeal and limitations of shoe-leather journalism which, in years since 1956, has been suggested an alternative to pre-election polling.

Guarding Against the Miscarriage of Justice: Analyzing Newspaper Coverage 

of the 1954 Marilyn Sheppard Murder Investigation Through the Prism of the 

Social Responsibility Theory, Checking Value, and Watchdog Role of the Press 

Erin K. Coyle

Faculty Member at Temple University

Abstract: In Sheppard v. Maxwell, Justice Tom C. Clark presented newspaper coverage of the 1954 Marilyn Sheppard murder case as massive, inflammatory, and prejudicial. That opinion also recognized a responsibility for the press to scrutinize law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges. Previous publications have highlighted sensational coverage of the 1954 crime and trial. This historical case study makes a significant contribution by exploring what Cleveland newspaper coverage of the first weeks of the investigation reveals about the social responsibility theory, checking value, and watchdog role of the press in 1954. This research found that newspapers monitored, criticized, and reported how government officials investigated the murder. Papers also called for changes in government handling of suburban murder investigations to increase the likelihood for such crimes to be solved. Thus, this study concludes that coverage reflects the social responsibility theory, checking value, and watchdog roles of the press. 

Racial Reckoning at the Guardian: A Newspaper Owns Up to a History of Entanglement with the Slave Trade

Michael Fuhlhage

Faculty, Wayne State University

Lee Wilkins

Faculty, University of Missouri School of Journalism

This paper chronicles the Guardian’s process of investigating its racial past, its apology, and its steps for atoning for its historical misdeeds concerning race and commitment to doing better. It examines 11 articles in the Guardian’s “Cotton Capital” series committed to understanding the paper’s racial past along with an editorial apology. To understand the degree to which the Guardian’s efforts at racial reconciliation and atonement resonated with readers, audience reaction was sought via keyword searches on social media channels and in letters to the editor published by the Guardian.

Black College Football’s Moment – The Story of the Grambling College Football Network

Daniel Marshall Haygood

Professor of Strategic Communications, Elon University

Abstract: During the 1970s, the NCAA had strict limits on the number of college football games that could be broadcast live on Saturdays in order to protect athletic programs’ revenue from reduced game attendance. However, a loophole allowed for delayed highlight programs, often aired on Sunday mornings. Relying on newspaper and magazine articles plus press guides from the Grambling College archives, this research revisits the early-to-mid 1970s when television entrepreneur James C. Hunter and his Black Associated Sports Enterprises produced and distributed Grambling College Football Highlights in television markets throughout the country. The hour-long program showcased HBCU football and even the entertaining halftime performances of the Grambling marching band. A forgotten part of sports broadcasting history, Grambling Football Network’s delayed highlights represented a high point for Black college football, achieving national awareness of the strong quality of play and the outstanding players, a number of which went on to play professionally.