Book of the Year AwardCall for Nominations The American Journalism Historians Association Book of the Year Award recognizes the best books in journalism history or mass media history published during the previous calendar year. For the 2025 award, the book must have been granted a first-time copyright in 2024. Nominated books may be co-authored, and edited collections will be considered. Authors may self-nominate, and we particularly encourage nominations of books by women, LGBTQ+ and BIPOC authors. We welcome books that engage with critical theory as well as books published as narrative nonfiction. However, journalism and media history must be analytically central to the book’s argument, with preference given to studies about nonfiction forms of media. Moreover, authors must show evidence of primary source research based on archival documents and/or ethnographic interviews. AJHA defines “journalism history” as a continuous process, emphasizing but not necessarily confined to subjects of American mass communications. It should be viewed not in the context of perception of the current decade, but as part of a unique, significant, and time-conditioned past. With rare exceptions, we will not consider self-published work. Authors who have self-published books that they strongly believe should be considered should explain why they've chosen this publishing route in their letters. We will only accept one entry per author. A winner and three unranked runners-up will discuss their work at an awards panel at the 2025 American Journalism Historians Association Annual Convention, Sept. 25-27 in Long Beach, California. The winner and runners-up must agree to register for and attend the AJHA conference and present at the panel. To nominate a book for the award, please send a digital copy of the book to Dr. Jane Marcellus at AJHAbookaward@gmail.com no later than Feb. 1, 2025, along with a letter that includes the following statement from the author: “As the author (or editor) of this title nominated for the 2025 AJHA Book Award, I agree that if my book is chosen as a finalist, I will register for the 2025 American Journalism Historians Association Annual Convention Sept. 25-27 in Long Beach, California, attend the conference, and participate in the book award panel.” Digital books will be password protected and available only to committee members. Please put BOOK NOMINATION in caps on the email subject line. Winners will be announced in early summer. Please note that only submissions that follow this process will be accepted. Questions? Contact Book Award Coordinator Dr. Jane Marcellus at AJHAbookaward@gmail.com. |
Aniko Bodroghkozy won the 2024 book award for her book, "Making #Charlottesville: Media from Civil Rights to Unite the Right." Bodroghkozy’ is a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia. Her book explores the resurgence of white supremacy amid the 2017 “Summer of Hate” in Charlottesville, Virginia, by comparing that highly visible event to key moments in the civil rights era. Read about her work and learn about the other finalists here. |
2023 | James West | A House for the Struggle: The Black Press and the Built Environment in Chicago. |
2022 | Kathy Roberts Forde and Sid Bedingfield | Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America |
2021 | John Maxwell Hamilton | Manipulating the Masses: Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of American Propaganda |
2020 | Mike Conway | Contested Ground: ‘The Tunnel’ and the Struggle over Television News in Cold War America |
2019 | Thomas Aiello | The Grapevine of the Black South: The Scott Newspaper Syndicate in the Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement |
2018 | Steven Casey | The War Beat, Europe: The American Media at War Against Nazi Germany |
2017 | Thomas Hrach | The Riot Report and the News: How the Kerner Commission Changed Media Coverage of Black America |
2016 | Leonard Teel | Reporting the Cuban Revolution: How Castro Manipulated American Journalists |
2015 | Margot Opdycke Lamme | Public Relations and Religion in American History: Evangelism, Temperance, and Business |
2014 | Carol Sue Humphrey | The American Revolution and the Press: The Promise of Independence |
2013 | Richard K. Popp | The Holiday Makers: Magazines, Advertising, and Mass Tourism in Postwar America |
2012 | Peter Hartshorn | I Have Seen the Future: A Life of Lincoln Steffens |
2011 | Mark Feldstein | Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington's Scandal Culture |
2010 | John Maxwell Hamilton | Journalism's Roving Eye: A History of American Foreign Reporting |
2009 | Ford Risley | Abolition and the Press: The Moral Struggle Against Slavery |
2008 | Mary A. Hamilton | Rising from the Wilderness: J.W. Gitt and His Legendary Newspaper |
2007 | Gene Roberts & Hank Klibanoff | The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation |
2006 | Laurel Leff | Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America's Most Important Newspaper |
2005 | David Paul Nord | Faith in Reading: Religious Publishing and the Birth of Mass Media in America |
2004 | David Greenberg | Nixon's Shadow: The History of an Image |
2003 | Gregory C. Lisby & William F. Mugleston | Someone Had to be Hated: Julian LaRose Harris, A Biography |
2002 | Michael Sweeney | Secrets of Victory: The Office of Censorship and the American Press and Radio in World War II |
2001 | John C. Hartsock | A History of American Literary Journalism: The Emergence of a Modern Form |