Book of the Year AwardThe American Journalism Historians Association Book of the Year Award recognizes the best book in journalism history or mass media history published during the previous calendar year. For the 2021 award, the book must have been granted a first-time copyright in 2020. Authors may self-nominate. Nominated books may be co-authored, but edited books will not be considered. Nominations are due February 28, 2021. The three finalists will discuss their work at an awards panel at the 2021 American Journalism Historians Association Annual Convention, October 7-9, 2021 in Columbus, OH. Following the panel presentations, the 2021 AJHA Book Award winner will be announced. Finalists must agree to present at the AJHA Book Award panel at the AJHA conference. To nominate a book for the award, submit the following to Ann Bourne, Ph.D., Assistant Director, School of Library & Information Studies, College of Communication and Information Sciences, the University of Alabama, 512 Gorgas Library, Box 870252, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 35487:
Questions? Contact Book Award Coordinator, Dr. Ann Bourne, at (205) 348-1524 or abourne@ua.edu. |  Mike Conway received the 2020 Book of the Year Award for “Contested Ground: ‘The Tunnel’ and the Struggle over Television |
Past Winners
| 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 |