Speakers Bureau

The AJHA Speakers Bureau features members who share their expertise and knowledge with the media and local and national organizations. The diversity of our membership enables our bureau to provide a wealth of educational resources.

Historical Context Critical to Political Reporting

Longtime Associated Press campaign reporter Bill Barrow noted in his 2022 Dartmouth Bernard D. Nossiter lecture that at “a critical juncture for American journalism and self-government … a nuanced take is necessary to meet the moment.”

Barrow’s perspective aligned with those of reporters that University of Tennessee professor Amber Roessner and fellow media historians Nicholas Hirshon and Kristin Gustafson interviewed for a 2020 Columbia Journalism Review piece.

Journalists are not alone in calling for such context. 

“With historical context, an individual story becomes part of a larger narrative,” said R.J. Vogt, who has carried that appreciation of historical context and nuance into his career as a law clerk with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Vogt points out that historical mindset might give journalists pause before describing current events as unprecedented, even in this seemingly anomalous moment of presidential politics.

The American Journalism Historians Association and its affiliated academic journal, American Journalism, invite local, regional, and national reporters to consider contacting the organization’s media history experts in topics related to this year’s presidential campaign:

• A.J. Bauer, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama with expertise in  conservative news, right-wing media, mis/disinformation, propaganda, partisan journalism, media activism, and media criticism; 

• Brian Creech, a professor at LeHigh University with expertise in fake news/misinformation or journalism practices, journalism criticism, and/or ethics of political journalism; 

• Rachel Grant, an assistant professor at the University of Florida with expertise in social movements, social justice, and Black feminism; 

• Kevin Lerner, an associate professor at Marist with an expertise in press criticism, the New York Times, the 1960s and 1970s, and the alternative press; 

• Jon Marshall, an associate professor at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism with expertise in investigative journalism and the relationship between presidents and the press, especially after Watergate; 

• Thomas A. Mascaro, professor emeritus at Bowling Green State University with expertise in documentary journalism history, documentary television, and network news longform reporting and co-author with William E. Porter of Assault on the Media: The Nixon Years, Updated with Analysis of 21st Century Threats to Democracy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2024), among others.

These sources offer an understanding of the political, economic, historical, and social environments of the places, people, and events that shape our politics.