Monthly Archives: January 2022

A Word From the Chair

Happy New Year! The year 2022 has started off with many initiatives by the History Division. Our members are doing extraordinary work, and it’s time for them to be recognized. There are several deadlines approaching for History Division awards. Please consider nominating someone, including yourself, for the following awards: the Jinx Broussard Award for Excellence in Teaching Media History (February 15); the History Division Book Award (February 15); the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Award for Best Master’s Thesis (March 1); the Donald Shaw Senior Scholar Award (March 15), and the Covert Award for best article, essay, or book chapter (March 31). Similarly, AEJMC has a call for the 17^th Annual Best Practices Teaching Competition.

The History Division is also proud that we will continue the Joint Journalism Communication History Conference in 2022 in a virtual format. History Division member Dr. Matthew Pressman (Seton Hall) is the AEJMC History Division representative, and is working with the American Journalism Historians Association, our cosponsor, with facilitating the conference on May 13, 2022. Submissions for papers, abstracts, research in progress, and panels are open until March 1, 2022.

This issue, CLIO shows that our members are hard at work with research and teaching. Please look at our member updates, the book Q&A, and our featured member profile on Autumn Linford. The chair of our division’s teaching committee, Ken Ward, has the first in a series of articles on teaching, this one about rethinking textbooks. With the 50^th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, there is also a special edition of American Journalism that focuses on investigative journalism history. Abstract proposals for the edition are due March 1 and should be submitted to americanjournalismeditor@gmail.com

Sadly, as many of you are aware, longtime history division member, former chair, and former editor of Journalism History Dr. Michael “Mike” Sweeney (Ohio University) passed away on January 15, 2022. His beautifully written obituary can be found here. Mike was a person who was a mentor, colleague, teacher, collaborator, and, most importantly, friend to many people in our division. Many of our members, myself included, have stories about how Mike inspired them and made them better historians. Because of that, this edition of CLIO contains several remembrances of Mike by his former students, colleagues and friends within the division. Reading these thoughtful remembrances demonstrates that Mike’s impact on the division, and more importantly its members, was significant. -Cayce Myers

Remembering Mike Sweeney

Mike Sweeney — a professor emeritus at Ohio University, a role model in the field of journalism history, the editor of Journalism History from 2012-2018, and division chair from 2016-2017 — died on January 15, 2022 at the age of 63. AEJMC History Division Members share their remembrances.

I send my thoughts and prayers for all who had the privilege to know Mike Sweeney and now mourn his passing from this life. Eternity just gained the brightest star! I lived in Logan at worked at USU during the Sweeney era. I am so thankful for my friendships with Carolyn and David and Angie as well. May our Good Lord bless and comfort all. I know his words and wisdom will live on forever. – Margaret Lubke

I first met Mike in 1993 when he moved to attend Ohio U. for his Ph.D. I was just completing my time at OU and Pat Washburn was my advisor. I helped Mike move into his apartment. Partly because he needed the help, and because I needed his boxes so I could pack to move to Texas which is where he just came from. Ever the reporter, Mike was grilling me about working with Pat Washburn. (BTW – working with Pat was a delight and a highlight of my academic career). That began a longtime friendship. Years later, Mike moved to Utah State, and a few years after that I moved from Texas to BYU. Whenever I taught the graduate history class, I would invite Mike to campus to be a part of the class. He loved engaging with grad students wherever they were. – Ed Adams

Michael Sweeney didn’t know how to conduct a dull meeting. In fact, he worked to make them both short and fun. I served on the AJHA board when he was president. In the past, board members were unable to attend the academic discussions because of all the business meetings. He figured how to put the business in context. When an issue came up during an annual conference, he’d contact each person to determine whether we needed a meeting and, when possible, take an informal vote without gathering in person. The meetings he conducted were serious, but he led with a light touch and a delightful sense of humor. He wasted no time. Like his students, we colleagues loved him. In his eulogy to Vice President Hubert Humphrey, former Vice President Walter Mondale said Humphrey taught us how to live and, with his cancer, he taught us how to die. I’ve thought about that comment so many times over the past several years as Michael Sweeney taught us how to live and how to die. He was always an inspirational role model. After his diagnosis, though, he continued teaching, attending academic meetings, publishing research, posting original paintings and sharing his medical progress on Facebook. RIP, Professor Sweeney. – Bill Huntzicker

Mike Sweeney, otherwise affectionately known as Sween Dog by the Ohio University graduate students, was the best educator, scholar, historian, and mentor. I was truly blessed to spend my years at Ohio University learning from him. His dedication to helping students and guiding those interested in historical research was unparalleled. He truly loved us grad students, and we loved him. In his classes, he taught us so much about life and the crazy world of academia. In my first year as a graduate student at Ohio University, he called me a badger concerning my research efforts in his Historiography class. It was the funniest interaction, considering he mentioned he has never told a female her research style resembled an animal. I will forever hold that nickname with pride. The fall semester of 2018 was thought to be his last time teaching Historiography, but as usual, he couldn’t stay away from teaching and returned the following fall. At that time, I struggled to find a final committee member for my master’s thesis. During a meeting with Aimee Edmondson, she told me that Sweeney was returning to teach and mentioned he wanted to be on my master’s thesis committee. The following phone call with my mother was filled with many tears and excitement on having the opportunity to learn from Sweeney again. The loss of Sweeney is so great, but he was such a warrior these past years, and man did he go out with a bang. – Claire Rounkles

There are people in this life, whom you meet and immediately feel they are a kindred spirit. Mike was certainly one of those people for me. Maybe it was the commonality of both having been newspaper people. Or that we both uprooted ourselves mid-career to return to graduate school. Our common love of teaching, journalism history, and a penchant for a good yarn certainly didn’t hurt. I remember the terrible trepidation I felt, during my first semester at Ohio University, when I sent him a draft of a conference paper I was working on as part of an independent study with him. The first thing I saw, in all caps, was “NICE ‘LEDE’ YOU WRITE WELL.” Those five simple words at the end of my first paragraph were such a reassurance that all the risks I had taken maybe weren’t all that risky after all. It was a balm to my reporter’s soul at a time when I was questioning whether I had made the right choice. This was part of Mike’s charm. He mentored you without you knowing it most of the time. He saw possibilities where self-doubt clouded one’s vision. And he was available. When you went to his office, he made you the center of his focus. Not the phone calls, or the emails, or the deadlines. Just you. – Pamela Walck

I was so surprised when I won the Tankard Award in 2013 in D.C. that I shouted, “Drinks are on me!” To my delight, Mike came to the hotel bar. It was such a validating moment to see Mike’s joy in celebrating my accomplishment. We shared dinner that night. I learned about Mike’s diagnosis, his mastery of Italian, and what a delightful raconteur he could be. That was my first real connection to Mike Sweeney—his eyes always reflected back to his audience the joy and appreciation of the moment and his true happiness for others’ success. – Tom Mascaro

Member News: Andie Tucher; Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen, Teri Finneman, Meg Heckman & Pamela Walck; Gregory Borchard, Ray McCaffrey, Maddie Liseblad

Andie Tucher, professor at Columbia University, has a new book, Not Exactly Lying: Fake News and Fake Journalism in American History (Columbia University Press). Fake news has been part of the American media landscape for as long as there’s been an American media landscape. No history of American journalism is complete without an accounting of the many ways that the information system of democracy—the critical but unsecurable infrastructure of civic life–has been invaded and exploited over the years. But it’s not just the hoaxers, humbuggers, propagandists, puffers, partisans, blusterers, scandal-mongers, and fraudsters who have peddled fake news; it’s also the fake journalists, who appropriate the outward forms of journalism in an explicit effort to lend credibility to their falsehoods. The relationship between journalism and truth has always been more fragile than many of us realize.

Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen, an assistant professor at the University of Idaho, recently published a chapter on the history of high school student newspapers in a new volume on the history of the high school. Drawing on early journalism textbooks, education journals, and student newspapers themselves, this chapter discusses the early structure of these publications—their production process, place within the curriculum, and acceptance within the high school.

Teri Finneman (Kansas), Meg Heckman (Northeastern) and Pamela Walck (Duquesne) recently had the article “Reimagining Journalistic Roles: How Student Journalists Are Taking On the U.S. News Desert Crisis” accepted in Journalism Studies. All three advised online publications created to serve news desert communities. They are also having a webinar at 11 a.m. Eastern Feb. 4 to discuss the opportunities and challenges of running a news desert publication with students. Register here.

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Journalism, edited by Gregory A. Borchard of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, is set for publication this month. Journalism permeates our lives and shapes our thoughts in ways that we have long taken for granted. Whether it is National Public Radio in the morning or the lead story on the Today show, the morning newspaper headlines, up-to-the-minute Internet news, grocery store tabloids, Time magazine in our mailbox, or the nightly news on television, journalism pervades our lives. The Encyclopedia of Journalism covers all significant dimensions of journalism, such as print, broadcast, and Internet journalism; U.S. and international perspectives; and history, technology, legal issues and court cases, ownership, and economics. The encyclopedia will consist of approximately 500 signed entries from scholars, experts, and journalists.

The first recipient of Journalism History‘s Tom Reilly Award is Raymond McCaffrey of the University of Arkansas. His article, “From Baseball Icon to Crusading Columnist: How Jackie Robinson Used His Column in the African-American Press to Continue His Fight for Civil Rights in Sports,” was the most-read Journalism History article in 2021.

McCaffrey’s study explores how Jackie Robinson continued his fight for civil rights in sports using his newspaper column in the New York Amsterdam News and syndicated in African-American newspapers during the 1960s. A review of those columns reveals a side of Robinson not typically seen in official histories depicting him as too conciliatory and restrained in his approach to race relations. Robinson came to take almost militant stands, challenging oppression by calling for boycotts of sporting events and event sponsors years before such strategies were adopted by a younger generation of athletes.

Maddie Liseblad, an assistant professor at Cal State Long Beach, has been selected as an Alumni Spotlight Award recipient by Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, Calif. The award represents one of the highest honors presented to graduates on behalf of PLNU. Recipients are alumni who make a difference in unique and creative ways, and they are selected through news updates and recommendations from PLNU faculty and staff. Liseblad, the first journalism student to graduate with distinction from PLNU, will be honored at a ceremony during homecoming in February.

Several history division members are featured in the latest online issue of the journal Historiography in Mass Communication, which includes a roundtable discussion entitled “Reconceptualizing Journalism in an Age of Misinformation.” The panel comprises several esteemed journalism historians, raises questions about risks to democracy associated with attacks on the press, and considers brainstorming ideas built around Media Reform legislation.

Journalism History Podcast Spotlight

The Bennett banner : bulletin of Bennett College for Women. (Greensboro, N.C.) 193?-current, May 28, 1968, Image 1 · North Carolina Newspapers — Image from the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center

Each month, Clio will highlight the latest episode of the Journalism History podcast and recommend a set of episodes from the archives. The podcasts — available on the website and through many podcast players — are excellent teaching tools, easy to add to your syllabi. Transcripts of each episode are available online.

In the latest episode, researcher Sheryl Kennedy Haydel explains how the journalists of the student-run Bennett Banner used their paper to rally their peers at Bennett College, a historically Black college for women, from the 1930s through the ’50s.

This month’s focus is on Black history, with episodes that span the 19th and 20th centuries and cover journalism and public relations topics.

Episode 93: Journalism and Jim Crow Historian Kathy Roberts Forde discusses her co-edited book, Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America. The book examines the role that journalism played in creating and maintaining Jim Crow oppression that included support for lynching, segregation, forced labor, voter suppression, and a racist criminal justice system.

Episode 72: The Black Press and the Fight for Racial Justice Historian Fred Carroll talks about the evolution of African American newspapers after the commercial and alternative Black press began to cross over in the 1920s. He argues the Black press played two important roles: It presented Black life as it’s lived, and, at the same time, protested racial wrongs.

Episode 30: Black Celebrity Journalism Historian Carrie Teresa explores the meaning of celebrity as expressed by Black journalists writing against the backdrop of Jim Crow era segregation. She covers the topic of Black celebrity journalism in greater detail in her book, Looking at the Stars: Black Celebrity Journalism in Jim Crow America.

Episode 21: Hidden Figures in PR History Public relations professor Denise Hill discusses the African-American public relations practitioners long overshadowed by their white counterparts in history books. Hill explores the PR strategies of Ida B. Wells’ anti-lynching campaign, and also highlights the work of several PR pioneers. These include the stories of Henry Lee Moon, director of public relations for the NAACP; Moss Kendrix, a public relations specialist who helped convince companies to stop using advertising stereotypes such as Aunt Jemima; and Inez Kaiser, who started the first African-American female-owned public relations firm in the country.

Rethinking the Textbook

This is the first in a series of teaching columns by 2021–2022 History Division teaching committee chair Ken Ward.

The pandemic has taught us that much of what we thought was sacrosanct in the classroom is actually far more flexible than imagined. A risk is that as we (eventually) move beyond the pandemic, we also leave behind this important lesson.

Instead, let’s press forward with it in mind. Today’s student, who has grown up in a world very differently mediated than when we were younger, interacts with media differently than we do. As a result, we may need to rethink how we’re doing things, not just online but also in the face-to-face classroom.

For my part, I’m rethinking textbooks, at least as the primary out-of-class resource assigned to students.

I know from conversations with many of you who are watching students struggle to connect with readings, particularly textbooks, in a way they didn’t in years past. This has been true in my media history course. My students are reading, but they hate it, and they struggle to sort the trivial from the critical.

Some of this definitely falls on me as an educator—teaching that kind of critical thinking is a big part of my job as an educator. But I’ve talked to enough colleagues who I know are excellent educators who say students are struggling with textbooks in a new way.

I don’t think we should be surprised. The decline of dead-tree media and ubiquity of digital tech drives today’s students to interact with material differently—not better or worse, mind you. Differently.

My classroom in this very rural corner of Kansas is likely very different from yours. But in many ways, our classrooms are the same, filled with digital natives who consume nearly all content through phones and laptops and who do not like textbooks. They read it, but they cannot connect with it in the way they can other media.

In that vein, this semester I’ve joined those educators who are deemphasizing traditional textbooks in favor of other means of information delivery. By far the alternative I utilize the most is the History Division’s own podcast (although I try to avoid assigning the episodes I host—those poor students have to listen to me enough). Every textbook reading comes with an accompanying podcast episode to contextualize what they’ve read.

In a history course, this can be further supplemented by videos on YouTube posted by folks like the Sacramento History Museum, videos demonstrating past media technologies which simply must be seen to be appreciated as revolutionary, such as the Linotype. On the page, even with illustrations, these technological leaps too easily seem quaint. Video can bring them to life.

Is all of this working? Who can tell for sure, but test scores are encouraging, and classroom discussions clearly show podcast episodes improve retention and deepen understanding. And the big themes of the course are clearly sticking in the minds of students.

As a result, the textbook is moving into the back seat for me. It’s not going away, as I think the formal structure of a book helps students sort and make connections among concepts. But if students are connecting better with other forms of media like podcasts, it doesn’t make sense for textbooks to be the course’s keystone.

All this is just one guy’s experience, though. During my brief tenure as teaching committee chair, I’ll use this column to explore how other History Division members are connecting with today’s students in their own media history courses. Our goal won’t be to find flashy, throw-out-the-textbook tactics for the classroom—this isn’t an “innovation” column. Instead, we’ll just see what people are doing differently to connect with today’s students. In the next column, Elisabeth Fondren shares what she’s doing differently with regard to assessment, with long, written assignments now taking a backseat in her classroom.

Member Spotlight: Autumn Linford

Where are you currently getting your Ph.D.?

University of North Carolina Hussman School of Journalism and Media

What brought you into grad school for journalism?

As a lifelong journalist (I began my career as a cub reporter for my hometown daily as a teenager), I’ve always understood the importance of journalism. After more than a decade on the job, I was inspired to study journalism in hopes of helping improve the field.

Why media history?

Everything that journalism is now is related to its past. If we want to understand and challenge the problems of today, we must first understand just how deeply the root of those problems run.

Current research project?

I am currently working on my dissertation, which focuses on girl newsies between 1865-1920 and argues that newsgirls were essential newsworkers with gender-specific experiences. They are a forgotten but fascinating topic!

Fun fact about yourself?

I like to make subversive cross-stitches.

Award Call: Covert Award in Mass Communication History for articles, essays, or book chapters published in 2021 (March 31)

AEJMC’S History Division announces the 37^th annual competition for the Covert Award in Mass Communication History for entries published in 2021.

The Covert Award recognizes the author of the best mass communication history article or essay published in the previous year. Book chapters in edited collections published in the previous year are also eligible. The AEJMC History Division has presented the award annually since 1985.

The $400 award memorializes the esteemed Dr. Catherine L. Covert, professor of journalism at Syracuse University (d.1983). Cathy Covert was the first woman professor in Syracuse’s Newhouse School of Journalism and the first woman to head the History Division, in 1975. Prof. Covert received the AEJMC Outstanding Contribution to Journalism Education Award in 1983.

Submit an electronic copy in pdf form of the published article/essay/chapter via email to Professor Thomas A. Mascaro, mascaro@bgsu.edu, by March 31, 2021. The publication may be self-submitted or submitted by others, such as an editor or colleague.

The following links connect to articles providing more background on Dr. Covert:

https://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1063&context=sumagazine

https://roghiemstra.com/covert-bio.html

https://clas.uiowa.edu/sjmc/people/catherine-covert

Q and A with author Cayce Myers on Public Relations History

Public Relations History: Theory, Practice, and Profession (Routledge 2021)

Describe the focus of your book.

The book examines the development of public relations in the United States, specifically looking at sectors of public relations practice. Its focus is historiographic. I wanted to examine the different narratives of public relations and craft a new narrative of PR history that was more inclusive of non-corporate PR development. I also examined the relationship between public relations and propaganda, and how the historical development of the public relations field was impacted by growing awareness of public opinion and the power of communication. The end result showed that modern U.S. public relations is the byproduct of many different types of public relations practiced in politics, social movements, religion, corporations, higher education, and the government.

How did you come across this subject? Why did it interest you?

This subject is an outgrowth of several years of study on PR history. My dissertation looked at public relations development, particularly early American PR practice in the late 19^th century. As my research progressed, I became more interested in the development of PR as a practice and profession, and how diverse sectors, such as politics, entertainment, corporate communication, and social movements, actually impacted public relations practice that we know today.

What archives or research materials did you use?

Much of my research examined early news accounts of public relations, as well as legal documents that examined public relations. As a historiography, I also used many early histories written about public relations and public opinion. I made good use of digital newspaper archives, and the interlibrary loan system for trade press and other early public relations publications.

How does your book relate to journalism history? How is it relevant to the present?

The history of public relations is intertwined with the development of the press. As the press evolved in the 19^th century from the partisan press to the penny press and later to yellow journalism and muckrakers, the public relations field followed suit. Like today, many early public relations practitioners were former journalists. The book shows that PR history is journalism history, and that the two fields are highly interconnected in their development in the U.S.

What advice do you have for other historians that are working on or starting book projects?

Book projects, like all big projects, need to be tailored. Even when a book project is narrow in scope you invariably find out that the topic is much bigger than you originally thought. So, in that sense, I would say choose your topic with an eye toward a clearly defined and manageable topic. As far as writing, I think everyone has their own work habits that work for them. My advice is to know what you can write in a day and what writing habits work best for you. Books are something that take time, sometimes years, to complete. Set deadlines, follow them, and soon enough you’ll be finished.

Award Call: Jinx C. Broussard Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Media History (Feb. 15)

This award is presented to the winners of the division’s teaching competition. Members may submit an innovative teaching strategy to the contest, which is judged by a committee each spring.

Teaching ideas should be original, tested, and transformative pedagogies that have been used by the author in teaching media and journalism history and could be used by other instructors or institutions. Teaching ideas should help professors address one or more of these pedagogies: diversity, collaboration, community, or justice. The competition welcomes a variety of teaching ideas, including those taught across a quarter/semester or taught as a module within an individual course. The 2022 deadline for submissions is Feb. 15.

The applications should be submitted as one document saved in a PDF format to aejmchistory@gmail.com using the subject line “Transformative Teaching of Media and Journalism History” and should include:

· Required: a three-page CV

· Required: a single-spaced, two-page discussion of the teaching idea that includes a 250-word overview followed by discussions of these seven criteria used for judging:

· Originality (makes clear how the work has not been published or presented at a conference or an online forum previously; is not in any other 2022 AEJMC competition; and does not represent another person’s teaching without acknowledgement of that work and discussion of significant modification by the author),

· tested (describes how employed previously in the author’s classroom),

· transferability (makes a case for how other schools/classes/programs could use),

· degree of transformative nature (speaks to evidence of how the teaching leads to a marked change on the part of students, such as via assessment or student feedback),

· degree of focus on diversity, collaboration, community, and/or justice (addresses one or more of these pedagogies, as defined by the author),

· degree of clarity (presented clearly, completely, and concisely),

· willingness to present (expresses willingness to present at the 2022 AEJMC conference).

· Optional: a set of supplementary teaching materials relevant to the teaching idea, such as syllabus, assignment, handouts, links, or slide, saved as PDF and no more than five pages

Please send any questions about the 2022 question to division teaching award chair Ken Ward at kjward@pittstate.edu.

Award Call: Hazel Dicken-Garcia Outstanding Master’s Thesis in Journalism and Mass Communication History (deadline extended to March 1)

The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication will present its award for Outstanding Master’s Thesis in Journalism and Mass Communication History in 2022, recognizing the outstanding mass communication history thesis completed during the 2021 calendar year.

The award will be presented during the member awards gala at the 2022 AEJMC Conference.

Any master’s thesis on a topic in mass communication history will be considered, regardless of research method. Submissions must be in English. The thesis must have been submitted, defended, and filed in final form to the author’s degree-granting university between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2021. Membership in the AEJMC History Division is not required to submit.

Candidates for the award should submit the following materials:

A cover letter with the thesis author’s contact information.
A letter of nomination from the thesis chair/director or the chair of the university department in which the thesis was written. The letter should concisely describe the scope and significance of the thesis, including its contribution to the knowledge base of the discipline.
A blind copy of the full thesis (including abstract) in PDF form. IMPORTANT: Please make sure that all identifying information—including author, school, and thesis advisor/committee names—have been removed from all parts of the document. Be sure to check not only the title page but also the abstract, dedication/acknowledgements, bio page, and other pages that such identifying information often appears in academic theses.
A blind copy of a sample chapter, submitter’s choice, from the thesis, identifying information removed, for first-round competition. This should also be in PDF form.

Nominations, along with all the supporting materials, should be sent to AEJHistoryThesisAward@gmail.com no later than 11:59 p.m. Pacific on March 1, 2022 (this is a deadline extension).

Questions should be directed to Dr. Amy Mattson Lauters, chair of the AEJMC History Thesis Award Committee, at AEJHistoryThesisAward@gmail.com