Monthly Archives: May 2022

AEJMC History Division Announces Book Award Winners Kathy Roberts Forde and Sid Bedingfield

The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) has selected Kathy Roberts Forde and Sid Bedingfield as winners of its award honoring the best journalism and mass communication history book published in 2021. Roberts Forde and Bedingfield are co-editors of Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America (University of Illinois Press).

The committee also is recognizing a runner-up for this year’s Book Award. Steven Casey, author of The War Beat, Pacific: The American Media at War Against Japan (Oxford).

A panel of three distinguished media historians chose Journalism and Jim Crow from a strong field of entries. Focusing on the American South after Reconstruction, this volume of research essays shows how the white press constructed and sustained white supremacy. One judge emphasized the book’s “forceful argument that white journalists were not mere observers but active participants in barbaric practices including lynching, convict leasing, and voter suppression.”

Judges found the book’s cohesive discussions of systemic racism and the counternarrative of the Black public sphere to be compelling and relevant today. Wrote one judge, “Journalism and Jim Crow illuminates the role of the Southern press in building and upholding America’s own system of apartheid in a way that helps us understand how our nation’s current race relations came to be so troubled. It is the right book for this historical moment.”

Judges also praised Casey’s The War Beat, Pacific for its engaging writing and storytelling. “This book vividly portrays the lives, challenges and bravery of the correspondents who covered World War II,” said one judge.

The committee cited Casey’s meticulous research in a range of archives. The result is a detailed investigation of how journalism in the Pacific theater was, as one judge explained, “shaped by censorship, logistics, interservice rivalries and public opinion — and how the work of war correspondents changed over time in response to commanders’ need for resources and political leverage.”

“Casey told a complex story with precision, power, and grace,” another judge noted.

Forde is a professor of journalism and associate dean of equity and inclusion in the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She received the AEJMC History Division Book Award and the Frank Luther Mott-Kappa Tau Alpha Book Award in 2009 for Literary Journalism on Trial: Masson v. New Yorker and the First Amendment. Forde has twice received the AEJMC History Division Covert Award. Bedingfield is an associate professor in the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. He is author of Newspaper Wars: Civil Rights and White Resistance in South Carolina, 1935-1965, winner of the 2018 George C. Rogers Award from the South Carolina Historical Society. Before pursuing a doctorate, Bedingfield worked more than two decades as a journalist, covering elections, campaigns, and other major events in the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Haiti, Hong Kong, and Israel. Forde and Bedingfield are co-editors of the newly launched book series Journalism & Democracy at UMass Press.

Casey is a professor in international history at the London School of Economics and author of four previous books on twentieth-century media history: Cautious Crusade: Franklin Roosevelt, American Public Opinion and the War against Nazi Germany; Selling the Korean War: Propaganda, Politics and Public Opinion; and The War Beat, Europe: The American Media at War against Nazi Germany.

Forde and Bedingfield will receive a plaque and cash prize. All three honorees will be recognized during the division’s awards gala, Aug. 2, at the 2022 AEJMC National Convention in Detroit.

For more information on the AEJMC History Division, visit https://aejmc.us/history/

Dr. Elisabeth Fondren Wins 2022 Covert Award

Dr. Elisabeth Fondren, winner of the 2022 Covert Award

The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) congratulates Dr. Elisabeth Fondren, Assistant Professor of Journalism at Collins College of Professional Studies, St. John’s University, New York, as winner of the 38th annual Covert Award for best mass communication history article, essay, or book chapter published in 2021.

The award memorializes Dr. Catherine L. Covert (right), professor of journalism at Syracuse University. Dr. Covert, who died in 1983, was the first woman professor in Syracuse’s Newhouse School of Journalism and the first woman to head the AEJMC History Division, in 1975. The award has been presented annually since 1985 (see https://aejmc.us/history/about/covert-award/)

Dr. Fondren’s winning submission, “Fighting an Armed Doctrine: The Struggle to Modernize German Propaganda During World War I (1914-1918),” appeared in Journalism & Communication Monographs, 2021, Vol. 23(4) 256-317.

Upon learning the news of her honor, Dr. Fondren replied: “Journalism & Mass Communication Monographs editor, Linda Steiner, as well as the late Michael S. Sweeney, were very encouraging of this project and supported me throughout the conceptualizing and writing process. Others, including my dissertation advisor Jack Hamilton, helped in shaping the arguments, and Erin Coyle provided important advice and was instrumental in modeling an institutional culture of care.

“I was very lucky to be paired with Mike Sweeney for the AEJMC History Division 2019 mentorship program, and Mike continued to provide unbelievable (!) support of my work and focus on international propaganda/journalism history throughout his illness. We spoke as late as early December 2021, when I shared a picture of my then 10-month-old daughter with him. I will forever treasure this opportunity and that I have had the chance to learn from – and with him.

“I am truly thrilled. And I look forward to seeing you in Detroit later this summer to accept this prestigious award.”

“Fighting an Armed Doctrine” attracted favorable attention during multiple rounds of judging, according to Covert Award Chair, Dr. Tom Mascaro. It was a clear winner in an outstanding field of entries analyzed, grouped, and ranked by a dedicated, diligent group of judges, according to Mascaro, who added: “Dr. Fondren’s research is a model of journalism history. Elisabeth asked an open-ended, pertinent research question—how did German officials respond to failures of their propaganda machine during the first World War?—and used foundational methods of primary-source archival historical research to not only resolve the basic question, but also inform our contemporary understanding of modern propaganda strategies. I see the sage hand of Mike Sweeney in Dr. Fondren’s research, as it transcends national boundaries and expands the record of international journalism history. “Fighting an Armed Doctrine” informs propaganda studies and human communication history, especially the rise of audiovisual forms, in larger contexts including, sadly, as used by today’s belligerent warring nations and irrational conspiracy theorists in American politics.”

The History Division will honor Dr. Fondren and present a check for $400 as part of the annual AEJMC convention in August 2022 in Detroit. The abstract for Dr. Fondren’s essay follows:

Abstract: During the First World War (1914–1918), all belligerent governments realized that propaganda proficiency was critical to selling their causes and stirring up support for the war. Yet German propagandists in particular struggled to master mass media, manage their messages, and build audience trust during the Great War in their goal to control domestic and foreign public opinion. Although previous scholarship has agreed that the German propaganda machine failed, little has been said about how Germany recognized these failures early on and sought to remedy them through increasingly modern propaganda strategies—even if those strategies were ultimately no match for the public’s growing distrust of official information. This monograph examines how it was that more institutions, more manpower, new publicity initiatives, copying tactics from enemies, crowdsourcing ideas, and eventually focusing on visuals and film did little to boost morale at home or improve Germany’s reputation abroad. The findings rest on a historical analysis of military dispatches, federal policy documents, letters, news stories, propaganda materials, and memoirs located in German and U.S. archives. Although many of the methods and tactics these early propagandists used would fail, others would become part of the universal toolbox governments still rely on to influence people’s views and spread information.

For additional references on Dr. Covert, see:

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

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

Member News: Kathryn Olmsted, Joe Campbell, Maddie Liseblad, Jon Marshall, Anthony Fellow, Kimberly Voss

Kathryn Olmsted, professor of history at the University of California, Davis, published in March 2022 her new book, The Newspaper Axis: Six Press Barons Who Enabled Hitler, with Yale University Press. The book examines the six most powerful press lords in the United States and Great Britain in the 1930s and argues that they prevented their tens of millions of readers from understanding the fascist threat. Some ignored or appeased Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler; others were overtly pro-fascist in their coverage. The book shows that the right-wing media’s embrace of authoritarian dictators has deep roots in the past.

Joe Campbell, a professor in the School of Communication at American University, published his latest polling-related op-ed recently in The Hill. Campbell advised caution about way-too-early predictions about this year’s mid-terms, noting that “expectations about national elections, confidently asserted months in advance, are prone to error — a historical reality tends to be overlooked as a dominant narrative takes hold about an unfolding national campaign.” Drawing on his latest book, Lost in a Gallup: Polling Failure in U.S. Presidential Elections (University of California, 2020), Campbell noted that the historical record “encourages caution and humility about expectations developed six or seven months ahead of national elections.”

Maddie Liseblad, an assistant professor of journalism at California State University Long Beach, has been awarded a Fulbright Specialist Award to teach at Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca in Romania in May. She will be lecturing in journalism and public relations classes at the undergraduate and graduate levels. With its about 45,000 students and 365 different programs, the public research university is the largest university in Romania. Liseblad is one of 400 U.S. citizens who will spend time overseas as a part of the Fulbright Specialist program.

Jon Marshall’s new book, Clash: Presidents and the Press in Times of Crisis, was released May 1 by Potomac Books. Clash explores the political, economic, social, and technological forces that have shaped the relationship between U.S. presidents and the press during times of crisis. Jon is an associate professor in the Medill School of Northwestern University. He also had an op-ed, “Calling Democrats like Biden fascists has always been false,” published on April 25 in the Washington Post’s “Made by History” section.

Anthony R. Fellow, Ph.D., who has taught at California State Fullerton, California State Los Angeles, and the University of Southern California, is author of the fourth edition of American Media History: The Story of Journalism and Mass Media. It is the story of a nation and of the events in the long battle to disseminate information, entertainment, and opinion in a democratic society. It is the story of the men and women whose inventions, ideas, and struggles shaped the nation and its media system and fought to keep both free. New chapters cover women’s rights, civil rights movements, significant moments in media history (such as 9/11 and the 2020 pandemic), fake news, bias news, and the social media presences of Barack Obama and Donald J. Trump.

Kimberly Voss, professor of journalism at the University of Central Florida, has been named a board member of the Florida Council for History Education. She has also been named the book series editor for Mediating American History with Peter Lang.

Gaslit: Rediscovering Women in Journalism and Political History

By Kimberly Voss, professor, University of Central Florida

Martha Mitchell and Attorney General John Mitchell in 1970. (UPI)

Martha Mitchell was a major figure during Watergate – although you would not know that from much of political and journalism history. The current Starz series Gaslit features the story of Martha Mitchell – played by Julia Roberts. Martha Mitchell was an American socialite and the wife of President Richard Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell, a good friend of Nixon and head of the Committee to Re-Elect the President. The Mitchells lived in the infamous Watergate building.

A fascinating figure, Martha Mitchell earned the reputation of being an outspoken media celebrity with the nickname “Martha the Mouth” and the “Mouth of the South.” She was a media darling. She would often phone female reporters with political gossip after reading her husband’s papers.

She had stories to tell. Martha Mitchell was the first person to speak about Nixon’s involvement in the Watergate scandal. (The series title was a nod to the fact that the truth she was told was treated as lies.) As John Mitchell’s wife, she was one of the most well-known Watergate whistleblowers. In the famous 1977 interview with the British journalist David Frost , Nixon said: “If it hadn’t been for Martha Mitchell, there’d have been no Watergate.”

Many have questioned why Martha Mitchell has been largely left out of the histories about Watergate. The same could be said about the women who covered Martha Michell. For example, longtime Washington reporters Vera Glaser and Malvina Stephenson became journalism partners during the presidential election night in 1968. They got information from John Mitchell and other Nixon employees. Glaser had reached out to Stephenson and suggested a joint column: Offbeat Washington. (Glaser had been the press secretary for a Republican and Stephenson had been a spokesperson for a Democrat.)

Several male reporters had teamed up for columns and they would be the first women. One of the more common sources for “Offbeat Washington” was Martha Mitchell. The Nixon administration had invited wives to cabinet meetings, as a way of reaching out to women. One wife complained to Glaser. The wife said she called Martha Mitchell to say she did not want to be part in a particular program, “but Martha is someone you don’t say ‘no’ to. Martha didn’t realize until later that her zeal for what she termed ‘helping both the country and the Administration’ wasn’t shared by everyone. She forged ahead, looking for meaningful thing the wives to do.”[i] Apparently, Nixon later became concerned. Glaser noted that an unnamed Cabinet wife that the president had turned to her husband and “completely out of the blue, in the middle of another conversation, asked, ‘What are going to do with Martha Mitchell’?”[ii]

According to Stephenson: “Martha was comparatively anonymous until our first column in October 1969, which proved her a talking doll. She would call us very early in the morning.”[iii] Glaser recalled that the pair were threatened by then-Attorney General John Mitchell, “who told us if we quoted him he’d see that we never got inside the White House or Justice Department again.[iv]

In the weeks prior to the Watergate break in, Martha Mitchell had been interviewed by reporters and anybody who would listen to her about the Republicans carrying out “dirty tricks” against the Democrats after overhearing her husband’s conversations.

Soon after the burglary, John Mitchell resigned as attorney general. Martha Mitchell gave testimony in a deposition regarding the Democratic Party‘s civil suit against the CRP. In 1975, John Mitchell was convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy, He served 19 months in prison. Martha Mitchell died in 1976 at 57 years old.

The Gaslit series featured Martha Mitchell being interviewed by Winzola “Winnie” McLendon. She asked hard news questions – about Martha Mitchell being banned from Air Force One and how she felt about the Vietnam War. McLendon couches her tough questions by saying that she was reporting only from a women’s magazine – although it was a real interview. When Martha Mitchell speaks to her husband, she also defends her interview because it was just a women’s magazine.

It has been a long historical oversight for Martha Mitchell – as well as the women journalists who covered her. Instead, we too often cover the same politicians and reporters in a sort of echo chamber. It marginalizes the many women who played an overlooked part of our history. Now that Martha Mitchell has been featured, it is also time for McLendon, Glaser, Malvina Stephenson and their colleagues to be examined.

[i] Winzola McLendon, Martha: The Life of Martha Mitchell (New York: Ballantine’s, 1979), 158.

[ii] McLendon, 161.

[iii] Hoyt and Leighton, Drunk Before Noon: The Behind-The-Scenes Story of the Washington Press Corps, (New York: Prentice Hall, 1979), 193.

[iv] Hoyt and Leighton, 194.

Journalism History Podcast Spotlight

Each month, Clio highlights 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.

This month we highlight political radicalism and the fight for the First Amendment.

Episode 38: Erika Pribanic-Smith – Emma Goldman and the First Amendment Host Will Mari spoke with Erika Pribanic-Smith about anarchist leader Emma Goldman’s World War I-era First Amendment struggles.

Episode 101: Anna Popkova – The Immigrant Press and the Red Scare Researcher Anna Popkova describes the importance of the immigrant press in the early 1900s to help build and inform communities new to America and how critical they were during times of sweeping discrimination.

Episode 35: Bailey Dick – Dorothy Day and The Catholic Worker Host Nick Hirshon spoke with Bailey Dick about the radical journalism of Dorothy Day during her five decades at the helm of The Catholic Worker.

AEJMC History Division announces Dr. Carolyn Kitch as winner of 2022 Donald L. Shaw Senior Scholar Award

Carolyn Kitch, winner of the Donald L. Shaw Senior Scholar Award

The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication will honor Dr. Carolyn Kitch as the Donald L. Shaw Senior Scholar during the Division’s Awards Gala on Aug. 2. Dr. Kitch is the Laura H. Carnell Professor of Journalism in the Department of Journalism and the Media and Communication Doctoral Program of Temple University’s Klein College of Media and Communication.

Established in 2020, the award honors a scholar who has a record of excellence in media history that has spanned a minimum of 15 years, including division membership. It is named in honor of the pioneering journalism theoretician, distinguished journalism historian and former head of the History Division, who taught for almost half of a century at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

“We were gratified by the quality of the nominees for this prestigious award, which is only in its third year,” the judges said. “Dr. Carolyn Kitch’s work is astounding in its depth, breadth, quantity, and quality. Where most scholars might aspire to produce field-defining work in one area, Dr. Kitch has done so in two: memory studies and the history of magazines. In addition to her remarkable publication record, she has made an immeasurable contribution to the field of journalism history by mentoring numerous younger scholars. Although there were other worthy nominees for this award, Dr. Kitch’s career accomplishments in research and mentorship are unparalleled.”

Dr. Kitch has authored, co-authored, or co-edited five books: Front Pages, Front Lines: Media and the Fight for Women’s Suffrage (University of Illinois Press, 2020), co-edited with Linda Steiner and Brooke Kroeger; Pennsylvania in Public Memory: Reclaiming the Industrial Past (Penn State University Press, 2012); Journalism in a Culture of Grief (Routledge, 2008), co-authored with Janice Hume; Pages from the Past: History and Memory in American Magazines (University of North Carolina Press, 2005); and The Girl on the Magazine Cover: The Origins of Visual Stereotypes in American Mass Media (University of North Carolina Press, 2001). Additionally, she has published more than 70 journal articles, book chapters, and reviews and is a member of the editorial boards of 11 scholarly journals.

Based in her record of research, Dr. Kitch was presented the prestigious Guido H. Stempel III Award for Journalism and Mass Communication Research in 2018 from the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, given for a body of work that has made an impact in our discipline. In 2006, she won the James W. Carey Media Research Award from the Carl Couch Center for her second book, Pages from the Past (University of North Carolina Press). Moreover, she is a prior winner of AEJMC’s Under-40 Award for excellence in research, teaching and service.

Despite her record of tremendous accomplishments and honors, news of the award surprised the always humble and ever gracious Dr. Kitch.

“This is a humbling honor, and a somewhat bittersweet one in light of Dr. Shaw’s passing last fall,” she noted. “The wide range of his scholarship was an inspiration to me, and he himself was very kind and encouraging when I first attended AEJMC as a graduate student. Similarly, it was the History Division in which I found my first research community, with so many wonderful academic role models. My own scholarly confidence grew within and because of that culture, which has inspired my work for 25 years. Especially for these reasons, I am deeply grateful for this recognition, and for the support of my colleagues, nationally and at Temple, who made it possible.”

During her 21 years at Temple, Dr. Kitch has taught undergraduate and graduate classes on media history, media and social memory, gender and media, visual communication, journalism theory, magazine journalism, and cultural studies. She also has been a Faculty Fellow in the Center for the Humanities at Temple. Previously, she taught at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and worked as a magazine editor and writer for McCall’s, Good Housekeeping, and Reader’s Digest.

Within those classrooms, Dr. Kitch mentored countless undergraduate and graduate students, who have gone on to illustrious careers of their own, including Sue Robinson, Rick Popp, and Carrie Teresa, just to name a few at the graduate level only, and they regularly cite the influence of her contributions on their lives.

“Carolyn Kitch is most deserving of the Shaw Senior Scholar award not only because of her exceptional record of research, but also because of her reputation as a productive, caring, and supportive mentor,” Teresa said. “I have had the pleasure of knowing Carolyn for over ten years; during that time, she not only selflessly shared her expertise and experience with me, but she also gave me the confidence to pursue my research. She was the first scholar to introduce me to the study of journalism history, and her enthusiasm for the subject was infectious. She is not only brilliant, but she is passionate about her work. I am lucky to call Carolyn my mentor and friend. Composer Duke Ellington used the phrase ‘beyond category’ to describe people in whom he held the highest esteem; Carolyn is, without a doubt, ‘beyond category.’”

Division members Janice Hume and Brian Creech were among the scholars who nominated Dr. Kitch, noting that she shared many traits of Donald Shaw and highlighting her priceless contributions as a scholar, mentor, collaborator, and friend.

“Carolyn [Kitch] is one of those scholars who changes the way we think about journalism/mass communication history,” said Dr. Hume, who co-authored Journalism in a Culture of Grief with Dr. Kitch in 2008. “She is more than just highly productive, she is influential. She is also a generous mentor who brings along other scholars in our field.”

Added Dr. Creech, “Carolyn Kitch’s scholarship is foundational in the field. She has helped cement memory studies as a central means for understanding journalism and has written some of the most rigorous, lucid, and engaging scholarly prose in the field. Her insights remain urgent, and can be traced in the strains of research her works continue to inspire.

But her impact has also been uniquely personal. So many junior and mid-career scholars have moments of inspiration we can draw back to Professor Kitch. Whether it’s a reading that caused a change in perspective, a presentation that stimulated a new line of inquiry, a motivating comment or incisive review, or—for the luckiest among us—regular guidance and mentorship, Carolyn embodies the discipline at its most generative and generous.”

Dr. Kitch will receive a plaque and check for $200 during the division’s Awards Gala in conjunction with the AEJMC annual meeting.

Member Spotlight: Kimberley Mangun

Kimberley Mangun, Associate Professor at the University of Utah

Where do you work? I joined the Department of Communication at the University of Utah in 2006.

Where did you receive your Ph.D. from? I earned a Ph.D. in Communication and Society from the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication.

What is your current favorite class? I developed a beat-reporting project during a weeklong workshop on “Teaching Diversity Across the Curriculum” at the prestigious Poynter Institute in May 2007. Initially, it was incorporated into the semester-long intermediate reporting class I taught. Student-journalists covered a specific diverse beat for the entire term and wrote as many as four multisource stories for publication on a website called Voices of Utah (voices-of-utah.com). Over the years, that class has shifted from a mid-level course to a community-engaged learning capstone, and the name has changed; it is now called “Voices of Utah” to reflect the importance of the published reporting that students do about diverse populations in the Salt Lake Valley. To date, student-journalists have covered 15 different communities, some more than once, and the website I created has been viewed by almost 200,000 people from more than 160 countries.

What is a current research project? I’m taking a break from research after spending a decade working on my recent book about Birmingham World editor Emory O. Jackson and his fight for civil rights in Alabama between 1940 and 1975. But, I have long dreamed about creating a children’s book about another editor I’ve studied—Beatrice Morrow Cannady, leader of the Portland, Oregon, Advocate in the 1920s and 1930s. My dissertation and subsequent book have brought a lot of attention to the activist-editor—including a new elementary school named for her—and I would enjoy creating a book so youth can learn more about her passions for education and equality.

What is a fun fact about yourself? I love to eat grits, which is an unusual food choice for someone raised in Southern California. Whenever I travel in the South, I look for local mills where I can purchase cloth bags of yellow or white or blue grits. But once, TSA agents at Reagan National Airport were puzzled by a dense bag of grits I had purchased at nearby Mount Vernon. I tried to explain that the contents were similar to oatmeal or porridge but they still were dubious. I finally realized that one agent had a New York accent and asked about his familiarity with Italian cuisine. “Polenta!” I exclaimed, after the agent said he missed the city’s Italian food. “Grits are like polenta!” And with that, the two-pound bag was returned to my carry-on.