Will Mari (LSU) won the Dr. Dimitrije Pivnick Award in Neuro and Psychiatric History, and with it conducted archival research at McGill University’s Osler Library of the History of Medicine, in July 2023. While there, he was also an invited visiting researcher at the Département de communication at the Université de Montréal.
Discussions about the state of mass media and U.S. history are continually contested — socially and politically. This often results in the removal of marginalized and disenfranchised communities from history, continuing the legacy of inequality that those historically oppressed groups know all too well.
As a Black woman in higher education, I am continually reminded of the erasure of my multiple identities, but I also think of my ancestors’ struggle. That public erasure, while difficult, gives me a greater appreciation of how my family’s everyday lives connect to key moments in Black history. Therefore, I truly believe I am Black History.
Understanding the depths of colorism and white supremacy within Alabama, upon his white father’s death, my great-great-grandfather fled for his life to Parkdale, Arkansas to escape from his white relatives.
Later in Little Rock, Arkansas, my great-grandmother worked as a maid in the state Capitol building.
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What is your current position and favorite class taught: I am a brand new teaching assistant professor at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication. It’s only my first semester here but my favorite class to teach so far has been multimedia storytelling. For some it’s their first experience making any sort of media in the journalistic form and it’s really gratifying to watch them grow in their confidence and capability.
What is your favorite journalism history scholarship that you’ve worked on so far: I got an article published during my Ph.D. that looked at the collective memory around the reporting of Fred Rogers’ famous congressional testimony to John Pastore in 1969. Examining how the current collective memory of the event grew out of the contemporary reporting of the time (and getting my first experience requesting and utilizing archival material) was a ton of fun!
Do you have any interesting projects in the pipeline: I’ve begun the arduous process of trying to prepare my recently defended dissertation for further publishing, hopefully as a book.
Fun fact about yourself: I got my start in media production (which ultimately led me here) making stop-motion LEGO short films as a kid.
Clash: Presidents and the Press in Times of Crisis (Potomac Books, 2022)
Describe the focus of your book.
Clash: Presidents and the Press in Times of Crisis examines the history of the shifting relationship between presidents and journalists from the founding of the United States until Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021. The book explores the forces – technological, economic, political, and social – and the personalities that have led to the often-tumultuous current relationship between the news media and the White House. Clash focuses specifically on times of crisis during the presidencies of John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. They are the ones who I think shed the most light on how we arrived at this point of heightened tension.
How did you come across this subject? Why did it interest you?
Since a young age, I have been interested in how reporters covered the presidency. My first book, Watergate’s Legacy: The Investigative Impulse, focused heavily on the Nixon administration and the fate of investigative journalism afterward. After Donald Trump was elected in 2016, I wanted to understand the historical dynamics that shaped his interactions with reporters. People frequently said his relationship with the news media was unprecedented; and, in some ways, it was, but I also wanted to analyze the ways that precedents had been established during other administrations.
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