Author Archives: Kathryn McGarr

Member News: Sharon Bramlett-Solomon, Jon Marshall, George Garrigues, Janice Hume, Brian Creech, Ross F. Collins, Kristin Gustafson, Noah Arceneaux, Joe Campbell, and Amber Roessner

Sharon Bramlett-Solomon, an associate professor in the Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, is the 2022 recipient of the Lionel C. Barrow Jr. Award for Distinguished Achievement in Diversity Research and Education. The award is presented annually by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and supported by the Minorities and Communication (MAC) Division and the Commission on the Status of Minorities (CSMN). Dr. Bramlett-Solomon will be honored at the MAC Awards and Social on Aug. 4 during the 2022 AEJMC Conference in Detroit.

Jon Marshall, an associate professor at Northwestern University’s Medill, wrote “What Was the Legacy of the Watergate Scandal?” for History Today and “From Truman to Biden, Presidential Addresses Have Barely Changed. It’s Time To Enliven Them” in The Hill. He also had an excerpt from his book Clash: Presidents and the Press in Times of Crisis published in Nieman Reports. He was interviewed about the history of the relationship between presidents and the press in the Washingtonian and on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” KTLA-TV in Los Angeles, WBAI radio in New York, PRX “IdeaSphere,” “E&P Reports,” “The Roundtable” on WMAC Radio, The Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, and on the The Majority Report with Sam Seder, “America Trends,” “BlogTalk Radio” and “Utterly Moderate” podcasts.

George Garrigues, emeritus from Lincoln University of Missouri and University of Bridgeport, has a new book, The Failed Joke of the Veiled Prophet: How a Fake Illinois Klansman Became the Grim Symbol of St. Louis’s Happiest Civic Celebration. The book shatters a story that has grown up within the past twenty years about the Veiled Prophet, a symbolic figure honored yearly in St. Louis since 1878.

Janice Hume, the Carolyn McKenzie and Donald E. Carter Chair for Excellence in Journalism at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, has been named the college’s associate dean of academic affairs.

Brian Creech has been named Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies at Temple University’s Lew Klein College of Media and Communication.

Ross F. Collins, professor of communication at North Dakota State University, Fargo, has published a 420-page book entitled Chocolate: A Cultural Encyclopedia (ABC-CLIO, 2022). As an academic history it is fully referenced, includes a timeline and bibliography. Collins explained that while he has primarily published in journalism history, this book gave him an opportunity to work in his original discipline of cultural history. The book emphasizes economic, colonial, military, social and medical history of chocolate over 500 years. Collins has been a member of AEJMC’s history division since 1990 and is a former president of the American Journalism Historians Association.

Kristin Gustafson was promoted from Associate Teaching Professor to Teaching Professor at the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at the University of Washington, Bothell. Gustafson is entering her third year on the AEJMC Teaching Committee.

“Acadian Airwaves: A History of Cajun Radio” by Noah Arceneaux, a professor at San Diego State University, has been accepted for publication at the Journal of Radio Studies and Audio Media. Thanks to some family connections, Arceneaux has also been invited to present this material at the Grand Reveil Acadien, a festival to celebrate Cajun culture that happens every five years. In October 2022, he’ll be traveling to Lafayette, Louisiana to speak at the event, and most likely do more research for future extensions of the project.

Joe Campbell, a professor at American University, participated in a discussion about myths and counter-narratives of the Watergate scandal in the run-up in June to the 50th anniversary of the break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters that set off the scandal. Joe described why the “heroic-journalist” myth has become, and remains, Watergate’s dominant popular narrative. The two-day online conference was organized by Shane O’Sullivan of the Kingston School of Art in London and included presentations and reminiscences by Watergate prosecutors, lawyers, and FBI agents. Joe, a former History Division chair, also discussed Watergate mythology in a pre-anniversary essay for the Conversation.

Amber Roessner has been promoted to full professor at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville’s School of Journalism and Electronic Media.

Journalism History Podcast Spotlight

Each issue, 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 summer we highlight U.S. presidents and the media.

Episode 18: Wars on the Press by Richard Nixon and Donald Trump Professor Mark Feldstein discusses the contentious relationships between U.S. presidents and the American press, including the extreme measures Richard Nixon went to in order to silence Jack Anderson, the most famous investigative journalist of the era.

Episode 43: Jimmy Carter and the Media Professor Amber Roessner joins the podcast to talk about her book that covers the astonishing Carter presidential campaign. Roessner focuses on the construction of a political image that beat the odds and signaled a new chapter for American political campaigns.

Episode 75: Nixon’s War on Television President Richard Nixon’s press management strategies are the focus of another podcast episode, this one discussing the relationship between the Nixon Administration and ABC News. Dale Cressman details what happened to that relationship in the wake of Vice President Agnew’s attack on television journalists.

BONUS EPISODE: Front Row at the Trump Show Podcast host Teri Finneman speaks with Jonathan Karl about his book Front Row at the Trump Show. Karl is the ABC News Chief Washington correspondent and co-anchor of “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” He is also the former president of the White House Correspondents’ Association.

And one more for the road:

Episode 69: Coverage of Detroit’s 12th Street Riot For those of you interested in learning more about Detroit newspapers and the city’s history before AEJMC in a few weeks, check out the episode discussing newspaper coverage of the July 1967 Detroit riots. Brandon Storlie joins the podcast to explain how and why the reporting was so problematic and how that connects to current issues in media coverage.

Member Spotlight: Patrick File

Patrick File, associate professor at the Reynolds School of Journalism, University of Nevada, Reno

Where you work: Reynolds School of Journalism, University of Nevada, Reno

Where you got your Ph.D.: University of Minnesota

Current favorite class: This is like asking to pick a favorite child! I’m certainly feeling the gravity of teaching our required First Amendment class these days. I also teach a fun class on using FOIA and public records laws in reporting.

Current research project: A book project on the early legal problems encountered in the incorporation of photography into journalism, circa 1880-1920.

Fun fact about yourself: I’m a twin! My twin sister is a high school music teacher.

A Word From the Chair

It’s hard to believe that we are just two weeks away from meeting in Detroit for our annual AEJMC conference. Even more difficult to believe is that the last time we met was in 2019 in Toronto, Canada. Our excellent leadership team, Maddie Liseblad (California State, Long Beach) and Rachel Grant (Florida), are excited to see everyone in person. As I have said before, AEJMC is not designed to be a virtual organization. The friendships and connections made at the annual convention are a big part of what the History Division as an organization does. In many ways, those friendships, collaborations, and mentorship are the heart of what our division does best.

There are many things that have changed in the past two years with AEJMC, and our leadership team has worked hard to facilitate the familiar and the new. One familiar aspect that we are excited about is the annual division Gala, which will be held on August 2^nd at 7:30 p.m. CST. The Gala is where we plan to give our annual awards. The cost for attendance is $5.

A new aspect of our annual conference is the virtual business meeting scheduled for July 28^th at 1 p.m. EST. The business meeting is being held on Zoom and will be facilitated by AEJMC through a Zoom link sent directly to members. A meeting agenda and annual division report was sent to members on the division’s listserv on June 26^th. If you did not receive the information for the business meeting, please email me directly at mcmyers@vt.edu.

The virtual business meeting will serve as our only business meeting for the conference, so there will not be a separate meeting in Detroit. At the meeting we will cover the traditional agenda, and elect the new Second Vice Chair/Research Chair for 2022-2023. On the agenda are also some voting items, so please plan to attend even if you are unable to join us in person in Detroit.

I want to thank the leadership of the History Division for their hard work during unprecedented times. The quality of what our division provides members is the product of many hours of work from many dedicated members. I also want to take this opportunity in my final Clio letter to thank Maddie Liseblad (California State, Long Beach) and Rachel Grant (Florida) for their amazing work this past year. The Division is stronger for their leadership. I also want to note that my role as chair would not be possible without the help and dedication of my immediate predecessors, Will Mari (Louisiana State) and Teri Finneman (Kansas), who were always there for guidance and support.

Finally, I want to thank our members for all that they have done to make this year a tremendous success. I have enjoyed the opportunity to serve as the History Division Chair, and am excited about the division’s future.-

– Cayce Myers

Call for Submissions: Journal of 20th Century Media History

The Journal of 20th Century Media History, a new peer reviewed online academic journal, is soliciting original scholarly article manuscripts for its first issue. The journal is designed to be broadly interdisciplinary and address current scholarship across a wide range of subject areas. As the title suggests, we are looking to publish historical work about topics that, in the main, focus on people, events, ideas, and practices from the 20th century. Article submissions that make use of innovative research techniques and methodologies are highly encouraged, as is research that draws attention to previously marginalized or under-represented groups or forms of media practice. The journal can be found at https://mds.marshall.edu/j20thcenturymediahistory/

Author Q & A: Andie Tucher, Not Exactly Lying

Not Exactly Lying: Fake News and Fake Journalism in American History (Columbia University Press, 2022)

Describe the focus of your book.

Fake news has been a feature of American journalism since Publick Occurrences hit the streets of Boston in 1690. Paradoxically, however, the enduring battles to defeat fake news have helped give rise to a phenomenon even more hazardous to truth and democracy. I’m calling it “fake journalism”: the appropriation and exploitation of the outward forms of professionalized journalism in order to lend credibility to falsehood, propaganda, disinformation, and advocacy. As the media have grown ever more massive and ever more deeply entwined in the political system, so has fake journalism, to the point where it has become an essential driver of the political polarization of public life.

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

I’ve been writing about fake news since long before it became a meme. I’ve always been interested in the evolution of the conventions of truth-telling–in journalism but also in history, photography, personal narrative, and other nonfiction forms–and it became very clear to me that you can’t study what’s accepted as true without also understanding what isn’t, what wasn’t, and what shouldn’t be.

Andie Tucher, H. Gordon Garbedian Professor of Journalism and director of the Communication PhD Program, Columbia Journalism School

What archives or research materials did you use?

My main—and favorite—sources were searchable databases of historical newspapers and magazines (ProQuest, Chronicling America, Newspapers.com, Readex Historical Newspapers, American Periodicals, OpinionArchives, lots of individual and proprietary databases), which allowed me to follow particular stories across eras and regions and to watch how they grew, mutated, and clashed. What a welcome change from the hassles, limitations, and discomforts of the microfilm reader!

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

It addresses the whole three-century-plus history of U.S. journalism, and concludes by arguing that it’s more important than ever for the true professional journalists to strengthen and maintain the traditional standards and conventions of the craft. They must commit themselves to the rigorous, fact-based, non-partisan, intellectually honest search for truth–wherever the evidence might lead.

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

Know when to stop! Every time I thought I’d come to the end, some fresh incident, provocation, or outrage involving fake journalism or fake news would erupt and tempt me to add just a few more paragraphs… Of course you want your book to be good, but you also want it to be done.

The History Division Needs a Website Administrator

We’re looking for applicants for our Website Administrator position. The administrator is responsible for updating the AEJMC History Division’s website – https://mediahistorydivision.com – on an as-needed basis. The site is built using WordPress so it is user-friendly and easy; knowledge of HTML is not needed. The Website Administrator is a part of the division’s executive committee so the person must be a member. Training will be provided by our current Website Administrator, Keith Greenwood. If interested, please contact current Vice Chair Maddie Liseblad (Madeleine.Liseblad@csulb.edu).

Join us at AEJMC!

We have great history division sessions planned for Detroit AEJMC conference. The division is involved in seven panels and has four research paper sessions planned, plus an awards gala event.

The gala will take place on Tuesday, Aug. 2 at 7:30 p.m. Please note that it requires pre-registration. Our top paper session is scheduled for Friday, Aug. 5 at 6 p.m. You can find the rest of the conference schedule here, https://community.aejmc.org/conference/schedule/program. We hope to see you in Detroit!

AEJMC representative needed for JJCHC

Joint New York Conference Needs Your Help! We’re looking for an AEJMC History Division representative to help organize the Joint Journalism and Communication History Conference (JJCHC) for spring 2023.

JJCHC is a one-day interdisciplinary conference held in New York. It is co-sponsored by the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA) and the AEJMC History Division.

The AEJMC History Division representative would join AJHA’s A.J. Bauer and Rich Shumate as a conference co-chair. If interested, please contact current Vice Chair Maddie Liseblad (Madeleine.Liseblad@csulb.edu). More information about the joint conference can be found at https://ajha.wildapricot.org/JJCHC

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/