Dane S. Claussen taught on Semester at Sea as it sailed from Germany to Dubai via 11 ports in the Mediterranean, Suez Canal, Kenya, and India. During the Fall 2022 semester, he taught International Mass Communication, Media in Society, and an intermediate-level journalism course. Since March 2022, he has been copyeditor for a new Shanghai International Studies University-based scholarly journal published by De Gruyter, Online Media and Global Communication (Louisa Ha, editor). Since June 2022, Claussen has been leading the effort by the South Asia Communication Association (SACA) to launch its own scholarly journal. In September 2021, he completed his four-year term as Editor of Newspaper Research Journal. In Spring 2021, he was one of two official candidates for AEJMC vice president.
Cayce Myers (Virginia Tech) was elected to the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) National Board of Directors representing the Mid Atlantic District. He will serve a two-year term.
Brooke Kroeger, professor emerita at New York University, has a new book coming out in May 2023 from A.A. Knopf. Undaunted: How Women Changed American Journalism is a representative history of American women who ignored every impediment put in their way to do journalism’s most valued work and of the collective fight for equity in the profession throughout the 180-plus years since mass media began.
Yong Volz, associate professor and Roger Gafke Distinguished Faculty Fellow at the Missouri School of Journalism, is the 2022 recipient of the School’s O.O. McIntyre Professorship in recognition of teaching excellence. Volz is the 35th recipient of the award, which has been given annually since 1987.
David Sachsman, the George R. West, Jr. Chair of Excellence in Communication and Public Affairs at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, died on October 4, 2022. He was 77.
Beginning in 1993, Sachsman organized the annual Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression. The Chattanoogan’s obituary discussed Sachsman’s legacy and role in shaping the annual event: “Dr. Sachsman was particularly proud of how the symposium fostered new scholars, with many first attending as graduate students and then continuing to participate in the conference as their career progressed. Since 2000, work from the symposium has been published in eight books edited by Dr. Sachsman, as well as dozens of other publications created by symposium attendees.”
It is a (very brief) history of the impact of the internet on the news industry and on news workers. It is a sequel to my earlier book on the history of newsroom computerization, A Short History of Disruptive Journalism Technologies: 1960-1990, which was published in 2019.
How did you come across this subject? Why did it interest you?
Toward the end of my research for my first book for Routledge, I read a number of reports in trade publications such as Editor & Publisher, some of them breathlessly optimistic, others more circumspect, on the arrival of the civilian internet in the early 1990s. The promise and peril of that moment inspired me to write a follow-on book to my newsroom-computerization history, and Bob Franklin, my generous editor for the “Disruptions” series, encouraged me to do so.
Where you are currently getting your Ph.D.? Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland (UMD)
What brought you into grad school? I’ve always wanted to get my Ph.D. in journalism. I seriously considered getting it immediately after I completed my master’s degree at Michigan State University, but I was offered a job at a local TV station and decided to pursue a career instead. I spent 20 amazing years working in TV news, and when it was time to move on, I didn’t think twice about applying to UMD. I want to teach and conduct research, and my professional experiences have taught me some valuable lessons that I can share with others.
Owen V. Johnson, associate professor emeritus at Indiana University and longtime member of the History Division, died on August 6, 2022 at the age of 76. He was an expert on World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle, as well as Russian and East European mass media and Czech and Slovak history.
In 2020, he joined the Journalism History podcast to talk about his edited collection of Pyle’s columns, At Home With Ernie Pyle.
Johnson’s friend and former colleague, professor emeritus Steven Raymer of the Indiana University Media School, delivered the eulogy at Johnson’s funeral. Here is an excerpt.
“With his intellect and humanity, Owen made the bedrock values of journalism — independence, truthfulness, accuracy, fairness to the facts, holding the powerful accountable, and building an informed citizenry — come to life in his classes, his scholarly writing, and his own journalism and broadcasting. And I might add, these same ideals were often the topic of our frequent conversations in the corridors of Ernie Pyle Hall — Owen with his coffee cup and impish smile often one step ahead of me in discussing the day’s news. I am still wresting with what Owen might have said at lunch today on the one-year anniversary of the Fall of Kabul, the Afghan capital. Surely he would have an opinion on America’s longest war, just as surely as he knew the menus from memory at our favorite pubs.
This book examines the history of the Irish American press from the Early National period to the Kennedy presidency. We look at individual journalists who created the Irish American press, the journalists that constituted it, and, most importantly, the transnational nature of that particular press genre.
How did you come across this subject? Why did it interest you?
Editors Debra Reddin van Tuyll and Mark O’Brien met a decade or more ago at the annual meeting of the Newspapers and Periodicals History Forum of Ireland. During the conference, they began a discussion of how similarly, yet how differently, historians from different parts of the world told the stories of the Irish and the Irish diaspora presses and also how, together, they all seemed to constitute on continuous story. Or maybe a story on a continuum is more accurate. Van Tuyll and O’Brien believed they had an insight into a useful new way to frame journalism history stories, to both deepen and broaden understanding of how a diaspora press is connected to its home and vice versa. They thought this idea might be worth exploring with other historians in a couple of academic gatherings, though they didn’t have a name for it initially.
University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Where did you get your Ph.D.?
Princeton University
What’s your current favorite class?
History of U.S. Media. We analyze a primary source together in every lecture, and I love puzzling through sources with students seeing them for the first time.
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.
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.
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.
