Member Q&A: Nick Matthews

*Nick Matthews is an assistant professor at the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri*

Where do you work: The School of Journalism at the University of Missouri. I start in the fall.

Where did you get your Ph.D.: The Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota.

What’s your current favorite class: My favorite class I’ve taught so far as been Podcasting and Audio Storytelling. I taught that during my time at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. I’m sure that will change as I get into my new role at Mizzou.

What’s your current research project: I have two primary projects now. One is a book project with colleagues Teri Finneman and Pat Ferrucci, titled Reviving Rural News: Transforming the Business Model of Community Journalism in the U.S. and Beyond. We are under contract with Routledge. The other is a solo book project, titled Cries from the desert: Living with the loss of local news. I am finalizing the proposal now, and I hope to get it to possible presses very soon.

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A Word From the Chair

The AEJMC conference countdown is on! We’re only a couple of weeks away from meeting in Washington, D.C. For me, I always get a personal and professional energy kick from attending the annual conference. I love listening to quality research and learning new approaches to things, but most of all, I love meeting and catching up with people.

*Dr. Maddie Liseblad, History Division Chair*

We have a great History Division conference program. Vice Chair Rachel Grant (Florida) and Research Chair Brian Creech (Lehigh) have worked hard on organizing our schedule of panels and research presentations. We start the conference with our annual Awards Gala on Sunday, Aug. 6 at 7:30 p.m. EST. The gala is a terrific opportunity to celebrate our award winners. You must pre-register for the event, but it only costs $5 to attend. There will be food, desserts, and drinks.

While we have something going on every day of the conference, I do want to point out two Wednesday (Aug. 9) events. We have the Jinx C. Broussard Award for Excellence in Teaching of Media History panel at 4 p.m. and our top papers presentation at 6 p.m.

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AEJMC History Division Announces 2023 Diversity Award Winner

Miglena Sternadori (Texas Tech) won the 2023 Diversity in Journalism History Research Award.

Texas Tech University associate professor Miglena Sternadori has won the 2023 Diversity in Journalism History Research Award for her conference submission, “The Last Invisible Minority: Tropes and Stigma in News Coverage of Intersex People Since 1752.”

Presented by the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), the Diversity Award recognizes the outstanding paper in journalism or mass communication history submitted to the annual paper competition that addresses issues of inclusion and the study of marginalized groups and topics. Sternadori will receive a cash prize during the division’s awards gala on Aug. 6 at the AEJMC National Convention in Washington, D.C.

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Member Q&A: Theresa Russell-Loretz

Where do you work: I’m currently on sabbatical during the 2022-23 academic year from Millersville University, where I’ve served as Department Chair (since 2014) and as an associate professor teaching primarily courses in communication/public relations, ranging from intro to the capstone, and including social media campaigns; crisis, emergency and risk communication; health comm and communication for school district leaders, as well as public speaking.

Where did you get your Ph.D.: My Ph.D. from Purdue University focused on Public Affairs and Issue Management. My M.S. from Kansas State University was in Journalism and Mass Communication with an emphasis in Public Relations.

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A Word from the PF&R Committee: Addressing Gaps in Journalism History Scholarship

“What connection should one feel to acts committed or omitted before one was born?” It is a question lacking a clear-cut answer, but one that informed the most recent Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities given last October by Dr. Andrew Delbanco who chose to take on the divisive topic of reparations.

*Melissa Greene-Blye, assistant professor at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas*

In my last column, I discussed some of the ways in which legacy media outlets were acknowledging gaps in their past coverage, oversights that perpetuated misrepresentation or omission of minority populations in the communities they serve. At that time, I stated, “We, as media historians are uniquely positioned to sound a clarion call to ensure that past oversights and misrepresentations do not continue to manifest in the journalism of the present, and we should ask ourselves what we owe to improving the modern journalistic discourse around underrepresented peoples and communities who have for too long been overlooked in our history and our journalism.”

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Author Q&A: Chris Lamb

Stolen Dreams: The 1955 Cannon Street All-Stars and Little League Baseball’s Civil War (University of Nebraska Press, 2022)

*Chris Lamb, professor of journalism with the School of Liberal Arts at Indiana University – Indianapolis*

Describe the focus of your book.

When the 11- and 12-year-olds on the Cannon Street YMCA all-star team from Charleston, South Carolina, registered for a Little League Baseball tournament in July 1955, it put the Black team and the forces of integration on a collision course with segregation, bigotry, and the Southern way of life. This was a year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. White Southerners saw the young Black ballplayers as a threat to their way of life. White teams refused to take the field against the Cannon Street team. The Cannon Street all-stars advanced by forfeit to the state tournament and then to the regional tournament in Rome, Georgia. If the team won there, it would play in the Little League Baseball World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Little League officials, however, ruled the team ineligible because it had advanced by winning on forfeit and not on the field. This denied the boys their dream of playing in the World Series. Stolen Dreams chronicles how bigotry scarred the souls of these boys, who spent the next few decades suppressing their story and the decades after that telling everyone they could why it matters. This book tells their story and the story of racism in Charleston from the first slave ship to the present.

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Member News: Lisa Burns, Dane S. Claussen, W. Joseph Campbell

*Lisa Burns, Professor of Media Studies in the Center for Communications and Engineering at Quinnipiac University.*

Dr. Lisa Burns (Quinnipiac University) was named this year’s Outstanding Faculty Scholar for the School of Communications. The award recognizes her research on first ladies and the media, candidate branding and messaging strategies, and journalism’s impact on collective memory. She was also recently elected to AEJMC’s Standing Committee on Teaching.

*Dr. Dane S. Claussen, Director of Research, Publications, and Professional Advancement at the National Communication Association.*

Dr. Dane S. Claussen in February became Director of Research, Publications, and Professional Advancement at the National Communication Association, Washington, D.C. His responsibilities include assisting NCA’s 11 journal editors, Publications Council, Research Council, and Teaching & Learning Council; writing research reports; promoting NCA members’ research; monitoring government policies on research; lobbying; grant writing; and daily oversight of NCA’s strategic plan.

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History Division’s Top Paper Award Winners Announced

The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) is pleased to announce that Lindsay Palmer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison has won this year’s Top Faculty Paper Award.

She will receive a plaque and a $100 cash prize for her paper, “Greater Credibility in Washington: Political Balance in the Committee to Protect Journalists’ 1982 Mission to Central America.”

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AEJMC History Division Announces Book Award Winner

The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) has selected Andie Tucher as winner of its award honoring the best journalism and mass communication history book published in 2022. Tucher is author of Not Exactly Lying: Fake News and Fake Journalism in American History (Columbia University Press).

The committee also recognizes Ralph Engelman and Carey Shenkman as runners-up for this year’s Book Award. They are co-authors of A Century of Repression: The Espionage Act and Freedom of the Press (University of Illinois Press).

A panel of three distinguished media historians chose Not Exactly Lying from a strong field of entries. Tucher presents her history in an insightful and engaging narrative, the judges agreed. One described the book as “beautifully written, richly researched, and exquisitely timely.”

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Michael Stamm (Michigan State) and Gerry Lanosga (Indiana) Win 2023 Covert Award

The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) congratulates Dr. Michael Stamm, Professor in the Department of History at Michigan State University (MSU), and Dr. Gerry Lanosga, Associate Professor in The Media School at Indiana University Bloomington (IU), as co-winners of the annual Covert Award for best mass communication history article, essay, or book chapter published in the previous year.

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

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