Member News: Lisa Burns, Kathleen Wickham, Elisabeth Fondren, Gregory Borchard & David Bulla, Kimberly Wilmot Voss, Nicholas Hirshon, Jonathan Bullinger

Lisa Burns, Professor of Media Studies at Quinnipiac University, and her colleague Courtney Marchese have published a chapter on “Political Branding in a Digital Age: The Role of Design and Image-Based Messaging Strategies in the 2020 Presidential Election” in The 2020 Presidential Campaign: A Communications Perspective (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), edited by Robert E. Denton.

Kathleen W. Wickham, Professor of Journalism at the University of Mississippi, served as executive producer of the Theatre Oxford play The Heartbreak Henry, written and directed by David Sheffield, a former writer for Saturday Night Live. She chaired the fundraising, publicity, program, and marketing committees for the sold-out show, which was co-sponsored by the School of Journalism & New Media.

Elisabeth Fondren, Assistant Professor of Journalism at St. John’s University, published a chapter, “Media in Western & Northern Europe,” in Global Journalism: Understanding World Media Systems (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), edited by Daniela V. Dimitrova. She traces the historical origins of political reporting across Northern and Western Europe, and discusses media pluralism, technology and law, public service broadcasting, and freedom of speech in EU member states.

Lincoln Mediated: The President and the Press Through Nineteenth-Century Media by Gregory A. Borchard, Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and David W. Bulla, Associate Professor of Communication at Augusta University, was republished by Routledge in December 2020. Bulla and Borchard are also working on the second edition of Journalism in the Civil War Era (Peter Lang, forthcoming).

Kimberly Wilmot Voss, Professor of Journalism at the University of Central Florida, has written a new book, Newspaper Fashion Editors in the 1950s and 60s: Women Writers of the Runway (Palgrave, 2021), which documents the careers of newspaper fashion editors and details fashion sections of the post-World War II years. The analysis covers social, political, and economic aspects of fashion. The book–Voss’s fourth on women’s page journalism–also addresses journalism ethics, fashion show reporting, and the decline in fashion journalism editor positions.

Nicholas Hirshon, Assistant Professor of Communication at William Paterson University, was named the first two-time winner in the 43-year history of the Outstanding Campus Adviser Award presented by the Society of Professional Journalists. The award recognizes an adviser who has made “an exceptional contribution” to their campus chapter. In their nomination, Hirshon’s students cited his organizing nine installments of a Zoom discussion series with reporters during the 2020-2021 academic year and providing a “rich journalism experience” to the campus community.

Jonathan M. Bullinger, a lecturer at SUNY Geneseo and SUNY Oneonta, has begun hosting a new season of Inside the Box: The TV History Podcast, which introduces concepts from the disciplines of history and collective memory. This season includes episodes on sports media (NFL Films vs. NFL Media, nostalgia disguised as documentary), cultural figures (Bruce Lee and Chadwick Boseman), resuscitation of old narratives when new archives are found (Belushi documentary), and re-framing popular music with new iconography (Universal Music’s new holiday animated music videos).

Q&A with author Will Mari about The American Newsroom

The American Newsroom: A History, 1920-1960 (Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 2021)

Describe the focus of your book. 

The focus of the book is on the lived experiences of rank-and-file news workers in and out of the newsroom spaces of the interwar years and early Cold War. I really wanted to show the development of the idea of “the newsroom” in the generations leading up to the newsrooms observed by Gans and Tuchman in the 1970s, and taking up the work of early journalism-studies scholars and media historians such as A.M. Lee, as well as the more recent work of Bonnie Brennen, Linda Steiner and Ted Curtis Smythe. 

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

I was doing research on journalism textbooks while working with my adviser, Richard Kielbowicz, at the University of Washington. And these texts kept describing these dynamic, slightly crazy, and definitely already mythologized spaces that I knew from reading journalists’ memoirs. But they were also real, often exclusive, sometimes harsh, but ironically beloved spaces. And so I wanted to find out what they were really like, as best as one can, as physical spaces with a corresponding culture. But I couldn’t find a comprehensive history of the newsroom anywhere! There were lots of short, capsule-style histories, and some scholars, like Fred Fedler, but also Julia Guarneri, Michael Stamm and Aurora Wallace, had written these great, materiality-centered histories of news production and buildings. And so I wrote the book I wished I could have used to answer my questions, if that makes sense. 

What archives or research materials did you use? 

I used Quill, published by the Society of Professional Journalists, Editor & Publisher (now mostly scanned by the Internet Archive, and available online, just not in color), and the American Newspaper Guild’s Reporter. I also used the annual reports of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, the American Society of News Editors, and other trade groups (and their publications), along with memoirs, textbooks and government documents from the National Archives II in College Park, Maryland, and the regional National Archives located in Seattle.

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

As newsrooms change, getting smaller, more mobile, or even closing altogether (with journalists once again, as they did in the 18th century, working from their homes or coffee shops), I wanted to talk about why these spaces mattered and how they both reflected their temporal, cultural and societal contexts, and how they shaped journalism as we know it. That includes great things — holding governments and corporations to account — but also bad things, like being distinctly unfriendly places for women and people of color for many years. That would change by the end of the century. But their legacy is complex, like all human institutions. They represented a kind of precursor to the information society we live in today. 

But to summarize the relevance for the present moment: The industrial journalism of the 20th century and big, metro newsrooms grew up together, influenced by forces such as unionization and early portable technologies (i.e. early mobile tech). While many of the examples of these large newsrooms may go away, I think they’ll always be a role for some kind of physical newsroom space, even if it’s a small one. And so again I wanted to show where that ideal and that idea had come from, to help understand where they may be going. 

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

I had originally wanted to tell the story of the newsroom right on through the 20th century, the “entire thing,” as it were. That would have been too much (as it is, it took me nearly five years to finish the project). Richard wisely suggested cutting things off in the 1960s, as other scholars had and have done a great job of telling the newsroom’s story since, including folks like Matthew Pressman. 

And so I guess my advice would be to be ok with stopping at a certain point. There’s plenty of research to go around. Ultimately, a lot of what I wanted to do in the original longer version turned out to be better in my two books for Routledge, that function as a kind of pair of short sequels; the first being a history of newsroom computerization (A Short History of Disruptive Journalism Technologies, 2019), and a forthcoming book (early next year) on the history of the news industry and the internet (wish me luck!).

2022 AEJMC Conference Panel Proposals

It’s time to start submitting your 2022 AEJMC conference panel proposals. If you have a good idea for a history division panel – with a focus on teaching, research or PF&R – please send Maddie Liseblad (madeleine.liseblad@csulb.edu) an email with the following details:

  1. The title of the proposal
  2. Whether the panel is teaching, research or PF&R
  3. A short summary of the panel topic that clearly indicates why it fits the history division
  4. Whom you propose as panelists, including a short bio of each, a brief description of what each would discuss, and their contact information. Please also indicate the panelists willingness to participate, if panel is selected
  5. The potential co-sponsor you envision for this panel (another AEJMC division/interest group/commission)

Please send these panel proposals by 11:59 p.m. EST on Wednesday, Sept. 15 (please note the date!) to madeleine.liseblad@csulb.edu.

The final selection of panels/panelists will be determined after our negotiations with other AEJMC divisions/interest groups/commissions. If you have questions, please reach out to Maddie.

Summary of the 2021 AEJMC History Division Business Meeting

Thursday, Aug. 5, virtual meeting

6:45 p.m. PT/7:45 p.m. MT/8:45 p.m. CT/9:45 p.m. ET

The virtual AEJMC history division meeting in early August included a summary of the division’s activities during 2020-21, leadership voting, transitions and information, and a presentation of the success of Journalism History and its affiliated activities. More details, including a review of the meeting minutes, follows below.

Brief end-of-year status report

The outgoing chair, Dr. Will Mari (Louisiana), called the meeting to order at 8:49 p.m., CST. Last year’s meeting minutes were approved (following a second by Dr. Cayce Myers, verbally) and Dr. Mari gave a brief 2020-21 year-in-review report. For research initiatives, he mentioned our journal having a new editor and book reviews moving online. He also discussed conferences being virtual and JJCHC being postponed. For PF&R/research, the division had a 9/11 panel, a NAJA panel, and a webinar with Jonathan Karl (ABC’s Washington correspondent). For research/teaching, we held a student podcast contest and our podcast downloads have tripled. For teaching/PF&R, highlights included a 9/11 essay series and increased media coverage. Other division activities included a new website and Facebook page. Outside of convention activities, 47 members were involved in a division role and there have been 69 Clio/website posts with new content since last August.

Continue reading →

Journalism History agrees to delivery change


Future issues of Journalism History will not be covered in plastic as Taylor & Francis aims to address environmental concerns.


The publisher approached the journal’s top officials about making the change after a prior pilot program found the postal service did not damage journals. Journalism History staff agreed to join the initiative starting with the fall issue.


If anyone has a damaged issue arrive, please let Teri Finneman (finnemte@gmail.com) or Pam Parry (pparry@semo.edu) know, and you will be sent a replacement.
We hope the membership agrees it is worthwhile to try this new delivery method and do our part for the environment.

Member News Round-Up: Mike Conway, Maddie Liseblad, Sheryl Kennedy Haydel, and David Sumner

Mike Conway and Josh Bennett (Indiana University Media School) have been awarded a university Public Humanities Project grant to create the Indiana Broadcast History Archive. Conway and Bennett are working with broadcasters around the state to collect archives related to the history of Indiana radio and television history.

Maddie Liseblad will be starting as an assistant professor of journalism at Cal-State Long Beach this fall. Dr. Liseblad is the current research chair for the History Division and will be its vice chair beginning this fall. 

Sheryl Kennedy Haydel has been chosen as the new Director of the School of Communication and Design at Loyola University in New Orleans. Dr. Kennedy Haydel has been an assistant professor at the Manship School at Louisiana State University. 

David E. Sumner (Ball State University emeritus) has been invited by Prof. Patrick Rössler at the University of Erfurt, Germany, to contribute a chapter on American magazines for The Magazine Press in the Twentieth Century: A Global History, tentatively scheduled for publication in 2022 by the German publisher Wallstein Verlag.

Clio Book Q & A: Craig Allen

Name: Craig Allen

University Affiliation and Position: Arizona State University, Associate Professor & Associate Dean of the Barrett Honors College

Book Title: Univision, Telemundo, and the Rise of Spanish Language Television in the United States 


1. Describe the focus of your book.  

The book is the first comprehensive history of U.S. Spanish-language television.  Drawing from ten years of archival research, original interviews, and exploration, it reveals the inside story behind the Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo, how they fought enormous odds, and finally rose as giants of mass communication in the English-speaking United States.  The book argues that scholars’ study and understanding only of English-language television has hidden a key dimension of U.S. mass media, that they are extensively and endemically internationalized.  Much of the book traces the rise of Mexican broadcast pioneer Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta, who founded Univision as the U.S.’s fourth television network only a few years after the beginning of TV on ABC, CBS, and NBC.  Chapters go on to recount events that demonstrate that, despite attracting virtually no attention or pursuit among U.S. media scholars, Mexico’s powerful Azcárraga dynasty fundamentally influenced and shaped the development of television in the U.S.  The history further unfolds with exploration of numerous American figures who directed the emergences of Univision and Telemundo.  Although unknown in media literature, here identified and delved for first time, they are among the U.S. mass media’s foremost pioneers.  The account reiterates the endurance, innovation, and popularity of Spanish-language television, and that its story is essential to understanding not merely the Latinx but overall history of modern America.

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

Spanish-language television always has been out there. Univision has been the No. 1 single source of media many times.  I don’t think media scholars ever had heard of it.  (Media scholarship is a not a domain that’s good at grasping mass communication beyond white, Anglo, English-language media.)  My professional career in television began as a volunteer rookie producer of a weekly Spanish-language TV show on an English-language station.  This was in the 1970s, when Spanish-language broadcasting was known only in a dozen cities and virtually all television was three English-language channels, ABC, CBS, and NBC.  The Spanish experience was my “break” that got me inside TV first as a news reporter, eventually as an anchor and news director.  Although I worked in English-language TV, I never stopped following the Spanish-language counterpart to which I owed my career.  Later as a media historian, I think I was the only one who knew that Spanish-language television existed. 


3. What archives or research materials did you use?

A pivotal part of the book (on a landmark court case in which the FCC eliminated Univision’s foreign owners) was drawn from research at the National Archives.  However, as an internal study of the Univision and Telemundo corporations, key documents either were not kept or subject to proprietary restrictions.  Through dealings with the companies and parties, I was able to accumulate (and cite from) materials I located in numerous private collections.  Much travel was involved. 


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

I’m not sure it’s really relevant to the present.  It’s a story of history.  I tend to believe that journalism and mass communication if they exist at all are on their last legs.  A hundred years from now, people will look back at a bygone period when something known as journalism that massed a lot of people and was influential existed.  I tend to see Spanish-language television as a piece of what those in the future will look back upon toward helping them understand what once was  America’s “mass media era.”   5. What advice you have for other historians working/starting on book projects

Spend time researching a marketable topic before you begin.  Writing published history seems easy—until you have to write a treatment that sells the topic you’ve plunged into.  If you want to publish a book but your topic doesn’t brim with selling points, you will be trapped when you have to approach publishers.  In the case of Univision, I had at least 50 rejections, each time with the stock comment “The topic doesn’t fit our market,” code for “we can’t sell it.”  If the goal is a book, ask yourself “What will attract an audience?” and “What will get people to pay for what I’ve written?”  These are publishers’ first questions.  Do the analysis before, not after, you commit.