I am a tenured Associate Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. I have been teaching college for 42 years—30 at VCU. I will retire in June 2021.
Where you got your Ph.D.:
I earned my Ph.D. in Media History at the University of Florida in 1990. I am the first man and the first African American to do so.
Current favorite class:
I teach a variety of history courses, however, my favorite course is one that I created called Diversity in the Media.
Current research project:
I am currently interested in U.S. Presidents of the past who were controversial (like Trump) and how they might have used the media of the time.
Fun fact about yourself:
I love jazz, vocal and instrumental. I was a trombonist from elementary school through college.
George Daniels (University of Alabama) was named the recipient of this year’s Gene Burd Award for Research in Urban Journalism Studies by AEJMC. He also received $2,500 as part of the annual award, which purportedly aims to improve the practice and study of journalism in the urban environment.
Daniels award-winning research project is titled “Exploring the Role of Black Newspapers Filling Urban Government News Coverage.” The award recognizes high quality urban media reporting, critical analysis, and research relevant to that content and its communication about city problems, programs, policies, and public priorities in urban life and culture.
This intensive, week-long institute, originating from the University of Maryland College Park, will provide instruction in methodological skills, writing, and navigation of institutional norms.
The goal of the institute is to enhance qualitative research and writing skills, develop critical intersectional perspectives for designing and interpreting research and develop and hone navigational skills to successfully negotiate academic career paths.
In retirement, Dave Nord (Indiana University) has drifted away from journalism history and into state and local history, especially the history of maps and mapping and the history of manufacturing. His most recent scholarly publication is an article in the December issue of the Indiana Magazine of History titled “The Flour-Milling Revolution in America, 1820–1920: The Indiana Experience.”
Will Mari (Louisiana State University) has an essay, “Materiality in Media History,” in the January 2021 issue of Historiography in Mass Communication.
David E. Sumner (Ball State University) is co-authoring a new edition of his 2010 book, The Magazine Century: American Magazines Since 1900 (Peter Lang), with Samir Husni of the University of Mississippi. Sumner also has consulted on an exhibition, featured in a recent New Yorker, of more than 200 historic magazines on display through April 24 at the Grolier Club (47 East 60th Street in New York), from the collection of Dr. Steven Lomazow, a neurologist, who has a personal collection of more than 7,000 historic magazines. The exhibit is available online; to visit the Grolier Club for an in-person viewing, contact drlomazow@gmail.com.
Owen V. Johnson (Indiana University) will virtually present a paper, “Regaining & Expanding Their Voice: Slovak Mass Media, 1948-1968,” at the Thirteenth Annual Czech and Slovak Studies Workshop, organized by the University of Pittsburgh. Also, a podcast in which he participated, The Ernie Pyle Experiment!, has been named a finalist for a prestigious Audie Award.
Several of our History Division members participated in the twenty-eighth Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression, held virtually November 12-14, 2020, with six of its panels broadcast on C-SPAN and available for online viewing: “Depicting Soldier Experiences in the Civil War Press,” “Newspaper Coverage of Epidemics 1800-1920,” “Mid-19th Century Presidential Press Coverage,” “Commemorating Soldiers in the Press,” “Ethnic and Immigrant Troops in the Civil War,” and “Western Press During the Civil War.”
University Affiliation: Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois
Position: Associate Professor
Book Title:
Journalism Standards of Work Today: Using History to Create New Code of Journalism Ethics
1. Describe the focus of your book.
This book traces the roots of journalism ethics back to the mid-nineteenth century
and examines the 1923 Canons of Journalism, using a historical lens to access the value of journalism ethics today. The origins of journalism’s standards of work in the mid-nineteenth century are scrutinized as the foundation of the 1923 Canons and evaluated to see if these pillars of journalistic mores are still valid despite vast changes in journalism and society.
2. How did you come across this subject? Why did it interest you?
I came across the first sources for this study accidentally while working on my master’s degree at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Professor Betty Winfield’s historical research class. I then presented my findings at the 1992 American Journalism Historians Conference in Lawrence, Kansas. As a result, I ended up doing my thesis on journalism professionalization and was fortunate to have professors Betty Winfield, Sandra Scott and Lee Joliffe on my committee. In the 1990s Hazel Dicken-Garcia was very supportive of my research as was John Merrill, Wally Eberhard and Alf Pratt. Subsequently, I’ve published quite a few articles on journalism professionalization and ethics including two in the last year.
3. What archives or research materials did you use?
I found the organizational minutes from early press associations invaluable as they are hard to refute and clearly state what some early journalists believed about standards of work. They were difficult to find and often not recorded in library systems. I had to locate one source by calling a historian, William Howard Taft, who had cited a source in a footnote. He explained that the only copy of the source was in his basement. I have had less luck finding in depth information in archival newspapers, but I’ve found some. I did find several diaries in the Newbury Library in Chicago from a nineteenth century journalist that were enlightening, and the recent digitizing of special collections has been extremely valuable in shining a light on early editors’ discussions.
4. How does your book relate to journalism history? How is it relevant to the present?
This book shows that the principles which undergirded the elements of journalism ethics in the nineteenth century and particularly in the first national code of ethics in 1923, are the same ideologies that can be applied in new ways to the much-changed twenty-first century communication environment.
This research examined journalism ethics in regard to whether we still need journalism ethics in the twenty-first century, if it is possible to exercise journalistic standards of work and if so, on what values should these ethics be based in a world much different from that which existed when the first journalism codes of ethics were formulated in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
In order to distil the motivations and essence of the early journalistic standards of work, the function of media in a democracy and the formation of mass media during the first industrial revolution was discussed, and its consequential change in journalists’ locus of control and how journalists self-identified. The sudden creation of mass media pushed some journalists to create ethical principles which would guide the newly empowered press, an effort culminating in the creation of the first national code of journalistic ethics in 1923.
The journey of journalism ethics after the first industrial revolution was found to compare similarly to the condition in which we find ourselves in today, with journalism’s changing roles and boundaries that have created questions as to the application of previous codes of ethics in modern communication.
The elements of the 1923 “Canons of Journalism” are examined closely over several chapters and found to contain timeless values, despite their original application to now dated technology. The final chapter strips away the Canons’ basic elements and applies them to media today, in a way that interfaces with new technology while providing for an informed electorate.
5. What advice you have for other historians working/starting on book projects
Research what interests you and it won’t seem like work. I took that advice three decades ago and still love researching. One other thing is to try to find institutions willing to pay you to research what you love.
The History Division will need help reviewing papers and extended abstracts for AEJMC 2021. If you are willing to review for the History Division’s research competition, please RSVP via this Google form.
If you have any questions, please contact Division Research Chair Maddie Liseblad (Middle Tennessee State) at Madeleine.Liseblad@mtsu.edu. We will need approximately 75 reviewers for the competition. Graduate students are not eligible to serve as reviewers and, in general, reviewers should not submit their own research into the competition. Thank you in advance for your assistance!
I hope you’re surviving everything—with the new year, and vaccines, it seems like things are, hopefully, finally, slowly … turning a corner. At least, I’ve crossed all my fingers, toes and dog-eared all my pages, to that effect.
I just wanted to give you a brief update on how we’re doing as a division.
First, we’ll find out soon from big AEJMC (probably not long after this goes to print, so to speak), what kind of conference we’ll have this summer. Regardless of whether it’s hybrid in New Orleans or fully virtual, please rest assured that Cayce, Maddie and I have already been planning on several eventualities, and we will be in touch with more information as we get it.
Next, if you haven’t yet, please check out our paper call, and let Maddie or I know if you have questions. Note that we have extended abstracts again as an option this year, with some expanded guidance from the Council of Divisions.
Also, don’t forget the Hazel Dicken-Garcia Master’s Thesis Award, the Covert Award for best mass comm history article or essay, our Donald Shaw Senior Scholar Award, and our teaching award, named in honor of Dr. Jinx Broussard. Please let Amber Roessner, our teaching chair, know if you have questions about the latter. We’d really love to have some great submissions this year, including any and all Zoom/remote-teaching survival ideas. More information about these awards and other calls can be found on our site.
Speaking of our site, we’re working with Keith Greenwood, our webmaster, on updating that this spring, as discussed during our business meeting last year. He’s working on securing our new URL, and we’ll update you as we get more info.
Also, we’ll make a final-final decision soon about a preconference, once we know about the primary conference, but I’d still love your input on that idea. Even if it’s something we do next year, or later, I really believe that it can offer value to our membership and foster our community of scholars and teachers in healthy ways.
Speaking of chair goals, I can report that I’ve been increasing our connections with our international media-history sibling organizations, including the Comm History Division of the International Communication Association, the International Association for Media and History (IAMHIST) and the Communication History Section of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA).
I recently attended a very early morning meeting (at least for me!) of the ECREA, and they’re particularly excited to join us in future initiatives. A number of our members, including Susan Keith, Elisabeth Fondren and Carole O’Reilly, are already involved in this and other groups. Internalization of media history, especially from the U.S. side outwards, will continue to be one of my primary goals as chair and something I hope to work on as a past chair.
We had a good group of submissions into the SE Colloquium, and I should thank Denise Hill and Anthony Hatcher, along with our reviewers, for their help there.
Finally, I know things continue to be uncertain out there, and so I also wanted to thank you, our members, for holding the line and working hard to continue both the teaching of, and research into, the media history that’s so important for understanding this fraught moment.
Please let me know if there’s anything concrete I can do for you. You can reach me at wmari1@lsu.edu, wtmari@gmail.com, or @willthewordguy, on Twitter.
The Law and Policy Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) seeks nominations for the 2020Harry W. Stonecipher Award for Distinguished Research on Media Law and Policy.
The award honors the legacy of Harry W. Stonecipher, who died in 2004. Stonecipher was an acclaimed and influential First Amendment educator. He nurtured a number of distinguished media law scholars during his 15-year career at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, beginning in 1969.
The Stonecipher Award for Distinguished Research on Media Law and Policy is open to all journalism, First Amendment and communication scholars within and outside AEJMC. The award will be bestowed on research that most broadly covers freedom of expression as a whole, not just journalism.
The award is not limited to research that centers on media-specific issues. It can include First Amendment speech and press issues more broadly. The successful nomination also might be global in scope, rather than U.S.-centric, given that media law and policy as a research topic is inextricably intertwined with the rest of the world in the 21st century.
Preference will be given to research with a strong theoretical component that demonstrates the potential to have a lasting influence on freedom of expression scholarship. All methodologies — empirical, qualitative, historical, etc. — are welcome. Nominations may be for monographs, peer-reviewed journal articles, law review articles or book chapters (but not entire books). Self-nominations are encouraged, one per author.
In order to be considered for the award, the research must have been published between Jan. 1, 2020, and Dec. 31, 2020.
Nominations should be sent to Dr. Dean Smith at High Point University via e-mail — dsmith1@highpoint.edu — by Feb. 7, 2021. Please include STONECIPHER in the subject line. The winner will be announced ahead of the AEJMC’s national convention in August, and the award will be presented then.
CALL FOR JUDGES: Would you like to read the best media law and policy articles of 2020? The Stonecipher judging committee would like to add two or three readers this year. If you would like to lend your expertise, please e-mail Dean Smith at dsmith1@highpoint.edu.
Jon Marshall (Northwestern University) was interviewed by Agence France Presse and Helsingin Sanomat(Finland) for stories on the future of conservative U.S. media in the post-Trump era.
Kimberly Voss (University of Central Florida) is working on a public history project having women’s page editors from the 1950s and 1960s inducted into state journalism halls of fame. In fall 2020, her nominations led to Marie Anderson in Florida and Marjorie Paxson in Oklahoma being inducted into their state’s hall of fame. She encouraged others to induct women journalists into halls of fame through the National Council of Public History – both with articles in the NCPH newsletter and taking over its Instagram account for a week in November 2020.
Crying the News: A History of America’s Newsboys (Oxford University Press, 2019)
Q: Describe the focus of your book.
A: Crying the News tells the story of some of the most familiar and fabled figures in American history: newsboys. It interrogates the myths surrounding these children and reconnects them to the industry in which they worked, the communities in which they lived, and the events in which they participated. It’s an epic story that spans from the Market Revolution of the 1830s to the Great Depression of the 1930s. It encompasses all regions of the country and highlights the role and representation of girls, blacks, immigrants, the homeless, the elderly, and the disabled in the trade. In the largest sense, Crying the News is a subaltern history of print capitalism.
Q: How did you come across this subject? Why did it interest you?
A: Like a lot of books, it grew out of desire to read a book that didn’t exist. I got the idea for it thirty years ago while running the trails behind UC Santa Cruz. I envisioned writing not just a sweeping social history of America’s newsboys but a newsboys’ history of the United States, one that reexamined major eras and events from their perspective, from the pavement up, so to speak. I was inspired by labor historian Herbert Gutman and the new cultural historians of the 1990s, who used seemingly marginal figures, texts, or events to illuminate entire societies or epochs.
Q: What archives or research materials did you use?
A: Some advisers warned that I wouldn’t be able to find enough source material, but I persisted. I began by following the footnotes of urban, journalism, and social welfare historians such as Robert Bremner, Alfred McClung Lee, and Walter Trattner, which led me to the vast reform literature: the published and unpublished papers of the Children’s Aid Society, then crudely stored at its New York headquarters; the Juvenile Protective Association records at Hull House in Chicago, and the New York Child Labor Committee records at the state library in Albany. I also consulted obscure trade journals such as the Proof-Sheet and the Newsdealer, and the archive of the International Circulation Managers Association in Reston, Virginia. These I supplemented with memoirs, traveler’s accounts, city guides, and of course newspapers and periodicals. This was before much was digitized. I relied on microfilm and the hand-written newspaper indexes I found in libraries and historical societies. A year-long fellowship at the American Antiquarian Society helped me piece together the early part of the story, but I also traveled to archives in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Newark, Hartford, Boston, Buffalo, Rochester, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Toledo, St. Louis, and Kansas City. Every trip, for business or pleasure, became a research trip.
I also focused on waif fiction and urchin art—novels, paintings, and illustrations of street children—to trace popular attitudes toward them. I discovered that Horatio Alger’s 1868 novel Ragged Dick was a relative latecomer to this genre. I received access to a treasure trove of visual material, including advertisements and sheet music, collected by Peter J. Eckel, who was a devotee of Father John Drumgoole, the superintendent of St. Vincent’s Newsboys Home in New York. One of Peter’s prized possessions was a scrapbook kept by the superintendent of the Newsboys’ Lodging House on New Chambers Street between 1875 and 1910. The Eckel Collection is now part of Princeton University’s Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Although I cast a wide net, there were still gaps in my understanding of news peddling in the Civil War, on railroads, and in the Far West until newspapers and other collections became word-searchable. Then the problem became too much material.
Q: How does your book relate to journalism history? How is it relevant to the present?
A: The book’s main service to journalism history, I think, is to illuminate the underside of the newspaper industry. I approached the topic from the perspective of a labor historian whose subjects just happened to be children and just happened to work in the newspaper industry. This approach ultimately led me to put the fields into conversation with each other and, hopefully, contribute to all three. Many historians note how widely newspapers circulated in American cities or across the hinterland, but they rarely elaborate on this all too human process as if it were incidental to the papers’ social or political influence. I see distribution as central to the journalistic enterprise and a compelling story in its own right. As British folklorist John Brand said in 1795, “nothing can be foreign to our enquiry, much less beneath our notice, that concern the smallest of the Vulgar; of those little Ones who occupy the lowest place, though by no means of the least importance in the political arrangement of human Beings.” I took this as my motto.
One of my findings is that newspapers were among the most important institutions of American childhood, providing not just income for millions of young people, but also a host of social welfare programs, such as newsboy clubs, bands, teams, trips, meals, schools, scholarships, and reading rooms. You won’t find more innovative or extensive offerings from the YMCA, Boy Scouts, or any other youth group. Far from being grateful and compliant, newsboys engaged in scores of strikes and boycotts, and they supported those of printers and other workers, all of which confirms newspapers’ reputation as a “conflict industry.” Newsboys also took part in political campaigns, working for or against their publishers. They hawked campaign biographies, put up and tore down candidates’ posters, and toured the country as stump speakers.
The issues examined in the book are still relevant today. Newspaper hawkers and carriers were the original gig workers, and they remain so. But they’ve now been joined by some sixty million unwaged independent contractors in all sectors of the economy. Newsboys also help us understand the perennial problem of fake news, the insidious influence of media monopolies, the use and abuse of press philanthropy, the longstanding prominence of socialists in reform circles, and the resurgence of youth activism.
Q: What advice do you have for other historians working/starting on book projects?
A: Learn to work well with others. It takes a lot of individual effort and commitment to write a book, but I couldn’t have written this one outside academia; it gave me the role models, the confidence, and the credibility I needed to undertake the project, and the necessary financial and intellectual base to complete it. This base included greater access to research grants and fellowships, an international community of scholars who read and critiqued my work, and conferences and seminars that enabled me to sharpen my arguments and attract the attention of agents and editors. Colleagues in the profession invested in my work literally and figuratively, and they are now helping to bring it to the attention of readers it might not otherwise reach. History is hard enough; we don’t need to do it alone.
AEJMC’S History Division announces the 37th annual competition for the Covert Award in Mass Communication History for entries published in 2020.
The Covert Award recognizes the author of the best mass communication history article or essay published in the previous year. Book chapters in edited collections published in the previous year are also eligible. The AEJMC History Division has presented the award annually since 1985.
The $200 award memorializes the esteemed Dr. Catherine L. Covert, professor of journalism at Syracuse University (d.1983). Cathy Covert was the first woman professor in Syracuse’s Newhouse School of Journalism and the first woman to head the History Division, in 1975. Prof. Covert received the AEJMC Outstanding Contribution to Journalism Education Award in 1983.
Submit an electronic copy in pdf form of the published article/essay/chapter via email to Professor Thomas A. Mascaro, mascaro@bgsu.edu, by March 31, 2021. The publication may be self-submitted or submitted by others, such as an editor or colleague.
The following links connect to articles providing more background on Dr. Covert.
This History Division honor will recognize an individual for excellence in journalism history research who has a minimum 15-year academic career and a record of division membership.
To apply, the nomination packet should include a cover letter that explains the nominee’s research contributions to journalism history, a CV, a brief biography, and a minimum of two letters of support. Self-nominations, with the accompanying supporting materials, are welcome. Letters may be addressed to Committee Chair Pam Parry.
The winner will be notified by mid-May and recognized during the History Division Awards Gala at the 2021 AEJMC conference in August with a plaque and $200 cash award.
