Where you work: I’m an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Whitworth University, where I’ve been since 2015. From 2009 to 2015, I taught in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University.

Where you got your Ph.D.: Indiana University (2009). I received my M.A. from the University of Utah in 1993. In between those two degrees, I was working in journalism before being drawn back to academia.

Current favorite class: Definitely my Media History course. I also enjoy teaching International Media Systems, a class that allows me to tap into my passion for talking to students about journalism across borders.

Current research project: I have recently wrapped up a research project on the German-American press during World War I (article forthcoming). I am now exploring my next direction in my research areas of history of foreign-language journalism and Cold War-era journalism.

AEJMC in Toronto is just two months away! Plan your schedule of History Division events now with our conference guide. It also includes suggestions for historic sites to visit if you have spare time.

The division has a jam-packed slate of events, starting with our pre-conference awards gala Tuesday evening, Aug. 6, and ending with our teaching award panel Saturday morning, Aug. 10.

Please note that pre-registration is required for two of our activities.

• If you’re planning to attend the awards gala Aug. 6, make sure to register for it when you register for the convention. Cost is $5. If you’ve already registered and want to add it, you can do so at this form: https://aejmc2.wufoo.com/forms/2019-conference-workshops-and-luncheons-form/
• We have limited spots available for our tour of the ArQuives with the LGBTQ Interest Group. Make sure to email Robby Byrd at rdbyrd@memphis.edu by June 28 to secure your spot. Cost is $10, to be paid on arrival at the ArQuives.

We can’t wait to see you in Toronto! If you have any questions before then, let us know at aejmchistory@gmail.com

Michelle Rotuno-Johnson has won the inaugural Diversity in Journalism History Research Award for her paper, “Cultural Hegemony in New York Press Coverage of the 1969 Stonewall Riots.”

Presented by the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), the new 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. Rotuno-Johnson will receive a cash prize during the division’s business meeting on Friday, Aug. 9 at the AEJMC National Convention in Toronto. Rotuno-Johnson is also the recipient of the third-place graduate-student research paper award.

The judges for the History Division’s Diversity Award competition were impressed by the paper’s unique combination of primary-source analysis and theory.

“The paper … sheds much needed light on the way journalists, as products of their time, enforced and reinforced negative stereotypes about members of the LGBTQ community through media coverage of this pivotal act in gay civil rights history,” said Dr. Melita Garza, one of the contest’s judges.

The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) has selected Dr. Matthew Pressman as the winner of its Book Award honoring the best journalism and mass communication history book published in 2018. The author of On Press: The Liberal Values That Shaped the News (Harvard University Press), Pressman is an assistant professor of journalism in the College of Communication and the Arts at Seton Hall University where he teaches courses in journalism history, journalistic practice, and writing. Prior to earning his Ph.D. in History from Boston University, Pressman worked for eight years as an assistant editor and online columnist at Vanity Fair magazine.

A panel of three distinguished media historians chose On Press from a field of 22 entries. One judge noted, “With so many outstanding entries this year, judging was particularly challenging. Even though journalism is under intense criticism from some quarters, its history is rich with reminders of its importance to society.”

Ana Stevenson has been named winner of the 35th annual Covert Award in Mass Communication History. A postdoctoral research fellow in the International Studies Group at the University of the Free State, South Africa, Stevenson won for “Imagining Women’s Suffrage: Frontier Landscapes and the Transnational Print Culture of Australia, New Zealand, and the United States,” Pacific Historical Review, 87, no. 4 (2018): 638–666.

The History Division will present the $500 award to Stevenson on Aug. 6 during its award gala at the annual AEJMC convention in Toronto.

Laura Purcell has won the inaugural Hazel Dicken-Garcia Award for her thesis, “Getting People to Wish What They Need: How the United States Government Used Public Relations Strategies to Communicate Food Policy during World War II, 1941-1945.” Purcell completed her research at Virginia Tech University under the direction of Cayce Myers.

Presented by the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), the Dicken-Garcia Award recognizes the outstanding thesis in journalism or mass communication history completed during the previous calendar year. Both Purcell and Myers will receive cash prizes during the division’s awards gala Aug. 6 at the AEJMC National Convention in Toronto.

Teri Finneman has won the second annual Michael S. Sweeney Award for her article, “‘The Greatest of Its Kind Ever Witnessed in America’: The Press and the 1913 Women’s March on Washington.” Named for former Journalism History editor Mike Sweeney, the award recognizes the outstanding article published in the previous volume of the journal. Finneman will receive a plaque and cash prize during the History Division’s awards gala Aug. 6 at the AEJMC National Convention in Toronto.

Teri Finneman, an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas, has won the second annual Michael S. Sweeney Award for her article, “‘The Greatest of Its Kind Ever Witnessed in America’: The Press and the 1913 Women’s March on Washington.”

Presented by the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), the Sweeney Award recognizes the outstanding article published in the previous volume of the scholarly journal Journalism History. Finneman will receive a plaque and cash prize during the division’s awards gala Aug. 6 at the AEJMC National Convention in Toronto.

Lisa Burns (Quinnipiac University) is the winner of the 2019 Quinnipiac University James Marshall Award. The award recognizes outstanding service to the Quinnipiac community. Burns chaired the Faculty Senate for three years and the Media Studies Department for six years as well as serving on numerous university committees. She also founded the Sports Studies Interdisciplinary Minor and started Quinnipiac’s chapter of Lambda Pi Eta, the communication student honor society. Burns is a former head of the AEJMC History Division and currently chairs its Book Award committee. 

C-SPAN’s “Lectures in History” series aired in late April and early May the presentation by W. Joseph Campbell (American) about the media myth of William Randolph Hearst’s purported vow to “furnish the war” with Spain at the end of the 19th Century. C-SPAN taped the lecture in Campbell’s “Myths of the Media” class late January and has made it available online at: https://www.c-span.org/video/?457425-1/yellow-journalism-spanish-american-war

Nick Hirshon (William Paterson University) organized and emceed a televised awards ceremony on the William Paterson University campus that featured the inaugural inductions into the New Jersey Journalism Hall of Fame on April 18. The class of inductees included former Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter and former New York Timescolumnist Anna Quindlen. The ceremony can be viewed online at http://bit.ly/SPJAwards. Hirshon also moderated a discussion with ABC News reporter Christina Carrega on April 29 as part of a monthly speaker series sponsored by the student SPJ chapter.

Where you work: Associate Professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of South Carolina. I am head of the Mass Communications Sequence.

Where you got your Ph.D.: School of Journalism, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Current favorite class: My master’s and doctoral seminars in mass communications history, and my undergraduate course titled “The African American Freedom Struggle and the Mass Media.”

Current research project: Exciting research that suggests the colonization debate of the 1810s and 1820s – to send African Americans “back” to Africa – played a more significant role in the founding of Freedom’s Journal than previously indicated in historical scholarship. Freedom’s Journal, of course, was the first black newspaper, founded in March of 1827.

Fun fact about yourself: This is my 30th year on the faculty. I never thought I would be in any one place for 10 years, much less 20 or 30.