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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AEJMC History Division Honors Erika Pribanic-Smith and Keith Greenwood for Exceptional Service

Dr. Erika Pribanic-Smith and Dr. Keith Greenwood are the recipients of the History Division’s 2023 Exceptional Service Award. This important award is given by the division’s chair and vice chair to members who have provided stellar service.

Pribanic-Smith is an associate professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. She is UTA’s journalism sequence coordinator and has served in many roles for the History Division, including as a chair. Her most recent role is as the web content coordinator for the division’s academic journal, Journalism History.

Greenwood is an associate professor at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism. He was the division’s website administrator for many years before stepping down last year. He spearheaded the division’s move to a new website platform two years ago and continues his involvement with the division as the listserve administrator.

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AEJMC History Division announces Dr. John M. “Jack” Hamilton as winner of 2023 Donald L. Shaw Senior Scholar Award

The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication will honor Dr. John M. “Jack” Hamilton as the Donald L. Shaw Senior Scholar during the Division’s Awards Gala on Aug. 6. The longtime journalist, author and public servant is the Hopkins P. Breazeale Professor of Journalism and founding dean at the LSU Manship School of Mass Communication and a global scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, in Washington, D.C.

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AEJMC History Division Announces 2023 Sweeney Award Winner

Paul Myers and Lisa Parcell of Wichita State University won the 2023 Michael S. Sweeney Award for their article, “Beauty and the Bran: Kellogg’s Campaign to ‘Correct Faulty Elimination’ and Conquer the Cereal Industry.”

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. In addition to receiving a plaque and cash prize, Myers and Parcell will be honored during the History Division’s awards gala at this year’s AEJMC conference in Washington, D.C.

“What started as an interest in a random line of text on the Kellogg’s website led to a historical journey through the bowels of one of Kellogg’s long-forgotten advertising campaigns,” Myers said. “This paper, unique in subject matter as it is, has served as an interesting conversation piece amongst colleagues and was realistically my first foray into historical research, in turn, leading to the discovery of a research area for me to call home.”

Parcell said Kellogg’s did exactly what students today are taught to do – clearly identify a target audience, understand their concerns, and create messaging that shows how the product solves their problems.

“One of my favorite things about this article is that I can use it in both my graduate historical methods class and my senior capstone Integrated Marketing Communication Campaigns class,” she said. “A sincere thank you to the Journalism History reviewers and editors who made this paper stronger and to the History Division’s Publications Committee for the recognition.”

Their article, published in Volume 48 Issue 4 of Journalism History, examines how the Kellogg’s Corn Flake Company’s investment into home economics became integral to the brand itself and helped establish Kellogg’s as a leader in addressing the growing dietary health concerns of the early twentieth century and in the breakfast food industry. The company’s success today can clearly be traced back to its original efforts to address health concerns through advertisements that taught women how to use bran cereal as both a curative and preventative food for constipation and related symptoms.

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Author Q&A: Berkley Hudson, Photographing Trouble & Resilience in the American South

O.N. Pruitt’s Possum Town: Photographing Trouble & Resilience in the American South (University of North Carolina Press, 2021)

*Berkley Hudson is an associate professor emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Journalism*

Describe the focus of your book.

Photographer O. N. Pruitt (1891–1967) for forty years was the de facto documentarian of Lowndes County, Mississippi, and its county seat, Columbus—known to locals as “Possum Town.” His work recalls many Farm Security Administration photographers, but Pruitt was not an outsider; he was a community member with intimate knowledge of the town.

He photographed fellow white citizens and Black ones, too, in circumstances ranging from the mundane to the horrific: family picnics, parades, river baptisms, carnivals, fires, funerals, two of Mississippi’s last public and legal executions by hanging, and a lynching. From formal portraits to candid images, Pruitt’s documentary of a specific yet representative southern town offers viewers an invitation to meditate on the interrelations of photography, community, race, culture, and historical memory. The book is a companion to an NEH-traveling exhibition.

AEJMC History Division Announces Winners of the 2023 Jinx C. Broussard Award for Excellence in Teaching of Media History

The History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) has selected Ira Chinoy, Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen, Bailey Dick, and Autumn Lorimer Linford as winners of the 2023 Jinx C. Broussard Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Media History.

The award acknowledges original, creative practices that journalism educators and media historians use in their classrooms to teach media history and seeks to share those techniques with other instructors. Ideas and practices focused on diversity, collaboration, community, and justice receive special attention in the selection process. The award is in its fifth year.

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