Editorial Board

Al Cross

University of Kentucky

Cross has served as the director of Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and extension professor of journalism at the University of Kentucky since 2004. He is a former weekly newspaper editor and manager who worked 26 years at The Courier-Journal, the last 15½ as political writer. He still writes a fortnightly column on Kentucky politics for the Louisville newspaper. He shared in a 1989 Pulitzer Prize awarded to the Courier-Journal staff for general news reporting. Cross was the national president of the Society of Professional Journalists in 2001-02. He currently serves as the secretary of AEJMC’s Community Journalism Interest Group.  He holds a B.A. in mass communications from Western Kentucky University.

Andrea Frantz

Robert Morris University

Andrea Breemer Frantz, Ph.D., is department head and associate professor of communication at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh.  She has spent the past two and half decades teaching journalism and communication at the undergraduate level and has been active in AEJMC’s Civic and Citizen Journalism and Community Journalism Interest Groups.  Her interest in community journalism stems from her first experience in the field as a reporter for a small, family-owned newspaper in Grinnell, Iowa, and subsequent freelance work.  In addition, other passions include a deep dedication to First Amendment education and student mentoring projects that link with community initiatives, and new/social media initiatives, in particular, how media technology advancements may be help drive curriculum change.

Andris Straumanis

University of Wisconsin-River Falls

Professor Straumanis teaches classes in print and online journalism and advises the campus newspaper, the Student Voice, at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. His professional experience includes more than a dozen years as a reporter, editor, photographer and graphic designer for weekly and business newspapers in Illinois and Minnesota. From 1998 to 2005, Straumanis was a lecturer in the Department of Communication and Journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. His research interests focus on the history of immigrant and ethnic media. From 2000-2012, Straumanis was editor of Latvians Online, an English-language Web site offering news, features, reviews, opinion and other material of interest to Latvians living abroad. He was head of the Community Journalism Interest Group of AEJMC from 2011-2012.

Bill Reader

Ohio University

Dr. Reader worked as a reporter, photographer, columnist, copy editor, and opinion page editor for a number of community newspapers in central Pennsylvania before leaving the profession to teach journalism at the collegiate level. He has taught journalism at The Pennsylvania State University (his alma mater), the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. His research has been published in journals including Newspaper Research Journal, Journal of Mass Media Ethics, Journalism: Theory, Practice, and Criticism, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, and Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. He is co-author (with Steven Knowlton, Dublin City University) of Moral Reasoning for Journalists (second edition) and is co-editor (with John Hatcher, University of Minnesota Duluth) of the forthcoming book, The Foundations of Community Journalism (under contract with SAGE). At Ohio University, he teaches courses in news editing, media ethics, and community journalism. He is a founding member and past chair of the Community Journalism Interest Group of AEJMC, and is an academic partner and steering-committee member of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

Carrie Brown

City University of New York

Dr. Carrie Brown heads the Newmark J-School’s M.A. in Engagement Journalism program.

She was previously an associate professor of journalism at the University of Memphis, where she earned recognition in 2014 as the national Educator of the Year from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s Newspaper and Online Division.

A pioneer in changing journalism education, she has developed and taught new courses in social media and entrepreneurial journalism at Memphis and launched a new graduate certificate program in entrepreneurial journalism there in partnership with local accelerator Start.Co.

Clyde Bentley

University of Missouri (retired)

Dr. Bentley is a veteran community newspaper journalist who is now an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism’s print and digital news program and was a 2009-2010 Fellow of the Reynolds Journalism Institute. He was in the newspaper industry for two decades as a reporter, editor, ad manager and general manager before earning his doctorate at the University of Oregon in 2000. He has a master’s degree from the University of Texas and undergraduate degrees from Shasta College and Pepperdine University. His research and teaching focuses on mobile phone journalism, citizen journalism, audience analysis and editorial writing.

Cornelius Foote

University of North Texas

Neil Foote is a senior lecturer at the Mayborn School of Journalism at the University of North Texas. He helped launch North Texas News Net, a regional news site featuring student reported, written and produced content. He teaches convergence journalism and multimedia journalism classes. He is a nationally recognized professional who has nearly 30 years of media experience. Foote has worked at several major media outlets, including The Miami Herald, The Washington Post, The Dallas Morning News and the Belo Corporation. He earned his Master of Science in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and also holds an MBA from Southern Methodist University.

David Cuillier

University of Arizona

Dr. Cuillier is an associate professor in the University of Arizona School of Journalism, chairman of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Freedom of Information Committee, and incoming head (for 2011-12) of the AEJMC Law & Policy Division. Before entering academia, he was a reporter and editor at community newspapers in the Pacific Northwest. His courses taught have included reporting, computer-assisted reporting, access to government information, media law, ethics. He applies quantitative methods in examining issues in freedom of information, political communication, and psychological aspects of journalism. With Charles Davis, he co-authored The Art of Access: Strategies for Acquiring Public Records, published in 2010.

Deborah Chung

University of Kentucky

Dr. Chung is an Associate Professor in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky, with areas of specialization in information communication technologies’ (ICTs) application to online news consumption and dissemination environments. She is particularly interested in opportunities afforded to information consumers through the adoption of new technological tools (e.g., blogs, social bookmarking, interactive features) and the framing and perceptions of various types of interactive and social media. The practical significance of her research is to facilitate more inclusive and engaging information/communication environments through the incorporation of emerging technologies leading to the diversity of voices. She have studied the concepts of interactivity, participatory communication and convergence—particularly how they operate in the online journalism environment. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a concentration in magazine design and received her master’s degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received her doctoral degree from Indiana University at Bloomington.

Doug Fisher

University of South Carolina

Fisher is an instructor at the University of South Carolina, where he has been on the faculty since 2001, and executive editor of The Convergence Newsletter. He has also taught at Ohio State University, where he was a Kiplinger Fellow and earned a master’s in journalism. Fisher spent about 30 years as a practicing journalists in radio, TV, newspapers and the wire service, the last 18 at the Associated Press, where he was a managing correspondent and news editor. His specialities include newsroom organization, management and new media models; digital reporting and presentation; social media; editing; and community and hyperlocal journalism. Fisher founded the Hartsville Today site, one of the original online local site. He is the past head of the Community Journalism Interest Group of AEJMC; co-author of Principles of Convergent Journalism (2009), which is going into second edition; and author of the Common Sense Journalism monthly column that has been used by press associations and other news organizations around the country.

Glenn Scott

Elon University

Dr. Scott is an assistant professor at Elon University School of Communications. He earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees from California State University-Fresno and his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A former metro columnist and reporter for The Modesto Bee and business reporter for The Honolulu Advertiser, he also worked in Japan as a copy editor at Nikkei Weekly and as Tokyo bureau chief for Pacific Stars & Stripes. He covered four Summer Olympic Games and served as sports information manager for volleyball at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Dr. Scott won the Steven Chaffee Award at 2003 International Communication Association conference for a report on the relationship of CNN and al-Jazeera.

Jack Rosenberry

St. John Fisher College

Jack Rosenberry is an associate professor of communication at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, N.Y., where he currently serves as chair of the Journalism Department. Before joining the academy, he spent 25 years as a community journalist, working as a reporter and editor for small-town newspapers and as editor of a zoned community news section for a metro daily. His research is focused on Web-based community journalism, and he has published articles related to that topic in Newspaper Research Journal and Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. He is co-editor (with Burton St. John III) of Public Journalism 2.0: The Promise and Reality of a Citizen Engaged Press (Routledge, 2010). Rosenberry holds a Ph.D. from State University of New York-Buffalo and an M.B.A. from Syracuse University.

Jeremy Littau

Lehigh University

Dr. Littau has almost 10 years of experience in journalism after working at newspapers of different sizes, specializing in editing and writing both in print and online, most recently at the Los Angeles Daily News until 2004. He earned his M.A. in journalism from Missouri in 2007 and his Ph.D. in journalism from Missouri in 2009. While at Missouri, he helped launch MyMissourian.com, one of the first citizen journalism sites in the U.S. and the first ever launched within the university system as a vehicle for both practical experience and research. Littau studies sociological concepts of community, particularly in the area of social capital as it relates to measures of community strength and democratic function. His specific interest in media is online media. Beyond traditional community, he specializes in virtual communities of interest that exist both in online spaces and as groupings around social media.

Jock Lauterer

University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

Jock Lauterer is the founding director of the Carolina Community Media Project, which was established in 2001 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to returning to his alma mater, Lauterer created and ran the photojournalism program for 10 years at Penn State, where he was an associate professor. He has 15 years journalistic experience as co-founder, publisher and editor of two newspapers, the McDowell Express in Marion, N.C., and the Daily Courier in Forest City, N.C. Lauterer is the author of six books: Only In Chapel Hill (UNC -CH Journalism Foundation, 1968), Wouldn’t Take Nothin’ For My Journey Now (UNC Press, 1980), Running’ on Rims (Algonquin Books, 1986) and Hogwild: a Back-to-the-Land Saga (Appalachian Consortium Press, 1993). A textbook titled Community Journalism: the Personal Approach was published fall 1995 by Iowa State University Press, followed in the fall of 1996 by a Community Journalism Instructor’s Manual.

John Hatcher

University of Minnesota-Duluth

Dr. Hatcher has worked as a journalist, educator, newsroom trainer and writing coach since 1992. He earned his Ph.D. from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications in the fall of 2007. He taught journalism to graduate and undergraduate students at Syracuse from 2003 to 2006. Before that, he was education director at the Center for Community Journalism, based at the State University of New York at Oswego, where he taught a course that produced on online community newspaper. Dr. Hatcher has visited newspapers across the nation and conducted workshops at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and the American Press Institute. He still works as an independent consultant and freelance journalist. From 1992 to 2003, he worked for The Daily Messenger, a small daily newspaper in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. As a freelance writer, he has published articles in the American Journalism Review, the Columbia Journalism Review, Mother Jones and numerous online publications.

Joshua Azriel

Kennesaw State University

Dr. Azriel joined the Department of Communication in Fall 2006 as an Assistant Professor. He teaches media law and news reporting and writing courses. He has published academic articles in Communication Law and Policy, the Connecticut Public Interest Law Journal, and the John Marshall Journal of Computer and Information Law. Dr. Azriel worked for eight years as a reporter including five years at three different public radio stations. He has also freelanced for National Public Radio, Florida Public Radio, and Independent Native News in Alaska. Azriel has also written articles for United Press International in Miami, Florida and the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Dr. Azriel earned his Ph.D. in Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Florida . He also has a Master of Arts in Political Science from the University of Florida. His Bachelor of Arts is from Kalamazoo College.

Liz Hansen

Eastern Kentucky University

Elizabeth K. Hansen is interim chair and Foundation Professor in the Department of Communication at Eastern Kentucky University, where she has taught since 1987. Her research interests include community journalism, media ethics, media law, and media effects. Since 1991, her Community Journalism classes at EKU have conducted more than a dozen research studies for Kentucky community newspapers. Hansen is the former head of the Community Journalism Interest Group of AEJMC. She was a member of the Advisory Board that founded the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and now chairs the Institute’s Steering Committee made up of its 28 academic partners in 18 states. Hansen has worked for community newspapers in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Kentucky. Before coming to EKU, she taught at Iowa State University, the University of Southern Mississippi and the University of Kentucky. She is a member of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors and the national Boards of Directors of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas, a master’s degree in journalism and mass communication from Iowa State University, and a Ph.D. in communication with emphases in media law and ethics from the University of Kentucky.

Ralph Hanson

University of Nebraska-Kearney

Dr. Hanson teaches courses in ethics, reporting, new media, mass media and society, research methods, editorial page writing, and introduction to mass communication. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and anthropology from Iowa State University, a master’s in journalism from Iowa State, and a doctorate in sociology from Arizona State University. Before coming to Nebraska-Kearney, he was on the faculty at West Virginia University and Northern Arizona University. He is the author of the textbook Mass Communication: Living in a Media World for CQ Press. He has worked extensively on developing online curriculum, and he has been blogging on mass communication issues since March 2004 at ralphehanson.com.

Seth Lewis

University of Oregon

is Professor, Director of Journalism, and the founding holder of the Shirley Papé Chair in Emerging Media in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon. He is a fellow with the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, an affiliate fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, and a recent visiting fellow at the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. He is Chair of the International Communication Association’s Journalism Studies Division, the world’s largest group dedicated to the study of journalism.

Lewis’ research focuses on the social implications of emerging technologies, with emphasis on what such dynamics mean for journalism—from how news is made (news production) to how people make sense of it in their everyday lives (news consumption).

Steve Smethers

Kansas State University

Dr. Smethers is an associate professor at Kansas State’s AQ Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where he also serves as associate director of graduate studies. He has nearly 20 years experience in radio, having worked at stations in Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri, primarily in programming and station management ownership. His research interests include historical development of rural radio programming traditions, the role of the telegraph in newspaper and radio reporting, issues in electronic media curriculum design, contemporary issues in media convergence, and Internet-delivered radio and television. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Kansas State and his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri.

Tommy Thomason

Texas Christian University (retired)

Tommy Thomason is the founding director of the Texas Center for Community Journalism. Dr. Thomason began his career in journalism in the early 1970s with the Associated Press, working as a sportswriter in Arkadelphia and Little Rock, Arkansas. He has also worked in public relations in Dallas and as a copyeditor for several regional magazines. Dr. Thomason has taught journalism at five universities and has been at TCU since 1984. In 1987, he was one of the winners of a national Teaching Award in Journalism Ethics from the Poynter Institute of Media Studies. He was the founding director of the TCU Schieffer School of Journalism and stepped down from that position in 2009 to found TCCJ. He was one of the original researchers on the media treatment of crime victims in the 1980s, and he was co-director of the first national symposium on crime victims and the news media, which was televised nationally on C-SPAN, and a symposium on coverage of sex crimes, Sex in the Media: The Public’s Right to Know vs. the Victim’s Right to Privacy. He maintains an interest in writing at all academic levels, and frequently speaks to elementary school teachers about writing workshops for children. He is the author of six books on teaching writing.

Tracy Everbach

University of North Texas

Tracy Everbach is an associate professor at the University of North Texas. She also is a former newspaper reporter who spent 12 years on the Metro desk of The Dallas Morning News and two years at the Boston Herald. At North Texas, she teaches writing and reporting; Race, Gender and Media; and graduate classes in media studies. Everbach earned a Ph.D. in journalism from the University of Missouri in 2004, a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000, and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University in 1984. Before teaching at UNT, she taught journalism for two years at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash. Her research focuses on gender and race in media, including news reporting, newsroom management and sports coverage.

Wanda Garner Cash

University of Texas

Wanda Garner Cash is a clinical professor and the first Fellow to the S. Griffin Singer Professorship. She is head of the School of Journalism print sequence and chairman of the executive committee of Texas Student Media. Cash teaches reporting at the undergraduate and graduate levels. A community newspaper veteran with more than 25 years’ experience, Cash previously was editor and publisher of The Baytown Sun, executive editor of The Brazosport (TX) Facts, assistant managing editor of The Galveston County Daily News and editor of the Kerrville (TX) Daily Times. Cash and her husband Richard also owned a weekly newspaper, The Ingram News, in rural Central Texas for eight years. A past president of the Texas Press Association and Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas and Texas Associated Press Managing Editors, Cash has devoted her career to mentoring young journalists and advocating for open government and public access.