Media Smackdown ― Deconstructing the News and the Future of Journalism

Journalism is in crisis. The rise of the internet through social media and citizen journalism and the financial crisis of 2008 have taken their toll. Thousands of reporters and editors have been laid off; nightly news on the major networks is losing close to one million viewers a year; newspapers have seen declining ad revenues and circulation figures cut in half; and the old business model for newspapers based on advertising and subscriptions appears to be collapsing.
Filling the void is commentary, punditry, and even bigotry. It may have an audience, but it’s not journalism in the professional sense: a commitment to objectivity and a separation of news and opinion. At this important juncture in the evolution of journalism, Media Smackdown takes a close look at the history of the news media in America in order to address the historical, legal, economic, theoretical, and political issues that affect the practice as well as the changing face and future of journalism.

Abe Aamidor began his journalism career with the Chicago Reader and later wrote for The (Champaign-Urbana) News-Gazette, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and The Indianapolis Star. He is a past president of The Indianapolis Newspaper Guild. He has taught journalism at Indiana University, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, Georgia Southern University, and Butler University. He is the author of Real Feature Writing (2nd Edition, 2006) and editor of Real Sports Reporting (2003).
Jim A. Kuypers is Associate Professor of Communication at Virginia Tech. He is the author or editor of eight books, including Doing News Framing Analysis: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives (2009, co-edited) and Bush’s War: Media Bias and Justifications for War in a Terrorist Age (2006). He is a former editor for the American Communication Journal. He is the recipient of the American Communication Association’s Outstanding Contribution to Communication Scholarship Award.
Susan Wiesinger is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Journalism and Public Relations at California State University, Chico. She is a former newspaper reporter, editor, and publisher whose research focuses on the interaction among media, technology, and culture. She completed an AEJMC-Scripps Howard externship at The Oregonian, and is an Indiana University Teaching Fellow and an Alan H. Monroe Scholar at Purdue University.