Toward a Standard for the Evaluation of Documentary Journalism History

Abstract

The following is a lightly edited transcript of a panel discussion October 10, 2015, at the annual conference of the American Journalism Historians Association in Oklahoma City. The idea for the panel arose as the editors and reviewers of Journalism History grappled with the issue of assessing the historical significance of particular documentaries. Michael S. Sweeney, the editor in chief of Journalism History, invited Thomas Mascaro of Bowling Green State University and author of Into the Fray: How NBC's Washington Documentary Unit Reinvented the News to propose a set of guidelines for assessing documentaries. The editor then invited Mike Conway of Indiana University and Raluca Cozma of Iowa State University to respond to Mascaro's proposals. The transcript is printed here in hopes of continuing the discussion and assisting the work of documentary historians.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thomas A. Mascaro

THOMAS A. MASCARO, left, is a professor in Bowling Green State University's School of Media & Communication and author of Into the Fray, which won the 2013 Tankard Book Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Commnication, given to a piece of well-written and ground-breaking scholarship relevant to journalism and mass communication. His email is [email protected].

Mike Conway

MIKE CONWAY, center, is an associate professor in the Media School at Indiana University. He studies the history of television news and documentaries and has a book under contract, Contested Ground: “The Tunnel” and the Struggle over Television News in Cold War America. His email is [email protected].

Raluca Cozma

RALUCA COZMA, right, is an associate professor in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University. Her research examines the history of foreign correspondence across platforms, including the Journalism Studies article “From Murrow to Medioctrity? Radio Foreign News from World War II to the Iraq War.” Her email is [email protected].