An Editor’s Reflection: The Early Days of American Journalism

Abstract

In a reflection on the founding of American Journalism in 1983 by Gary Whitby, this fortieth anniversary essay examines the earliest beginnings of the journal, and the chief aims of the individuals who helped establish the journal: to improve historical scholarship through superior historiography. This essay argues that Whitby’s founding of American Journalism did more than help scholars advance in their profession. It was also a critical event in advancing historical scholarship among journalism and mass communication scholars.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

W. David Sloan

W. David Sloan is a professor emeritus at the University of Alabama. He helped found the American Journalism Historians Association, the AJHA Southeast Colloquium, and the Southeast Journalism Conference and is co-founder of the Southern Christian Writers Conference. He has received several awards over his career and in 1998 was honored with the AJHA’s Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement. He has published approximately forty-five books. Two of them won Choice magazine’s “Outstanding Academic Book” awards, and his American Journalism History in 1990 won an American Library Association “Best Bibliography in History” award.