Media Coverage

A Brief History of Anti-Intellectualism in American Media

Standard media coverage of higher education hasn’t changed that much since the 1940s, and it doesn’t serve the core functions of higher education well.

Bridging the Great Divide

 As newsrooms contract and already inadequate higher education coverage decreases, faculty members should be working closely with those who remain—and the “new journalists” who are taking over.

Media, Think Tanks, and Educational Research

Advocacy-oriented think-tank studies get a disproportionate amount of media attention.

The Professors, The Press, The Think Tanks—And Their Problems

The slow collapse of the newspaper industry has opened up public discourse to additional infusions of ideologically motivated misinformation. Walter Lippmann wouldn’t be pleased.

How To Paint A Better Portrait Of HBCUs

The mainstream media’s often-negative portrayals of historically black colleges and universities mislead the public and can even exacerbate problems some HBCUs already face. Those portrayals can—and should—be challenged and changed.

Earned Media

Media coverage does matter. It can have an impact on policy makers, university administration, students and staff, the public—and the faculty itself.

From the Editor: Surviving Hurricanes 101

As we batten down the hatches, hunker down, and rethink all our priorities in public higher education, I’m reminded of the similarities of preparing for a hurricane in North Carolina: Water, check. Batteries, check. Bottles of decent wine, check.

And don’t forget the good media coverage. Sure, it sounds more superstructure than base. Less central to survival. And obviously, harder to come by, as I’m not counting the small army of reporters on wind-whipped beaches, wearing designer anoraks, shouting into their mikes, sea foam blowing into their faces.

From The General Secretary: Going Public

In the academy, we spend far more time communicating within our fields than with the public. Many of our colleagues regard such “popular” communication with disdain. College and university administrators can be deeply uncomfortable with it. As a result, we are too little present in public discussions about us and too little able to counter popular myths about lazy professors with “guaranteed lifetime employment” who care more about their careers than their students.

Media Matters

When the news broke in the New York Times in August 2009 that Yale University Press had decided to remove twelve Danish cartoon images of the prophet Mohammed from The Cartoons That Shook the World, a forthcoming book by Brandeis political scientist Jytte Klausen, I felt that the AAUP had only three or four hours to issue a statement if we wanted to shape the story as it spread through the media. 

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