Apr 4 - You mean they’re not true? Busting media myths, W. Joseph Campbell, PhD

Communications professor, author, and blogger W. Joseph Campbell debunks prominent media-driven myths — those well-known stories about and/or by the news media that are widely believed and often retold but which, under scrutiny, dissolve as apocryphal or wildly exaggerated. These myths include the hero-journalist interpretation of Watergate, the famous "Cronkite Moment" of 1968, and the myth of superlative reporting in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, all of which are addressed in Campbell's book, Getting It Wrong: Ten of the Greatest Misreported Stories in American Journalism (University of California Press, 2010).
W. Joseph Campbell is a tenured full professor in the School of Communication at American University in Washington, DC. He joined the University’ s faculty in 1997 after more than 20 years as a newspaper and wire service journalist.

Dr. Campbell is the author of six books, all of which have been published since 1998. His most recent works include: Getting It Wrong: Ten of the Greatest Misreported Stories in American Journalism (2010) and 1995: The Year the Future Began (2015). The book about 1995 identifies that year as a watershed in the recent past. Getting It Wrong won the Society of Professional Journalists’ national Sigma Delta Chi award for “Research about Journalism.”

Among Dr. Campbell’s other books are The Year That Defined American Journalism: 1897 and the Clash of Paradigms (2006) and Yellow Journalism: Puncturing the Myths, Defining the Legacies (2001).

Dr. Campbell is a past winner of the American University student government’s “faculty member of the year” award. Dr. Campbell has taught 17 different courses at American University, including “Myths of the Media” and “Decisive Moments in Communication.”

Saturday, April 4, 2015 1:30 pm
Bethesda Regional Library
7400 Arlington Rd, Bethesda, MD (map)

FREE admission
Everyone is welcome, members and non-members.
Refreshments and socializing after the talk.
FREE weekend parking at the library (info & directions)

For more information, call the 24-hour Skeptic Line
240-670-NCAS (6227) or email ncas@ncas.org