Area of Expertise: News media influence, media myths, yellow journalism and American journalism history, U.S. news coverage of international affairs, Web logs, media and democratization in sub-Saharan Africa

Additional Information: W. Joseph Campbell joined the American University faculty after an award-winning, 20-year career as a professional journalist. During his career, Campbell reported from Europe, West Africa, Asia, and from across North America. He is the author of four books, most recently The Year That Defined American Journalism: 1897 and the Clash of the Paradigms (Routledge). The critically well-received book chronicles 1897, a year during which journalists in the United States wrestled with the character and future of their profession, much like journalists today. Campbell's first book, The Emergent Independent Press in Benin and Cote d'Ivoire: From Voice of the State to Advocate of Democracy (1998), challenges the pessimistic assessments that are common to studies of the press in sub-Saharan Africa. His second book, Yellow Journalism: Puncturing the Myths, Defining the Legacies (2001), offers a sweeping reassessment of one of the most controversial periods in American journalism—that of the yellow press at the end of the nineteenth century. Yellow Journalism debunks the notion that the yellow press fomented the Spanish-American War. His third book, The Spanish-American War: American War and the Media in Primary Documents, explores news coverage before, during, and after the conflict of the Spanish-American War that ushered the United States onto the global stage. Campbell also has written for a variety of scholarly and trade journals and has lectured at the Library of Congress, the National Press Club, and the Newseum. He is a past chair of the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Campbell is the national vice president of Kappa Tau Alpha, the national honor society recognizing high academic achievement in journalism and mass communication. He has served since 1999 as advisor to American University’s KTA chapter.

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