Professor Meg Moritz
Armory 203C
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
University of Colorado at Boulder
1511 University Ave.
478 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309
Marguerite.Moritz@Colorado.edu
303-492-1610 phone
303-492-0969 fax

Professor Meg Moritz, UNESCO Chair, does research on media and gay rights.  Her article, “Say I Do: Gay Weddings in Mainstream Media,” appears in “Media/Queered: Visibility and its Discontents” (Peter Lang, 2007). In “Hate Speech Made Easy: The Virtual Demonisation of Gays,” she examines the global impact of U.S. court rulings on free speech and the Internet.  It appears in “Racial, Ethnic, and Homophobic Violence: Killing in the Name of Otherness,” (Routledge Cavendish, 2006).  She was writer and story consultant for the documentary film “Scout’s Honor,” which examines the Boy Scouts of America’s anti-gay policies. The film won the audience award for best documentary and the Freedom of Expression Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001.   A former television news producer, Professor Moritz also examines the impact of crisis reporting on journalists and their subjects. Her most recent work in this area includes “Students as Creators and Consumers of e-News:  The Case of Virginia Tech,” which appears in e-Journalism:  New Directions in Electronic News Media, and “Crime Reporting:  Media and Identity in the South African Press” in Power, Politics and Identity in South African Media.  In 2005, she received a National Science Foundation grant to study coverage of Hurricane Katrina. Her article “Covering the News ‘come hell and high water:’ Journalists in a Disaster” appears in “Learning from Catastrophe: Quick Response Research in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina” (U of Colorado, 2006).   Her hour-long documentary, “Covering Columbine,” looks at the emotional and ethical issues raised in the coverage of the most visible school shooting in U.S. history. It has been screened in the United States, Canada, France and South Africa and Turkey.  Her analysis of television news coverage of the September 11th attacks appears in “Representing Realities: Essays on American Literature, Art and Culture” (Tübingen Narr, 2003).  Her work on the school shootings at Virginia Tech is forthcoming in 2009. Moritz is a Fulbright Senior Scholar and has presented her research in more than 20 countries. She was a visiting scholar at University of Malta in 2008, a visiting lecturer in Beijing, Shanghai and Xian in 2006, and in 2004 she was a visiting professor at the Sorbonne. She held an appointment in the Graduate School from 2006-2008 as Faculty Director of International Graduate Education.   She is on the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association advisory board and liaison to the RIAS Berlin Commission. Professor Moritz received her BSJ and MSJ from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism and her PhD from NU’s School of Speech.