Saturday, December 7, 2019 • 1–3 p.m.
Associate Professor Elizabeth Skewes, Journalism
College of Media, Communication and Information
As we head into the 2020 presidential primaries, journalists face new challenges, from navigating the size of the Democratic field to negotiating an uneasy peace with the campaign of a Republican president who continues to cast them as the enemy. They also face some ongoing problems about getting access to candidates and balancing the need to engage an audience with the need to inform potential voters. In this lecture, Skewes will provide some context for contemporary campaign coverage and will examine how journalists are responding to the unique factors shaping the 2020 election.
About the Presenter
Elizabeth A. Skewes is the chair of the department of journalism. She studies news practices, focusing on the media’s role in electoral politics. She also is working on new research on media coverage of mass tragedies and the victims of those events. She is the author of Message Control: How News Is Made on the Presidential Campaign Trail. She is a former reporter for newspapers in West Virginia and Florida, and worked as a freelance reporter for newspapers in New York and Colorado covering presidential candidates from the campaign trail in 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012. For more information, visit Skewes’ website.