COLLEGE PARK — Tom Rosenstiel, the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism’s Eleanor Merrill Scholar on the Future of Journalism, has been elevated to the rank of Professor of the Practice.
The title Professor of the Practice is used to appoint individuals who have demonstrated excellence in the practice as well as leadership in specific fields, reaching a level of national or international prominence.
Rosenstiel, who served as executive director of the American Press Institute from 2013-2021, joined the Merrill College faculty in 2021. He is one of the world’s most recognized thought leaders about journalism, media, technology, and the intersection of media and politics. He teaches courses on the role of journalism in a democracy, news-delivery models, media innovation, and the intersection of media and politics.
Rosenstiel is the author of 11 books, including four novels, and founded two major media nonprofits — the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Committee of Concerned Journalists. He lectures around the world and consults with media companies on the future of news and information. He is also a nonresident senior fellow in governance studies at The Brookings Institution.
As executive director, he reinvented the American Press Institute, turning the 75-year-old seminar institute into a leading learning organization on media for the 21st century. His recent work has focused on the future sustainability of local news, and the future of factualism and the public square in democracy. His work as a press critic has focused on the intersection of politics and media.
His award-winning text, “The Elements of Journalism,” co-authored with Bill Kovach, has published four editions. It is used as a textbook in most U.S. journalism schools and has been translated into 30 languages. It has been called "one of five essential books" on journalism (The Wall Street Journal), a "modern classic" (The New York Times), and "the most important book on the relationship of journalism and democracy published in the last 50 years" (Poynter Institute). His fourth novel, entitled “The Days To Come,” was published in 2021 by Ecco HarperCollins.
In 2014, he co-edited “The New Ethics of Journalism: Principles for the 21st Century,” the first full rethinking of journalism ethics in the digital age. His book, “Blur,” is the first comprehensive attempt to create a system for news literacy.
A journalist for more than 20 years, Rosenstiel was a press critic at the Los Angeles Times for a decade, chief congressional correspondent for Newsweek and a media critic for MSNBC.
He has won several major awards for his service to journalism, his writing and his media criticism, including four Sigma Delta Chi Awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and Harvard University’s Goldsmith Book Prize. He is also an SPJ Fellow of the Society and the only four-time winner of Penn State University’s Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism.
Rosenstiel has previously taught journalism courses at Columbia University. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College and his master’s from Columbia University. He lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with his wife Rima Sirota, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center.
For more information, contact:
Josh Land
joshland@umd.edu
301-405-1321