David  Abrahamson

Professor of Journalism, Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence

David Abrahamson is a Professor of Journalism and the Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. The founder of Medill's Literary Journalism seminar, he also teaches magazine writing and magazine editing and was co-director of the graduate Magazine Publishing Project from 1994 to 2002. Beyond Medill, he is the general editor of a multi-volume historical series, "Visions of the American Press," published under the Medill imprint by the Northwestern University Press, and served as the director of the Northwestern University Center for the Writing Arts from 2002 to 2006. From 2002 to 2005 he held the Helen G. Brown Research Professorship in Journalism.

He is the author of Magazine-Made America: The Cultural Transformation of the Postwar Periodical (Hampton Press, 1996), an interpretive history of the magazine profession since World War II, and editor of the definitive anthology of magazine scholarship, The American Magazine: Research Perspectives and Prospects (Iowa State University Press, 1995). In addition, he is a special editor of the Electronic Journal of Communication/La Revue Electronique de Communication and is the founder of MAGAZINE, a national electronic conference on magazine journalism and publishing. He is currently working on a book-length project exploring literary journalism and the future of print.

With over two decades of experience as a magazine writer, editor and management consultant, Abrahamson's background includes senior editorial positions at a number of national consumer magazines, including Car and Driver and PC/Computing. Over the years, his management consulting practice has served many of the nation's most prominent magazine publishing enterprises. His areas of expertise include start-up conceptualization and management, strategic repositioning and new media development, and he has lectured on editorial management topics at the Folio: conferences in New York and Chicago. As a practicing journalist, his articles have been published in The New York Times Magazine, Science and Playboy, as well as in scholarly journals such as Media Studies Journal, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, American Journalism and Journalism & Mass Communication Educator. His journalistic efforts have won a number of awards, including the Ken Purdy Memorial Award for Automotive Journalism. An active member of a number of professional associations, he is currently the president of the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies (IALJS) and has, since 1997, chaired the Margaret A. Blanchard Doctoral Dissertation Prize Committee of the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA). He has served as head of both the History Division (2002-2003) and the Magazine Division (1997-1998) of the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC).

Raised in Annapolis, MD, Abrahamson holds a B.A. in History from Johns Hopkins University (1969), a Master's degree in Journalism from the University of California, Berkeley (1973) and a Ph.D. in American Civilization from New York University (1992).

Teaching Philosophy

Any philosophy regarding the teaching of journalism must be informed by a number of interrelated precepts. Some, grounded in the practical realities of professional education, are quite tangible, perhaps even obvious. Others are perhaps of a more ethereal nature. All, however, are securely rooted in the belief that both journalism and journalism education are both crafts and callings. A few of the more important precepts for me might include the following.

One of the primary tasks, I believe, is to find the right balance in the classroom between what might be called the demands of realism and the possibilities of inspiration. In effect, I view my teaching task as an attempt to both prepare our students for the sometimes-harsh realities of professional life as working journalists, while at the same time insuring that whatever natural inclinations they might have to the nobler purposes of journalism are encouraged. Clearly, a sense of balance and proportion is critical in this regard. A second teaching precept has emerged from the teaching of my literary journalism class: No matter how developed one's aesthetic sensibility, it is always the elements of craft that form the true foundations of art. This has particular significance in light of the fact that I often teach the longer, perhaps more aspiring forms of journalism; e.g. magazine writing, literary journalism, etc. I believe that no matter what the form, the fundamentals of the journalistic craft -- reporting diligence, accuracy of representation, balance in interpretation, and an absolute reverence for truth -- are of absolute importance.

A third aspect might be interactivity. It is a word currently suffering from overuse, but I view it as a pedagogical essential. I strive wherever possible for student involvement and participation. I favor the seminar over the lecture, the Socratic over the didactic, and a method of asking the students questions deliberately designed, not to have them guess what answer I am seeking, but rather to have them then formulate questions for themselves. Two additional particulars might be made in support of this interactivity generality. The first is that I very much want the students to value points of view other than my own, and so where appropriate I try to make effective use of class guests. And second, I believe that, even though each class meeting represents a body of material I hope to cover, the quality of the student's learning experience is often directly proportional to the quality of the class discussion. As a result, I have come to respect the "organic" nature of many class discussions and have learned to revere the "teaching moment." That said, however, I also believe that most students learn best in an educational context which provides a sense of structure for them. As a result, I invest much effort in providing quite detailed syllabi for my classes. And though it is occasionally useful to depart from the published structure, it seems to serve a beneficial purpose even when not being strictly observed.

In closing, a last precept: Though a majority of Medill students will in fact enjoy substantial careers as working journalists, some will not. This is most often true of our undergraduates. As a consequence, I hold it as a philosophical goal to always try to combine explicit instruction in the production of journalism with implicit instruction in how to be a knowledgeable and informed journalistic consumer. In a way, the subtext of my classes is that journalism is not only a profession but also a way of looking at the world: seeking and capturing information; questioning and evaluating its reliability, meaning and significance; and then rendering both the facts and their interpretation in a useful form. At the risk of sounding like a high-school civics text, I believe such are the skills essential for active citizenship in a free democracy.

Office

Fisk 201A

Phone

847-467-4159

Email

d-abrahamson@northwestern.edu

Course Info

Literary Journalism (375) - An upper-level undergraduate course focusing on both reading and writing, with a specific emphasis on exploring both the form and content of the "literature of journalism."

Magazine Editing (351) - An upper-level undergraduate course focusing on the craft of magazine editing and the art of magazine editorial management.

The Journalism of Impact (GEN LA 280-7) - An undergraduate residential college tutorial (enrollment by permission, open only to residential college members), focusing on the study of "stories that made a difference."

Research

The principal focus of my current scholarly work has been continued work on a major research effort: a book-length project focused on literary journalism and the future of print. In addition to my book project, I have tried, through articles and presentations, to contribute to the ongoing national dialogue among both practitioners and scholars about the implications of the emerging information technologies for the future of literary journalism, journalism education and historical scholarship. In a related scholarly activity, there is a significant research component to another of my duties: the conceptualization and general editorship of a new Medill/NU Press historical series entitled "Visions of the American Press." A total of 40 to 45 volumes are contemplated for the series, and more than half of that number are published, in press or under contract.

Further information on my recent research efforts, as well as my complete vita, is available at http://www.davidabrahamson.com.

Awards / Professional Organizations

International Association for Literary Journalism Studies

Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication

American Journalism Historians Association

American Society of Journalists and Authors

American Historical Association

Organization of American Historians

Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing

Research Society for American Periodicals

American Studies Association