Joe  Mathewson

Assistant Professor

Joe Mathewson, formerly Supreme Court correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and a practicing lawyer in Chicago, is the author of “The Supreme Court and the Press: The Indispensable Conflict,” published by the Northwestern University Press. The book examines the often dysfunctional relationship between these two Constitutional forces over more than two centuries, emphasizing that although they are interdependent, each has failed the other at times, and still today both could be doing their important work better, to the benefit of the public that relies on them. Mathewson also covered business for The Journal, was a reporter for WBBM-TV in Chicago, press secretary to Illinois Gov. Richard B. Ogilvie, and wrote a book on Chicago politics, “Up Against Daley,” and op-eds and Sunday magazine articles for the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times. He was a Cook County commissioner and a director of several community banks, was an officer of a minority-owned broker-dealer, and was a securities arbitrator for the National Association of Securities Dealers. He served ten years as a trustee of Dartmouth College. He has taught Business and the Economy in the Chicago newsroom regularly since January 1997 and also teaches Ethics and Law of Journalism. He is a contributor to chicagohistoryjournal.com with pieces on Chicago-based Supreme Court cases and the prominent lawyers involved in them. Mathewson has degrees from Dartmouth and the University of Chicago Law School, and did graduate work in European politics and economies at the Bologna (Italy) Center of John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Phone

312-503-0770

Email

m-joseph@northwestern.edu

Course Info

Economy RPA (business reporting and writing), Ethics and Law of Journalism

Research

Freedom of the press in state constitutions and law.

2006 meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication: "State Guarantees of Freedom of the Press May Again Be Best, Just as They Were First."