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 and the Georgia Magazine Association's Award of Excellence. An active member of a number of professional associations, he has served as the Head of both the History Division (2002-2003) and the Magazine Divison (1997-1998) of the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) and is currently the chair of the Doctoral Dissertation Prize Committee of the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA).

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). For more detailed information, Abrahamson's curriculum vitae is also available.


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:

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.

Interactivity may be 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.


Courses Taught in the Last 3 Years
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) - A 200-level undergraduate residential college tutorial (enrollment by permission, open only to residential college members), focusing on the study of "stories that made a difference."


Research/Professional Activities
The principal focus of my current scholarly work has been continued work on a major research effort: a book-length project whose working title is Technology, Culture 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 journalism, journalism education and historical scholarship. Additionally, in concert with my teaching interests, I have expanded my research efforts into realm of literary or long-form journalism.

In a related scholarly activity, I continued to organize and chair the Faculty Colloquium at Medill, the purpose of which was to meet once a month to discuss works in progress -- books, scripts, other creative endeavors -- and to see if such a conversation among us might encourage our individual and collective intellectual efforts.

Moreover, there is a significant scholarly research component to a duty which I took on in earnest in the last year or two: the conceptualization and general editorship of a new Medill/NU Press historical series entitled "Visions of the American Press." Progress to date on the project includes 14 volumes under contract (of a contemplated total of 35 to 40), including the first two volumes scheduled for publication this fall: First Ladies and the Press: The Unfinished Partnership of the Media Age by Maurine H. Beasley and Women and the Press: The Struggle for Equality by Patricia Bradley. In addition, in late 2004 the series published its first reprint, the 25th anniversary edition of Deciding What's News by Herbert J. Gans.


Publications/Presentations
Recent Scholarship:

Abrahamson, David. "The Premise Imperative: Beyond Objectivity." Presented at Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication SouthEast Colloquium, Tampa, FL, 5 March 2004. An exploration of the role of thematic intentionality in the formulation and execution reporting strategies in long-form and narrative journalism, with a special focus on related pedagogical issues.

_______. "The City Magazine: The Cultural Evolution of Consumption, Identity and Class." Prepared for the Print Culture and the City Conference, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, 27 March 2004. A study of the city magazine's historical role in the redefinition of the nature of urban citizenship which argues that the success of this relatively new print cultural form is directly related to its ability to connect the unique consumptive opportunities (both material and informational) of city life with many readers' underlying identity and status needs.

_______. "Anti-Intellectualism in American Media." (review). American Journalism 21:3 (Summer 2004): 110-111. A review of a recent work of scholarship examining the role which a historical sense of anti-intellectualism plays in both the form and content of contemporary media.

_______. "The Role of Celebrity in the Evolution of the Popular Press." Presented at Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Annual Conference, Toronto, Ontario, 6 August 2004. A discussion of the interplay between journalistic standards and demands of the market, with an eye toward the press's role in the transformation of Diana's death, OJ's trial, Monica's passion, Richard's survival instincts, Janet's breast, etc. into "world-consciousness" events.

_______. "The Possible Journalistic Futures of Weblogs." Presented at Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Annual Conference, Toronto, Ontario, 7 August 2004. An examination of both the journalistic progenitors and the possible future evolutionary directions of the contemporary web-log ("blog")phenomenon.

Books:

_______. Magazine-Made America: The Cultural Transformation of the Postwar Periodical. New York: Hampton Press, 1996.

_______, ed. The American Magazine: Research Perspectives and Prospects. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1995.

Forthcoming:

_______. "The Press Celebrity and the Celebrity Press: Historical Antecedents, Future Prospects." Journal of Magazine and New Media Research, 7:1 (Spring 2005): . An exploration of both the historical origins and contemporary realties of the centrality of celebrity coverage in the popular press which attempts to understand the powerful role which celebrity has come to play in the redefining the future missions and possible outcomes of much of journalism.

_______. "The Diverted Pyramid: The Return of Writerly School of News Writing." Prepared for the American Journalism Historians Association and Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication History Division Joint Spring Meeting, New York, NY, 12 March 2005. A speculative baseline study of what appears to be a new phenomenon in the writing formats and content structures of daily journalism, which includes a hypothesis suggesting that a number of conventional mid-20th Century forms may be being superceded by what might be termed an "Omniscient Analytical Observation" (OAO).

_______. "From the Many, to the Many: The Journalistic Promise of Weblogs." Journal of Magazine and New Media Research, 7:2 (Summer 2005): in submission. . A discussion, in the form of a "research note," examining the role which bloggers and their Weblogs played in the 2004 electoral process, with an emphasis on both the effects on and reactions by the traditional journalistic entities.

_______. "The Rise of the New Partisan Press: Forward into the Past." To be presented at Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Annual Conference, San Antonio, TX, 11 August 2005. A study of the recent rise of partisanship in both the public discourse and its journalistic reflection, comparing the possible contemporary causes and effects with historical progenitors.

_______. "Teaching Literary Journalism and the Diverted Pyramid" To be presented at Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Annual Conference, San Antonio, TX, 12 August 2005. An examination of the particular demands and unique implications of a pedagogy aimed at offering instruction in the more writerly forms of long-form and/or narrative journalism.

_______. "Magazines: An Economic and Sociocultural History." In Nord, David Paul; Rubin, Joan Shelley; and Schudson, Michael, eds. History of the Book in America -- The Enduring Book: Print Culture in Postwar America (Vol. 5). New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006: in press. An extended chapter in a magisterial survey of publishing since World War II, the work emphasizes the ways in which magazines were both a product and a catalyst of changing attitudes, mores and lifestyles in the second half of the 20th century.


Awards
Helen Gurley Brown Research Professorship in Journalism

NU Alumnae Professorship Award for Academic Enrichment

Research Funding, Faculty Fellow Research Associate Program, NU Residential College Program

Speakers Funding Grant, Communication Residential College.

Second-Place Award for First-Person Magazine Article and Honorable Mention for "People and Places" Magazine Article; AEJMC Student Writing Contest.