Journalism Professor Wins Dissertation Award

Photo by Bobby Ampezzan

Rob Wells, assistant professor, Walter J. Lemke Department of Journalism

Rob Wells, assistant professor at the Walter J. Lemke Department of Journalism, won an endowed award for his doctoral dissertation on the history and problems with business journalism.

The University of Maryland's Merrill College of Journalism on March 27 announced that Wells was the inaugural winner of the Ray Hiebert History of Journalism Endowed Award, which seeks to promote the teaching and research of journalism history. Hiebert, a historian, was a founding dean of the College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

The $1,000 award recognizes "the best work in journalism history by any graduate student or faculty member at Merrill College." Wells earned his doctoral degree in 2016 from the Merrill College.

Wells' dissertation, "'A Reporter's Paper: The National Thrift News, Journalistic Autonomy and the Savings and Loan Crisis," examines the normative foundations of business journalism and describes how its close relationship to the market underpinned persistent problems for the genre until this day. It argues that business journalism needs to transform into a more aggressive watchdog form of journalism, and illustrates how a small trade newspaper did just that during the savings and loan crisis in the 1980s.

"This is a great honor, considering the significant tradition of research and writing on journalism history at Maryland," Wells said. "I'm glad to see scholarship in business journalism is getting recognized."