I was hoping that someone else would chime in saying, “I’m also going to teach that class”

The eyewitness. How a prison fire and a charismatic inmate revealed a waiting audience for compelling radio news on CBS.

To mark the passing of CBS News Radio, I wrote about how it began—with a forgotten broadcast from a Black prison inmate.

I came across this incredible story while researching my biography of Edward R. Murrow, and you can read all about it @columjournreview.bsky.social. 🗃️
www.cjr.org/feature/cbs-...

Why are Harvard’s slavery researchers quitting or being fired? The school’s $100m project to examine its slave ownership in Antigua is mired with controversy as academics allege obstruction

Why are Harvard’s slavery researchers quitting or being fired?

I’ve got crazy stories!

Media Studies Professor Named First Sound History Fellow at Library of Congress Josh Shepperd, assistant professor of media and communication studies, was recently appointed the 2017 Sound History Fellow for the Library of Congress's National Recording Preservation Board.

Entering year ten of my appointment as the first and only Sound Fellow of the Library of Congress. I have no idea how I got here. The advocacy and infrastructure work associated with the role has been good, nearly impossible, and worthwhile.

He was definitely wrong about jazz!

Delighted to return to University of Chicago for two theory talks. I'll discuss primary document findings that detail some of the inspiration for Theodor Adorno's "Culture Industry" chapter of Dialectic of Enlightenment. Adorno was frustrated by his work with early mass communications researchers.

You’ve got some dedicated fans, Brian!

Song written by musical genius RD Burman, with Anand Bakshi.

Asha Bhosle - Dum Maro Dum (1971, Video) YouTube video by Asha Bhosle Italy

RIP Asha Bhosle - one of the great Bollywood singers of all time. Check out this funk track from 1971 with pumping bass.

Going to teach a class in the near future where all we do is listen to Fugazi.

Excited to share that *Provoking Religion* won the Popular Culture Association's 2026 John Leo and Dana Heller Award for Best Book in LGBTQ Studies!

It's excellent work, and in some ways I feel like when this project is completed that it'll take a similar pedigree status to the (very important) Marion Stokes Collection.

Very good point

How did he do it? He went to one or two shows every. single. night. since the 90s with a good quality tape recorder. That’s it.

Volunteers turn a fan's recordings of 10,000 concerts into an online treasure trove In 1989, an up-and-coming rock band from Washington called Nirvana played in Chicago for the first time at a club called Dreamerz

Congrats to my old friend Aadam Jacobs, deservingly receiving international recognition from numerous press sites for creating probably the most important live music archive of the past 30 years, simply by being Aadam.

Another angle

Moving and here’s roughly our new view. Colorado just looks like this everywhere.

josh’s comments here get at the truth of the trump cuts: democrats can’t just turn funding streams back on when in power. the infrastructure has been badly damaged—we’ll need a wholesale reimagining and reinvestment in the reconstruction of public media (as well as all our other public institutions)

Without question

I highly doubt that the Democrats have the will or vision to rebuild public media, either way.

Three Colorado stations signed on to a lawsuit that challenged the Trump administration’s defunding of NPR and PBS. It’s too late to recover lost funds, but their court victory sets an important prece... Three Colorado stations signed on to a lawsuit that challenged the Trump administration’s defunding of NPR and PBS. It’s too late to recover lost funds, but their court victory sets an important prece...

Interviewed again about the future of public media by Columbia Journalism Review. They made my quote the title of the piece.

yes!

Appropriate.

But people will be named for their expertise areas (often for the first time publicly) if queried. I'm not feeding those things articles. There's no stopping that train. But I do think that they should be semi-banned from our classrooms.

Because I don't want Bill O'Reilly to become the default dominant media historian to non-academics who search for more context.

Learned yesterday that AI monitors Bluesky "Starter Packs" to determine who to cite for academic expertise.

So I'm starting one for Media History.

I'm too busy to search for every name. If you're a media historian nominate yourself in the comments and I'll add you.

Picked up almost 1000 followers this weekend, simply because I posted that we should read books together and talk about them. Something is happening out there.

Really open ended by design - sculpture, experimental music and radio, STS histories…

Resonance | University of California Press

Resonance (UC Press) is looking for humanities research across the following topics: Sound in Political Crisis, Sound and Social Justice, Experiments in Sound, Sound Archives and Preservation, and we're convening a permanent series that'll examine "Film and Cinema Sound" this Fall. Please circulate!