Ph.D. University of Kansas
M.S. University of Kansas
M.A. Emporia State University
B.A. Mills College 

I became a SMAD faculty member in 2016, teaching in the Journalism concentration as well as the SMAD core. From 2016 to 2022, I also served as SMAD’s Director.

My research interests focus on media ethics and media history. I am particularly curious about the interplay between American journalism and democracy, and how the press contributes to the democratic paradox. My scholarship analyzes how racial inequity persists in a country founded on principles of individual liberty. At times the press, which is empowered by the First Amendment and claims a public service mission, ironically contributes to this inequity.

Following is a selected summary of my scholarship:

• Gwyneth Mellinger. Racializing Objectivity: How the White Southern Press Used Journalism Standards to Defend Jim Crow (University of Massachusetts Press, 2024)
  • Winner of the American Journalism Historians Association Book of the Year and the Tankard Award and History Division Book Award, both conferred by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
• Gwyneth Mellinger and John P. Ferre’, eds. Journalism’s Ethical Progression: A Twentieth-Century Journey (Lexington Books, 2019)
• Gwyneth Mellinger. Chasing Newsroom Diversity: From Jim Crow to Affirmative Action (University of Illinois Press, 2013)
  • Winner of the Frank Luther Mott Kappa Tau Alpha Book Award