Ph.D., Journalism and Mass Communication, Ohio University, 1991
M.A., Mass Communication, University of Minnesota, 1981
B.A., English, University of New Hampshire, 1978

Background

Pease, head of the USU Department of Communication, is a veteran newspaper journalist and nationally published media scholar and critic.

Pease came to Utah State in 1994 after two years as associate director of The Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, a media think-tank at Columbia University in New York City, funded by the world's largest media philanthropy, the Freedom Forum. As associate director of the Media Studies Center, he oversaw all Center publications and was editor of the Center's prestigious quarterly MEDIA STUDIES JOURNAL.

Previously, Pease worked for six years as a reporter and editor for newspapers, magazines and the Associated Press in Massachusetts, Minnesota and Arkansas before entering college teaching. He has worked at the University of Minnesota, the University of Dayton, Ohio University, St. Michael's College in Colchester, VT, Columbia University and, now, Utah State University.

While teaching and completing his Ph.D. at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism from 1987-91, Pease was founder and director of the Midwest Newspaper Workshop for Minorities, an innovative post-graduate training program aimed at increasing the racial diversity of U.S. newspaper newsrooms.

A New England native, he was born in New Hampshire and raised in Massachusetts and Maine. He and his wife, Brenda Cooper, and their dogs Eddie and Lucy live at the foot of the Wellsville Mountains in Petersboro, Utah, across the Cache Valley from Logan and the USU campus.

Research/Professional Activities

Pease writes a column twice monthly for the Logan Herald Journal, and is active in state, regional and national media organizations and journalism education associations.

He is an officer of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, a member of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication, and active in the Speech Communication Association.

This year, Pease published RADIO-THE FORGOTTEN MEDIUM (Transaction Publishers, 1995), with co-author Everette E. Dennis. He also has authored scores of articles and monographs on topics including new media, media in U.S. presidential and international politics, women and media, as well as a large body of work on minorities in the newspaper business, and media management.

His recent work in elsewhere includes topics such as media and children, women, newsroom training, race, new technologies and the Information Superhighway, global news in a post-Cold War era, the "new-media" presidency, and media ethics. Currently, he is developing approaches to teach media literacy in the information age.

Associate editor of Newspaper Research Journal from 1988-1991, Pease's research and other writings on the media have appeared widely in books, scholarly journals and the popular and trade press, particularly in areas of press criticism and minorities and the media. His national survey, "The Newsroom Barometer: Job Satisfaction and the Impact of Racial Diversity on U.S. Daily Newspapers," (Ohio Journalism Monographs 1, 1991), remains a benchmark study of the impact of race issues in newspaper newsrooms. He has published and presented more than a dozen other articles on questions of racial and ethnic diversity in the media in scholarly journals, the trade press and at academic meetings.

Pease also has published research on professionalism and training among journalism educators and media practitioners, and designed and helped execute The Freedom Forum's national newsroom training and development survey, "No Train, No Gain: Continuing Education in Newspaper Newsrooms" (May 1993). His other work has examined issues of newspaper newsroom management and the future of newspapers.

Current projects include a textbook on media literacy, called MEDIA SMARTS: MAKING SENSE OF THE INFORMATION AGE, with his coauthor wife, Brenda Cooper, also of the USU communication department, for Iowa State University Press.

Pease also is vice president of Ampers&nd Communications, a private media consulting company offering training to media professionals and to businesses and corporations in conducting media relations, and publishes two international newsletters: WATCHwords, the quarterly publication of the World Alliance on Television for Children, based in Munich, and Monte-Carlo televisions, the quarterly publication of the Monte-Carlo Television Festival and Market.

It is not just because I grew up loving newspapers that I believe the future humankind is tied to communication. In the Information Age, when the media touch everyone's lives every day, those who don't understand how the media work and how to live in this brave, new, information-rich world are functionally illiterate.
Ted Pease

Ted is a serious journalist, with all the ethics, honor, appetite and determination that word ought to imply. He really does bridge the gap between academic and professional communications by respecting, enjoying and being experienced in both.
Hope S. Green, President
Vermont ETV

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