COM Professor Chris Daly reflects on “Drafts of History”
During Fall 2010, Professors Bruce Schulman and Chris Daly (COM Journalism) and team taught a course called “Drafts of History: Journalism and Historical Revision.” The course explored several episodes from U.S. history, examining how the “first drafts” produced by journalists compared to subsequent drafts written by historians. In so doing, we analyzed not only how new evidence and chronological distance altered understanding of important events, but also the ways that different eras asked different questions about the past, interrogated different sources, and appealed to different audiences. In the September 2011 issue of Journalism Practice, Professor Daly reflects on the course and the issues it raised.
The article is available here: Are Journalists Always Wrong?