Biography

Updated 06.15.05

"I have been focused on the relationships among U.S. politics, journalism, and public opinion for more than two decades. I worked as a journalist for several newspapers in the 1980s and early 1990s, including the Orange County Register and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In these experiences, I came to understand the crucial role of journalists in shaping public perceptions. With an interest in exploring these matters, I entered graduate school in Mass Communication, ultimately earning a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1996. I am now an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington.

Over the past decade my research and teaching interests have focused on how political leaders act strategically to shape public discourse, the ways in which news media report on politics, and the implications for American public opinion and democracy. This research agenda has produced more than two dozen articles in leading academic journals and now a book that examines the religious rhetoric of the Bush administration and the mainstream press’s response, God Willing?: Political Fundamentalism in the White House, the “War on Terror,” and the Echoing Press, published in August 2004 by Pluto Press. Merging this research with my broader commitment to higher education also has been a priority, and in 2002 I received the University of Washington’s Distinguished Teaching Award, the university’s highest honor for teaching."

Since the book came out, I have given talks at the universities of Harvard, Boston College, Southern California, Minnesota, Texas, and several others; I have written essays and opeds for more than 30 newspapers and Internet sites; I have done interviews with dozens and dozens of news outelets; and I have begun working with politically engaged groups on developing their identities and strategic goals. The timing is right for public discussion of religion, politics, and media.