The Professor and Mr. Pulitzer

Abstract

Kevin Barnhurst died on June 2, 2016, at the age of 64 of an apparent heart attack. Those who were not close to Kevin were surprised to learn that he had a history of heart trouble; he seemed fit, and even youthful. His death marked the end of a remarkable academic career, the impact of which will continue to unfold. His superb book, Mister Pulitzer and the Spider, was just being printed when he died.Barnhurst entered the field of journalism studies almost accidentally (Barnhurst, 2011). An undergraduate degree in Latin American studies from Brigham Young University (BYU) had led to internships with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the United Nations (UN) but no job; an initial attempt at a master's degree in economics at the University of Maryland had petered out, and instead he earned a master's in communication from BYU. This degree had involved a couple of skills-based courses, which proved to be the ticket to freelance work in design and editing. This is turn led to teaching design and editing, first at Westminster College, a liberal arts college affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, then at Keene State University. While at Keene State he published essays, including one in the American Scholar (Barnhurst, 1982) that caught the eye of James Carey, who nudged the Department of Journalism at the University of Illinois to recruit him to the faculty. This is where I met Kevin: We were assistant professors together in what was then called the College of Communications, now the College of Media.At Illinois, Barnhurst learned to be an academic by emulation. He read broadly, and began sitting in on doctoral seminars. I was a fellow traveler in those days. I'd been hired a short while before Kevin. My background was in history, and I had never taken a course in journalism or communication before being assigned to teach them. Part of my introduction to the field was sitting in, with Kevin, on a seminar in audience studies co-taught by our colleagues Ellen Wartella and Larry Grossberg.Meanwhile, his colleagues in the Journalism department began to signal that he would have trouble getting tenure, and reacted with displeasure when he won a Fulbright to Peru and a coveted Gannett Center fellowship in New York, where he wrote his first book, Seeing the Newspaper (Barnhurst, 1994). Barnhurst responded by moving to Syracuse University. There his book earned him tenure. Shortly after having a massive heart attack, he began a PhD program at the University of Amsterdam. He defended at the end of a year spent writing his dissertation while on sabbatical in Tenerife, then teaching in Syracuse's study abroad program in Madrid. With PhD in hand, he moved to the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois. There he finished another book (Barnhurst & Nerone, 2001), took on administrative duties as director of graduate studies and department head, took the major part in founding a doctoral program, and continued the series of studies that would eventually produce Mr. Pulitzer. In 2013, he moved to the University of Leeds, and in 2015, he retired. In addition to the fellowships in Peru and New York, he did a Fulbright in Italy, a sabbatical in Copenhagen, and was a Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard.These curriculum vitae (CV) data points give a correct impression of Barnhurst's restless ambition, but fail to demonstrate the great personal warmth and intellectual passion that rounded him out. People who worked with him may carry different impressions. His students will remember his remarkable generosity and also his demanding preciseness. His coauthors-we are legion-will remember his ruthless editing and relentless rewriting. His department heads will remember his dogged and infuriating insistence on correct procedure. All will acknowledge the importance of his scholarly work.Kevin Barnhurst will be remembered as a major figure in the development of critical journalism studies. His trajectory began with his professional work in design, and his early work, up to and including Seeing the Newspaper, fit comfortably within the orbit of work in visual communication. …