sjward2

Information

First Name

Stephen

Last name

Ward

Title

Burgess Professor of Journalism Ethics; Director of Center for Journalism Ethics

Current course offerings

International Communications. J620

Professional Reponsibility. J666

Courses taught

Journalism ethics, international communications, media law, critical thinking in journalism, science journalism, press and society.

Biography

Stephen J. A. Ward is the James E. Burgess Professor of Journalism Ethics in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also the director of the Center for Journalism Ethics. He is the first Burgess Professor, a newly endowed chair at the school. Prof. Ward took up the position in August, 2008. Previously, he was director of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

He is the author of the award-winning The Invention of Journalism Ethics: The Path to Objectivity and Beyond. The book, published by McGill-Queen’s University Press, won the 2005–2006 Harold Adams Innis Prize from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences for the best English-language scholarly book in the social sciences. Also, he is co-editor of Media Ethics Beyond Borders: A Global Perspective, published by Heinemann Publications of South Africa in June 2008.

Prof. Ward has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Waterloo, Ontario. His research interests include history of journalism ethics, global media ethics, ethical theory, objectivity and science journalism.Prof. Ward is principal investigator of an international study into the public communication of controversial science. The study aims to improve science journalism by exploring new models of science communication.

Prof. Ward is an associate editor of the Journal of Mass Media Ethics, the premiere academic journal on media ethics in North America. His articles and reviews have appeared in such journals as Journalism Studies, Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies; Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism; Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics and the Journal of Mass Media Ethics. He serves on seven editorial and advisory boards for ethics organizations and for journals on media ethics and science.

For 14 years, Prof. Ward has worked as a journalist. He was a Canadian political reporter before becoming foreign reporter, war correspondent, and newsroom manager. During this period, he covered conflicts in Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Northern Ireland. Prof. Ward was the British Columbia bureau chief for The Canadian Press news agency in Vancouver.

He is a media ethics columnist for Media Magazine and the founding chair of the Ethics Advisory Committee of the Canadian Association of Journalists. Prof. Ward is director of two web sites: www.sciencejournalism.net , on science journalism, and www.journalismethics.ca, “Journalism Ethics for the Global Citizen,” for the analysis and promotion of journalism ethics. He writes a bi-weekly online column on ethics for www.j-source.ca, Canada's main portal for the discussion of journalism.

 

Office hours

Thus. 11-1 p.m., and by appt.

Office

5152 VIlas

Education

 

PhD: University of Waterloo (Philosophy); M.A.: University of Toronto (Philosophy); B.A.: St. Thomas University (Philosophy/English)

Telephone

(608) 263-2845

Email

sjward2@wisc.edu

Areas of research

Journalism ethics, global media ethics, science journalism, history of journalism ethics, theories of objectivity, ethical theory

Recent publications

Media Ethics Beyond Borders: A Global Perspective. Co-edited with Herman Wasserman, University of Sheffield, England. Johannesburg, SA: Heinemann Books, 2008.

“Toward a Global Media Ethics: Theoretical Perspectives.” Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies. Co-authored with Clifford G. Christians, Shakuntala Rao, and Herman Wasserman.

“Printer–Editors of the 17th and 18th Centuries.” In The International Encyclopedia of Communication, edited by Wolfgang Donsbach. Vol. 9, pp. 3886-3888. Oxford, U.K. and Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, March 2008.

“Utility and Impartiality: Being Impartial in a Partial World,” Journal of Mass Media Ethics, Vol. 22, Numbers 2&3 (2007): 151–167.

“Journalism Ethics.” In Handbook of Journalism Studies, edited by Karin WahlJorgensen and Thomas Hanitzsch. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, forthcoming 2008.

“Inventing Objectivity.” In A Philosophical Approach to Journalism Ethics, edited by Christopher Meyers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Forthcoming 2009.

History

Member for

12 weeks 6 days