For immediate release

July 28, 2003

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and Northwestern University Press will begin commissioning books for a multi-volume historical series called "Visions of the American Press." The series will be published under a new Medill imprint of Northwestern University Press. The first books are expected to publish in early spring, 2005.

David Abrahamson, Helen G. Brown Research Professor of Journalism at Medill, will serve as general editor of the series.

"This ‘Visions of the American Press’ series is an important new initiative between our school and the NU Press," said Medill’s dean, Loren Ghiglione. "We’re enthusiastic about the prospects for this multi-volume series, the first ever to appear under the Medill imprimatur. It will allow us to provide a forum for some of the best minds in journalism and journalism education to address crucial journalistic issues of both historical and contemporary significance. I’m also confident that Professor David Abrahamson, the distinguished member of our faculty who heads this initiative for Medill, will ensure the books in the series reach a wider public audience by being ‘good reads.’"

"We admit to having large ambitions for the series," Abrahamson said. "The range of topics will reach as far back into the past as Milton’s ‘Areopagitica’ and The Enlightenment, and be as contemporaneous as an examination of journalism’s role in the Information-Entertainment Economy."

Donna Shear, NU Press director said, "This is a wonderful opportunity for the Press. This series is an excellent vehicle for extending the stellar reputation of the Medill School of Journalism, and for the Press to tap into the talents of Northwestern faculty." Shear expects the Press to publish three to five books in the series each year. In addition, Abrahamson will search out important books that have already been published but might be out of print or in need of paperbacking, for reprinting into the series.

Abrahamson sees the series as serving both an educational need within the journalism community, and as having wider appeal. "We would hope that each volume would try to relate the journalistic outcomes and effects of its historical study subject to the issues and concerns of the media today," he said.