SU's Cox Earns AEJMC Honors

SALISBURY, MD---Dr. Jennifer Brannock Cox, associate professor of communication arts at Salisbury University, recently earned two honors from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC).

Cox placed first in the “Teaching News Terrifically in the 21st Century” category, hosted by the association’s News and Online Division. Her entry, “Fighting Fake News with Fake News,” detailed a partnership between her public affairs class and SU’s Institute for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement through which students helped their peers learn how to spot “fake news.”

Held during a campus voter registration drive last spring, the exercise challenged students to differentiate between factual news stories and fake ones created by the class. Both versions were blown up as posters, and the “fake” stories were used to populate a website made to look like a credible news source.

Encouraging students to continue paying careful attention when reading news, the class also handed out stickers with tips for spotting “fake news,” written by Cox.

“Bringing the Community to the Journalism: A Comparative Analysis of Hearken-Driven and Traditional News at Four NPR Stations,” a paper by Cox and Mark Poepsel of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, also placed first in the AEJMC Community Journalism Division.

Through the platform and consulting service Hearken, journalists have the opportunity to solicit and receive information on public opinion and feedback about issues on which they are reporting. 

For more information call 410-543-6030 or visit the SU website.