BYU School of Communications professor Dale Cressman recently won the first-ever Michael J. Sweeney Award for his article “News in Light: The Times Square Zipper and Newspaper Signs in an Age of Technological Enthusiasm,” which was published Jan. 2018 in Ohio University’s peer-reviewed journal “Journalism History.”
Professor Dale Cressman
The award was created by the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication to honor editor Michael J. Sweeney after he turned the journal over to the division. The award recognizes the best article published over the year.
Cressman’s article deals with how major events were posted on signs at newspaper companies, which in turn transformed public readership into a collective audience. Using the New York Times archives to research the patent wars over the “moving letter” sign, Cressman examines the development of newspaper signs and the impact they had on the news industry.
Judges said they were “impressed by the article’s insight, scholarship, and readability.”
Read more about the award and Cressman’s article here.