Dr. Fred  Blevens is a leader in the emerging discipline of news literacy, which responds to the glut of digital information by empowering citizens with tools to critically analyze information that shape global opinion. Most recently, he has extended his research into archival theory, examining serious credibility issues associated with private corporate public relations archives being housed in major research university libraries. Dr. Blevens teaches skills and concept courses in the SJMC and, in Fall-Spring 2009-10, will teach a news literacy course in the Honors College.

During the past 25 years, he has founded or been a director or faculty member of three university-based residential workshops for Hispanic and American Indian high school students, including the Peace Sullivan/James Ansin High School Workshop in Journalism and New Media at the University of Miami. His teaching has been recognized at three universities and in 2001, the Freedom Forum named him National Journalism Teacher of the Year. For nearly 20 years, Dr. Blevens was a reporter and editor at major metropolitan newspapers in Tampa, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Fort Worth and Houston. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Ball State University and holds the Ph.D. from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. He is co-author of Twilight of Press Freedom: The Rise of People’s Journalism and is past president of the American Journalism Historians Association and the Southwest Education Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.