RICK MUSSER
News and Information Track Head/Professor
2001A Dole Center
785-864-7638 (office)
rmusser@ku.edu
J-School profile

Expertise

Dr. Musser’s specialty is multimedia news staff coaching, teaching and training. He supervised the design, construction and startup of the School’s cross-platform newsroom, taking it from blueprints to daily operation. He served five years as general manager and news adviser to the University Daily Kansan, KU's award-winning campus paper. He has conducted on- and off-campus seminars for editors, publishers, educators and corporate staffs. KU students have won more than $160,000 in national writing contests for stories prepared under his coaching. The KU Clyde Reed Teaching Professorship recognizes his classroom skills. He also has taught at the Consortium International University in Paderno del Grappa, Italy. He served as vice president of operations for American City Business Journals, as a business reporter, as a journalist for the South Bend Tribune, Wichita Eagle, and Indian Country Today, as an assignment desk editor, and as a field producer in Chicago.  As a Radio and Television News Directors Foundation fellow, he worked at WGN-TV news.  Musser is currently working with several Kansas Health Foundations on a health reporting academy for regional reporters and editors.

Keywords

Health and science reporting, multimedia news, blogs, media convergence

Education

Ph.D. (1978). Indiana University: Mass Communications.

M.A. (1974). Indiana University: Journalism. Thesis: examined science reporting through a content analysis of press coverage of the sexual research of Alfred C. Kinsey.

B.A. (1969). DePauw University: English Composition.

Funding

PI, $106,000, 3-year grant, Kansas Health Institute. A consortium of six health foundations in Kansas and Missouri provided funding for special reporter training to improve the depth and amount of coverage on critical state and local health issues.  Musser’s team will evaluate the training project and its results. Received December 2007. 

PI, $5,000 grant, WaterLINK for summer class for in-depth multimedia reporting on water quality in the Wakarusa watershed in partnerhip with the World Company. Received 2006.

Selected Publications

Musser, R.S. & Martin-Wolfe, S. (Fall 2007). Blogs as a student content management system. Journal of Electronic Publishing, 10 (3).

Sudhoff, D., & Musser, R.S. (2003). “Bridging academic and professional cultural barriers in a multimedia reporting class,” Technology Issues in Broadcast Education, G. Donnelly & J. R. Blaney, eds. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

Selected Honors

W. T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence (KU’s highest classroom teaching honor), 2000.

Outstanding Mentor, KU Graduate and Professional Association, 1996.

Clyde Reed Distinguished Teaching Professor, 1992.

Amoco Distinguished Classroom Teaching Award by KU, 1986.

National Teaching Award, American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, 1984.