Susan E. Tifft, Eugene C. Patterson Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy Studies, DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy
Office Location: 139 Sanford Inst Bldg
Office Phone: +1 919 613 7342, +1 919 613 7330
Email Address: susan.tifft@duke.edu
Areas of Expertise:
American Government and Politics
Media and Communications
Education:
Masters of Public Administration, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1982
B.A., English, Duke University, 1973
Research Categories: Media Ethics and Media Ownership
Research Description: Research: Media ownership and its effects on the news; media ethics; investigative journalism; the intersection of journalism and public policy
Recent Publications (More Publications)
- S.E. Tifft. "Hundreds of articles over nine years at TIME magazine." ().
- S.E. Tifft. "Articles." (). Other articles in The New Yorker, The New York Times, TALK, the Chicago Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian Magazine, Columbia Journalism Review, USA Today, Nieman Reports, Editor & Publisher, Media Studies Center Journal, The Los Angeles Times, News & Observer (Raleigh, NC), Legal Times of Washington, Working Woman, MORE, Glamour, Savvy, Executive Female, The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY), and education policy publications of Scholastic Publications, Inc.
- S.E. Tifft. ""Out of the Shadows"." Smithsonian Magazine (February, 2005).
- S.E. Tifft & Michael Schudson. "American Journalism in Historical Perspective." American Institutions of Democracy: The Press. Oxford University Press, 2005
- S.E. Tifft. "Special Interests Corrupt What Is and Isn't News." op-ed, USA Today (April, 2004).
Bio/Profile
Susan Tifft is the Eugene C. Patterson Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University's Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy. She is the co-author, with Alex Jones, of The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times (Little Brown, 1999), which won the A.M. Sperber Award for Exceptional Achievement in Writing and Research and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography. Her first biography, also co-authored with Jones, was The Patriarch: The Rise and Fall of the Bingham Dynasty, an acclaimed biography of the family behind the Louisville newspapers (Summit Books, 1991). She is currently at work on a book, for Penguin Press, about the longevity revolution and women's unique place in it.
Before becoming a journalist, Tifft was a press secretary for the Federal Election Commission and the 1980 Democratic National Convention, and a speechwriter for the Carter-Mondale campaign. She also served as director of public affairs for the Urban Institute. From 1982 to 1991 she was a national writer and associate editor for TIME Magazine, where she wrote major articles on politics, economics, foreign affairs and education. She has a master's degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. She divides her time between Durham, N.C., and her home in Cambridge, Mass.
