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Muirhead, Susan
muirhea@illinois.edu
217-300-0246
Vance, Allison Copenbarger
acvance@illinois.edu
Tenneti, Rashmi
rtenneti@illinois.edu
Heredia-Ferran, Mercedes
mhered4@illinois.edu
Erdey, Carla
cerdey@illinois.edu
Melita Garza
Associate Professor and Tom and June Netzel Sleeman Scholar in Business Journalism
Director of Graduate Studies
Affiliations
- Department of Journalism
- Institute of Communications Research
Education
- PhD in Journalism, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Hussman School of Journalism and Media
- MBA, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- AB in Government, Harvard University
Course Specialties
- Journalism History
- Business Journalism
- Diversity
- Qualitative Research Methods
- Oral History
Background
Melita M. Garza is an associate professor and the Tom and June Netzel Sleeman Scholar in Business Journalism in the Department of Journalism. She is the 2022-2023 Chair of the Standing Committee on Research for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. She was a fellow at the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism. Prior to getting her PhD, Melita M. Garza was an award-winning journalist, working at the Chicago Tribune, Bloomberg news, and the Los Angeles Times during a two-decade-long career.
Awards
- AEJMC’s Journalism History essay winner: “Ruben Salazar: Beyond Postage Stamp Memory” (2024)
Research and Creative Endeavor
Melita Garza is an American journalism historian who studies news as an agent of democracy, specializing in English- and Spanish-language news, the immigrant press, and coverage of underrepresented groups. She is the lead editor of The Routledge Companion to American Journalism History (2024). She is the author of They Came to Toil: Newspaper Representations of Mexicans and Immigrants in the Great Depression (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018), which was a finalist for the Tankard Book Award, the Frank Luther Mot/ Kappa Tau Alpha Award, and the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) Tejas Fojo Award. Her research has also won awards from the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA), and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) divisions of: History, Minorities and Communication, and International Communication.
Related Links
Recent News
Kieser, Ed
edkieser@illinois.edu
Lombardi, Carol
clombard@illinois.edu
Colleen King
Clinical Associate Professor
Director, Richard and Leslie Frank Center for Leadership and Innovation in Media
Affiliations
- Department of Journalism
- Siebel Center for Design
Background
Colleen King is a clinical associate professor of journalism and the inaugural director of the Richard and Leslie Frank Center for Leadership and Innovation in Media.
She comes to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign following 17 years in television news that culminated in her tenure as executive producer of MSNBC’s The 11th Hour with Brian Williams. Under King’s leadership, The 11th Hour became the number one cable news program at 11 p.m., labeled “a success” by The Washington Post and “a must-watch program for political junkies and the Beltway crowd” by The Los Angeles Times.
King also produced MSNBC election programming and breaking news coverage anchored by Williams. She covered live events including the Parkland school shooting, the Trump-Putin summit, testimony by former FBI Directors James Comey and Robert Mueller on Capitol Hill, Supreme Court confirmation hearings, hurricanes, and other breaking news.
King has covered four presidential and five congressional midterm elections. She has booked and produced interviews with presidents, presidential candidates, and top lawmakers. King has also produced live coverage of the Iowa caucuses, New Hampshire primaries, party conventions, and presidential inaugurations.
King began at MSNBC as a booking producer for Hardball with Chris Matthews. There, she secured and produced interviews with top politicians and celebrities including Joe Biden, John McCain, Colin Powell, Sandra Day O’Connor, Robert De Niro, Matt Damon, and Robin Williams.
At MSNBC, she also served as senior producer for Morning Joe, Hardball with Chris Matthews, and other network programming.
King began her television news career at CBS News in Washington. She also worked as an associate producer and booker for the Fox News Channel prior to joining MSNBC.
King received a master’s degree in journalism and mass communication with a concentration in journalism education from Kent State University. She earned her bachelor’s degree in political communication from The George Washington University.
Honors
- 2026-27 Dean’s Fellow, focus on artificial intelligence in curriculum and instruction
