Scripps College Graduate Program Alumnus Receives Best Book Award from AEJMC

A Scripps College of Communication doctoral alumnus has been recognized nationally for a book he wrote based on his dissertation from Ohio University. Ken J. Ward (Mass Communication Ph.D. ’18) received the best journalism and mass communication history book award from the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). The book was called "Last Paper Standing: A Century of Competition Between the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News."

“It's fantastic, I'm incredibly thankful,” said Ward. "Most of the information that I gathered for the book came during my dissertation work. I certainly don't think the book would have looked the way that it did had I done it somewhere else. Having the opportunity to work with people who didn't come at it just from journalism who came at it from these different backgrounds was really meaningful to the book."

Ward grew up in Hugo, Colorado, and later moved to Kansas, where he earned a bachelor's degree from Bethel College and a master's degree from Wichita State University. He was a reporter for the McPherson Sentinel and a sports radio producer for 1410 KGSO in Wichita. He is currently an assistant professor of journalism at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas.

The book chronicles the fierce competition between the two Denver newspapers, which paralleled the trajectory of the American newspaper industry and culminated in the closure of the Rocky Mountain News in 2009. The newspapers competed for more than a century, striving for dominance in Denver's lucrative market. Using manuscript collections from across the country and oral histories with key figures, Ward investigated the strategies employed in their battle, as well as the challenges posed by economic uncertainty and industry decline.

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"When I grew up out on the eastern slope of Colorado, they were really pushing us to subscribe to these newspapers, even though they were for the metro. I just remembered as a kid growing up loving the Denver Post so much. I wanted to understand more about why they were delivering an hour and a half away in the town of 800 people in Hugo where I was. I was just fascinated by those two papers and the way they competed with each other," Ward said. "I tried to write the book so that it wouldn't just be for those of us who are academics. It's fun to hear about these two newspapers because the way that they competed is absolutely outrageous.”

AEJMC is the leading academic association for journalism and mass communication educators, scholars, and media practitioners. Ward was recognized during the 2024 AEJMC National Convention in Philadelphia in August.

According to the AEJMC website, the reviewing panel of three distinguished media historians valued Ward’s engaging narrative, the depth of his scholarship, and the book’s relevance to contemporary media issues. One judge praised Ward’s book as an example of “long-form historical writing deeply grounded in primary sources.” The judge went on to say that Ward’s book “is significant to both media historians and contemporary journalism critics. His exploration of the state of the Denver newspapers from the nineteenth through the twentieth centuries explains so many of the economic factors that led to the ills of the news industry today.”

The book was also a finalist for the annual book award sponsored by the American Journalism Historians Association.

“Ken is a journalist, and he brought that rich storytelling tradition to his research, as the best historians do. He always keeps in mind the critical importance of addressing the big ‘so what’ question in scholarly research,” said Scripps College of Communication Associate Dean Aimee Edmondson, who served on Ward’s dissertation committee. “We are so proud to see his work recognized at the national level by two key academic organizations in the field.”

Learn more about Scripps College graduate programs here: https://www.ohio.edu/scripps-college/prospective-students/graduate-programs#masters.