Riffe joins school as first Cole Eminent Professor

Daniel Riffe, former professor at Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, was tapped as the first Richard Cole Eminent Professor at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media. He joined the school’s faculty July 1.

Riffe had been on the faculty at Ohio since 1995, where he was a Presidential Research Scholar in the social and behavioral sciences. He served as interim director at the Scripps School and later as its associate director for graduate studies and research, and director of the Bush Research Center.  He has also taught at Alabama and Southern Illinois University, after earning his doctorate at Tennessee.

He is the editor of Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly.

His teaching and research areas include mass communication theory and research methodology, mass communication and environmental risk, international news, government-press relations, citizen journalism, and the treatment of women and minorities in the media.

He is the author or co-author of “Analyzing Media Messages: Using Quantitative Content Analysis in Research” (Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998 and 2005); “The Publisher-Public Official: Real or Imagined Conflict of Interest?” (Praeger Publishers, 1991); "Orphans of NIS: The Predicament of Some All-News Stations," (Journalism Monographs, August 1980); 58 refereed conference or convention papers; and 59 research articles in various publications.

He and his wife, Florence “Dee Dee” Riffe, have two children.

The Richard Cole Eminent Professorship was endowed in 2004 with an anonymous $3 million gift to honor Richard Cole, dean of the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media for 25 years. It is the largest endowed professorship in the school and one of the university’s largest. Cole stepped down as dean in 2005, and continues to teach in the school.