Dale Zacher, Ph.D.

Bio:

Dale E. Zacher, a Rugby, North Dakota native, earned his B.A in broadcast journalism from the University of North Dakota, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in journalism/mass communication from Ohio University in Athens.  Zacher’s Ph.D. dissertation won the Margaret A. Blanchard Prize awarded by the American Journalism Historian’s Association for the top mass media history dissertation in 2000.  That research was later revised to become a 2008 book, The Scripps Newspaper Go To War, 1914-18, published by the University of Illinois Press.  Dr. Zacher’s research specialties include E.W. Scripps newspaper chain history and political/campaign journalism.   Zacher won several state and regional journalism awards while working as a radio and television news reporter in North Dakota and Minnesota.  He later served as the public information officer for the North Dakota Attorneys General’s office at various times in the 1990s and worked as communications director for Democrat Heidi Heitkamp’s campaign for North Dakota governor in 2000.  Zacher is currently researching and writing a book about longtime Scripps newspaper editor Edward J. Meeman’s advocacy for conservation issues nationally and in the Mid-South.   Zacher is a visiting professor who started working at Minnesota State University, Mankato in August 2024.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Mass Communication, Ohio University
• M.S. in Journalism, Ohio University
• B.A. in Broadcast Journalism, University of North Dakota

Courses Taught:

• COMM 110 Media and Society
• COMM 325W Reporting and Editing
• COMM 221W Media Writing Fundamentals

Research Interests:

• War journalism
• Political communication
• Environmental journalism

Selected Publications:

“The Scripps Newspapers Go to War, 1914-1918,” a book published by the University of Illinois Press as part of its History of Communication series, July 2008.  

“You Will Find Germany in Peace and Order: A Case Study of an American Journalist Who Praised and Condemned Nazi Germany,” Journalism Studies. v. 14, issue 5. 2013.  

"Our Forest Home: Editor Edward Meeman’s Crusade for Shelby Forest, 1933-35" The West Tennessee Historical Society Papers, v. 67, 2013 (publication delayed until 2014) pp-73-93.  This article won the Marshall Wingfield Prize for best annual research article in August 2014. 

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