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Summer 2008 Syllabi:
Jour 333 - Copy Editing

Douglas J. Fisher
Instructor
Electronic and Print Journalism Sequence

B.A., Economics and Political Science, Indiana University
M.A., Journalism, and former Kiplinger Fellow, The Ohio State University

Fisher is a veteran journalist who most recently spent nine years as a news editor for The Associated Press. His interests are in reporting, precision writing, ethics, media economics, and new ways to manage the increasing flow of information so that reporters and editors, as well as consumers, do not suffer “information burnout.” He began his career in radio and television, became a newspaper reporter and then was a fellow in the Kiplinger Public Affairs Reporting Program at Ohio State University before joining the AP in 1983.

Among the major stories he has covered or helped cover were the shooting of civil-rights leader Vernon Jordan; the return of those who fled to Canada rather than serve in Vietnam; the collapse of credit union systems in Ohio and Rhode Island; the largest evacuation at the time after a hazardous chemical accident outside Dayton, Ohio; and development of many of the Air Force’s secret weapons, including the stealth fighter, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton. He has covered legislatures in Indiana, Ohio, Rhode Island and South Carolina; has covered or helped direct coverage of presidential campaigns dating to Jimmy Carter’s; and directed the AP’s coverage in South Carolina of the Susan Smith murder case and trial and of numerous hurricanes. His work exposing flaws in management of the federal revenue sharing system won a San Francisco State University award.

He is the founder of the HartsvilleToday.com community news project that has shown, in conjunction with the Hartsville Messenger newspaper, how such sites can invigorate local news coverage and form a vibrant online community. In 2007, he became executive editor of The Convergence Newsletter, and he is co-author of Principles of Convergent Journalism (Oxford, 2008).

On the Web:
"USC's scariest professors: Doug Fisher, copy editing", garnet&black, March 2005 (pdf)

Fisher's Keynote Address at the Florida Press Club Annual Meeting, Oct. 15, 2005, Orlando, Fla.