Dr. Aimee Edmondson
Professor, E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University
​
Dr. Aimee Edmondson is a professor at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, focusing on First Amendment law and journalism history. She focuses on civil-rights-related libel law,
critical race theory and free expression. She also teaches data journalism using the techniques of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) and has worked in Kenya, China, Kazakhstan, India and Germany, leading workshops for journalists and journalism educators.
In the dozen years she worked in newsrooms around the country, she’s covered just about every beat – cops, courts, politics, education, poverty, features, sports and special projects.
She continues her journalism in her research and writing about media and is honored to educate the next generation of truth-tellers. She created a Media and Civil Rights course at Ohio University that includes taking about 30 students on a 10-day bus trip to key civil rights historical sites in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee.
Her book, In Sullivan’s Shadow, The Use and Abuse of Libel Law During the Long Civil Rights Struggle, was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 2019. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Missouri School of Journalism (2008), Master of Arts from the University of Memphis (1999) and her Bachelor of Arts from Louisiana State University Manship School of Journalism (1990).
When she is not committing journalism or traveling to teach data journalism, she is working on her farm in the Appalachian foothills. She is obsessed with local food economies and sustainability. You can find her in her vegetable garden and hanging out with a herd of goats, two cattle dogs and a flock of chickens.