Du Boisian practice & thought for journalism studies

W.E.B. Du Bois was a massively important 20th century journalist and intellectual. However, his journalistic practice and social theorizing are not often retrieved by journalism studies scholars as analytic resources. To make the case for his utility, I first demonstrate how Du Bois alters scholarly analyses of the 1619 Project that stress the effort’s novelty. In contrast, I situate the 1619 Project in a Du Boisian tradition marked by empiricism and positive propaganda, a combination which swims against professional journalists’ emic understandings of objectivity. I then tour moments of Du Bois’s career that show how he theorized processes of interest to journalism scholars, including his analysis of the Black press and his wider theorizing of discursive culture and its impact on habitual racism. I conclude by contrasting Du Bois to his contemporary and correspondent Walter Lippmann.