Edward Wasserman

Dean
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Edward Wasserman, an authority on the ethics, evolution and ownership of the news media, became dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley on Jan. 1.

Wasserman earned a B.A. in politics and economics from Yale University in 1970. While attending Yale, he taught in a remedial program for inner-city children in New Haven, Conn., and was an associate editor at the country’s oldest humor magazine, the Yale Record. Wasserman earned a licence in philosophy from the University of Paris I, Pantheon-Sorbonne, in 1972.  He received his Ph.D. in media politics and economics from the London School of Economics in 1980.

Wasserman was the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism Ethics at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va. from 2003 to 2012, where he has taught courses on journalism ethics, media ownership and control and the relationships between the media and the poor. Also at Washington and Lee, Wasserman launched a student-run website that spotlights American media coverage of poverty.

He writes a nationally and internationally distributed biweekly column published in the Miami Herald and numerous other outlets, sharing his takes on journalistic issues ranging from political campaign coverage and plagiarism to WikiLeaks.

Wasserman worked as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Maryland, Wyoming and Florida. He was the executive business editor of The Miami Herald. He also served as the chief executive officer and editor-in-chief of American Lawyer Media’s Miami-based Daily Business Review newspaper chain, and as editorial director of Primedia Inc., which publishes weekly trade and consumer magazines.

Published Stories & Highlights:

Don’t like government secrecy? Get over it!

The Miami Herald

Two weeks ago on a cross-country flight I checked three bags, and when I unpacked I found three printed memos from the Transportation Security Administration indicating that they’d each been searched.

Now, my bags contained nothing but clothing, as a scan probably revealed, and I’m a Baby Boomer with no criminal past. So the traditional legal standard for police searches — probable cause — offers no justification for uniformed apparatchiks to run their paws through my shirts, shorts, and undies. Apparently I was asleep when the Fourth Amendment was repealed.

Read more here.

Editorial Contributor

The Miami Herald

A collection of submissions by Dean Edward Wasserman to The Miami Herald, where he is a contributing editor.