Exercises in Media Writing

About Vincent F. Filak

Vincent F. Filak Ph.D. is an award-winning teacher and scholar who serves as a professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh where he primarily teaches courses on media writing and reporting. Prior to his arrival at UWO he served on the faculty at Ball State University and also taught courses at the University of Missouri and the University of WisconsinMadison. He also previously worked for the Wisconsin State Journal and the Columbia Missourian newspapers. The Associated Collegiate Press honored him as part of the organizations inaugural class of Pioneer Award Winners in 2022. The Scholastic Journalism Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication presented him with the Educator of the Year award in 2021 a year after he was honored by the National Society of Leadership and Success with an Excellence in Teaching award. In 2019 he received the Friend of KEMPA award for his work with high school journalism students through the Kettle Moraine Press Association. In addition he has received awards from the College Media Association (CMA) and the National Scholastic Press Association for his work as a college media adviser and a mentor to high school journalists. As a scholar Filak has received thirteen top conference paper awards including those from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication the Broadcast Education Association and the International Public Relations Society of America. He has published more than thirty scholarly peer-reviewed articles in top-tier journals including Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly Journalism and Mass Communication Educator the Newspaper Research Journal the Atlantic Journal of Communication Journalism: Theory Practice and Criticism the Howard Journal of Communication Educational Psychology and the British Journal of Social Psychology. He is also the winner of CMAs Nordin Research Award which goes to the best research paper completed on a topic pertaining to media advisers within a given year. He has published several textbooks in the field of journalism including Dynamics of Media Writing (SAGE) Dynamics of News Reporting and Writing (SAGE) Dynamics of Media Editing (SAGE) Convergent Journalism (Focal) and The Journalists Handbook to Online Editing (with Kenneth Rosenauer; Pearson). He also blogs about media-related topics at DynamicsOfWriting.com. He lives outside Auroraville Wisconsin with his wife Amy and their daughter Zoe.