James William Tankard, Jr. The University of Texas at Austin, USA

James W. Tankard, Jr., is the Jesse H. Jones Professor in Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. He was born in Newport News, Va. He attended Virginia Tech, where he was co-editor of the student newspaper and received a B.S. in General Science. He enrolled at the University of North Carolina, where he received a master’s of journalism degree. He went to Stanford University, where he received a Ph.D. in communication. He has worked for The Associated Press in Charlotte, N.C., and for The Raleigh Times as a county government reporter. He has also held summer jobs and other short-term positions with the Newport News (Va.) Daily Press, the United States Information Agency, and the Lampasas (Texas) Dispatch and Record. He has taught journalism at the University of Wisconsin, Temple University, and the University of Texas at Austin. He taught one of the first classes in the Senior Fellows program, the honors program within the College of Communication at the University of Texas. He served for six years as the editor of Journalism Monographs. He is the author of The Statistical Pioneers and the co-author of Basic News Reporting (with Michael Ryan) and the co-author of Communication Theories (with Werner Severin). The latter is in its fifth edition and has been translated into five languages. He is married to Elaine Fuller Tankard, and they have three daughters—Amy, Jessica, and Margaret. He enjoys traveling hiking, and songwriting, and is a member of the Austin Songwriters Group.