Office: CMU 219
Phone: (206) 685-9377
E-Mail: dunder@u.washington.edu

Doug Underwood is Professor of Communication who teaches in the areas of media ethics, media and religion, journalism and literature, and media management and economics. He is the author of three books: Journalism and the Novel (2008), From Yahweh to Yahoo! (2002), and When MBAs Rule the Newsroom (1993). From Yahweh to Yahoo! was awarded a distinguished book award in 2003 by the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.

He recently expanded his research focus into the domain of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma here at the UW and has undertaken an historical analysis of the impact of trauma, violence, and emotional distress in the careers of 200 important American and British journalist-literary figures dating back to the early 1700s. His newest manuscript, Trauma, Journalism, and Fiction: Traumatic Experience and the Troubled Journalist-turned-Novelist, examines the influence of childhood neglect, substance abuse issues, war-time experiences, and other traumatic events in the lives and literature of these figures.

He has published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Journalism History, Journal of Media and Religion, Journal of Mass Media Ethics, and other scholarly publications on such topics as journalism economics, technology in the newsroom, the historical relationship of journalism and religion, the influence of journalism upon the development of the novel, and the effect of profit pressures upon journalists. His publications include survey research projects – among them national surveys of newspaper management practices, the religious and ethical values of journalists, and journalists’ literary interests and ambitions. He also has been a contributor to the professional media review, Columbia Journalism Review.

Underwood teaches undergraduate courses in journalism ethics, journalism and literature, press and politics, newsroom management practices and global media trends, and the intellectual foundations of journalism. He also offers a class in narrative journalism where advanced journalism students have the chance to practice writing what has been called “new” or “literary” journalism. He teaches two graduate seminars, “Seminar in Mass Media Structure” and “Media, Myth, and Ritual.” The mass media structure seminar examines economic changes and business trends in American and international media organizations. The media, myth, and ritual seminar looks at the way media operate in a secular society with many of the characteristics that traditionally have been imputed to religion and spirituality. The interdisciplinary course draws from the fields of religious studies, sociology, cultural studies, journalism, art and literature, and media theory to ask how it is that media may come to fulfill a mythological and ritualistic role in society.

He joined the communication faculty in 1987 after a thirteen-year career as a political journalist and investigative reporter. He was the Olympia legislative bureau chief and the chief political writer for The Seattle Times (1981-1987); a congressional correspondent and environmental specialist in the Gannett News Service’s Washington, D.C. bureau (1976-1981); and a labor and government reporter for the Lansing (Mich.) State Journal (1974-1976). His investigative reporting into recruiting corruption in the Michigan State University football program won the 1975 Michigan Associated Press Sports Story of the Year Award. He also was cited in the 1984 Missouri-Penney feature writing award to the Seattle Times.