Steve Hallock, Director of the School of Communication at Point Park University, earned his PhD in journalism at Ohio University in 2005 following a nearly 30-year newspaper career. As a newspaper editor, editorial writer, columnist, and reporter, he won numerous national, regional, and state awards for enterprise and investigative reporting and commentary. He has published op-ed commentaries for newspapers that include The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, andDenver Post, and he has authored two books, Reporters Who Made History: Great American Journalists on the Issues and Crises of the Late Twentieth Century (2010), and Editorial and Opinion: The Dwindling Marketplace of Ideas in Today’s News (2007).

«Taking the country to war is a decision of the utmost gravity. When we’ve needed the nation’s press to provide an independent institutional voice in guiding public deliberation, they have instead failed to learn from history and worked to sell a policy already in the works. With few exceptions since World War II the pattern has been disturbingly consistent, as Steve Hallock lays it out in this close reading of the editorial evidence.» (Stephen D. Reese, Jesse H. Jones Professor, College of Communication, University of Texas)«In this usefully broad sweep across newspaper editorializing on American wars and conflicts in the decades after World War II, Steve Hallock provides an immensely interesting account of the nexus between foreign policy and the opinions of the elite press.» (Theodore L. Glasser, Stanford University)