Félix Gutiérrez is a Professor of Journalism and Communication in the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and an Affiliate Professor of American Studies & Ethnicity. A former Senior Vice President of the Freedom Forum and the Newseum, his responsibilities during 12 years in philanthropy included journalism education and professional grants and programs, establishing and supervising Pacific Coast Center programs in Oakland and San Francisco, and researching diversity exhibits for the Newseum to open in Washington, D.C. in 2008.
His career in higher education includes tenured faculty positions at the University of Southern California and California State University Northridge, administrative posts at USC, Stanford University and California State University Los Angeles, and visiting appointments at Columbia University, The Claremont Colleges, and the University of Texas at Austin. He was the first Executive Director of the California Chicano News Media Association from 1978 through 1980. In the late 1980s he covered media issues on a weekly basis for The Associated Press Los Angeles bureau and in the mid-1980s was a part-time reporter and columnist for the Pasadena Star-News.
This past academic year he was co-editor of a special issue dedicated to El Clamor Público, Southern California’s first Latino newspaper, of California History: The Magazine of the California Historical Society, (Vol. 84, No.2, Winter 2006-2007) and editor of the Special Issue: Ethnic Media and Audiences in America: Growing Beyond the Margins, Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, (Vol. 7, No. 3, August 2006). He is currently co-editing an anthology of source documents chronicling the long struggle of people of color for racial justice in the media. The book, tentatively titled One Freedom, Many Voices, is scheduled for publication by Sage Publications in Summer 2008.
His scholarship and publications since 1972 have focused on racial diversity and media. He is author or co-author of five books and more than 50 scholarly articles or book chapters, most on racial or technological diversity in media. In 2004 his most recent co-authored book, Racism, Sexism, and the Media: The Rise of Class Communication in Multicultural America, was awarded the Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award for Excellence in Research About Journalism. An earlier edition, Race, Multiculturalism and the Media: From Mass to Class Communication received the 1996 Gustavus Myers Award as Outstanding Book on Human Rights in North America. Other co-authored books include: Spanish-language Radio in the Southwestern United States (1978), Telecommunications Policy Handbook (1981) and Minorities and the Media: Diversity and the End of Mass Communication (1985).
His work to advance more accurate understanding of the nation’s racial and social diversity has been recognized nationally by the Asian American Journalists Association (1996 Founders Award), Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (1987 President's Award and 2001 Distinguished Service Award), Black College Communication Association (1999 Merv Aubespin Award), National Association of Hispanic Journalists (1995 Padrino of Latino Journalists and 2002 Hall of Fame), National Association of Minority Media Executives (2007 Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award) and National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (2000 Founders Award). He is an inaugural member of the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism Hall of Achievement and in 1999 was awarded the Missouri Medal by the University of Missouri School of Journalism.
A native of East Los Angeles, he earned a B.A. in Social Studies from California State College Los Angeles, an M.S. from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, and an A.M. and Ph.D. in Communication from Stanford University.
He is married to María Elena Gutiérrez, Ed.D. They have three daughters: Elena, Assistant Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago; Anita, a graduate student at Mills College in Oakland, and Alicia, an attorney in Washington, D.C. He and his wife have homes in Oakland and South Pasadena, Calif.
J201: History of News in Modern America (Syllabus)
J466: People of Color and the News Media (Syllabus)
J499: Latino News Media in the United States (Syllabus)