Steve Fox

Sports Journalism, Sports in Film, Journalism & Literature, News Literacy, Introduction to Multimedia Journalism, Newswriting and Reporting, Investigative Journalism, Summer Sports Broadcasting Program for High Schoolers

M.A., American University

Steve Fox joined the journalism faculty at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in August 2007 and during his time at UMass has developed a number of classes ranging from sports and news literacy to multimedia and investigative. 

He created the Sports Journalism Concentration, a popular program option pursued annually by more than 75 students in the Journalism Department. Students in his sports writing class cover regular beats during the semester and work together with editors at local news organizations to get their stories published. 

Steve also founded the News Literacy class at UMass in the Fall of 2014. Since then, he has been interviewed a number of times about the class and has given presentations on News Literacy at conferences around the country and at libraries across Western Massachusetts.

He teaches several other innovative courses in the Journalism Department. His courses allow students to work in teams in a newsroom-like environment where they work on packages — using video, audio and photos to tell stories. He helped found amherstwire.com, a Web site focused on long-form multimedia journalism that is staffed completely by students.

Steve has been involved with Web journalism since the early years and has more than 25 years of experience as an editor and reporter for print and online publications. He joined The Washington Post’s Web site in 1996, just months after the site went live on the Web. He edited one of the first news blogs on the Web and was involved in planning and editing multiple multimedia projects at The Post for 10 years.

At The Post, he was part of news teams that won numerous awards, including the Online News Association's award for Most Creative Use of the Medium in 2004, as well as the EPPY award for Best Internet News Service in 2004. He left in October 2006 after spending 15 months as the liaison between the print newsroom and the Web newsroom. During that time, he facilitated training of print editors and reporters in everything from shooting video to taking part in online chats to understanding the ebb and flow of the online newsroom. Prior to that he managed the morning news operation of the 24-hour site, making decisions on what went on The Post's homepage during the busiest part of the online day. He was also part of The Post's online political team, serving as national and political editor during the 9/11 terror attacks and the 2002 midterm elections and guiding coverage of the post-election debacle of 2000.

He regularly writes and talks about issues involving Web journalism and also freelanced for ESPN.com’s NFL and college football blog network for three years. Prior to joining The Post, he was a journalist at different publications for more than 10 years, including serving as the national college basketball writer for United Press International.

He began teaching part-time at the University of Maryland in 1998 and has spoken at a number of conferences on issues including Web journalism, sports, blogging, ethics and political coverage. Steve has also consulted for several start-up Web sites.

Steve has a master's degree in International Affairs from American University and a Bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Arizona, and is a huge Bruce Springsteen fan.