B. William Silcock, Director of Cronkite Global Initiatives, Humphrey Program Curator, Associate Professor

Two Fulbright Awards (Sweden 1997, Ireland 1991), two decades in university classrooms and 25 years of award-winning professional experience in broadcast news firmly anchor Dr. Silcock’s identity as a scholar/teacher of media culture. Silcock’s qualitative research focuses on newsroom culture to deepen our understanding of how journalists, especially TV newscast producers, determine “what is news.”

Recent articles include Iraq War Images, producers as mythmakers, media convergence, journalism ethics and changing media systems in the Balkans. Focused internationally, Silcock has traveled to 20 nations resulting in articles for the top journals in the field. His first co-authored textbook, Managing Television News: A Handbook for Ethical and Effective Producing, has been adopted by universities across America.

The former television anchor, producer and news director, is known as “Dr. Bill” around the halls of the Cronkite School. After nine years on the Brigham Young University faculty, Silcock taught for eight years at the University of Missouri School of Journalism and also served as the managing editor for KOMU-TV (NBC) in Columbia, MO. At Missouri, for three years, Silcock directed the management seminar for American news executives.

With a passion for global news, Silcock has organized and taught workshops ranging from investigative reporting to on-camera performance for the U.S. State Department’s international media training office. Training includes broadcast journalists from Indonesia to Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Romania, and led Cronkite students on Euro-Media study abroad programs to London, Paris and Dublin.

Dr. Bill believes teaching occurs not only in the classroom but also in the cafes, hallways and videotape editing bays. His teaching mantra comes from Helen Keller, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing!” His favorite motto comes from documentary filmmaker Ken Burns who believes “We are all looking for ideas large enough to be afraid of again.”

Silcock is an active journalist.  His documentary, “Backstage At a Presidential Debate: The Press, the Pundits and the People” won an Award of Excellence from the Broadcast Education Association and a Gold Award of Excellence from the Houston International Film Festival. He’s also the recipient of two RTNDA awards—one national for “Best Small Market Television News in America” and a regional one for the documentary “Woodstock: Back to the Garden.” Silcock’s historical religious documentary called “Fortress of Faith” won the Silver Angel Award and while “Space Senator: One Way Jake” was honored with a UPI documentary award.

Prior to his adventure into the academy Silcock was news and public affairs director of KBYU-TV in Salt Lake City/Provo, Utah. A senior producer at KTVX (ABC) in Salt Lake, he also anchored weekend newscasts and daily prime-time news magazines in Boise, Idaho, at KIVI (ABC) and in Myrtle Beach/Florence, South Carolina, at WPDE (ABC). His radio career included stints at KSL in Salt Lake City, States News Service in Washington, D.C., and AP Radio and UPI Audio in New York.

Selected Research
Silcock, B. William. “The Battle of Ideological Images: CNN vs FOX in Visual Framing of the Invasion of Iraq.” Electronic News  2(3), 153-176, 2008.

Silcock. B. William. “Every Edit Tells Story a Story: Sound and Framing Routines of Videotape Editors in Global News Cultures.” Visual Communication Quarterly. 14:1 Winter (2007): 3-15.  Lead article.

Silcock, B. William. "Global News, National Stories: Producers as Mythmakers At Germany’s Deutsche Welle Television." Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 97.2 (2002): 339-353.

Silcock, B. William and Susan Keith. “Translating the Tower of Babel: Issues of definition, language, and culture in Converged Newsrooms.” Journalism Studies 7:4 (2006): 610-627.

Carol B. Schwalbe, B. William Silcock, and Susan Keith. “Visual Framing of the Early Weeks of the U.S.-Led Invasion of Iraq: Applying the Master War Narrative to Electronic and Print Images.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 52, no. 3 (Fall 2008).