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Overview
A media critic and commentator, Jeff Cohen is the founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media and an associate professor of journalism in the Roy H. Park School of Communications. The center’s mission is to study the growing independent media sector, encourage career paths inside independent outlets and examine the impact that maverick, entrepreneurial and independent institutions are having on journalism, politics and culture.

In 1986, Cohen founded FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting), a national media watch group. He oversaw FAIR’s academic studies of balance and diversity on TV and radio and helped launch its magazine, “Extra!” and its nationally syndicated radio show, “CounterSpin.”

In the 1990s he cowrote the nationally syndicated “Media Beat” column, and he has written regularly for such online media outlets as Huffington Post, Alternet and Common Dreams.

Cohen appears frequently on national TV and radio. He was a daily commentator on MSNBC in 2002, a weekly panelist on the Fox News Channel’s “News Watch” from 1997–2002, and a cohost of CNN’s “Crossfire” in 1996. He was the senior producer of MSNBC’s Phil Donahue show.

He holds a law degree and previously served as an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2003 he was the Communications Director of the Kucinich for President campaign.

Books
"Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media"

"Wizards of Media Oz: Behind the Curtain of Mainstream News"

"The Way Things Aren't: Rush Limbaugh's Reign of Error"

"Through the Media Looking Glass: Decoding Bias and Blather in the News"

"Adventures in Medialand: Behind the News, Beyond the Pundits"

Research

• New media and journalism
• Entertainment media
• Independent media
• Censorship
• Corporate control of media