Patrick Walters

Professor Walters worked in journalism for 15 years before entering academia in 2014, first at two local newspapers and then as a reporter and editor for The Associated Press in Philadelphia. At the AP, Walters spent more than a decade covering state, local and national government, as well as beats that included law enforcement, gambling, transportation, and coverage of breaking news. As an editor, he helped plan multiplatform daily news coverage across Pennsylvania, coordinating with regional, national and international editing desks across the AP. After leaving the AP, Walters spent eight years teaching journalism and mass communication courses at Kutztown University in eastern Pennsylvania, where he also advised the student newspaper and chaired the Student Media Advisory Board. In May 2022, he earned his Ph.D. in Media & Communication from Temple University, where he completed a dissertation on how diverse kinds of journalistic collaborations are changing the field. He started at W&L in July 2022.        

Education

• Ph.D., Media & Communication, Temple University, 2022
• M.F.A., Creative Nonfiction Writing, Goucher College, 2009
• B.A., English/American Studies, University of Virginia, 1999

Research

• Media gatekeeping
• News production
• Journalistic collaboration
• Online journalism and social media
• Literary journalism
• First Amendment issues
• Journalism history

Teaching

• JOUR 101: Introduction to Mass Communications
• JOUR 201: Introduction to News Writing
• JOUR 202: Introduction to Digital Journalism
• JOUR 236: Breaking News Reporting
• JOUR 258: Reporting on Local Communities
• JOUR 356: In-depth Reporting

Selected Publications

• Walters, P. & Winslow, A. (2025). Remembering the flawed and famous: How journalists address sexual misdeeds when memorializing male icons. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. Advance online publication.
• Midberry, J. & Walters, P. (2025). Broadcasting solutions: A textual analysis of Philadelphia local television news coverage of remedies for gun violence. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. Advance online publication.
• Walters, P. (2024). Social media & police shootings: Viewing the Ferguson protests as a ‘critical incident’ that transformed journalism. American Journalism. Advance online publication.
• Walters, P. (2024). New guests crashing the party: A typology of journalistic collaboration. Journalism Studies, 25(2), 140-159.
• Walters, P. (2023). Pushing for social change: How collaborations are recalibrating the journalistic mission. Journalism Practice. Advance online publication.
• Walters, P. (2023). Beyond positive and negative: Developing a reflexive framework for first amendment theory. Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, 24(5), 958-975.
• Walters, P. (2023). Redemption vs.# MeToo: How journalists addressed Kobe Bryant’s rape case in crafting his memory. Journalism Practice, 17(9), 1997-2014.
• Walters, P. (2022). A public good: Can government really save the press? Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, 23(8), 1645-1662.
• Walters, P. (2022). Reclaiming control: How journalists embrace social media logics while defending journalistic values. Digital Journalism, 10(9), 1482-1501.
• Walters, P. (2021). Boundaries and journalistic authority in newspaper coverage of the Hutchins Report. American Journalism, 38(4), 450-470.
• Walters, P. (2018). Changing objective: Re-examining The Journalist and the Murderer. Newspaper Research Journal, 39(4), 443-452.
• Walters, P. (2017). Ted Conover and the origins of immersion in literary journalism. Literary Journalism Studies, 9(1), 8-33.