Graduate Speaker Series

Tuesday, April 9

11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Tuttleman Learning Center, Room 101

About the Lecture

Two hedge funds own three of the most essential newspaper chains in the United States. Over half of the 1,326 dailies in the top 10 chains are owned or influenced by hedge funds or private equity firms. As newspapers close, local corruption increases along with political polarization and voter apathy. This simultaneous contraction, consolidation, and financialization of the U.S. newspaper market have resulted in a local newspaper system directed by the ultrawealthy dismantling the institution meant to give voice to average citizens in a democracy. 

Dr. Margot Susca, an assistant professor at American University in Washington, D.C., will discuss her book Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy. The book investigates 20 years of private investment influence in the newspaper market and explores several solutions to address the local journalism crisis. 

About the Speaker

Margot Susca (she/her) is American University’s inaugural assistant professor of Journalism, Accountability, and Democracy. Using a critical political economy of media and investigative reporting techniques, Susca researches media investment and ownership, local news and civic engagement and emerging business models. In January, the University of Illinois Press published her first book, Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy. 

Susca earned her doctorate in mass communication from Florida State University in 2012. Before her academic career, she worked as a newspaper reporter in Connecticut and Florida after earning a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. 

In 2022, she won American University’s Outstanding Teaching Award, given annually to a full-time faculty member in a tenure-line position.