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Photograph of Margot Susca

Margot Susca Assistant Professor Journalism

Additional Positions at AU
Associate Editor, Investigative Reporting Workshop
Degrees
Ph.D. Mass Communication, Florida State University
M.S. Journalism, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
B.A. Journalism and Political Science, UMass Amherst

Favorite Spot on Campus
The Woods-Brown Amphitheater
Bio
Margot Susca is the School of Communication’s inaugural assistant professor of Journalism, Accountability, and Democracy. Both her academic and professional experiences inform her work as a mentor, scholar, and teacher.

Using critical political economy of media and investigative reporting techniques Dr. Susca researches media investment and ownership, local news and civic engagement, and emerging business models. In January 2024, the University of Illinois Press published her first book, Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy. Publishers Weekly called it a “damning debut.”

Dr. Susca has worked as a reporter in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Florida, and since 2016, she has served as an associate editor at the Investigative Reporting Workshop, an independent, nonprofit newsroom on campus. She is a 2002 graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where she covered the September 11 attacks and their aftermath. Dr. Susca teaches courses on democracy and media, journalism ethics, mass media and society, reporting, and research design. She is a frequent expert on news programs around the world speaking about a range of topics related to media and journalism. She advises and mentors master's and doctoral students in the Journalism and Communication Studies divisions of SOC and as a Complex Problems fellow works with first-year undergraduate students from across the University. In 2022, she won American University’s Outstanding Teaching Award given annually to a full-time faculty member in a tenure line position.

In addition to teaching and research, Dr. Susca has been active in service to improve the University and the field. She ran the weekend Journalism and Digital Storytelling master's program from 2015 to 2020. Dr. Susca has served as a Maynard 200 fellowship mentor in the Storytelling/Investigative Reporting track, and continues work with the International Fact Check Network.

Teaching

Spring 2024

  • COMM-462 Journalism Capstone

  • COMM-898 Doctoral Continuing Enrollment

  • CORE-105 Complex Problems Seminar: Democracy Along the Red Line

AU Experts

Area of Expertise

Corporate media ownership including private equity and hedge funds in journalism; media economics; newspapers and democracy; media and society including media effects.

Additional Information

Margot Susca (Ph.D., Florida State University) is an assistant professor in the journalism division whose work operates at the intersection of investigative journalism and critical communications research. Dr. Susca's first book, an investigation of private investment funds in the U.S. newspaper industry, is under contract with the University of Illinois Press.

For the Media

To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

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