Ole Miss professor Debora Halpern Wenger wins national broadcast journalism honor

A national broadcast-education honor is shining a light on the Ole Miss classroom where future Mississippi reporters are learning how to work on deadline, in multiple formats, and with artificial intelligence in view. Debora Halpern Wenger, a professor in the University of Mississippi School of Journalism and New Media, was named the 2026 recipient of the Edward L. Bliss Award for Distinguished Broadcast Journalism Education. For Oxford and Lafayette County, the recognition matters less as a trophy case item than as proof that the county’s journalism pipeline reaches well beyond campus.

The Edward L. Bliss Award is administered by the Broadcast and Mobile Journalism Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and is reserved for educators whose work has made a lasting impact on broadcast journalism training. AEJMC’s awards record shows a continuing line of winners, including Stacey Woelfel in 2024 and Sonja D. Williams in 2025, underscoring the selectivity of the recognition. Williams has said the award has been presented annually since 1983.

At Ole Miss, Wenger’s influence is built around hands-on instruction and industry experience. The university describes her as a journalist, educator and trainer who has worked as a reporter, producer and newsroom leader. Her research interests include AI in journalism, the future of local television news and journalistic skills for the digital era, subjects that are now central to newsroom staffing, editing and audience trust.

That local relevance is not abstract in Oxford. In March 2026, Wenger led 13 Ole Miss honors students to Washington, D.C., for a press-freedom trip tied to America’s 250th anniversary, part of the kind of experiential teaching that gives students more than classroom theory. She has also done media training for the U.S. State Department and led Google News Initiative workshops, adding a professional network that can carry Ole Miss students into internships, newsroom jobs and broadcast opportunities across Mississippi.

Wenger’s book, Advancing the Story: Quality Journalism in a Digital World, is now in its fourth edition and was published Sept. 21, 2018. Publisher listings say the text gives stronger attention to social media, mobile media, ethics, media law and multi-platform reporting, the same skills increasingly expected in local newsrooms from Oxford to Southaven.

The School of Journalism and New Media itself traces its roots to 1947 and became a school in 2009, making faculty recognition like Wenger’s part of a broader effort to keep Oxford at the center of journalism education in Mississippi. For Lafayette County, that means the talent being trained at Ole Miss is not just preparing for national newsrooms. It is helping sustain the people who will report city hall, county government and the stories that shape daily life here.