Anita Varma, assistant director of Journalism & Media Ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, was invited by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), Media Ethics Division to make a three-year leadership commitment to the organization. The division has over 300 scholars committed to the research and teachings of mass communication ethics. Varma will serve as their Research Chair this year, next year she'll become Programming Chair, and the year after she will take over as the Division Head.
Varma’s involvement with AEJMC began in 2019 when she was awarded the inaugural Penn State Davis Ethics Award for her dissertation, “Solidarity in Action: A Case Study of Journalistic Humanizing Techniques in the San Francisco Homeless Project.” Varma plans to continue advancing a commitment to diversity and inclusion through her new role as research chair and coordinating research competitions for the division.
"AEJMC is a venue where leaders in journalism research and education come together to share new findings and teaching practices," Varma said. "There's lots of overlap with the work of the Journalism and Media Ethics program at the Ethics Center, where we aim to support journalists and student journalists. I'm excited for more AEJMC members to get to know the J&ME program, too."
Describing her main motivation for pursuing journalism and media ethics, Varma noted “I truly believe that journalism can help change the world, for better or for worse. How can we help journalists do more to change the world for the better?” To best guide journalists in producing ethical material, proper research needs to be done to understand ethical issues in the field.
"We are so delighted to welcome Anita Varma to the leadership team for the Media Ethics Division,” said AEJMC, Media Ethics Division Head, Kathleen Bartzen Culver. “Anita brings a unique combination of scholarly expertise, teaching excellence, and outreach commitment that aligns perfectly with the Division’s mission. I am looking forward to working with her and seeing all she brings to help the Division move forward."
Katherine Chen ‘22, a communications and marketing intern at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics contributed to this story.