Dan Kennedy is a professor of journalism at Northeastern University in Boston and is a nationally known commentator on media issues. He is the author of three books on the future of news: The Wired City: Reimagining Journalism and Civic Life in the Post-Newspaper Age (2013); The Return of the Moguls: How Jeff Bezos and John Henry Are Remaking Newspapers for the Twenty-First Century (2018); and, with Ellen Clegg, What Works in Community News: Media Startups, News Deserts, and the Future of the Fourth Estate, to be published by Beacon Press in early 2024. Clegg and Kennedy are also the hosts of the podcast and website What Works: The Future of Local News, which features interviews with local news entrepreneurs, academic experts, and thought leaders on innovative steps that are being taken to revive community journalism.
Kennedy reported on media issues for The Boston Phoenix from 1994 to 2005 and, since joining Northeastern, has written a weekly media and political column for The Guardian (2007-2011) and for GBH News (2014-2022). He has also written for The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Nieman Lab, Nieman Reports, CommonWealth Magazine, The New Republic, Slate, The Huffington Post, and other publications. His blog, Media Nation, is online at dankennedy.net.
From the year of its debut in 1998 through the end of its run in 2021, Kennedy was a regular panelist on Beat the Press with Emily Rooney, an award-winning weekly program about the media that was broadcast on GBH-TV (Channel 2).
In 2019 he received a Yankee Quill Award from the Academy of New England Journalists. The Yankee Quill is a career award that recognizes a lifetime contribution toward excellence in journalism in New England. In 2018 he received the James W. Carey Award for Outstanding Journalism from the Media Ecology Association.
Kennedy was born and grew up in Middleborough, Massachusetts. He and his wife, Barbara Kennedy, live in West Medford, Massachusetts. They are the parents of two adult children.
Kennedy can be reached via e-mail at dkennedy56 {at} gmail {dot} com.
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