J.T. Johnson Biography
J. T. "Tom"
Johnson is professor emeritus of journalism at San Francisco State University and
co-founder
of the Institute for Analytic
Journalism.
He has worked in publishing, journalism and higher education for 30
years. Most
recently, he was a visiting professor of analytic journalism at Boston
University for two years. While on leave from San Francisco State in
the late
'90s, he served as deputy editor of the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch. Before joining the faculty
at San Francisco
State in 1976, he was an editor at Scientific
American/W. H. Freeman and Company in San Francisco.
Before his
move to California, Johnson,
was working on his doctorate in American Studies -- focusing on the
relationships between science and technology and society -- at the
University
of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. He also holds a bachelor's degree in
journalism
from Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas.
Beginning in
1969, he was a reporter
for the Topeka Capital-Journal,
and a
stringer for newspapers in Wichita, Kansas, and Kansas City, along with
The New
York Times, and United Press International. Simultaneously, he covered
Western
Missouri and Kansas for the Time-Life News Service.
Moving to San
Francisco in 1974,
Johnson continued his freelance association with Time-Life
publications,
covering stories throughout the West. Since 1980, he has increasingly
turned to
science writing, working on assignment for publications as diverse as Popular
Science, OMNI, Discover, Fortune, Smithsonian, Mother Jones, Air Line
Pilot,
Popular Mechanics, Outside, Endless Vacation, InformationWEEK, MacWEEK
and Air
& Space. His work also has appeared in the Banker's Magazine
(London),
the Chicago Tribune, Washington Star and the Detroit
Free
Press.
In 1984 and
'85, Johnson was a contract
reporter for Time Magazine in Central America. Based in San Salvador,
El
Salvador, he reported on military, economic, social and political
affairs in
that nation and Guatemala, Mexico and Belize. He returned to Central
America
for a two-month reporting trip in the summer of 1990, supported by a
grant from
the Gannett Foundation, and again in the summer of 1991. His
current research focuses on the
methodologies emerging from Complexity
Studies, Geographic
Information Systems, forensic
accounting and performance
measurement and their application to understanding change in the
media and
related issues of privacy.
A long-time
personal computer user,
Johnson has reported stories ranging from early word-processing systems
to
large-scale management information systems. In 1985-86, he designed the
networked PC system used in the SFSU Journalism Department. In the
spring of
1987, he was the founding editor of MacWEEK, the first weekly
newsmagazine for
users of Macintosh computers in the business world. He was a
contributing
editor to InformationWEEK
magazine from March 1987 until May 1990. He became West Coast
correspondent for
Popular Science in May 1989, a
position he
held until October 1990. A consultant in the use of personal computers
in
journalism, Johnson is president of SARTOR: Editorial and
Telecommunications
Consultants, Santa Fe and San Francisco.
He is also
co-author of three books: Help
Yourself to a Healthy Heart (San Francisco: Mount Zion Hospital and
Medical
Center, 1984); The
Sauna Book (New York: Harper and Row, 1977) and California
from the
Air (Mill Valley, CA: Squarebooks, 1981).
An experienced
public speaker, Johnson
has delivered academic papers and lectures and appeared on television
and radio
talk shows and numerous panels. He is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, Investigative Reporters and Editors,
the National Association of Science Writers,
National Assoc. of Hispanic Journalists
and the
Online News Association.
CONTACT:
J. T. Johnson
1201 Madrid Road
Santa Fe, NM 87505
tom@jtjohnson.com
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