Presented by the University of Minnesota
Associate Professor Benjamin Toff was named a University of Minnesota McKnight Presidential Fellow.
The McKnight Presidential Fellows Program is a three-year award given to the most promising individuals who have been granted both tenure and promotion to associate professor in an academic year. It recognizes recipients who are recommended by their college dean and chosen at the discretion of the executive vice president and provost based on excellence in research and scholarship, leadership, potential to build top-tier programs, and ability to advance University of Minnesota priorities.
Benjamin Toff studies news audiences in the contemporary media environment. He is the leading expert on news avoidance, the subject of a co-authored book (2023), and previously led the most extensive, international study to date on trust in news as a fellow at the University of Oxford. His work grapples with both the political implications of the public’s growing disconnection from news and its impact on the sustainability of the industry. He is also Director of the Minnesota Journalism Center, where he is working on advancing applied projects partnering with local news outlets to test the effectiveness of strategies designed to rebuild relationships with the public.
