Jon Dilts
Currently teaching:
Recent News
- Dilts appointed to campus mediation committee, review board
- St. Meinrad names Dilts to board of trustees
- Dilts wins Trustee Teaching Award
Biography
Professor Jon Paul Dilts is an attorney, a consultant on media law, a member of the journalism faculty and the former Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies and Regional Campuses in the School of Journalism at Indiana University. He has been on the Indiana University faculty since 1982.
Dilts' research interests primarily focus on the press clause of the First Amendment and in particular on the relationship between the press clause and news media conduct.
His legal research on media law has appeared in Communication Law and Policy, Journalism Quarterly, Newspaper Research Journal, Communications and the Law, Journalism Educator and The Valparaiso University Law Review.
He is the author of two books: Media Law with co-author Ralph Holsinger. Published by McGraw-Hill, and The Magnificent 92, about the history and architecture of Indiana courthouses, with photography by Will Counts and published by Indiana University Press.
His principal areas of formal study have been English and philosophy, B.A., Saint Meinrad College, 1967; journalism and political science, M.A., Indiana University, 1974; and law, J.D., Valparaiso University, 1981. He is a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Indiana Supreme Court and the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana.
Professor Dilts served on active duty with the U.S. Army from 1968 to 1971, after which he joined the staff of The Peru (Ind.) Daily Tribune as a reporter and editor, 1972 to 1978. While in law school in the late 1970s, he worked as a reporter for the daily Vidette-Messenger in Valparaiso, Indiana; as Interim Editor of Star-Register Newspapers in Crown Point, Indiana; as a part-time lecturer in journalism at Valparaiso University and as a law clerk with Hoeppner, Wagner & Evans in Valparaiso. In 1981 he joined the staff of the Court of Appeals of Indiana as a law clerk for judges Eugene Chipman of Plymouth and William Conover of Valparaiso.
He is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, the Indiana State Bar Association, the Monroe County Bar Association, the Association for Practical & Professional Ethics and the Associated Press Managing Editors Association.
He recently finished a two-year term as a member of the Board of Trustees of Saint Meinrad School of Theology, Saint Meinrad, Indiana, and chair of the school’s Board of Overseers.
Other details of his biography are available in current editions of Who'’s Who in America, Who's Who in American Law, Who's Who in Finance, Who's Who in Education and Who's Who in the World.
Research summary
Professor Dilts' research interests are concerned primarily with the press and the First Amendment, including access to information and news media coverage of the legal system. He has published articles in Communications and the Law, Newspaper Research Journal, Journalism Quarterly, Valparaiso University Law Review, and Journalism Educator. He is also the author (with photography by Will Counts) of the book The Magnificent 92, Indiana Courthouses (Bloomington: I.U. Press 1999) and co-author with Professor Ralph Holsinger of the book, Media Law (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994 and 1997).
Sample publications include:
- Jon Paul Dilts, "The First Amendment and Credibility: Revisiting Nelson v. McClatchy Newspapers," Communications Law and Policy, Vol. 10, No. 1, Winter 2005
- Jon Paul Dilts, "The Press Clause and Press Behavior: Revisiting the Implications of Citizenship," Communication Law and Policy, Vol. 7, No. 1, Winter 2002.
- Jon Paul Dilts and Jack Dvorak, "Academic Freedom vs. Administrative Authority," Journalism Educator, Vol. 47, No. 3, p. 3 (Autumn 1992).
- Jon Paul Dilts, "Open Meetings in Higher Education: Looking for the Governing Body," Communications and the Law, Vol. 9, No. 3, p. 31 (June 1987).
- Jon Paul Dilts and David Pritchard, "Prosecutors Use of External Agendas in Pornography Cases," Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 2, p. 392 (Summer-Autumn 1987).