Ron Johnson
Currently teaching:
Recent News
- HSJI wraps up teacher sessions
- IDS staffers win three first place awards at ICPA
- School welcomes new faculty, staff
Biography
Ron Johnson has been student media director at Indiana University since July 2008. He works with the students who produce the Indiana Daily Student newspaper, Arbutus yearbook and INside magazine.
Before coming to IU, he taught editing, design and visual journalism at Kansas State University for 19 years. For 15 of those years, he directed student publications and advised the student journalists who produced the Kansas State Collegian daily newspaper, a consistent winner of top national awards.
He is a 1981 graduate of Fort Hays State University (Kan.), where he edited both newspaper and yearbook. In 1982 he earned a master’s degree in journalism at the University of Kansas. After teaching high-school English and writing for the Wichita Eagle-Beacon (Kan.), he returned to Fort Hays to direct the journalism program in 1985.
Past president of the national association College Media Advisers, Johnson has edited five annual editions of The Best of Newspaper Design, a book that showcases thousands of winners in the Society for News Design international competition for commercial newspapers.
Johnson teaches at a number of workshops and conventions each year across the nation and in Canada. His primary focus is on newspaper design and newspaper management for students and professionals.
His graduates work for a variety of communications organizations, from small weeklies to The New York Times and Los Angeles Times, from public‑relations and marketing firms to trade publications and magazines, such as Martha Stewart Living and Redbook.