Stephen Bates

Professor, Journalism and Media Studies
Expertise: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Privacy, The Constitution & First Amendment Law, Drones and Legal Issues

Biography

Stephen Bates is a professor in the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies at UNLV. He teaches classes on free speech, censorship, privacy, and media politics.

His research focuses on the First Amendment. He is the author of An Aristocracy of Critics: Luce, Hutchins, Niebuhr, and the Committee That Redefined Freedom of the Press (Yale University Press), as well as books on the history of journalism, political advertising, and religious freedom. His articles have appeared in Journalism and Mass Communication QuarterlyCommunication Law and PolicyAmerican JournalismJournalism History, and the International Journal of Communication, as well as the Washington Post MagazineAmerican Heritage, the Wall Street Journal, and the Wilson Quarterly, where he spent nine years as literary editor. He holds an A.B. and a J.D. from Harvard University.

A former board member of the ACLU of Nevada, Bates is a member of the advisory board of the Black Mountain Institute at UNLV. He has been a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Annenberg Washington Program in Communications Policy Studies, and the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy [photo by Martha Stewart Photography].

Education

  • J.D., Harvard University
  • A.B., Harvard University

Stephen Bates In The News

Las Vegas Review Journal
Republicans lambasted the Nevada State Democratic Party over a social media post that suggested Gov. Joe Lombardo accepted bribes. The Nevada Democratic Party created a post on X that combined a photo of Lombardo with a quoted post from another X user that said: “The bribes I took did not influence me to become evil. I was evil from the beginning and the bribes were merely a bonus.”
CoastalView.com
The Carpinteria Valley Museum of History’s vast collection of 19th- and 20th-century photographs has entered the 21st century: the photo index is now online. The museum has more than 10,000 photos dating back to the late 1800s. They show local people, parades, businesses, homes, disasters and lots more.
Las Vegas Review Journal
Clark County and the Metropolitan Police Department spent more than $600,000 of taxpayer money in recent years on lengthy, unsuccessful legal battles to hide public information from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and its readers.
CoastalView.com
In the late 19th century, an Eastern physician might prescribe camphor, opium, carbolic acid or a one-way ticket to Southern California. Climatotherapy, as it was called, held that an especially healthful climate (“salubrious” was the favored term) could cure asthma, tuberculosis, rheumatism and many other ailments.

Articles Featuring Stephen Bates

A man stocking shelfs at the food pantry
Campus News | December 8, 2021

A collection of news stories featuring research and accomplishment at UNLV.

Student sitting outside on a bench
Campus News | February 3, 2021

A collection of news stories from the new year highlighting the experts and events at UNLV.

I Voted stickers
Campus News | January 5, 2021

A collection of stories highlighting UNLV experts and their analysis of all things politics in 2020.