Margot Susca

Margot Susca is an assistant professor of journalism, accountability, and democracy at the School of Communication, American University. She holds a Ph.D. in Mass Communication from Florida State University, an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University, and a B.A. in Journalism and Political Science from UMass Amherst. Her research focuses on corporate media ownership, private equity and hedge funds in journalism, media economics, and the intersection of media and democracy.

Her first book, Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy (2024), won the Frank Luther Mott/Kappa Tau Alpha Research Award. A second book is under contract with the University of Massachusetts Press. She publishes in journals like Communication and Democracy and Critical Studies in Media Communication.

Dr. Susca combines investigative reporting techniques with critical political economic methods. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in journalism and serves as a Complex Problems fellow mentoring first-year students. She won American University’s 2022 Outstanding Teaching Award for full-time faculty in tenure-line positions.

Professional roles include associate editor at the Investigative Reporting Workshop (since 2016), assessor for Poynter’s International Fact-Check Network, and Maynard Institute fellowship mentor (2019). She frequently appears as an expert on media, democracy, and corporate ownership in news programs and podcasts globally.