Trained as a political scientist (PhD 1980, University of California, Berkeley), Hallin
has over the last 25 years researched the role of the news media in democratic politics.
Whether studying the media and war in Vietnam (Hallin, 1986), analyzing television
coverage of U.S. elections, or the news media’s role in the public sphere (Hallin, 1994),
Hallin has retained a keen interest in empirically based, critical political communication
research. Currently, he chairs the Department of Communication at the University of
California San Diego, where this interview took place in late November 2007