Barney McCoy, M.A.

Professor

Broadcasting Journalism

Professor Barney McCoy teaches news literacy, multimedia, broadcast news, journalism, documentary, and depth reporting courses at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Before arriving at UNL in 2006, McCoy was a full-time journalist for 27 years.

McCoy conducts creative and scholarly research activity. His creative activity includes numerous award-winning news, feature and documentary reports featured in newspapers and broadcast on public and commercial television and multimedia outlets in Nebraska and elsewhere in the United States.

In 2021, McCoy conducted and published a national research project on student perceptions of remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. McCoy has co-authored a book chapter on mixed methods research in documentary filmmaking. His multi-phased national surveys on digital distractions in the classroom conducted over the past decade have been widely cited and downloaded more than 69,000 times by some 4,200 institutions in 182 countries.

He has taught multimedia reporting courses at the Kosovo Institute of Journalism and Mass Communication in Pristina, Kosovo and has produced and advised on five award-winning documentaries at UNL.

McCoy has worked as a documentary director and producer, television and print news reporter, photographer, news producer, and anchor. He has been employed by WIBW-TV, Topeka, KS., KCTV, Kansas City, MO, WKBD-TV, Detroit, MI., WILX-TV, Lansing, MI. and WBNS-TV, Columbus, OH.
McCoy has also contributed reporting for The Columbus Dispatch, The Kansas City Star, Associated Press, USA Today, CBS, CNN, Nebraska Educational Telecommunications, WTTW Public Media, Chicago, Illinois, WOSU Public Media, Columbus, Ohio, WOUB Public Media, Athens, Ohio, and the Ohio News Network.

McCoy has been honored with six Emmy awards and numerous other citations for journalistic excellence.
In 2023, he received "Best of Show" awards in the Faculty Audio and News and Sports categories and an "Award of Excellence" for his radio reporting by the Broadcast Education Association.

McCoy was a 2023 regional Edward R. Murrow award recipient from the Radio Television Digital News Association in the radio feature reporting and best use of natural sound categories.

At the 2023 Broadcast Education Association’s fall On-Location Creative Works Competition, McCoy was honored with a "Best of Show" award for his documentary “Seven Years a Correspondent” which premiered in May 2023 as part of Nebraska Public Media’s “Nebraska Stories” series.
The Midwest Broadcast Journalists Association honored McCoy with a 1st place Eric Sevareid award for Hard Feature radio reporting and an Award of Merit for Soft Feature radio reporting in 2023.

In 2018, McCoy's television documentary "Black Jack Pershing: Love and War" received a national Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, an Award of Excellence Special Mention from the Accolade Global Film Competition, an Award of Excellence from the Impact DOCS Global Documentary Competition, an Award of Excellence from the Broadcast Education Association, and an Eric Sevareid Award from the Midwest Broadcast Journalists Association.

The McCoy documentary, "They Could Really Play the Game: Reloaded," was a 2015 Canada International Film Festival Award winner.

McCoy holds a master's degree in telecommunications management from Michigan State University. He holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Kansas. He served as a visiting professor at the Kosovo Institute of Journalism (KIJAC) in Prishtina, Kosovo on teaching visits between 2006 and 2010.

McCoy has worked as a documentary director and producer, television and print news reporter, photographer, news producer, and anchor. He has been employed by WIBW-TV, Topeka, KS., KCTV, Kansas City, MO, WKBD-TV, Detroit, MI., WILX-TV, Lansing, MI. and WBNS-TV, Columbus, OH.

McCoy has also contributed reporting for The Columbus Dispatch, The Kansas City Star, Associated Press, USA Today, CBS, CNN, Nebraska Educational Telecommunications, WTTW Public Media, Chicago, Illinois, WOSU Public Media, Columbus, Ohio, WOUB Public Media, Athens, Ohio, and the Ohio News Network.

Curriculum Vitae

 

Remote Learning Research:

In the Trenches: College Student Online/Remote Learning Experiences during the COVID-19 Pandemic July, 2021

 

Documentaries:

2017-18, "Black Jack Pershing: Love and War

2013, They Could Really Play the Game: Reloaded,

2008, They Could Really Play the Game

2008, Exploring the Wild Kingdom,

 

Television projects:

2019, NET, Nebraska Public Telecommunications, Nebraska Stories| D-Day and the Oldfield Effect,  

2016, NET, Nebraska Public Television, The Legacy of John J. Pershing. 

2011, Catastrophe on the Skywalks: 30 Years After the Fall,

 

Web-based projects:

2018, Black Jack Pershing: Love and War,” PBS Learning Media. 

2018, Multimedia Countdown: 100 days to the 100th Anniversary of the WWI Armistice


Long-form radio reporting projects:

2021, “Unidentified Remains of U.S. Service Members Reinterred in Hawaii as Offutt Project Winds Down”

2021,   "The "Pleasant Valley Gang" Paved the Way for Today's Live-Streaming Concerts"

2021,  "Pandemic Porch Concerts Use Music to Chronicle Highs and Lows"

2021, Navy Sailor Louis Tushla Brought Home to Nebraska”

2015, WWI General John Pershing’s Nebraska connection

2013, Free Press Challenges Turkish Journalists Face  and  interview

2013, 50th anniversary of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom program

2011, Squaw Creek Wildlife Refuge  

2010, Kosovo Elections: Democracy in Transition


Published newspaper article: