BEA2026

Ken Fischer is an Assistant Professor of Practice at the University of Nebraska. He worked in the broadcasting industry for more than two decades. His career included work in public broadcasting, commercial production, and cable television. In the early 1980s, he served as Assistant News Director and a documentary producer at KBYU radio and television in Provo, Utah. He then worked in the mid-80s as a producer/director for Group W Cable in Fullerton, California, and helped found the Orange County Cable Association.

After a season as a videotape editor at the DIC animation house in Los Angeles, Fischer returned to broadcasting. In 1988, he joined the staff at KRWG-TV in Las Cruces, New Mexico, as a Production Supervisor. Fischer’s interest in sports led him to create and produce the Sportsview 22 series. In 1994, the program won First Place in the New Mexico Associated Press Documentary division for a local follow-up to Ken Burns’ PBS Baseball special.

In 1994, Fischer returned to journalism when he accepted a position in the newsroom at WUFT-TV in Gainesville, Florida. He served as a field producer for WUFT-TV’s coverage of the 1996 Fiesta Bowl, the national championship football game where Nebraska beat Florida 62-24. In the late 90s, he joined WOUB radio and television, the public broadcasting facility in Athens, Ohio. Fischer served as News Director and an instructor in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. His team created a Friday Football Highlight program called Gridiron Glory that still exists.

Ken Fischer was on the Radio-Television faculty at Southern Illinois University Carbondale from 2000 to 2005 and the University of Central Florida from 2005 to 2006 before joining the faculty at the University of Oklahoma in August 2006. He was the founding faculty adviser for Sooner Sports Pad, a student-produced program seen on Balley Sports networks nationally and regionally. The students he supervised for the OU Nightly newscast won the Broadcast Education Association Best of Festival’s Top Student Newscast Award in 2019.

Fischer retired from the University of Oklahoma on January 3, 2022, and began a faculty position at the University of Nebraska the following week. As part of his teaching duties, he supervises the student television newscast, Nebraska Nightly. The newscast won 1st Place in April 2025 for Best Newscast (3 days a week or less). Fischer is an active member of the Broadcast Education Association and the Association for Education of Journalism and Mass Communication. He also belongs to the Radio Television Digital News Association, Society of Professional Journalists, and Alliance for Community Media.

In 2017, the AEJMC Electronic News Division honored Fischer with the annual Edward L. Bliss Award for Distinguished Broadcast Journalism Education. He is an ABD in the University of Oklahoma's Department of Communication, specializing in Political Communication. Before his media and education careers, he worked as a grocery clerk from 1971 to 1989. Fischer is a retiree of United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 324, Buena Park, California.