He earned his doctorate in philosophy in Journalism Studies at the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism. His academic research is in business journalism, media history, data journalism and technology. He was a 2012 Reynolds Visiting Professor at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, a program sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism. As an adjunct instructor, he taught reporting classes at the Merrill College between 2010-2016. He is writing a book about the problems and future of business journalism, to be published by the University of Illinois Press in 2019.