Robert Mann | LSU Manship School of Mass Communication

Robert Mann

Professor Emeritus | bobmann@lsu.edu | CV

Biography

Prior to retiring in 2024, Robert Mann held the Manship Chair in Journalism at the Manship School of Mass Communication. Before joining the Manship School in 2006, he served as communications director to Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco. He joined the governor’s staff in 2004 after serving 17 years as state director and press secretary to U.S. Senator John Breaux of Louisiana. Before his service on Breaux’s staff, he was press secretary to U.S. Senator Russell Long of Louisiana. He was also press secretary for the 1990 re-election campaign of U.S. Senator J. Bennett Johnston of Louisiana, and communications director for the 2003 Blanco campaign. In 2015, he was inducted into the Louisiana Political Hall of Fame.

In the early 1980s, he covered Louisiana politics as a reporter for the Shreveport Journal and the Monroe News-Star. He has published op-eds and book reviews in numerous publications, including The New York Times, the Boston Globe, Smithsonian, Politico, Vox and Salon. From 2013 to 2018, he wrote a weekly column for the New Orleans Times-Picayune. He is editor of the Media & Public Affairs Book Series, a joint series sponsored by the Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs and LSU Press.

Videos

Selected Publications

Books
You Are My Sunshine: Jimmie Davis and the Biography of a Song. (LSU Press, 2025).
Kingfish U: Huey Long and LSU. (LSU Press: 2023).
Becoming Ronald Reagan: The Rise of a Conservative Icon. (Nebraska Press, 2019).
Working Congress: A Guide for Senators, Representatives, and Citizens. (LSU Press, 2014).
A Journalist’s Diplomatic Mission: Ray Stannard Baker’s World War I Diary. Edited with John Maxwell Hamilton. (LSU Press, 2012).
Daisy Petals and Mushroom Clouds: LBJ, Barry Goldwater and the Ad that Changed American Politics. (LSU Press, 2011).
Political Communication: The Manship School Guide. Edited with David Perlmutter. (LSU, 2011).
Wartime Dissent in America: A History and Anthology. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
When Freedom Would Triumph: The Civil Rights Struggle in Congress, 1945-1968. (LSU Press, 2007).
A Grand Delusion: America’s Descent into Vietnam. (Basic Books, 2001).
The Walls of Jericho: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Russell and the Struggle for Civil Rights. (Harcourt Brace, 1996).
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Cold War. (Alpha Books, 2002).
Legacy to Power: Senator Russell Long of Louisiana. (Paragon House, 1992).