The MSU School of Journalism Bias Busters break new ground with 24th book on ‘People who Stutter’
This award-winning series, which has been enriching communities for two decades, breaks new ground with a Bias Busters book on ‘People who Stutter’
By JOE GRIMM
Director of the MSU School of Journalism Bias Busters project
After 13 years, 24 guides and 20,000 copies sold, the Bias Busters series is expanding again.
The Michigan State University (MSU) School of Journalism series began with guides that helped people learn about nationalities and ethnicities they were curious about, but found basic information difficult to find. Our students who produced these books often said, “We’re answering the questions everybody’s asking, but nobody seems to be answering.”
Then, we opened our Bias Busters lens to explore and publish books about occupations and religions. (You can see this wide array of books listed on Amazon’s “series” page.)
In the summer of 2026, we are expanding to explore the lives of even more people in our communities—relatives, neighbors and co-workers who have seem to have distinctive differences.
On July 28, our range expands with the publication of 100 Questions and Answers About People Who Stutter: A Listener’s Guide. Our original mission remains: to answer basic questions people have about each other but that they are reluctant to ask for fear of hurting people or embarrassing themselves. In the future, we will continue to explore ethnicity and faith.
And, we chose stuttering for this groundbreaking next phase of our project because our mission always has focused on listening. In fact, that’s the No. 1 issue people who stutter asked our students to highlight: Non-stuttering people just will not listen to them. Many pay more attention to how people say things than what they want to say. Messages get lost. Biases build up. People are discouraged from expressing themselves.
The MSU Journalism School’s key collaborator on the stuttering guide has been the MSU Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, a unit in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences that specializes in this kind of communication. We turned to Dr. J. Scottt Yaruss, Ph.D. He and some of his students led us through this major process of reporting, research, writing and editing our 100 questions and answers.
Our other key collaborator has been Sharon Emery. Formerly a teacher in the School of Journalism, she is a career communicator, and the author of the award-winning book It’s Hard Being You: A Primer on Being Happy Anyway. Emery has also been a newspaper reporter and editor, TEDx speaker and a public relations consultant. And she stutters openly.
Two of Yaruss’ doctoral candidates Dr. Megan Arney and Ph.D. candidate Jia Bin were in every class. We interviewed people, Bin organized a stuttering panel for the class and we sat in on her support groups.
Our guiding star was a slogan from International Stuttering Awareness Day: “People who stutter teach the world how to listen.”
This new Bias Busters book tells us that, although 5-10% of children stutter, most stop naturally. About 1%, mostly males, carry stuttering into adulthood. The awareness day slogan tells us that, if 99% of us can learn to listen better, everyone will benefit.
The guide includes four videos in which people who stutter talk abut what they would like to see from the rest of us. Whether you have known someone who stutters or not—and if you think hard you can probably recall some—this guide can help you slow down, settle your thoughts to focus on what others say, ask clarifying questions and understand.
There is material about stuttering’s causes, how people cope with it and specific advice on good listening. Therapy, bullying, family and school strategies are all in there.
Links to the rest of this award-winning MSU School of Journalism series are available on Amazon.
Always, the message is: Now that you know a few things, have more conversations with people. Our strategy is to ask people what questions they would like others to have the answers to. Upcoming guides will reflect our wider focus and still serve our original intent.
We’ve got many more books coming!
Stay tuned to weekly news from Front Edge Publishing and our ReadTheSpirit.com magazine to learn about other upcoming Bias Busters books, including:
- PANS/PANDAS: Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome
- American evangelicals: Beliefs, Practices and Politics
- Blind awareness: How Allies Help
- Incarcerated people: 2 Million Men and Women
- Mennonites, the Amish, Hutterites and Brethren
Care to learn more right now?
This week’s ReadTheSpirit Cover Story reports on how actress Emily Blunt has become a major ally in the effort to raise awareness about stuttering. That story is headlined: Actress Emily Blunt is spreading the message on behalf of the millions who stutter: We just want to be heard.
And, yes, that story does include the newly released video in which Blunt appears with stuttering allies, talking about this national effort.