The leading media academic and commentator Professor Brian Winston, who has died aged 80, was an outspoken critic of so-called media objectivity. He threw light on the world of fake news and media bias in a series of provocative books and studies.

He was particularly concerned with freedom of expression, and held several leading university posts in the UK and the US, writing or contributing to 20 books on media history, technology, aesthetics and ethics.

In 1985, while teaching in New York and Pennsylvania universities, Winston won an Emmy for co-writing the television documentary Heritage: Civilization and the Jews. His plaudits include a Grierson award for his 2010 documentary A Boatload of Wild Irishmen, which concerns the documentary pioneer Robert Flaherty,

Born in Evesham, Worcestershire, the son of Anita (née Salomon) and salesman Reuben Winston, he was educated at Kilburn grammar school, later studying law at Merton College, Oxford from 1960 to 63. On graduating, he spent two years as a researcher for Granada TV’s World in Action, and became a producer/director for BBC and Granada programmes from 1965-71.

He was appointed media course director at a private Oxford sixth form college in 1971, followed by a one year lectureship at Bradford College of Art in 1972. His first book, The Image of the Media was published in 1973.

The following year, while working in the sociology department at Glasgow University, Winston co founded the university’s media group and contributed to its books, Bad News (1976) and More Bad News (1980), which challenged the view that British TV news was more neutral than press coverage.

He moved to New York University in 1976, and took up a professorship three years later where he wrote his award-winning documentary series Heritage: Civilization and the Jews.

He chaired NYU’s cinema studies programme, then became College of Communications dean at Pennsylvania State, returning to the UK in 1992 to head the Centre for Journalism Studies at the University of Wales (now Cardiff University). The following year he launched the Visible Evidence conference on documentary film. In 1997 he headed the School of Communication, Design and Media at Westminster University.

In his book published the previous year, Technologies of Seeing: Photography, Cinematography and Television he was immersed in the idea of the “invention” of the cinema. To Winston, society was the spark igniting technology, while Britain’s mass audience had replaced the street entertainer with a collective urban experience.

Winston was a fierce proponent of the importance of free speech. This was reflected in a Google survey in 2005 and another on Salman Rushdie in A Right to Offend (2012) and The Rushdie Fatwa and After: A Lesson to the Circumspect (2014).

In 2011 he became a founder-member and first chair of the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies. He also served a term as BFI Governor, as a Grierson Trustee, sat on the board of the British Journalism Review and advised the Sheffield International Documentary Festival.

Much of Winston’s writing on documentary film has become standard texts and includes Lies, Damn Lies and Documentaries (2000) and The Act of Documenting: Documentary Film in the 21st Century (2017), co-written with Gail Vanstone and Wang Chi. He also wrote a BFI classic on Humphrey Jennings’ Fires Were Started in 1999, and edited The Documentary Film Book Reader (2013).

As professor at the University of Lincoln, Winston was active within the Progressive Jewish community during the last 20 years of his life. In honour of his retirement the University published a book of essays by leading academic colleagues, It’s the Media Stupid! published by Abramis.

His wife Adele Paul, whom he married in 1978, said: “My children think Brian would like to be remembered for the dedication he spent in building a model train set for his grandsons!

And his son Matthew was proud they found time to write (his last) book together, The Roots of Fake News: Objecting to Objective Journalism” in 2021”. Adèle survives him, with Matthew, their daughter, Jessica, grandsons, Finn and Zac and his partner Gail Vanstone.

Brian Norman Winston, born November 7, 1941. Died 9 April 2022