In 1968 the Edward J. Meeman Foundation made separate awards of $200,000 and $30,000 to UT to foster improvements in journalism. The income from the larger grant was to establish two salary supplements for professors who would be known as Distinguished Edward J. Meeman Professors and provide for two Edward J. Meeman Graduate Fellowships in Communications. In 1971 Turner Catledge, former vice president and executive editor of the New York Times, spent three weeks on campus as the first Meeman Distinguished Visiting Professor.
Meeman (1889–1966) was chosen by Scripps-Howard in 1921 to relocate from Evansville to Knoxville to start a newspaper, the Knoxville News. Five years later, the News bought its afternoon competitor, the Sentinel. Meeman then served as editor of the Knoxville News-Sentinel until he went to Memphis in 1931 to become the editor of the Press-Scimitar. He was a leader in the movement that resulted in the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In 1949 he established the Edward J. Meeman Foundation.